“No, no, I couldn’t allow that to be said. But I’m proud if I, in any way, had a humble——”
“Exactly. And if that comes out—and surely why shouldn’t it?—everybody will be very grateful to you—except perhaps the distinctly ecclesiastical charities! By the way, do you know this Father Garcia? He’s living in this house, on the first floor, and we called him in to see Arsenio—last night, you know,—before he died.”
“I don’t know Father Garcia personally,” he said stiffly, “but very well by repute.” He paused; I waited to see what he would say of Father Garcia. “An utter reactionary, a black reactionary, and none too good an Italian.” He lowered his voice and whispered, “Strongly suspected of Austrian sympathies!”
“I see,” I replied gravely. He had almost got even with the old priest’s “pestilent.”
He rose and bade me a ceremonious farewell. As he went out, he said, “This bequest—and whether it comes into operation or not, it must receive publicity—coming from a member of the old reactionary nobility—from a Spanish Catholic—may well be considered to mark a stage in the growing solidarity of Italy.”
That seemed as much as even Arsenio himself could have expected of it!
CHAPTER XXV
HOMAGE