Was
there anything else in these somewhat commonplace details of vulgar and
low intrigue than what he had told the priest? Were all these Americano
husbands as sensitive and as gloomily self-sacrificing and expiating?
It did not appear so from the manners and customs of the others,--from
those easy matrons whose complacent husbands had abandoned them to the
long companionship of youthful cavaliers on adventurous voyages; from
those audacious virgins, who had the freedom of married women. Surely,
this was not a pious and sensitive race, passionately devoted to their
domestic affections! The young stranger must be either deceiving him--or
an exception to his countrymen!
And if he was that exception--what then? An idea which had sprung up in
Father Esteban's fancy that morning now took possession of it with the
tenacity of a growth on fertile virgin soil. The good Father had been
devoted to the conversion of the heathen with the fervor of a one-ideaed
man. But his successes had been among the Indians--a guileless, harmless
race, who too often confounded the practical benefits of civilization
with the abstract benefits of the Church, and their instruction had
been simple and coercive.
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