Eleanor hung over the loggia and watched the Contessa's departure. As the small horses trotted away, with a jingling of bells and a fluttering of the furry tails that hung from their ears, the padre parroco passed. He took off his hat to the Contessa, then seeing Mrs. Burgoyne on the loggia, he gave her, too, a shy but smiling salutation.
His light figure, his young and dreamy air, suited well with the beautiful landscape through which it passed. Shepherd? or poet? Eleanor thought of David among the flocks.
'He only wants the crook—the Scriptural crook. It would go quite well with the soutane.'
Then she became aware of another figure approaching on her right from the piece of open land that lay below the garden.
It was Father Benecke, and he emerged on the road just in front of the padre parroco.
The old priest took off his hat. Eleanor saw the sensitive look, the slow embarrassed gesture. The padre parroco passed without looking to the right or left. All the charming pliancy of the young figure had disappeared. It was drawn up to a steel rigidity.
Eleanor smiled and sighed.
'David among the Philistines!—Ce pauvre Goliath! Ah! he is coming here?'
She withdrew to her sofa, and waited.
Marie, after instructions, and with that austerity of demeanour which she, too, never failed to display towards Father Benecke, introduced the visitor.