A building era had struck the centers of the Archipelago and he was egging the natives on to materialize their aspirations. He always came to see Julie at once upon his brief returns to Manila, bringing with him some little trophy of the trip. They would sit together under the fire-trees in the Reredos’ garden, with the little flames of blossoms, lying about them in the grass while he recounted his adventures. Other cities beautiful, he said were springing up. Legaspi had a regular citadel of imposing public edifices under way. San Fernando, Pampanga, had voted a splendid public square of modern cement buildings. Solano, sepulchered dust of the Conquistadores, was being rapidly lifted from its tomb; an earthquake had come along and by spilling part of the ancient city had greatly aided Orcullu in his attempt to rear a new commercial port.
An earthquake had in fact shaken the whole archipelago; there was a great eruptive attempt to join in the march of modern progress. The Americans, Barry informed her, had made over waterways, harbors, and cities, developed vast tracts of forest, established new trade routes, roads, a railway, organized industries and, in a manner of godlike benevolence never attempted at home, were supervising the health, morals, education and welfare of the entire race. The big things were chuggling through. One corner of the East anyway, after a great deal of phenomenal pushing, was beginning to stir. Imperishable cities were beginning to rear their heads, not alone at the instigation of the Americans but at the incentive of the natives themselves, out of whose local resources and exuberant good will, the new cities were being built.
While Barry pondered expansively under the fire tree, starting up sometimes to tread the grass as if it were springs, Julie sat quietly rapt and listened. She loved terribly these big things in which she could have no part. She would clasp and unclasp her hands in suppressed emotion while this splendid, transported Odysseus, his desert face glowing like furnace gold, his great youthful frame energizing the dusk as he moved, recited the achievements of the Argonauts. Always there was some burning agitation in his soul. As he walked and talked he would stir his hair wildly in his characteristic fashion. Julie loved to watch him in moments like this, for at such times only she was completely happy. Her soul seemed to ask for nothing more, as if for the moment it were filled with realized dreams.
“Ah!” she once exclaimed, in a glory of satisfaction. “You never could get pinned down to the dust like the rest of us. You could stay in this Lions’ Den forever and come out unscathed.”
“If I did get down, remember, Julie, I should look to you.”
“Because I know so much about the earth—the hard ground floor of it? It seems somehow to have a natural affinity for me.” She reflected ruefully.
He stared off a while at the starry horizon. “We’re agents of the inevitable. America, like Christianity, Julie, is one of the biggest things in human history. The two of them are victories of the soul of men.”
“Even old China,” he went on, “caught from America the reflection of democracy. But what she gleaned sank down crosswise into her poor old brain, and she broke out into a muddling chaotic geyser that she misconceived as a revolt.
“But, howsoever muddlesomely, Asia has made a beginning. She has kicked up, never afterwards really to settle down. The habit of mind of ages has been thrown off. You think I am a wild prophet, but I have read secret tumults in the souls of men that later shall take sure shape. The underground fire will spread, and you will some day see China break out through every crack of her blistered, old surface. Then we shall be able to say that we have done our work!”
Barry’s manner suddenly altered. The triumph of his mood faded. “Julie, the end will come here though, if these people persist. They dare to risk so soon the human republicanism we’ve sweated for. In this black chaos of famine and plague they want to stand alone. Have they forgotten the big brute bulks that shadow this horizon? the lions and the panthers coming out of the dark to devour them? The work of our hearts—in the dust!” He clenched his hands.