“And living still!”
“Surely. Do you s’pose we’d ever let them die? God had to have her in His Heaven, but He left us her garden. My father—”
“Your ‘father’ is your idol, isn’t he?”
“My idol? Father? How queer!” The idea was so amusing that the child clapped her hands and laughed aloud. She had been used to hearing the literal truth and “idols” suggested something most grotesque. Cried she: “Come! I’ll show you. We have a lot, from the Pueblos, and Old Mexico, and everywhere. There is a room just for them, the ugly, hideous things!”
She made him look at them every one. Cheap little images of red clay, or stone, with some that were more pretentious; and as he examined them his astonishment continually grew. Not at the curious carving, for the “collection” was not extensive, but at the characteristics of this unknown Adrian Manuel, whom he had heard described as “beneath contempt.”
However, his reflections were cut short, not only by Carlota’s eagerness to show him more of the Mission but by the entrance of a man who might be either a “cow boy” or a Mexican brigand, to judge from his appearance.
And now, for the first time in her life, Carlota heard Miguel Cardanza speak otherwise than courteously to a guest. He brusquely asked:
“Señor, will you tell me your business here?”
Mr. Rupert showed a brief surprise, then quietly answered:
“I accompany my father, Mr. George Disbrow, upon an unfamiliar journey to accomplish a certain task. I will leave him to explain what that is. Are you Adrian Manuel?”