"I apologise for intruding myself, father," he said, "but the other tables——"
The priest smiled and raised a protesting hand.
"The table is at your disposition, my son," he said.
He was about the same age as the stranger, but he spoke with the assurance of years. His voice was modulated, his accent refined, his presence that of a gentleman.
"A Jesuit," thought the stranger, and regarded him with politely veiled curiosity. Jesuits had a fascination for him. They were clever, and they were good; but principally they were a mysterious force that rode triumphant over the prejudice of the world and the hatred in the Church.
"If I were not an adventurer," he said aloud, and with an air of simplicity, "I should be a Jesuit."
The priest smiled again, looking at him with calm interest.
"My son," he said, "if I were not a Jesuit priest, I should be suspicious of your well-simulated frankness."
Here would have come a deadlock to a man of lesser parts than the stranger, but he was a very adaptable man. None the less, he was surprised into a laugh which showed his white teeth.
"In Spain," he said, "no gambit to conversation is known. I might have spoken of the weather, of the crowd, of the king—I chose to voice my faults."