They had great food for speculation. Such excitement had not come into their lives in unnumbered years. The dreadful prophecy of the Mother Superior was forgotten. For the first time in a decade Eulalia was heard to lament her loss of sight. Try as she would, she could not make a satisfactory mental picture from her companions’ descriptions of their visitor. These were vivid and detailed enough, but somehow she could not bring them to take definite shape. Over and over again they discussed the form and face, the manners and raiment of Dr. Joel McBean. Not a gesture they did not speculate upon and imitate, not a sentence of his incoherent Spanish that was not dissected, analyzed, and wondered about. In particular, why did he want their picture, and then leave without it?
But “to-morrow” he had said, to-morrow he would come; then perhaps they would understand.
The sunlight turned copper-red, warning them of the lateness of the hour and putting a sudden end to their excited converse. Suddenly sobered and recalled to its own world, the flustered dove-cote subsided. With stately tread they sought the reverend Mother. She suffered herself to be lifted from her chair, and with eyes downcast took her slow way to the chapel, with the help and guidance of her two faithful attendants.
THE perspiration stood in great beads upon the brow of Joel McBean as he emerged from a black, unventilated closet in the Posada del Rey, a tray of chemicals in his hand. He held the developed films up to the light and nodded with satisfaction. The pictures were excellent, clear and sharp, well composed, excellently suited to the enlargement of the stereopticon. He examined each with minute care, but found none requiring the intensifier. There at last they were fixed forever, the replicas of this strange land of contradictions—pictures that should make his audiences realize how fortunate they were to be able to stay at home in comfort while an intrepid and intelligent explorer braved the trials of arduous travel in order to bring the simulacrum of these other lands to their very doors, together with enlightening and well-turned elucidations of the manners and customs of these benighted dwellers in lands forgotten. Already he felt glowing sentences stirring in his brain, sonorous and uplifting words, at once pitying and broad-minded. “Tolerance”—that was the motto of his discourses; tolerance always, but coupled with the well-directed searchlight of comparison. What a point he would make of these aged, recluse women—their ignorance, their useless lives, their abasement before the Juggernaut of outworn rules! He flattered himself that his presence, momentary as it was, had brought new impetus, and a realization of other and more intelligent peoples, to these remnants of obsolete conditions. “Obsolete conditions”—ah, a good expression!
He slipped the sensitized paper under the films in their wooden cases, and set them for a moment on the rim of his balcony overlooking the cobbled pavement of the unfrequented King’s Highway, upon which the tropic sun beat with white fury. A moment only sufficed, and he withdrew the prints. They proved marvelously good; as portraits they could not have been excelled. He smiled with satisfaction. How pleased these benighted little sisters would be, he thought, for he was a kindly man. He slipped the photographs between the leaves of his “Handy Spanish Phrases,” and, walking along the red-tiled gallery, made his way across the blue-and-white-walled patio, and while parrots shrieked at him and capuchin monkeys chattered, he passed from their cages toward the great, sweating water-jars, and emerged into the glare of the street.
Everywhere the remains of huge triumphal arches met his eye; enormous buildings of state and vast churches, seamed and cracked by the volcano’s upheavals, now flowered with creepers and plumed with growing trees. The silence indicated complete desertion, except where one caught, from time to time, in some shattered palace, a glimpse of an Indian family at their squalid tasks, or the bray of a burro echoing from some stately ruin.
At last the twisted wrought-iron gate and the flanking spiral columns of the gateway of the convent came in sight. Dr. McBean quickened his steps.
He had been eagerly awaited within those solemn walls. After matins the excited sisters had gossiped and chatted over the events of the previous day, and then proceeded—each quietly, in her own cell, and unknown to her fellows—to make an elaborate toilet. The least faded blue ribbons were put on, a fresh coif was found, spots and stains were removed from worn white garments, while the little silver crosses received an unaccustomed furbishing.
Somewhat shamefaced they met, and laughed like children as each realized the worldliness of the others, till again Sister Eulalia’s complaint turned them to consolatory condolences. A frown of petulance had settled between Sister Eulalia’s brows. To be sure, it was lost in a maze of wrinkles, but it was there. In her old heart was revolt against the sorrow accepted so bravely fifty years before. She did not realize her sin, absorbed as she was in the Great Interest.
When Dr. McBean entered the patio he was met by the four nuns, who advanced smiling, with murmured hopes of a happy sleep of the night before and perfect health to-day.