Unreceptive as his philistinism may have seemed to these
delightful youngsters, it was apparent enough to him that
they had taught him a great deal. If he could not hope
to share their ever-bubbling raptures and enthusiasms,
at least he had come to comprehend them after a fashion,
and even to discern sometimes what it was that stirred them.
He watched his nephew now--having first assured himself
by a comprehensive downward glance that no other
windows of the hotel-front were open. The young man
seemed tremendously moved, far too much so to talk.
Thorpe ventured once some remarks about the Mexican mountains,
which were ever so much bigger, as he remembered them,
but Alfred paid no heed. He continued to gaze across
the lake, watching in rapt silence one facet after another
catch the light, and stand out from the murky gloom,
radiantly white, till at last the whole horizon was a mass
of shining minarets and domes, and the sun fell full
on his face. Then, with a long-drawn sigh, he turned,
re-entered the room, and threw himself into a chair.
"It's too good!" he declared, with a half-groan. "I
didn't know it would be like that."
"Why nothing's too good for us, man," his uncle told him.
"THAT is," said the boy, simply, and Thorpe, after staring
for a moment, smiled and rang the bell for breakfast.
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