THE WOMAN FROM MEXICO
27
"A pleasant discovery," she answered. She was pretending
to examine the menu, her head lowered.
"Let's go to the Splendid," suggested Sergio, thinking that
the idea of an expensive restaurant might induce her to follow
him.
She lifted her head and stared at him with feigned astonish–
ment. "Why?" she said. "It's perfectly all right here."
So there was nothing for him to do but sit down. Sergio
took off
his
overcoat and placed it, with his umbrella and hat,
on a chair. The two tables were right opposite one another, and
it was impossible for the four people occupying them not to
look at each other. Albina and he were sitting on a seat with its
back to one wall, and, on a seat with its back to the other wall,
sat Luciano and his companion. Over the doorway hung a cur–
tain, which increased the feeling of intimacy and seclusion.
Sergio was by
this
time fully conscious of being nothing
but a pawn in the game of Albina's jealousy, and there was no
knowing how long it was since this game had begun. And yet,
glancing at Albina:, he admitted the hope that he himself would
play the part, in this game, of the proverbial onlooker who de–
rives more advantage from it than the contestant&-in other
words, that he would succeed, whatever the reason for that
success might be, in gaining possession of Albina. "I'm an idiot,"
he said scornfully to himself. Although he had taken off his
overcoat, he was hotter than ever; the air inside the restaurant,
thick with smoke and smells of cooking, was stifling. Once
again, in this heat, his adventure with Albina attracted him as
a speedy and pleasant means of ridding himself of
his
woolen
socks, of tearing the clothes off his back and remaining naked
in the cool air of some squalid rented room. Albina, in the
meantime, had called the waiter and was ordering what seemed
to
Sergio, always very sober in these respects, a Ga:rgantuan
dinner-hors
d'oeuvres,
spaghetti, roast lamb with potatoes.
As
