“It really is strange,” murmured Maria-Teresa, “not an Indian in sight!”
“Do they generally come to this part of the city, then?”
“Yes, there are always some who come to watch the people come past....”
Standing in front of a café was a group of half-breeds, talking politics. One could distinctly hear the names of Garcia and Vointemilla, the president, neither of them treated over gently. One of the group, evidently a shopkeeper, was moaning his fears of a return to the era of pronunciamentos.
The car turned at the corner of the cathedral, and entered a rather narrow street. Seeing the way clear, Maria-Teresa put on speed only to pull up sharply a second later, just in time to avoid running down a man wrapped in a poncho, who stood motionless in the middle of the street. Both young people recognized him.
“Huascar, señorita, who begs you to take another road.”
“The road is free to all, Huascar. Stand aside.”
“Huascar has nothing more to say to the señorita. To pass, she must pass over Huascar.”
Dick half rose in his seat, as if to intervene, but Maria-Teresa put a hand on his sleeve.
“You behave very strangely, Huascar,” she said. “Why are there no Indians in the town to-day?”
“Huascar’s brethren do as they please, they are free men.”
She shrugged her shoulders, thought a moment, and began to turn the car round.
Before starting again, however, she spoke to the Indian, who had not moved.
For an answer, the Indian slowly raised his sombrero, and looked up to the early stars, as if calling them to witness. With a brief “Adios!” Maria-Teresa drove on.
When the motor stopped again, it was before a big house, the door-keeper of which rushed out to help his young mistress to alight. He was forestalled, however, by the Marquis de la Torre himself, who had just driven up, and who greeted the two Montgomerys with delight. “Enter, señor. This house is yours,” he said grandly to Uncle Francis.
The Marquis was a slim little gentleman of excessive smartness, dressed almost like a young man. When he moved and he was hardly ever still, he seemed to radiate brilliancy: from his eyes, his clothes, his jewels. But for all that, he was never undignified, and kept his grand manner without losing his vivacity in circumstances when others would have had to arm themselves with severity. Outside his club and the study of geographical questions he cared for nothing so much as romping with his son Christobal, a sturdy youngster of seven. At times one might have taken them for playmates on a holiday from the same school, filling the house with their noise, while little Isabella, who was nearly six, and loved ceremony, scolded them pompously, after the manner of an Infanta.