Читать книгу The Plumed Serpent. Historical Novel - Life and Love after the Mexico Revolution онлайн

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Mrs Burlap had hitched herself on to Kate, and from her silly, social baby-face was emitting searching questions.

‘What hotel are you staying at?’

Kate told her.

‘I don’t know it. Where is it?’

‘In the Avenida del Peru. You wouldn’t know it, it is a little Italian hotel.’

‘Are you staying long?’

‘We aren’t certain.’

‘Is Mr Rhys on a newspaper?’

‘No, he’s a poet.’

‘Does he make a living by poetry?’

‘No, he doesn’t try to.’

It was the sort of secret service investigation one is submitted to, in the capital of shady people, particularly shady foreigners.

Mrs Norris was lingering by a flowering arch of little white flowers.

Already a firefly was sparking. It was already night.

‘Well, good-bye, Mrs Norris! WON’T you come and lunch with us? I don’t mean come out to our house. Only let me know, and lunch with me ANYWHERE YOU LIKE, in town.’

‘Thank you, my dear! Thank you so much! Well! I’ll see!

Mrs Norris was almost regal, stonily, Aztec-regal.

At last they had all made their adieus, and the great doors were shut behind them.