Page:The plumed serpent - 1926.djvu/63

they don’t care. So we must hate them. Yes, we must. But I, too, I don’t like it.”

He held his hat in his two hands, and twisted his shoulders in a conflict of feelings.

Kate suddenly laughed, and he laughed too, with a certain pain and confusion in his laughter.

“That’s awfully nice of you to come and say so,” she said, warming to him.

“No, not nice,” he said, frowning. “But I don’t know what to do. Perhaps you think I am—different—I am not the thing that I am. And I don’t want it.”

He flushed and was uncomfortable. There was a curious naïve sincerity about him, since he was being sincere. If he had chosen to play a game of sophistication, he could have played it better. But with Kate he wanted to be sincere.

“I know, really,” laughed Kate,” you feel a good deal like I do about it. I know you only pretend to be fierce and hard.”

“No!” he said, suddenly making solemn, flashing eyes. “I do also feel fierce. I do hate these men who take, only take everything from Mexico—money, and all—everything!” he spread his hands with finality. “I hate them because I must, no? But also, I am sorry—I am sorry I have to hate so much. Yes, I think I am sorry. I think so.”

He knitted his brows rather tense. And over his plump, young, fresh face was a frown of resentment and hatred, quite sincere too.

Kate could see he wasn’t really sorry. Only the two moods, of natural, soft, sensuous flow, and of heavy resentment and hate, alternated inside him like shadow and shine on a cloudy day, in swift, unavoidable succession. What was nice about him was his simplicity, in spite of the complication of his feelings, and the fact that his resentments were not personal, but beyond persons, even beyond himself.

She went out with him to tea, and while she was out, Don Ramón called and left cards with the corners turned down, and an invitation to dinner for her and Owen. There seemed an almost old-fashioned correctness in those cards.

Looking over the newspaper, she came on an odd little item. She could read Spanish without much difficulty. The trouble lay in talking it, when Italian got in her way and