do not pray for us any more. It is as my father said, they have forsaken us. These Americans will destroy us all. I do not know but they will presently begin to shoot us and poison us, to get us all out of the country, as they do the rabbits and the gophers; it would not be any worse than what they have done. Would not you rather be dead, Señorita, than be as I am to-day?”
Each word he spoke but intensified Ramona's determination to share his lot. “Alessandro,” she interrupted, “there are many men among your people who have wives, are there not?”
“Yes, Señorita!” replied Alessandro, wonderingly.
“Have their wives left them and gone away, now that this trouble has come?”
“No, Señorita!” still more wonderingly; “how could they?”
“They are going to stay with them, help them to earn money, try to make them happier, are they not?”
“Yes, Señorita.” Alessandro began to see whither these questions tended. It was not unlike the Señora's tactics, the way in which Ramona narrowed in her lines of interrogation.
“Do the women of your people love their husbands very much?”
“Very much, Señorita.” A pause. It was very dark now. Alessandro could not see the hot currents running swift and red over Ramona's face; even her neck changed color as she asked her last question. “Do you think any one of them loves her husband more than I love you, Alessandro?”
Alessandro's arms were again around her, before the words were done. Were not such words enough to make a dead man live? Almost; but not enough to make such a love as Alessandro's selfish. Alessandro was silent.
