A change, like that produced by a sudden electric shock, passed over Dino's face. His hands fell to his sides. They had been outstretched before, as if in greeting.
"You do not want to see him?" he repeated.
"I will not see him," said Brian, harshly, almost violently. "Weak as I am, I'll go straight out of the house and village sooner than meet him. Why does he want to see me? I have nothing to give him now."
Long afterwards he remembered the look on Dino's face. Pain, regret, yearning affection, seemed to struggle for the mastery; his eyes were filled with tears, his lips were pale. But he said nothing. He went away from the room, and took the message that had been given him to the Prior.
Brian felt that he had perhaps been selfish, but he consoled himself with the thought that the peasant lad would gain nothing by a meeting with him, and that such an embarrassing interview, as it must necessarily be, would be a pain to them both.
But he did not know that the foster-brother (brother or foster-brother, which could it be?) was sobbing on the floor of the Prior's cell, in a passion of vehement grief at Brian's rejection of Padre Cristoforo's proposition. He would scarcely have understood that grief if he had seen it. He would have found it difficult to realise that the boy, Dino, had grown from childhood with a strong but suppressed belief in his mother's strange story, and yet, that, as soon as he saw Brian Luttrell, his heart had gone out to him with the passionate tenderness that he had waited all his life to bestow upon a brother.
"Take it not so much to heart, Dino," said the Prior, looking down at him compassionately. "It was not to be expected that he would welcome the news. Thou art a fool, little one, to grieve over his coldness. Come, these are a girl's tears, and thou should'st be a man by now."
The words were caressingly spoken, but they failed of their effect. Dino did not look up.
"For one reason," said the Prior, in a colder tone, half to himself and half to the novice, "I am glad that he has not seen you. Your course will, perhaps, be the easier. Because, Dino, although I may believe my theory to be the correct one, and that you and our guest are both the children of Vincenza Vasari, yet it is a theory which is as difficult to prove as any other; and our good friend, the Cardinal, who was here last week, you know, chooses to take the other view."
"What other view, Reverend Father?" said Dino.