Afterward she had had a pleasant surprise. A house had been engaged for her, the Presidente announced, by Don Francisco. She went right away to view it. It stood facing the plaza, pointed-roofed, post-elevated, between shimmering bananas, a new nipa hut, clean and strong. The ground beneath was white with powdered lime, a reassuring carbolicky odour hovered about and she was pleased by the chance for picturesque decoration offered by the rich, nut-brown nipa of the interior. But while she stood in the centre of the sala, planning, a muchacho in immaculate camisa stood before her. "Don Francisco has sent me to you; I am to be your servant," he said in the precise English of one carefully instructed. He proved a treasure, that boy. Then, pieces of furniture began to arrive one by one. She did not understand at first, but the owners, salaaming behind their sweating cargadores, explained that they were to be hers during her stay. She offered money; they refused. Don Francisco had asked them to do this; they were always glad to obey Don Francisco.
This was the third time in as many minutes that she had heard that name. When she was alone with Vincente, the new muchacho, she asked, "Who is your master?"
"You are to be my master," he answered in the tone of one who knows well his lesson.
"Don Francisco; the Maestro," he answered, evidently astonished at her obtuse ignorance.
But she divined now and her cheeks flushed. It was the Maestro of Cantalacan. Wilson had introduced him as Mr. Tillman. "Don Francisco" was much better, she reflected.
She had set briskly to work at her installation. She accepted a few pieces of the proffered furniture--quaint old hand-carved things of incredibly heavy woods; she performed wonders with boxes and chintz; Isio mats enlivened the meerschaum of walls and ceiling, the few pictures and flags left of her college days were hung; red narra boards tied with golden abaca along the walls made a place for her books; a big square severe table, with her blotters, pads, ink-stands, pens, and pencils upon it, took an aspect inviting of studious hours. But when she rested and looked about her for the subtle feeling of coziness and warmth which usually follows such toil, as it must to the birds who have built their nest, she found with consternation that it was not there--the feeling of intimacy, of home, was not there. She changed the petates, she moved the pictures, she hung orchids at the windows, arranged a panoply of native hats and spears over the door, fringed the grass-cloth portières. But it was useless. The feeling would not come. And she realised that it would never come; that all these efforts were puerilities before the great crushing assertion of the land--the grass-dishevelled plaza, the ruined church, glistening in the white sun, the palms, the steaming mountain, the brown populations; that before this tranquil, brooding, all-powerful Presence, all her little defenses of art and adornment shrivelled, dried into dust as cardboard toys in a furnace. It was like hiding behind leaves from God.