"whether these two people consent to this—er—union." He turned to the Maestra. "Do you want to marry this young man?" he asked, pointing to the snivelling Ledesma.
"Oh, yes," answered the Maestra, suavely, "he must marry me."
"And you," went on Huston, turning to Ledesma, "do you wish to take this maid to wife?"
Ledesma opened his mouth like a carp, then shut it again. He looked fearfully toward the Maestro. The Maestro glared significantly. Ledesma's hands began to wring each other; beads of perspiration appeared about his lips. "I—I" he stammered.
"Look a-here," thundered the Maestro, impatiently; "what the deuce is the need of all this fuss? He's got to marry her, that's all. He's got to marry her, do you understand?" he repeated, a vision of his ruined schools aflame in his mind; "it's the kind of marriage that's got to be, catch on?"
It is the misfortune of us humans that our speech is, after all, but a poor instrument for the expression of our thoughts. The same words, the same phrases, are capable of diverse interpretation. For instance, to the Maestro, the kind of marriage that has to be was merely the marriage that would settle the crisis of his schools. For the missionary there was only
