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seemed genuinely embarrassed now.
    “He could have fallen down into the garden and might even have killed himself,” she whispered, rolling her eyes. “That’s why I’m telling you, señora. When I scolded him, he told me it wasn’t the first time. He’d climbed up onto the roof lots of times. To spy on you.”
    “What’s that you’re telling me?”
    “Just what you heard,” the child answered defiantly, almost heroically. “And I’ll go on doing it even if I slip and fall and kill myself, if you want to know the truth.”
    “You’ve lost your mind, Fonchito. That’s very bad; it’s just not right. What would Don Rigoberto say if he found out that you spy on your stepmother while she’s taking a bath? He’d be terribly angry; he’d give you a thrashing. And what’s more, you might kill yourself. Just think how high up it is.”
    “I don’t care,” the boy said, a determined gleam in his eye. But he calmed down immediately and, shrugging his shoulders, added meekly: “Even though my papa beats me, Justita. So, are you going to tell on me?”
    “I won’t say a word to him if you promise me you won’t ever climb up here again.”
    “I can’t promise you that, Justita,” the boy said regretfully. “I don’t make promises I’m not going to keep.”
    “Aren’t you making all this up with that tropical imagination of yours?” Doña Lucrecia stammered. Ought she to laugh, lose her temper?
    “I hesitated a long time before working up my courage to tell you, señora. Because I love Fonchito so dearly; he’s such a good boy. But the thing is, he could kill himself climbing up on that roof, I swear it.”
    Doña Lucrecia tried in vain to imagine him up there, crouching like a wild animal, watching her.
    “I just can’t bring myself to believe it. So polite, so well mannered. I just can’t see him doing a thing like that.”
    “It’s because Fonchito has fallen in love with you, señora.” The girl sighed, clapping a hand over her mouth and smiling. “Don’t tell me you didn’t know, because I don’t believe it.”
    “What nonsense you’re talking, Justiniana.”
    “Is there such a thing as a right age for love, señora? There are youngsters who first fall in love at Fonchito’s age. And what’s more, he’s smart as a whip, no matter what he’s up to. If only you’d heard what he told me, you’d be dumbfounded. Left with your mouth hanging open. The way I was.”
    “What’s this story you’re making up now, you silly girl?”
    “It’s just the way I’m telling you, Justita. When she takes off her dressing gown and gets into the tubful of foam, I can’t tell you what I feel. She’s so pretty, so very pretty. It’s as though I’m watching a movie, I tell you. It’s as though—it’s something I just can’t explain to you. Could that be why I cry, do you think?”
    Doña Lucrecia chose to burst out laughing. The maidservant felt more sure of herself and smiled, too, a look of complicity on her face.
    “I believe only a tenth of what you’re telling me,” Doña Lucrecia finally said, climbing out of bed. “But even so, something has to be done about that boy. Cut these games off at their very root, and do so immediately.”
    “Please don’t tell the señor,” Justiniana begged her, in fear and trembling. “He’d be very angry and might give him a thrashing. Fonchito doesn’t have the least idea he’s doing something bad. I give you my word he doesn’t. He’s like a little angel; he doesn’t know good from evil.”
    “I can’t tell Rigoberto, no, of course not,” Doña Lucrecia agreed, thinking aloud. “But this foolishness must be brought to an end. Immediately, though I don’t know how.”
    She felt apprehensive and uneasy, irritated at the boy, the maidservant, and herself. What should she do? Have a word with Fonchito and reprimand him? Threaten to tell Rigoberto the whole story? What would his reaction be? Would he be hurt, feel betrayed? Would the