“It is a secret of the confession.”
Marcos exchanged a grave glance with his father, who
sat back in his chair as one may see a leader sit
back while his junior counsel conducts an able cross-examination.
“Have you advised Juanita of the terms of her
father’s will?”
“I understand,” answered Leon, “that
it will make but little difference to Juanita.
She has her allowance as I have mine. My father,
I understand, had but little to bequeath to her.”
Marcos glanced at his father again, and then at the
clock. He had, it appeared, finished his cross-examination,
and was now characteristically anxious to get to action.
Sarrion now took the lead in conversation, and proffered
the usual condolences and desire to help, in the formal
Spanish way. He could hardly conceal his contempt
for Leon, who, for his part, was not free from embarrassment.
They had nothing in common but the subject which had
brought the Sarrions hither, and upon this point they
could not progress satisfactorily, seeing that Sarrion
himself had evidently sustained a greater loss than
the dead man’s own son.
They rose and took leave, promising to attend the
mass next day. Leon became interested again at
once in this side of the question, which was not without
a thrill of novelty for him. He had organised
and taken part in many interesting and gorgeous ceremonies.
But a requiem mass for one’s own father must
necessarily be unique in the most varied career of
religious emotion. He was a little flurried, as
a girl is flurried at her first ball, and felt that
the eye of the black-letter saints was upon him.
He shook hands absent-mindedly with his friends, and
was already making mental note of their addition to
the number secured for to-morrow’s ceremony.
He was very earnest about it, and Marcos left him with
a sudden softening of the heart towards him, such
as the strong must always feel for the weak.
“You see,” said Sarrion, when they were
in the street, “what Evasio Mon has made him.
I do not know whether you are disposed to hand over
Juanita and her three million pesetas to Evasio Mon
as well.”
Marcos made no reply, but walked on, wrapt in thought.
“I must see Juanita,” he said, at length,
after a long silence, and Sarrion’s wise eyes
were softened by a smile which flitted across them
like a flash of sunlight across a darkened field.
“Remember,” he said, “that Juanita
is a child. She cannot be expected to know her
own mind for at least three years.”
Marcos nodded his head, as if he knew what was coming.
“And remember that the danger is imminent—that
Evasio Mon is not the man to let the grass grow beneath
his feet—that we cannot let Juanita wait...
three weeks.”
“I know,” answered Marcos.
The Quarry Sarrion called at the convent
school of the Sisters of the True Faith the next morning,
and was informed through the grating that the school
was in Retreat.
