church, the rebellious young figure was waiting. 'Your organist tells me,' he said, impetuously, 'that it is you who—'
'May I ask with whom I have the great pleasure of speaking?' said the padre, putting formality to the front and his pleasure out of sight.
The stranger reddened, and became aware of the padre's features, moulded by refinement and the world. 'I beg your lenience,' said he, with a graceful and confident utterance, as of equal to equal. 'My name is Gaston Villere, and it was time I should be reminded of my manners.'
The padre's hand waved a polite negative.
'Indeed yes, padre. But your music has astonished me to pieces. If you carried such associations as—Ah! the days and the nights!' he broke off. 'To come down a California mountain,' he resumed, 'and find Paris at the bottom! 'The Huguenots,' Rossini, Herold—I was waiting for 'Il Trovatore.''
'Is that something new?' said the padre, eagerly.
The young man gave an exclamation. 'The whole world is ringing with it,' he said.
'But Santa Ysabel del Mar is a long way from the whole world,' said Padre Ignazio.
'Indeed it would not appear to be so,' returned young Gaston. 'I think the Comedie Francaise must be round the corner.'
A thrill went through the priest at the theatre's name. 'And have you been long in America?' he asked.
'Why, always—except two years of foreign travel after college.'
'An American!' said the surprised padre, with perhaps a flavor of disappointment in his voice. 'But no Americans who have 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 meet 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 tomorrow, I trust?' said he.
'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 towards 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 empty mountains, 'that now and again you might have wished to travel.'
'Were I your age,' murmured Padre Ignazio, '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.
'I have seen a sight like this,' said Gaston, 'between Granada and Malaga.'
