down opposite Marquita at the table and could be coaxed to take now and then a few bites.

And her laundry! Never did Ron think of getting her soiled clothes to the wash until she had nothing left to wear. So this small thing Marquita did for her, also. Once a week she gathered together the shirts, the socks, the trousers, these unwomanly garments it was necessary for Ron to wear in her profession, and for which, once Marquita overcame her initial distaste, she felt a strange tenderness. She would deliver them to the Laundero Automatico, and pick them up for Ron at the end of the day. Sometimes, if neither of them was working, they would go together to the laundry and sit and talk and talk until the wash was done. In the few months since Ron came, they had talked so much. Never had Marquita met such an odd one, not even in New York where she had studied for a time. Yet, beneath the strange wildness of this Norteamericana, there was always the child. It was to this child in Ron, Marquita told herself, she was drawn. She loved children and yet had never really wanted any of her own. From her earliest childhood she had felt drawn to the religious life, never to the thought of marriage. It was taken for granted that she would enter the convent when the time came. But then, Padre died and her mother could not be left alone. But Marquita served God just the same, to the fullest of her ability. She worked in the hospital where there were many little children, yet never had any of them seemed so much a child and so much her own as Ron.

Through her agitated prayers, now, Marquita suddenly heard the clang of the patio door and then, minutes later, the roar of Ron's motorcycle. The heaviness in her breast was almost more than she could bear and she wept into the coverlet on her bed until she fell asleep.

She awakened to the sound of St. Catherine's bells at noontide. Her legs were cramped and her face wet from the tears she had shed. She could not immediately identify the misery that possessed her... and then she remembered. Ron had left the house in anger, and only God knew what would happen now. She arose from her knees and told herself that she must just be calm and wait. Perhaps everything would settle itself. On Sundays Ron worked only half a day and when she came home they would talk.

Arranging her hair and powdering her face again, Marquita left her room and went into the kitchen for something to eat. She was sitting on the patio, her prayerbook clasped in her hands, when Ron drove up at three o'clock in a car Marquita had never seen.

"I borrowed it from a fellow at work," Ron said in answer to Marquita's inquiring gesture. "I'm packing my things and getting out of here now."

"Ron, please, sit down." Marquita forced a smile and patted the cushion beside her on the rattan settee.

"I haven't time. I'm sorry, Marquita . . . . honestly. I'll miss you . . . . But I found a room on Ponce de Leon, and

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"Ron... this is foolish. Sra. Vargas did not say you had to leave. You know she gets excited. . . ." Marquita dressed her urgency in a soft voice, soothing, as though to a recalcitrant child.

"Don't worry, I won't give her a chance. Please excuse me, Marquita I have a lot to do."

Ron went in through the louvred door and Marquita sat with her eyes closed upon the growing tumult in her breast. She heard Ron open the door to her room and close it again. Reaching into her pocket she clasped her fingers

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