Arthur laughed.
"Why not? It is as good as any."
"But to right the oppressed? To do justice to the unjustly accused, eh? To redress wrongs—ah, my son! that is noble. That, Don Arturo—it is that has made you and your colleagues dear to me—dear to those who have been the helpless victims of your courts—your corregidores."
"Yes, yes," interrupted Arthur, hastily, shedding the Father's praise with an habitual deft ease that was not so much the result of modesty as a certain conscious pride that resented any imperfect tribute. "Yes, I suppose it pays as well, if not better, in the long run. 'Honesty is the best policy,' as our earliest philosophers say."
"Pardon?" queried the Padre.
Arthur, intensely amused, made a purposely severe and literal translation of Franklin's famous apothegm, and then watched Father Felipe raise his eyes and hands to the ceiling in pious protest and mute consternation.
"And these are your American ethics?" he said at last.
"They are, and in conjunction with manifest destiny, and the star of Empire, they have brought us here, and—have given me the honour of your acquaintance," said Arthur in English.
Father Felipe looked at his friend in hopeless bewilderment. Arthur instantly became respectful and Spanish. To change the subject and relieve the old man's evident embarrassment, he at once plunged into a humorous description of his adventure of the morning. The diversion was only partially successful. Father Felipe became at once interested, but did not laugh. When the young man had concluded he approached him, and laying his soft hand on Arthur's curls, turned his face upward toward him with a parental gesture that was at once habitual and professional, and said—
"Look at me here. I am an old man, Don Arturo. Pardon me if I think I have some advice to give you that may be worthy your hearing. Listen, then! You are one of those men capable of peculiarly affecting and being affected by women. So! Pardon," he continued, gently, as a slight flush rose into Arthur's cheek, despite the smile that came as quickly to his face. "Is it not so? Be not ashamed, Don Arturo! It is not here," he added, with a poetical gesture toward the wall of the refectory, where hung the painted effigy of the blessed St Anthony; "it is not here that I would undervalue or speak lightly of their influence. The widow is rich, eh?—handsome, eh? impulsive? You have no heart in the profession you have chosen. What then? You have some in the instincts—what shall I say—the accomplishments and graces you have not considered worthy of a practical end! You are a natural lover. Pardon! You have the four S's—'Sáno, solo, solicito, y secreto.' Good! Take an old man's advice, and make good use of them. Turn your weaknesses—eh? perhaps it is too strong a word!—the frivolities and vanities of your youth into a power for your old age! Eh?"