“Its success now seems certain,” continued the priest, “thanks to Barry McChord, who has been keenly interested in the invention and has sent to Europe for many delicate appliances to assist the researches of my venerable friend.”
“He has so many things to be interested in,” Julie commented with sudden wistfulness.
The priest looked across at her: “I think I should say he has the interest for so many things.”
“Is it because I am a newcomer,” the girl asked the priest, “that things seem to move so bewilderingly fast here—like a dance whose rhythm you can never catch up with?”
“These, my child,” the priest replied, “are the Days of the Empire. Those of us who have experienced them will remember them always. Conquest and prowess of arms have put a dangerous fire in men’s veins. We are reaching out for more than human hands were meant to grasp. When men are rich overnight, and women are scarce as queens, the universe is not stable. Not but that there are some who walk steadily in this fever—” He smiled at Mrs. Calixter.
“I don’t count, I’m old,” replied that lady.
“Are you challenging youth? Who in my camp fire colony, as I call it, is so safe and sane as my friend Barry? We have worked alongside each other for a long time—and it would be difficult for me to tell what he has been to me.”
“The natives call Barry El Mayor,” Mrs. Calixter told Julie, “and believe that in power he is infinitely above the Governor-General. In so many incorrigible centers of rebellion he has somehow found an effectual compromise.”
“The natives reason that governor-generals may come and go—and temporary officials of all sorts; but that Barry is with them for good,” Father Hull said. “I don’t understand all his aims. Perhaps they are too wide for me, who find my own are more than I can hope to cope with—but what I am very sure of is that he is working always for a better order of things in the world. I, too, am selfishly concerned that he should not go away from here”—the priest laughed; “I have planned that he and I shall grow old here together.”
“And what will the ladies who admire him so much say to that?” Mrs. Calixter demanded.