Well--if you prefer it--kiss it then. There--don't
be a fool--but let's go back to Miss Keene."
CHAPTER IV.
A GLEAM OF SUNSHINE.
While these various passions had been kindled by her compatriots in
the peaceful ashes of Todos Santos, Eleanor Keene had moved among them
indifferently and, at times, unconsciously. The stranding of her young
life on that unknown shore had not drawn her towards her fellow-exiles,
and the circumstances which afterwards separated her from daily contact
with them completed the social estrangement. She found herself more in
sympathy with the natives, to whom she had shown no familiarity,
than with her own people, who had mixed with them more or less
contemptuously. She found the naivete of Dona Isabel more amusing than
the doubtful simplicity of that married ingenue Mrs. Brimmer, although
she still met the young girl's advances with a certain reserve. She
found herself often pained by the practical brusqueness with which Mrs.
Markham put aside the Comandante's delicate attentions, and she was
moved with a strange pity for his childlike trustfulness, which she knew
was hopeless. As the months passed, on the few occasions that she still
met the Excelsior's passengers she was surprised to find how they
had faded from her memory, and to discover in them the existence of
qualities that made her wonder how she could have ever been familiar
with them.
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