第29章
"The caballero is tired of his long pasear,"said the Lady Superior gently."We will have a glass of wine in the lodge waiting-room."She led the way from the reception room to the outer door,but stopped at the sound of approaching footsteps and rustling muslin along the gravel walk."The second class are going out,"she said,as a gentle procession of white frocks,led by two nuns,filed before the gateway."We will wait until they have passed.But the senor can see that my children do not look unhappy."They certainly looked very cheerful,although they had halted before the gateway with a little of the demureness of young people who know they are overlooked by authority,and had bumped against each other with affected gravity.Somewhat ashamed of his useless deception,and the guileless simplicity of the good Lady Superior,Key hesitated and began:"I am afraid that I am really giving you too much trouble,"and suddenly stopped.
For as his voice broke the demure silence,one of the nearest--a young girl of apparently seventeen--turned towards him with a quick and an apparently irresistible impulse,and as quickly turned away again.But in that instant Key caught a glimpse of a face that might not only have thrilled him in its beauty,its freshness,but in some vague suggestiveness.Yet it was not that which set his pulses beating;it was the look of joyous recognition set in the parted lips and sparkling eyes,the glow of childlike innocent pleasure that mantled the sweet young face,the frank confusion of suddenly realized expectancy and longing.A great truth gripped his throbbing heart,and held it still.It was the face that he had seen in the hollow!
The movement of the young girl was too marked to escape the eye of the Lady Superior,though she had translated it differently."You must not believe our young ladies are all so rude,Don Preble,"she said dryly;"though our dear child has still some of the mountain freedom.And this is the Senor Rivers's sister.But possibly--who knows?"she said gently,yet with a sudden sharpness in her clear eyes,--"perhaps she recognized in your voice a companion of her brother."Luckily for Key,the shock had been so sudden and overpowering that he showed none of the lesser symptoms of agitation or embarrassment.In this revelation of a secret,that he now instinctively felt was bound up with his own future happiness,he exhibited none of the signs of a discovered intriguer or unmasked Lothario.He said quietly and coldly:"I am afraid I have not the pleasure of knowing the young lady,and certainly have never before addressed her."Yet he scarcely heard his companion's voice,and answered mechanically,seeing only before him the vision of the girl's bewitching face,in its still more bewitching consciousness of his presence.With all that he now knew,or thought he knew,came a strange delicacy of asking further questions,a vague fear of compromising HER,a quick impatience of his present deception;even his whole quest of her seemed now to be a profanation,for which he must ask her forgiveness.He longed to be alone to recover himself.Even the temptation to linger on some pretext,and wait for her return and another glance from her joyous eyes,was not as strong as his conviction of the necessity of cooler thought and action.He had met his fate that morning,for good or ill;that was all he knew.As soon as he could decently retire,he thanked the Lady Superior,promised to communicate with her later,and taking leave of Father Cipriano,found himself again in the street.
Who was she,what was she,and what meant her joyous recognition of him?It is to be feared that it was the last question that affected him most,now that he felt that he must have really loved her from the first.Had she really seen him before,and had been as mysteriously impressed as he was?It was not the reflection of a conceited man,for Key had not that kind of vanity,and he had already touched the humility that is at the base of any genuine passion.But he would not think of that now.He had established the identity of the other woman,as being her companion in the house in the hollow on that eventful night;but it was HER profile that he had seen at the window.The mysterious brother Rivers might have been one of the robbers,--perhaps the one who accompanied Mrs.Barker to San Jose.But it was plain that the young girl had no complicity with the actions of the gang,whatever might have been her companion's confederation.In the prescience of a true lover,he knew that she must have been deceived and kept in utter ignorance of it.There was no look of it in her lovely,guileless eyes;her very impulsiveness and ingenuousness would have long since betrayed the secret.Was it left for him,at this very outset of his passion,to be the one to tell her?Could he bear to see those frank,beautiful eyes dimmed with shame and sorrow?His own grew moist.Another idea began to haunt him.Would it not be wiser,even more manly,for him--a man over twice her years--to leave her alone with her secret,and so pass out of her innocent young life as chancefully as he had entered it?But was it altogether chanceful?Was there not in her innocent happiness in him a recognition of something in him better than he had dared to think himself?It was the last conceit of the humility of love.
He reached his hotel at last,unresolved,perplexed,yet singularly happy.The clerk handed him,in passing,a business-looking letter,formally addressed.Without opening it,he took it to his room,and throwing himself listlessly on a chair by the window again tried to think.But the atmosphere of his room only recalled to him the mysterious gift he had found the day before on his pillow.He felt now with a thrill that it must have been from HER.