Artegui, smiling more brightly than before, offered her his arm; but she declined to take it. When they reached the street she walked along in silence, with downcast eyes; she missed the protecting shade of the black veil of her lace manto, which concealed her face and gave her so modest an air when she walked under the beams of the half-ruined vaulted roof of the cathedral at Leon. The cathedral of Bayonne seemed to her as delicately beautiful as a filigree ornament, but she could not listen to the mass so devoutly there as in the other; the exquisite purity of the temple, like an elaborately carved casket; the vivid coloring of the Neo-Byzantine figures painted on a gold background in the transept, the novelty of the open choir; of the tabernacle, isolated and without ornament; the moving of the prayer-desks; the walking to and fro of the women who rented the chairs, all disturbed her. It seemed to her as if she were in a temple of a different faith from her own. A white-robed virgin, wearing a mantle ornamented with gold bands and holding in her arms the Divine Infant in one of the chapels of the nave, tranquillized her somewhat. Then she recited a number of Hail Marys; she pulled apart one by one the leaves of the blood red roses of the rosary, of the mystic lilies of the litany. She left the temple with a light step and a joyful heart. The first object on which her eyes fell when she reached the door was Artegui looking with interest at the Gothic cinter of the portal.
“I have sent telegrams to all the various stations on the route, Señora,” he said, politely raising his hat when he saw her; “especially to the most important station, Miranda de Ebro. I have taken the liberty of signing them with your name.”
“Thanks—but have you not heard mass?” exclaimed the young girl, looking at him in surprise.
“No, Señora; I come, as I have just told you, from the telegraph office,” he answered evasively.
“You must hurry, then, if you wish to be in time. The priest has just this moment come out, in his vestments.”
A slight frown crossed Artegui’s face.
“I shall not go to mass,” he said, half seriously, half jestingly. “At least not unless you particularly desire it—in which case——”
“Not go to mass!” exclaimed the young girl with wide-open eyes, amazed and disturbed as well. “And why do you not go to mass? Are you not a Christian?”
“Let us suppose that I am not,” he stammered, in a low voice, like a criminal confessing his crime before his judge, and shaking his head with a melancholy air.
“Good heavens! What are you then?” And Lucía clasped her hands in distress.