The next time I saw her she was opening the door of the house on the Prado to me, with her cap and the little black silk apron on, and with that marked personality of her own, which had been concealed so perfectly in the dowdy walking dress, very much to the fore. “I have given Madame the message,” she said in her contained voice, swinging the door wide open. Then after relieving me of my hat and coat she announced me with the simple words: “_Voilà_ Monsieur,” and hurried away. Directly I appeared Doña Rita, away there on the couch, passed the tips of her fingers over her eyes and holding her hands up palms outwards on each side of her head, shouted to me down the whole length of the room: “The dry season has set in.” I glanced at the pink tips of her fingers perfunctorily and then drew back. She let her hands fall negligently as if she had no use for them any more and put on a serious expression. “So it seems,” I said, sitting down opposite her. “For how long, I wonder.” “For years and years. One gets so little encouragement. First you bolt away from my tears, then you send an impertinent message, and then when you come at last you pretend to behave respectfully, though you don’t know how to do it. You should sit much nearer the edge of the chair and hold yourself very stiff, and make it quite clear that you don’t know what to do with your hands.” All this in a fascinating voice with a ripple of badinage that seemed to play upon the sober surface of her thoughts. Then seeing that I did not answer she altered the note a bit. “_Amigo_ George,” she said, “I take the trouble to send for you and here I am before you, talking to you and you say nothing.” “What am I to say?” “How can I tell? You might say a thousand things. You might, for instance, tell me that you were sorry for my tears.” “I might also tell you a thousand lies. What do I know about your tears? I am not a susceptible idiot. It all depends upon the cause. There are tears of quiet happiness. Peeling onions also will bring tears.” “Oh, you are not susceptible,” she flew out at me. “But you are an idiot all the same.” “Is it to tell me this that you have written to me to come?” I asked with a certain animation. “Yes. And if you had as much sense as the talking parrot I owned once you would have read between the lines that all I wanted you here for was to tell you what I think of you.” “Well, tell me what you think of me.” “I would in a moment if I could be half as impertinent as you are.” “What unexpected modesty,” I said. “These, I suppose, are your sea manners.” “I wouldn’t put up with half that nonsense from anybody at sea. Don’t you remember you told me yourself to go away? What was I to do?”