Torres smirked and bowed, and proclaimed proudly: “I am a Da Vasco.”
“ Not a Da Vasco, but Da Vasco himself,” Leoncia coached him in English.
“ It’s a good bet—play it!” Francis commanded, likewise in English. “It may pull us all out of a hole. I’m not particularly stuck on that priest, and he seems the high-cockalorum over these Lost Souls.”
“ I have at last come back from the sun,” Torres told the little maid, taking his cue.
She favored him with a long and unwavering look, in which they could see her think, and judge, and appraise. Then, with expressionless face, she bowed to him respectfully, and, with scarcely a glance at Francis, turned to Leoncia and favored her with a friendly smile that was an illumination.
“ I did not know that God made women so beautiful as you,” t
