“How sorry I was for it, my dear Don José! Believe me, I was truly sorry for it,” he said, pressing the young man’s hand and regarding him with a look of compassion.
The engineer was so perplexed for a moment that he did not know what to answer.
“I refer to the occurrence of this afternoon.”
“Ah, yes!”
“To your expulsion from the sacred precincts of the cathedral.”
“The bishop should consider well,” said Pepe Rey, “before he turns a Christian out of the church.”
“That is very true. I don’t know who can have put it into his lordship’s head that you are a man of very bad habits; I don’t know who has told him that you make a boast of your atheism everywhere; that you ridicule sacred things and persons, and even that you are planning to pull down the cathedral to build a large tar factory with the stones. I tried my best to dissuade him, but his lordship is a little obstinate.”
“Thanks for so much kindness.”
“And it is not because the Penitentiary has any reason to show you these considerations. A little more, and they would have left him stretched on the ground this afternoon.”
“Bah!” said the ecclesiastic, laughing. “But have you heard of that little prank already? I wager Maria Remedios came with the story. And I forbade her to do it—I forbade her positively. The thing in itself is of no consequence, am I not right, Señor de Rey?”