The place seemed deserted and asleep, but just inside the doorway, where the hall broadened into an office, a man stood looking through a pile of newspapers. His clothes were black and his vest clerical; below its edge hung a small gold cross. He turned politely, then said he would go and find some one.
"Dear me," said Molly, brightening, "he's handsome."
Two days after, they were settled in comfortable rooms overlooking the hotel grounds. A slope down to a small lake boasted some gnarled old live-oaks and pines, and one side was set out with a young orange grove. Across the water one could see several more or less pretentious new houses built around the shore. The breeze tasted of pine and Molly had slept a night through without coughing.
"But, Heavens!" she complained, the second afternoon, lolling back in a wooden arm-chair on the hotel gallery; "isn't there anything to do?"
Alexina and the young man in clerical garb were her audience. He was the Reverend Harrison Henderson, and had charge of the Episcopal Church of Aden and lived at the hotel. He seemed a definite and earnest man. His blond profile was strong. It was a rather immobile face, perhaps, but it lighted with very evident pleasure as he answered Mrs. Garnier.
"How would you like to go out to Nancy?" he proposed; "it's quite an affair for a lake down here, and a young fellow out there rents sail-boats."
"Charming," agreed Molly, sitting up. "You have ideas; you can't have been here long."
Mr. Harrison smiled, though it was an acknowledging rather than a mirthful smile. Life is too earnest for mere laughter, but his zeal to serve Mrs. Garnier was not to be doubted.
"What do you say, Miss Blair?" he asked, turning to that young person.
"Who?--I?" Alexina had been leaning forward with her elbow on the gallery railing, her eyes looking off to a line of pines against the sky. She had been wondering how she should inquire about the Leroys, and if she really wanted to. She came back to the veranda and the present.
"I think it would be charming, too," she replied.
"Then we'll go right away. I'll order the carriage, so as to see the sunset," he said, and rose. "You will need wraps for Mrs. Garnier." Somehow a man never thinks the other woman will need anything.