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And yet--it was all so confoundedly natural!
"Nobody but our PARROCO could keep his hands off that girl," blithely
remarked the priest.
Another little twinge. . . .



CHAPTER VII


Mr. Heard was not prone to wax enthusiastic over the delights of
architecture or natural scenery. He called himself unexpansive and
unromantic; he confessed to small understanding, small veneration, for
artistic effects. The beauty of a man's character moved him more
strongly than the beauty of any picture or any landscape. Yet, on
arriving next afternoon at the upper plateau of Nepenthe he could not
help being struck by the strange and almost compelling charm of the
"Old Town." It was so different from the lower regions--so calm and
reposeful.
Down below, in that more accessible modern settlement, everything was
bright and many-tinted; there was movement and noise and colour; a
dazzling spot! The subtle influence of the sea, though it lay four
hundred feet lower down, was ever present; one felt oneself on an
island.


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