He passed out, neglecting to shut the door behind him, but Magdaléna did not notice the unaccustomed rift of light. She sank into a chair against the wall and wept heavily. They were the last tears she shed over her fallen idols. When the wave had broken, she reflected that she was glad to know of the distress of her people; it should be her lifework to help them. When she came to her own she would buy them each a little ranch and see that they passed the rest of their lives in comfort.
She leaned forward and listened intently. Loud mutterings proceeded from her father's room. She wondered if there was a policeman in the street. She and her mother were very unprotected. The only man in the house besides her father was the Chinaman, and Chinamen are as indifferent to the lives of others as to their own. Don Roberto had ordered the telephone and messenger call removed years ago. The sounds rose to a higher register. Magdaléna, straining her ears, heard, delivered in rapid defiant tones, the familiar national cry, "Hip-hip-hooray!"
She went over softly, and put her ear to the thick door. The tones of the old man's voice were broken, as if by muscular exertion, and accompanied by a curious bumping. Magdaléna understood in a moment. He was striding up and down the room, waving the American flag, and shouting, "Hip-hip-hooray! Hip-hip-hooray! hooray! hooray! hooray!"
She ran down the hall to summon Ah Kee and send him for a doctor, but before she reached the bell she heard the front door close, and turned swiftly. A man had entered.
She went forward in some indignation. So deep was the gloom of the hall that she could distinguish nothing beyond the facts that the intruder was tall and slight, and that he wore a light suit of clothes. When she had approached within a few feet of him, she saw that he was Trennahan.
For the moment she thought it was the soul of the man, so ghostly he looked in that dim light, in that large silence.
His first remark was reassuring: "I rang twice; but as no one came, and the door was open, I walked in,—as you see."
"We have so few servants now. Won't you come and sit down?"
He followed her down to the reception-room. She jerked aside the curtains, careless of the bad house-keeping the light would reveal. It streamed in upon him. He was deeply tanned and indescribably improved.
They sat down opposite each other. Magdaléna, recalling her tears, placed her chair against the light. "When did you get back?" she asked.