When she came back she would
unpack her trunk and get out a sensible pair of boots. No doubt she
was dressed ridiculously, but then the heat had tempted her. . . .
A curious matter presented itself to her. In the little groups upon
the street she had not seen a single woman. Were there none in San
Juan? Was this some strange, altogether masculine, community into
which she had stumbled? Then she remembered how the bell-ringer had
mentioned Mrs. Engle, the banker's wife, and his daughter and Mrs.
Struve and others. Besides all this she had a letter to Mrs. Engle
which she was going to present this evening. . . .
She was thinking of anything in the world but of a tragedy not yet
grown cold, so near her that for a little it had seemed to embrace her.
Now it was almost as though it had not occurred. The world was all
unchanged about her, the town somnolent. She had shuddered as Ignacio
played upon his bell; but the shudder was rather from the bell's
resonant eloquence than from any more vital cause. A man she had never
seen, whose name even she did not know, had been shot by another man
unknown to her; she had heard only the shots, she had seen nothing.
True, she had heard also a voice crying out, but she sensed that it had
been the voice of an onlooker. She felt ashamed that the episode did
not move her more.
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