Later, when they had eaten their dinner, and Tacita was alone, there was a tap at the door, and she rose to meet the original of the portrait. Iona had tapped with her ivory tablets, and was pushing them into the folds of her sash as she entered.
There was something electric in the instant during which the two paused and looked at each other without speaking. Then Iona stepped forward, gentle, but unsmiling, laid a hand on Tacita’s arm, and, bending, kissed her lightly on the forehead.
“You are welcome to San Salvador!” she said with deliberation, in a melodious, bell-like voice. “I hope that you will be contented here. Does the place please you?”
“I am enchanted!” Tacita said. “I ask myself continually if I have not found the long-lost garden of Eden.”
The two contemplated each other with something more than curiosity. Tacita was conscious of a certain restraint and something akin to disappointment while talking with this woman, who was even more beautiful than her portrait. The form, the teeth, the mass of hair were the most superb that she had ever seen; and though the skin was dark, every faintest wave of color was visible through it. While she talked, the color deepened in her cheeks till she glowed like a rose.
The blue dress with its silver clasps might have been too trying to her olive skin but for this lovely blush.
Iona proposed herself courteously as teacher, and Tacita thankfully accepted, offering herself in return for any service she might be able to perform.
“Be quite at ease!” her visitor replied, not unkindly. “You will soon have an opportunity. I have already thought that you might be willing to assist in the Italian classes. You speak the language beautifully. But for some time yet you will have employment enough in seeing the place and becoming acquainted with the people and their customs. Of course Elena has already told you that there need be no restraint on your wanderings. Every one you meet will be a friend, whether he can tell you so or not. The language most useful to you will be French, though there is scarcely a language, living or dead, which some one here does not speak.”
Tacita begged to know something of the government of San Salvador.
“We have a few general principles which give form to every detail,” Iona said. “For personal disorders in the young, parents and teachers are held responsible; for any social disorder, our rulers are held responsible. Probably, all blame is finally laid on the father and mother, and more especially on the mother. The training of the child is held to be of supreme importance, and there is no more dignified occupation. We say, ‘The mother of children is the mother of the state.’ No diseased or deformed person is allowed to have children. You will not hear any mother in San Salvador complain of her child as having a bad temper, or evil dispositions. She would be told that the child was what she made it.