Yet unsatisfactory as these brief interviews were, they revived in Miss Keene the sympathizing curiosity and interest she had always felt for this singular man, and which had been only held in abeyance at the beginning of their exile; in fact, she found herself thinking of him more during the interval when they seldom saw each other, and apparently had few interests in common, than when they were together on the Excelsior.Gradually she slipped into three successive phases of feeling towards him, each of them marked with an equal degree of peril to her peace of mind.She began with a profound interest in the mystery of his secluded habits, his strange abstraction, and a recognition of the evident superiority of a nature capable of such deep feeling--uninfluenced by those baser distractions which occupied Brace, Crosby, and Winslow.This phase passed into a settled conviction that some woman was at the root of his trouble, and responsible for it.With an instinctive distrust of her own ***, she was satisfied that it must be either a misplaced or unworthy attachment, and that the unknown woman was to blame.This second phase--which hovered between compassion and resentment--suddenly changed to the latter--the third phase of her feelings.Miss Keene became convinced that Mr.Hurlstone had a settled aversion to HERSELF.Why and wherefore, she did not attempt to reason, yet she was satisfied that from the first he disliked her.His studious reserve on the Excelsior, compared with the attentions of the others, ought then to have convinced her of the fact; and there was no doubt now that his present discontent could be traced to the unfortunate circumstances that brought them together.Having given herself up to that idea, she vacillated between a strong impulse to inform him that she knew his real feelings and an equally strong instinct to avoid him hereafter entirely.The result was a feeble compromise.
On the ground that Mr.Hurlstone could "scarcely be expected to admire her inferior performances," she declined to invite him with Father Esteban to listen to her pupils.Father Esteban took a huge pinch of snuff, examined Miss Keene attentively, and smiled a sad smile.The next day he begged Hurlstone to take a volume of old music to Miss Keene with his compliments.Hurlstone did so, and for some reason exerted himself to be agreeable.As he made no allusion to her rudeness, she presumed he did not know of it, and speedily forgot it herself.When he suggested a return visit to the boy choir, with whom he occasionally practiced, she blushed and feared she had scarcely the time.But she came with Mrs.Markham, some consciousness, and a visible color!
And then, almost without her knowing how or why, and entirely unexpected and unheralded, came a day so strangely and unconsciously happy, so innocently sweet and joyous, that it seemed as if all the other days of her exile had only gone before to create it, and as if it--and it alone--were a sufficient reason for her being there.A day full of gentle intimations, laughing suggestions, childlike surprises and awakenings; a day delicious for the very incompleteness of its vague happiness.And this remarkable day was simply marked in Mrs.Markham's diary as follows:--"Went with E.to Indian village; met Padre and J.H.
J.H.actually left shell and crawled on beach with E.E.chatty."The day itself had been singularly quiet and gracious, even for that rare climate of balmy days and recuperating nights.At times the slight breath of the sea which usually stirred the morning air of Todos Santos was suspended, and a hush of expectation seemed to arrest land and water.When Miss Keene and Mrs.Markham left the Presidio, the tide was low, and their way lay along the beach past the Mission walls.A walk of two or three miles brought them to the Indian village--properly a suburban quarter of Todos Santos--a collection of adobe huts and rudely cultivated fields.Padre Esteban and Mr.Hurlstone were awaiting them in the palm-thatched veranda of a more pretentious cabin, that served as a school-room.
"This is Don Diego's design," said the Padre, beaming with a certain paternal pride on Hurlstone, "built by himself and helped by the heathen; but look you: my gentleman is not satisfied with it, and wishes now to bring his flock to the Mission school, and have them mingle with the pure-blooded races on an equality.That is the revolutionary idea of this sans culotte reformer," continued the good Father, shaking his yellow finger with gentle archness at the young man."Ah, we shall yet have a revolution in Todos Santos unless you ladies take him in hand.He has already brought the half-breeds over to his side, and those heathens follow him like dumb cattle anywhere.There, take him away and scold him, Dona Leonor, while I speak to the Senora Markham of the work that her good heart and skillful fingers may do for my poor muchachos."Eleanor Keene lifted her beautiful eyes to Hurlstone with an artless tribute in their depths that brought the blood faintly into his cheek.She was not thinking of the priest's admonishing words;she was thinking of the quiet, unselfish work that this gloomy misanthrope had been doing while his companions had been engaged in lower aims and listless pleasures, and while she herself had been aimlessly fretting and diverting herself.What were her few hours of applauded instruction with the pretty Murillo-like children of the Fort compared to his silent and unrecognized labor! Yet even at this moment an uneasy doubt crossed her mind.
"I suppose Mrs.Brimmer and Miss Chubb interest themselves greatly in your--in the Padre's charities?"The first playful smile she had seen on Hurlstone's face lightened in his eyes and lips, and was becoming.
"I am afraid my barbarians are too low and too near home for Mrs.