Villere took his under-meaning. "I come from New Orleans," he returned, "and in New Orleans there live many of us who can recognize a—who can recognize good music wherever we hear it." And he made a slight bow in his turn.
The Padre laughed outright with pleasure and laid his hand upon the young man's arm. "You have no intention of going away to-morrow, I trust?"
"With your leave," answered Gaston, "I will have such an intention no longer."
It was with the air and gait of mutual understanding that the two now walked on together toward the Padre's door. The guest was twenty-five, the host sixty.
"And have you been in America long?" inquired Gaston.
"Twenty years."
"And at Santa Ysabel how long?"
"Twenty years."
"I should have thought," said Gaston, looking lightly at the desert and unpeopled mountains, "that now and again you might have wished to travel."
"Were I your age," murmured Padre Ignacio, "it might be so."