The two stood back in the shadow of the doorway watching the people with the same interest that the people were expending on the stage. A child had been lifted to the base of the saint’s pedestal in order to see, and in the excitement of a duel between two clowns he suddenly lost his balance and toppled off. His mother snatched him up quickly and commenced covering the hurt arm with kisses to make it well.
Constance laughed.
‘Isn’t it queer,’ she asked, ‘to think how different these people are from us and yet how exactly the same. Their way of living is absolutely foreign, but their feelings are just like yours and mine.’
He touched her arm and called her attention to a man and a girl on the step below them. It was the young peasant again who had guided them down the mountain, but who now had eyes for no one but Maria. She leaned toward him to see the stage and his arm was around her. Their interest in the play was purely a pretence, and both of them knew it.
Tony laughed softly and echoed her words.
‘Yes, their feelings are just like yours and mine.’
He slipped his arm around her.
Constance drew back quickly.
‘I think,’ she remarked, ‘that the diligence has come.’
‘Oh, hang the diligence!’ Tony growled. ‘Why couldn’t it have been five minutes late?’