“What a simpleton.”
Leaning against the shoulder of the Frenchman, dozed his wife—a faded woman with a freakish hat, ruddy cheeks, and large hands clutching a portfolio. The other persons were a bronze-coloured priest wrapped in a cloak, and two recently-married Andalusians who were whispering the sweetest of sweet nothings to each other.
“But haven’t we reached Andalusia yet?” Quentin again inquired impatiently.
“Oh, yes!” replied the Frenchman. “The next station is Baeza.”
“Baeza!—Impossible!”
“It is, never-the-less—It is,” insisted the Frenchman, rolling his r’s in the back of his throat. “I have been counting the stations.”
Quentin arose, his hands thrust into his overcoat. The rain beat incessantly against the coach windows which were blurred by the moisture.
“I don’t know my own country,” he exclaimed aloud; and to see it better he opened the window and looked out.
The train was passing through a ruddy country spotted here and there with pools of rainwater. In the distance, small, low hills, shadowed by shrubs and thickets raised themselves into the cold, damp air.
“What weather!” he exclaimed in disgust, as he closed the window. “This is no land of mine!”