“Do you think I’d better?” She glanced over her shoulder at the church.
“I’m waiting for my mother and father. They are at mass. I didn’t want
to go in and they told me to wait for them.”
“I’m sorry.” He stepped on the starter, but she said quickly,
“Just a minute. I think it will be all right, just a little ride. You
will get me back soon?” Without waiting for an answer she climbed over
the side of the battered door and stepped into his car next to him. This
activity exposed a good deal of black cotton stocking _(where_ had he
known her?) and she giggled and jerked her skirt down.
“I don’t know if we can go very far,” he said doubtfully. “How long will
they be in there? Where should we drive?”
“Let’s go out to the Albuquerque road. I must be back in ten minutes. It
is safer there, because no one will see us.”
“Why shouldn’t they see us?” he asked wonderingly.
She laughed excitedly and glanced at him with black eyes that looked
like kitten’s. Where on earth could they have known each other? There
was certainly something about her that seemed familiar, but who was she?
Had she ever been at the house? Perhaps she had, but if so when? And yet
he had a memory that her name was Maria. Certainly, that much he
knew—Maria.
“I have not seen you for a long time,” she told him. “I think it has
been a month.”
This was even more mystifying. He answered, “I know, I’ve been busy.”
“So have we,” she said. “We have been very busy because Mr. Lyons has
started a beautiful big picture. I work very hard with him.”
Suddenly he knew. She was the little girl who posed for Tommy Lyons when
he did his Mexican murals. Maria Martinez: Mrs. Lyons was very fond of
her and treated her like a daughter. He’d been up at Lyons’ one day with
Mary, trying to prevent her buying a picture from Tommy, and Maria had
been posing with a jar on her shoulder. That was all. He was glad that
he knew, though.
“How is Teddy?” she was asking. “I never see him any more. I ask
Revelita why he is never at home, but she says nothing about him. I
cannot make her talk.”
“Revelita? Who is that?”
“She works for Meester Stuart. You know—Revelita. Teddy was much in
love with her.”
“No, he wasn’t,” said Blake angrily. “You’re crazy.”
Maria stuck her nose up in the air. “You ask him,” she said. “Ask him
about Revelita and see how he looks.”
Slightly worried, Blake did not argue with her. He had an instinct about
it: if he stopped talking about it perhaps he could forget. Maria waited
for more conversation, and when it was not forthcoming she changed the
subject.
“I see you with Teddy all the time. Every afternoon, nearly, you pass
the window when you go to play tennis. I am working every day now in the
afternoon. Mr. Lyons is very nice, I think. Mrs. Lyons too, she is a
nice lady. She says she will find work for me with the other artists
when it is time for them to go away in the fall.”
“That would be fine,” Blake said absently. Teddy had never even
mentioned Revelita.
“But my mother will not let me. Mr. Lyons she says is all right for me
to work for, but all the other artists are too young, she says. My
mother is very particular.”
She paused sadly, and he said, “That’s too bad. That’s a shame.”
“Yes, it is,” she sighed. “I must go back to the convent in the fall,
she says.”
“You too? That’s a shame.”
“It is silly. My mother thinks that the artists might want me to take
off my clothes. She has read about it. I do not want to go back to
school.”
“I know,” he said eagerly. “I know just how you feel.”
“I could make so much money by my posing. It is not everyone who can
pose. Mrs. Lyons says so. She says I am a good type. What does she mean
by that? Does she mean that I am pretty? Blake, you are not listening.”
“I am too,” he protested. “She means you’re strange-looking: your eyes
are strange.”
“Oh, no! You mean—” her voice was hurt “you mean I am ugly. I know!”
“No, no. You’re pretty.” He blurted it out, then blushed.
“Oh. Well, my mother thinks that artists are bad and always make love to
models. It is not true. Mr. Lyons does not make love to me.”
“Of course he doesn’t. People don’t make love.” He hit the railroad
tracks with a great bump, and slowed down. “I say, hasn’t it been ten
minutes?” he asked, uneasily. He hoped that he could go back.
“Not yet surely. Are you afraid? It is nothing to you, is it? Must you
go home?”
“No, no.” He speeded up again. It didn’t matter: he couldn’t ask Teddy
about it anyway. There must be some mistake. Revelita? No. It was a
mistake.
“I think,” she said, “that you tell all the girls that you meet that
they are pretty. Do you?”
“Me? Of course not.”
“I think you do,” she said. “I think we are driving too far. Let’s stop
for a minute and then go back.”
“We ought to go back now,” he said.
“In a minute. I want to smoke.”
“I haven’t any cigarettes,” he said. “I don’t smoke, I’m afraid.”
“You are a very nice little boy,” said Maria.
“Little? I’m older than you are.”
“I think not. I am fifteen.”
“I am sixteen,” he said loftily. “I think it is time.”
“What do you do all day in Santa Fé?” she asked. “Do you play tennis?”
“Most of the time, or ride. This is vacation. What else would I do?”
She sighed and looked at the mountains. “It must be so nice, playing
tennis. Don’t you have a girl? My brother has a girl. He told me. He
comes home so late at night that my father is always angry with him. It
is not fair. I must go to bed every night at ten. Sometimes I think it
is even better at the convent.”
“Are they very strict with you there?” asked Blake.
Her exclamation was an indrawn breath. “It is terrible. It is a prison.”
“That must be awful.”
“It is terrible. My mother says that they must not know that I pose for
artists. I do not think it is bad, but she says they will think that the
artists always make love. That is silly: my father would kill anyone who
makes love to me. He says so. He would——”
Suddenly, with no warning at all, she threw her arms around his neck
fervently and dropped her head onto his shoulder.
Blake did not move noticeably, but his blood froze and his muscles
stiffened. He was petrified with shock. His mind registered a vague
scent of hair, black and rather oily. It tickled his cheek. He waited
for a long time, hoping that she would release him, but she did not even
relax. At last, his resistance broken by waiting, he shifted a little
and put an arm around her tentatively. He stopped again and waited to
see what it felt like. There was no change in his emotions: he simply
noticed that she felt very thin. What could he do? What should he do? He
thought of someone coming around the corner, and he grew more and more
afraid.
“Oh, Blake,” said Maria at last in a high voice, “we are being bad.” She
lifted her head and he thought that her face looked very odd at close
view. She was waiting for something. Oh, yes. He struggled with the
conviction that she was waiting for him to kiss her. Would she let go?
He kissed her with a sudden little peck at her lips, and she let go.
“You’re going to be awfully late,” he said.
“Yes, we must go.”
He turned the car and started back, going as fast as he dared. He was
shaking, and so flustered that he almost ran into a tree. He wanted to
get home. He wanted to put her out as soon as possible and get home. Was
this what she meant about Revelita? Now he couldn’t possibly ask Madden
anything about it: some day, perhaps——
“You’re not very fast, are you?” she asked him, breaking the silence for
the first time.
“Well, I could go faster, but I’m afraid of the traffic cop,” he
explained.
“That is not what I mean.”
A sudden scream rang out from the sidewalk, and Maria clutched his arm.
He pulled on the brake and looked over.
“Maria!” someone was yelling, very stridently. There was a large crowd
on the pavement, made of children and a woman. No, there was a little
man too, standing behind the woman and pulling feebly at her dress. She
was making all the noise, and oddly enough she seemed to be angry at
him, at Blake. He blinked and looked at her again.
As he stared, terrified, she came over to the car and jerked Maria out
by the arm. She shrieked at him in Spanish, then translated in a louder
tone than ever.
“But Mamma....” said Maria, and was forced to stop while Mamma screamed.
“Mamma,” she wailed at last, “it was all right! It was all right! It was
all right!”
The little man approached and tried again to soothe Mamma. She swept him
aside and cried to Blake,
“You have taken my little girl riding! She is only fifteen! I will tell
the police. I will have you put in jail. I will——”
“It was all right, Mamma. I tell you we were gone only ten minutes. It
was all right.”
Maria turned to Blake and added softly, “Go away, quick!”
“Her father will kill you,” said Mamma loudly. “He will kill you.” She
turned and seized the little man by the arm.
Maria stamped her heel in the dust. “Go _away_,” she repeated.
Blake went.