They proceeded quite as far as a hundred yards before Courtlandt volunteered: "That must be interesting."

"She is a good Catholic."

"Ah, yes; I recollect now."

"And you?"

"Oh, I haven't any religion such as requires my presence in churches.

Don't misunderstand me! As a boy I was bred in the Episcopal Church; but I have traveled so much that I have drifted out of the circle. I find that when I am out in the open, in the heart of some great waste, such as a desert, a sea, the top of a mountain, I can see the greatness of the Omnipotent far more clearly and humbly than within the walls of a cathedral."

"But G.o.d imposes obligations upon mankind. We have ceased to look upon the hermit as a holy man, but rather as one devoid of courage. It is not the stone and the stained windows; it is the text of our daily work, that the physical being of the Church represents."

"I have not avoided any of my obligations." Courtlandt shifted his stick behind his back. "I was speaking of the church and the open field, as they impressed me."

"You believe in the tenets of Christianity?"

"Surely! A man must pin his faith and hope to something more stable than humanity."

"I should like to convert you to my way of thinking," simply.

"Nothing is impossible. Who knows?"

The padre, as they continued onward, offered many openings, but the young man at his side refused to be drawn into any confidence. So the padre gave up, for the futility of his efforts became irksome. His own lips were sealed, so he could not ask point-blank the question that clamored at the tip of his tongue.

"So you are Miss Harrigan's confessor?"

"Does it strike you strangely?"

"Merely the coincidence."

"If I were not her confessor I should take the liberty of asking you some questions."

"It is quite possible that I should decline to answer them."

The padre shrugged. "It is patent to me that you will go about this affair in your own way. I wish you well."

"Thank you. As Miss Harrigan's confessor you doubtless know everything but the truth."

The padre laughed this time. The shops were closed. The open restaurants by the water-front held but few idlers. The padre admired the young man's independence. Most men would have hesitated not a second to pour the tale into his ears in hope of material a.s.sistance. The padre's admiration was equally proportioned with respect.

"I leave you here," he said. "You will see me frequently at the villa."

"I certainly shall be there frequently. Good night."

Courtlandt quickened his pace which soon brought him alongside the others.

They stopped in front of Abbott's pension, and he tried to persuade them to come up for a nightcap.

"Nothing to it, my boy," said Harrigan. "I need no nightcap on top of cognac forty-eight years old. For me that's a whole suit of pajamas."

"You come, Ted."

"Abbey, I wouldn't climb those stairs for a bottle of Horace's Falernian, served on Seneca's famous citron table."

"Not a friend in the world," Abbott lamented.

Laughingly they hustled him into the hallway and fled. Then Courtlandt went his way alone. He slept with the dubious satisfaction that the first day had not gone badly. The wedge had been entered. It remained to be seen if it could be dislodged.

Harrigan was in a happy temper. He kissed his wife and chucked Nora under the chin. And then Mrs. Harrigan launched the thunderbolt which, having been held on the leash for several hours, had, for all of that, lost none of its ability to blight and scorch.

"James, you are about as hopeless a man as ever was born. You all but disgraced us this afternoon."

"Mother!"

"Me?" cried the bewildered Harrigan.

"Look at those tennis shoes; one white string and one brown one. It's enough to drive a woman mad. What in heaven's name made you come?"

Perhaps it was the after effect of a good dinner, that dwindling away of pleasant emotions; perhaps it was the very triviality of the offense for which he was thus suddenly arraigned; at any rate, he lost his temper, and he was rather formidable when that occurred.

"d.a.m.n it, Molly, I wasn't going, but Courtlandt asked me to go with him, and I never thought of my shoes. You are always finding fault with me these days. I don't drink, I don't gamble, I don't run around after other women; I never did. But since you've got this social bug in your bonnet, you keep me on hooks all the while. n.o.body noticed the shoe-strings; and they would have looked upon it as a joke if they had. After all, I'm the boss of this ranch. If I want to wear a white string and a black one, I'll do it. Here!" He caught up the book on social usages and threw it out of the window. "Don't ever shove a thing like that under my nose again. If you do, I'll hike back to little old New York and start the gym again."

He rammed one of the colonel's perfectos (which he had been saving for the morrow) between his teeth, and stalked into the garden.

Nora was heartless enough to laugh.

"He hasn't talked like that to me in years!" Mrs. Harrigan did not know what to do,--follow him or weep. She took the middle course, and went to bed.

Nora turned out the lights and sat out on the little balcony. The moonshine was glorious. So dense was the earth-blackness that the few lights twinkling here and there were more like fallen stars. Presently she heard a sound. It was her father, returning as silently as he could. She heard him fumble among the knickknacks on the mantel, and then go away again. By and by she saw a spot of white light move hither and thither among the grape arbors. For five or six minutes she watched it dance.

Suddenly all became dark again. She laid her head upon the railing and conned over the day's events. These were not at all satisfactory to her.

Then her thoughts traveled many miles away. Six months of happiness, of romance, of play, and then misery and blackness.

"Nora, are you there?"

"Yes. Over here on the balcony. What were you doing down there?"

"Oh, Nora, I'm sorry I lost my temper. But Molly's begun to nag me lately, and I can't stand it. I went after that book. Did you throw some flowers out of the window?"

"Yes."

"A bunch of daisies?"

"Marguerites," she corrected.

"All the same to me. I picked up the bunch, and look at what I found inside."

He extended his palm, flooding it with the light of his pocket-lamp.

Nora's heart tightened. What she saw was a beautiful uncut emerald.