“She had been taught—­to misunderstand.  There was always that barrier.  And she is very high spirited.  Though we were much together as youngsters she could not forget.”

A singular maternal history, a beautiful, high-spirited, intolerant cousin who had been taught to despise his mother’s morality!  What warring forces indeed had gone to the making of this man before him.

“You have been lonely?”

“Yes,” said Carl.  “My mother died when I needed her most.  Later when I was very lonely—­or hurt—­I drank.”

“And brooded!” finished Mic-co quietly.

“Yes,” said Carl.  “Always.”  He spoke a little bitterly of the wild inheritance of passions and arrogant intolerance with which Nature had saddled him.

“All of which,” reminded Mic-co soberly, “you inflamed by intemperate drinking.  Is it an inherited appetite?”

“It is not an appetite at all,” said Carl.

“You like it?”

“If you mean that to abandon it is to suffer—­no.  I enjoyed it—–­yes.”

The wind that blew through the open windows and doors of the lodge stirred the moonlit water lilies in the pool.  To Carl they were pale and unreal like the wraith of the days behind him.  Like a reflected censer in the heart of the bloom shone the evening star.  The peace of it all lay in Mic-co’s fine, dark, tranquil face as he talked, subtly moulding another’s mind in the pattern of his own.  He did not preach.  Mic-co smoked and talked philosophy.

Carl had known but little respect for the opinions of others.  He was to learn it now.  He was to find his headstrong will matched by one stronger for all it was gentler; his impudent philosophy punctured by a wisdom as great as it was compassionate; his own magnetic power to influence as he willed, a negligible factor in the presence of a man whose magnetism was greater.

Mic-co had said quietly by the pool one night that he had been a doctor—­that he loved the peace and quiet of his island home—­that years back the Seminoles had saved his life.  He had since devoted his own life to their service.  They were a pitiful, hunted remnant of a great race who were kindred to the Aztec.

He seemed to think his explanation quite enough.  Wherefore Carl as quietly accepted what he offered.  There was much that he himself was pledged to withhold.  Thus their friendship grew into something fine and deep that was stronger medicine for Carl than any preaching.

“My mother and I were friends!” said Carl one night.  “When I was a lad of ten or so, as a concession to convention she married the man whose name I bear, a kindly chap who understood.  He died.  After that we were very close, my mother and I. We rode much together and talked.  I think she feared for me.  There was peace in my life then—­like this.  That is why I speak of it.  I needed a friend, some one like her with brains and grit and balance that I could respect—­some one who would understand.  There are but few—­”