"But no Americans who are yet come this way
have been--have been"--he veiled the too-blunt expression of his
thought--"have been familiar with The Huguenots," he finished, making a
slight bow.
Villere took his under-meaning. "I come from New Orleans," he returned,
"and in New Orleans there live many of us who can recognize a--who can
recognize good music wherever we hear it." And he made a slight bow in
his turn.
The Padre laughed outright with pleasure and laid his hand upon the young
man's arm. "You have no intention of going away to-morrow, I trust?"
"With your leave," answered Gaston, "I will have such an intention no
longer."
It was with the air and gait of mutual understanding that the two now
walked on together toward the Padre's door. The guest was twenty-five,
the host sixty.
"And have you been in America long?" inquired Gaston.
"Twenty years."
"And at Santa Ysabel how long?"
"Twenty years."
"I should have thought," said Gaston, looking lightly at the desert and
unpeopIed mountains, "that now and again you might have wished to
travel."
"Were I your age," murmured Padre Ignacio, "it might be so."
The evening had now ripened to the long after-glow of sunset. The sea was
the purple of grapes, and wine-colored hues flowed among the high
shoulders of the mountains.
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