He juggled awhile with the fates, while Julie, considerably heartened, decided to take advantage of this critical uncertainty to assist him to a favorable decision.
“I should very much like Manila,” she said pleasantly.
The Superintendent’s negative mental state vanished electrically. “Every person who has entered this room to-day has said that same thing! You should have come here prepared to go where you are sent.”
Julie flushed. “The provinces are still in a state of insurrection,” she declared spiritedly. “People are being killed there.”
“Civilians are not,” the Superintendent exclaimed exasperatedly. “We are sending teachers out to the most remote parts, where there are no troops at all, Miss Dreschell. You will go where I send you, as it is your business to do; and your station,” turning to the dreadful map, “will be the small island known as Nahal, in the southern group.”
He irately pointed it out, remote, isolated, the last before the Pagan group. Julie stared at the outline, and her heart grew faint. It was the end of the world!
“I shall be going farther South than any one else,” she remarked with a break in her voice. Suddenly she put her hand in her bag and drew out the letter which she handed to him.
She watched him read it in curious wonder at the change that came over her face. “This puts a different light on the matter,” he said coolly. “There is no favor that Father Hull could ask in the Philippines that would not be granted at once. I shall endeavor to assign you to the Ermita district in the city.”
What, Julie wondered, was the strange power of Father Hull whose words could in an instant revolutionize her fate? Her visionary green eyes fixed speculatively on that spot on the map. “Father Hull said I was to give you the letter,” she said slowly, “but I think if you don’t mind, I will go where you assigned me.”
The Superintendent was uncomfortable. There were other islands much nearer than Nahal to which he might have sent her. He slid an elastic band over a bunch of papers with an irritated snap. “Do as you like, Miss Dreschell—but there is Solano”; he pointed suggestively to a larger island farther north than Nahal. “Conditions are better there, I should say.”