'He is rather, in my eyes, like a son of our Father who has come to earth from the Mansions of the Sun; yet I am very glad that he is not, and that he is a man such as you are, my brother, and when Joyful Star has taught me the speech of her people I will talk with him, and then I think life will be better for me, for even now, though I cannot understand his words, his voice sounds like music to me, and when he looks at me he makes me try to remember something that was in my other life, and I have forgotten. What is it, I wonder?'
I looked down into her eyes and saw the untroubled serenity of her soul reflected in them. There was no flush on her cheeks, and her lips were smiling as they could not have smiled had she known how I could have answered that question for her. I stooped and kissed her brow and said,—
'I might guess what it is, Golden Star, but I could not tell you. Yet I pray that our Father the Sun may put it into the heart of my friend to teach you what I see now you can only learn from him.'
More than this I would not tell her, though she questioned me sharply. But the next time that Francis Hartness spoke to her through my lips she looked up at him, and a little flush came to her cheeks, and a smile to her lips, and I saw his eyes brighten, and the colour deepen ever so little under the bronze of his skin.
Then I looked at Joyful Star and saw something shining in her eyes too, and as she caught my glance she smiled ever so little and said, when I had finished speaking for him,—
'Vilcaroya is an excellent interpreter, I've no doubt; but don't you think, Captain Hartness, it would be very much more interesting if you could talk directly with Her Highness? You know I'm teaching Golden Star English, and Vilcaroya is teaching you Quichua—now, I wonder which of you will be able to talk to the other first?'
He pulled his moustache and laughed, looking at Golden Star the while, and said,—
'Well, Her Highness has the advantage of the easier language and the freshest, and I daresay the brightest intellect, but probably for all that we shall begin with some delightful jargon of both languages, and leave them to sort themselves out as we go on. Still, as you say, it will be more interesting than talking through an interpreter.'
'And I hope,' she said, with more meaning in her voice than in her words, 'that you will both of you find it as pleasant as it will be interesting.'
'Who knows!' he said, catching her meaning and laughing again. 'She is most wonderfully like you, Miss Ruth, isn't she?'