El Jarameño's coach was not yet three blocks away, however, when the maid appeared in the room to tell Santa that someone had come to see her.

“Come to see me?” she asked, shakily. “Who can it be, if I haven't told anybody I'm here?”

Still, she could not resist, even in the presence of Doña Nicasia and the inventor, giving the automatic response, learned in her recently abandoned profession, of making herself available to anyone who sought her.

“Excuse me, then … no, no, doña Nicasia, don't trouble yourself! I'll go see who it is …”

It was Jenaro, Hipólito's guide boy, who smiled at her from the stairs, barefoot and ragged, with his rumpled straw hat held firmly between his knees.

“Jenaro, are you looking for me? What's going on? How did you know I was here?”

“Gee, Miss Santa, going off with el Jarameño like that, where else would you be?”

“And what brings you, who sent you?” said Santa affectionately moving closer to the boy and already knowing the answer.

“Well, who do you think, Miss Santa? Hey, don't act dumb! It was my master, don Hipólito, who doesn't know what to do with himself, seems like, since you left. He is sad … I swear he's sad. And he said to me this morning, he said ‘now Jenaro, go over to the Guipuz … the Guipuzco …’ whatever it is, ‘and when the other fellow leaves … and I hope a bull gets him, too …’ he said this now, not me, okay? ‘When he leaves, you go in and talk to Santa, but without saying anything about me, like it was your own idea. Go on now, be a good boy, go and see her for me.’ So here I am, and I've seen you, and now I'm going, but I'll be back next Sunday. Today I came at one o'clock and watched from the pulque shop across the street while I waited for el Jarameño to leave. I saw you on the balcony! I'll bet you saw me, too, what do you bet? And Miss Santa,” he murmured shyly before saying goodbye, “could you get me as seat at the bullring? It wouldn't need to be a seat in the shade …”

Santa explained that she had no tickets to give, that the ticket sellers had them all:

“But how about a two-peso bill?”

“A two-peso bill,” repeated Jenaro, stunned, as she gave him one. When it was his, he smelled it, rolled it up like a cigarette, and stuck it in his waistband through a hole in his shirt.

“With a couple of pesos, even the policemen on the corner respect me!”

He half turned, ready to fly down the stairs, but Santa stopped him:

“Wait, Jenaro. What are you going to tell Hipo?” “What else? That he's right to love you, that he should love you even more, blind and all, the way we all love you, all of us who see you.”