John’s eyebrows descended to their normal level, and drew together.

“Crying about my friend?  What friend?” he puzzled.

“Your friend the priest—­the man who has been passing the day here with you,” explained Maria Dolores.

John gave a start, threw back his head, and eyed her with astonishment.

“That is extraordinary,” he exclaimed.

“What?” asked she, lightly glancing up.

“That you should call him my friend the priest,” said John, wagging a bewildered head.

“Why?  Isn’t he a priest?  He has all the air of one,” said Maria Dolores.

“No; he’s an American millionaire,” said John, succinctly.

Maria Dolores moved in her place, and laughed.

“Dear me!” she said, “I did strike wide of the mark.  An American millionaire should cultivate a less deceptive appearance.  With that thin, shaven face of his, and that look of an early Christian martyr in his eyes, and the dark clothes he wears, wherever he goes he’s sure to be mistaken for a priest.”

“Yes,” said John, with a kind of grimness; “that’s what’s extraordinary.  He comes of a long line of bigoted Protestants, he’s a reincarnation of some of his stern old Puritan forebears, and you find that he looks like their pet abomination, a Romish priest.  Well, you have a prophetic eye.”

Maria Dolores gazed up inquiringly.  “A prophetic eye?” she questioned.

“I merely mean,” said John, with thaumaturgic airiness, “that the man is on his way to Rome to study for the priesthood.”  And he gave a thaumaturgic toss to his bearded chin.

“Oh!” cried Maria Dolores, and leaned back against her eucalyptus tree, and laughed again.

John, however, dejectedly shook his head, and gloomed.

“Laugh if you will,” he said, “though it seems to me as far as possible from a laughing matter, and I think Annunziata chose the better part when she cried.”

“I beg your pardon,” said Maria Dolores, perhaps a trifle stiffly.  “I was only laughing at the coincidence of my having supposed him to be a priest, and then learning that, though he isn’t, he is going to become one.  I was not laughing at the fact itself.  Nor was it,” she added, her stiffness leaving her, and a little glimmer of amusement taking its place, “that fact which made Annunziata cry.”

“I dare say not,” responded John, “seeing that she couldn’t possibly have known it.  But it might well have done so.  It’s enough to bring tears to the eyes of a brazen image.”  He angrily jerked his shoulders.

“What?” cried Maria Dolores, surprised, rebukeful.  “That a man is to become a holy priest?”

“Oh, no,” said John.  “That fact alone, detached from special circumstances, might be a subject for rejoicing.  But the fact that this particular man, in his special circumstances, is to become a priest—­well, I simply have no words to express my feeling.”  He threw out his arms, in a gesture of despair.  “I’m simply sick with rage and pity.  I could gnash my teeth and rend my garments.”