“Very well.  Suppose we talk about something else?  The shade is nice, and I need not go home yet.  You promised to tell me about your adventures and your uncle.  I think you called him a survival from the old romantic days when the pirates haunted the Gulf of Mexico.”

Kit pondered as he leaned against the alder trunk.  He thought Grace meant to banish the strain; anyhow, she was willing to stay and he wanted her to do so.  It was strangely pleasant to loiter on the bridge with her while the shadows trembled on the road and the beck murmured in the shade.  But if he meant to keep her, he must talk, and although he did not want to say much about his adventures he had a story to tell.  The story was moving, if he could tell it properly.

“I’m not clever at drawing a portrait, but I’d like to try,” he said.  “For one thing, my subject’s worth the effort; and then, you see, I was fond of Adam.  In some ways, he was not romantic; in fact, he was remarkably practical.  His bold strokes were made deliberately, after calculating the cost; but now and then one got a hint of something strangely romantic and in a sense extravagant.  Yet human nature’s curious.  When he played out a losing game, knowing he would lose, it was not from sentimental impulse but a firm persuasion it was worth while.”  He paused, and gave Grace an apologetic glance.  “I’m afraid this is rather foggy.  Perhaps I’d better begin where I met him, at a Florida hotel—­if I’m not boring you.”

Grace said she was not bored and Kit, gaining confidence, narrated how they bumped the Rio Negro across the surf-swept shoals, landed the guns, and met Alvarez.  His own part in their adventures was lightly indicated, but the girl’s imagination supplied what he left out.  She felt strangely interested as Kit’s portrait of his uncle grew into shape, although her thoughts dwelt largely on the artist.  Then the background—­the steamy swamp, old presidio, and dazzling town—­had a romantic fascination, and when he told her about the journey to the mission and the church where the candles that Adam sent burned before the Virgin’s shrine, her eyes shone.

“Ah,” she said, “I am glad you told me!  One thinks better of human nature after hearing a tale like that.  In a way, it’s a rebuke.  Are such men numerous?”

“I have known two.  Perhaps it’s a coincidence that both were my relations.  They’re commoner than people think.”

“You’re an optimist, but one likes optimists,” Grace remarked with a gentle smile.  “However, what had the president done to deserve the sacrifice your uncle made?”

“I never knew, but suspect it was something against the laws of his country.  If I told my story properly, you would understand that both were buccaneers.”

“But they had their code!  I like the president and your uncle was very fine.  One feels moved when one thinks about the shabby little altar and the candles love had lighted that never went out—­all those years!  Adam’s wife loved him.  She went to nurse him, although her friends warned her and she knew the risk.”