"I think it will be better to go soon, since I must go."
"Until tomorrow, then. It is pleasant on a moonlight night beside the fountain, Juan."
Juan was not a stranger to the delights of the fountain on a moonlit night, or even a night without moon. He had sat on the bench near the trellis where the roses clambered in perpetual bloom many an evening with Padre Mateo, smoking their pipes in perfect understanding. Borromeo, the blacksmith, often had joined them; frequently Juan and Borromeo had occupied the bench alone, when there were guests who had news of interest to the padres of San Fernando. Tonight the bench was empty. Padre Mateo was taking his pipe on the arched portico before the public door, with guests from the south who were passing the night; Borromeo was singing in his little house, where his shadow crossed the window when he moved about, busy at some congenial service for himself.
It was a sad thing for Juan, this banishment from San Fernando, where he had come an uncouth stranger but a little while ago. Its quaintness had become as familiar as his own face, its medieval atmosphere, its baronial government, had come to be accepted as truly fitting to the old-world somnolence of that sunny land. The charm of it had won him from his recollections, the peace of it had quelled his yearnings for home, until the past had become very dim and far away, its renewal not any more desired.
