Arthur smiled a superior smile. He was thinking of the horror with which the old man had received the axiom he had recently quoted. He threw himself back in his chair in an attitude of burlesque sentiment, and said, with simulated heroics—
"But what, O my Father! what if a devoted, exhausting passion for somebody else already filled my heart? You would not advise me to be false to that? Perish the thought!"
Father Felipe did not smile. A peculiar expression passed over his broad, brown, smoothly shaven face, and the habitual look of childlike simplicity and deferential courtesy faded from it. He turned his small black eyes on Arthur, and said—
"Do you think you are capable of such a passion, my son? Have you had an attachment that was superior to novelty or self-interest?"
Arthur rose a little stiffly.
"As we are talking of one of my clients and one of your parishioners, are we not getting a little too serious, Father? At all events, save me from assuming a bashful attitude towards the lady with whom I am to have a business interview to-morrow. And now about the papers, Father," continued Arthur, recovering his former ease. "I suppose the invisible fair one has supplied you with all the necessary documents and the fullest material for a brief. Go on. I am all attention."
"You are wrong again, son," said Father Felipe. "It is a matter in which she has shown even more than her usual disinclination to talk. I believe but for my interference, she would have even refused to press the claim. As it is, I imagine she wishes to make some compromise with the thief—pardon me!—the what do you say? eh? the pre-emptor! But I have nothing to do with it. All the papers, all the facts are in the possession of your friend, Mrs. Sepulvida. You are to see her. Believe me, my friend, if you have been disappointed in not finding your Indian client, you will have a charming substitute—and one of your own race and colour—in the Donna Maria. Forget, if you can, what I have said—but you will not. Ah, Don Arturo! I know you better than yourself! Come. Let us walk in the garden. You have not seen the vines. I have a new variety of grape since you were here before."
"I find nothing better than the old Mission grape, Father," said Arthur, as they passed down the branching avenue of olives.
"Ah! Yet the aborigines knew it not and only valued it when found wild for the colouring matter contained in its skin. From this, with some mordant that still remains a secret with them, they made a dye to stain their bodies and heighten their copper hue. You are not listening, Don Arturo, yet it should interest you, for it is the colour of your mysterious client, the Donna Dolores."
Thus chatting, and pointing out the various objects that might interest Arthur, from the overflowing boughs of a venerable fig tree to the crack made in the adobe wall of the church by the last earthquake, Father Felipe, with characteristic courteous formality, led his young friend through the ancient garden of the Mission. By degrees, the former ease and mutual confidence of the two friends returned, and by the time that Father Felipe excused himself for a few moments to attend to certain domestic arrangements on behalf of his new guest perfect sympathy had been restored.