In response to his suggestion that Margaret had proved herself a good niece, Mrs. Rutherford answered, in a voice somewhat softened, "Yes, she is very devoted to me." Her conscience seemed to stir a little, for she went on: "Regarding my health, my personal comfort, she is certainly most thoughtful."
Here a door within opened, and she stopped. They heard a light step cross the floor; then a figure appeared in the long window that opened upon the piazza.
"Ah, Margaret, is that you? You have finished the letter?" said Mrs. Rutherford. "She has been writing to my cousins, to tell them of my safe arrival; I did not feel equal to writing myself," she added, to Winthrop.
He had risen to bring forward a chair. But Margaret passed him, and went to the piazza railing, which came solidly up as high as one's elbows, with a broad parapet to lean upon; here she stood looking at the water.
"I believe now all I have heard of this Florida moonlight," she said, her eyes on the broad silvery expanse of the ocean, visible beyond the low line of Patricio. She had turned her head a little as she spoke, and perceiving that a ray from the room within was shining across Mrs. Rutherford's face, she stepped back through the window, changed the position of the lamp, and returned.
"Thank you, my dear; I did not know how much it was teasing me until you moved it," said Mrs. Rutherford. Perhaps she still felt some twinges of conscience, for she added, "Why not go out with Evert and take a look at the little old town by moonlight? It's not yet nine."
"I shall be most happy if Mrs. Harold is not too tired," said Winthrop. He did not rise; but probably he was waiting for her consent.
"Margaret is never tired," said Mrs. Rutherford, making the statement with a wave of her hand—a wave which drew a flash from all her gems.
"Yes, that is one of the things quite understood and settled—that I am never tired," observed Mrs. Harold; she still stood by the parapet, there was no indication in her tone whether she agreed with the understanding or not.
"Do go," urged Mrs. Rutherford. "You have been shut up with me for six days on those slow-moving southern trains, and you know how you enjoy a walk."
"Not to-night, Aunt Katrina."
"You say that because you think I shall not like to be left alone in this strange house on the first evening. But I shall not mind it in the least; Celestine is here, and that black boy."
At this moment the door of the room within was opened by Celestine, and there followed a quick, and what seemed to be, from the sound, a voluminous entrance, and a hurried step across the floor. "My dearest darling Katrina!" said Mrs. Carew, pausing at the long window (which she filled), her arms extended in anticipative welcome, but her eyes not yet certain which of the three figures on the piazza should properly fill them.
Mrs. Rutherford rose, with cordial if less excited welcome. "Is that you, Betty?" she said. And then she was folded in Betty's capacious embrace.
Hand in hand the two ladies went within, to look at each other, they said. Mrs. Harold and Winthrop followed.
"Now, Margaret," said Mrs. Rutherford, after the first greetings were over, "you surely need feel no further scruples about leaving me; Betty and I have enough to say to each other for a half-hour, I am sure."
"For a half-hour, Katrina? For days! weeks! months!" cried Betty, with enthusiasm. And she began upon what was evidently to be a long series of retrospective questions and replies.
"Why not go for a while, if, as you say, you are not tired?" said Winthrop, in pursuance of his system of showing always a careful civility to Margaret Harold.
"It was not I that said it," replied Margaret, smiling a little. "I will go for a quarter of an hour," she added, as though compliance were, on the whole, less trouble than a second refusal. She took a white shawl which was lying on a chair, made a veil for her head of one corner, while the rest of its fleecy length fell over her dark dress. They left the room and went down the outside stairway to the street below.
It was called a street, and had even a name—Pacheco; but in reality it was the open shore.
"It has such an odd effect to me, all this low-lying country on a level with the water," said Margaret; "the whole land is like a sea-beach, a sea-beach with trees growing on it."
"Do you like it? or do you think it ugly?"
"I think it very beautiful—in its own way."
"I will take you to the Benito," said Winthrop.
At the end of Pacheco lane they passed under an old stone archway into the plaza. This little pleasure-ground was shaded by orange-trees, which formed a thick grove; paths ran irregularly through the grove, and there were stone benches here and there. On the north side the gray-white façade of Our Lady of the Angels rose above the trees, conferring architectural dignity upon the town. The main building was low and rather dilapidated, but the front was felt to be impressive, it elevated itself with candid majesty three stories above the roof, quite undisturbed by a thinness of aspect in profile; the first story bore upon its face an old clock and sun-dial, the second, which was narrower, was punctured by three arches, each containing a bell, and the third under the apex had also an aperture, through which the small bell hanging there should have swung itself picturesquely to and fro, far out against the blue; as a matter of fact, however, none of the bells were rung, they were struck ignominiously from behind by a man with a hammer. The point of the apex was surmounted by a broken globe and a cross.
The uncertain Gothic of St. Philip and St. James' came next, much lower as to height, much younger as to age. But the glory of St. Philip and St. James' lay not in its height, it lay in the flying buttresses of which it had no less than eight, four on each side. These flying buttresses were of course a great feature, they showed how much imagination the architect had had; for they did not support the roof, nor anything else, they appeared indeed to have some difficulty in supporting themselves, so that it was always more or less of a question as to whether, in a northerly gale, they might not take to flying themselves—in fragments and a wrong direction. So far, however, this had not happened; and Mrs. Penelope Moore, the rector's wife, had trained vines over them so thickly that they looked like arbors; Mrs. Penelope, however, had a better name for them than that; she called them "the cloisters."
The west side of the plaza was occupied by the long front of the old Government House, the residence of crown officials during Spanish days. Over its low height, palmetto-trees lifted their ostrich-plumed foliage high in the air from the large garden behind. At one end there rose above the roof a lookout tower, which commanded a view of the harbor; here had floated for two hundred years the flag of Spain, here also had hung the bell upon which the watchman had struck the signal when the beacon on Patricio opposite had flamed forth from its iron cage the tidings that a ship was in sight, a ship from Spain. But the bell had long been gone, and nothing floated from the old staff now save twice a year, when on the Fourth of July and Washington's Birthday the postmaster, who used the old Government House for his post-office, unfurled there, with official patriotism, the Stars and Stripes of the United States.
As Winthrop and his companion on their way across the plaza came out from the shade of the orange-trees, some one spoke Winthrop's name. It was Dr. Kirby, who was entering the grove by another path which intersected theirs. Garda Thorne was with him, and a little behind them appeared the dark countenance of Torres. The Doctor stopped and extended his hand, it was not the Doctor's