“I came,” she said, trying to assert some title to this New World, “because I wanted to give a little of my life—before I should grow old and forget.”
She looked up and found him staring at her with a strange intensity. He appeared as startled as if she had just walked into his soul, a visitant from the Neighbor’s Country he had talked about. Julie was leaning against the wall, and for an instant they deeply regarded each other. It seemed to the girl that some powerful experience was seizing possession of her—as if a flash of lightning illuminated her being—deeper than she had ever dreamed. Just for a second she felt, on unimaginable heights, a moment of mystery and wonder and high enchantment.
Some one stepped out upon the gallery and the spell that had caught at the stars broke. The girl quiveringly came back to her surroundings, wondering what invisible places she had touched.
She heard her companion’s voice saying hurriedly, “I’m called away—in the midst of everything—on account of an outbreak of cholera in one of the remote provinces. But I shall be back in a few days, and I will see you then.”
Her ear caught the definite promise and expectation the words contained, the intimation that their lives had crossed by a stroke of fate.
That night while she undressed with the light burning low, she reviewed in her mind this first day in the East. She felt as if, from a high seat in some fantastic houdah, she had seen pass a great pageant. Incredibly exciting and splendidly adventurous it all was! Compared to the wall-paper universe of her youth this phenomenal flash of events was unbelievable. To live in a land where things actually happened, where the hours were full, and where with every breath one drew in a bewitching experience! Youth’s playground with its everlasting drama impending.
Julie leaned out into the scented darkness and looked around the sky—a nightly custom of hers—a leave taking of God’s world. But this imminent heaven with its fearful host frightened her. Nothing was familiar. Strange constellations had preëmpted the place of the old ones. This was not God’s world, but a world of many gods, and she wondered, with a little shiver, which one she should propitiate.
CHAPTER III
The next morning Mrs. Calixter offered to drive Julie down to the Ayuntamiento Building where she was to receive her instructions from the Head of the Department of Education. When Julie came downstairs, she found Father Hull sitting in the carriage, opposite Mrs. Calixter, who had promised him a lift to the Observatory. He greeted Julie with pleasure, and told her that he was on his way to see Father Algus, who was perfecting a remarkable instrument for forecasting the typhoons which periodically tore up the islands in these hazardous seas.