“You impress me very favourably, Señor,” said the Italian, giving Leon his hand with a hearty gesture. “At the same time your position with reference to that blessed martyr is a strange one, and unpleasant for both of you.”
“It is the singularity of our position,” said Leon, “that made me decide on coming myself, that I might give you certain items of information which concern no one but me, and request your co-operation...”
“Mine?”
“Yes—to help me to carry out my arrangements, and get out of my difficulties as well as possible.”
Paoletti knit his brows. He had risen to start at once; but he now sat down again, and once more began to twirl his thumbs.
“In the first place,” he said in the tone of a man accustomed to drive matters home, “explain to me the motives which brought you here. It is strange enough that you should come to confess to me, surely?” And he smiled with sarcastic triumph in a way that to Leon was more offensive than open mockery would have been.
“To confess?—yes indeed!”
“No, no, Señor,” said Paoletti with an affectation of sweetness which betrayed his Italian blood, “I do not expect you to confess—far from it! you will neither lay bare your conscience, nor retract your errors. You will only tell me what I know already—what every one knows. And all in order that I may help you...” And the priest ended his sentence by quoting the reports diffused by Pilar de San Salomó’s gossiping circle.
“In all that there is a little truth and a great deal of falsehood,” said Leon. “It is false to say that Monina is my child; it is false to accuse me of such a connection with Pepa Fúcar. That I love her is true—and that every kind of love for my unhappy wife is dead within me. I have no feeling left for her but calm regard, and a dispassionate respect for her virtues which I fully acknowledge.”
“Regard, respect!” said Paoletti. “Appreciation of her virtues!... This, Sir, is something. The pure and noble soul of María Egyptiaca deserves more, much more, it is true; but if we might hope that your regard and respect would develop and expand....” Again he took Leon’s hand in his own which was as white and cold as marble—“we might bring about a reconciliation.”