"Marry Isabel?" whistled the young man. "I might as well propose to marry Helen or Cleopatra. By the way, I don't believe that either Helen or Cleopatra was half so good-looking as Isabel. She's younger than either of 'em; but the point is that she's three years older than poor little Edward. No. Fortunately I don't want Isabel. If I did, it would be a sad case of unrequited affection."
He fixed his eyes once more on the far-spread waters. When he spoke again, it was with a solemnity in strange contrast with his interlude of jesting.
"Senhor da Rocha," he said. "I shall never marry. For months this has been growing clearer and clearer to my mind. For the present I shall stick to my engineering. I shall make more in ten years out of tunnels and embankments than my father has made in thirty out of barrels and bottles. And afterwards? I don't know. But something is in store for me which forbids me to marry."
His words moved Antonio deeply. Sixteen years before, his own vocation had proclaimed itself to his soul in this very way. He turned reverent eyes upon his companion; for had not God chosen this strange youth to be a priest and perhaps a monk? In repose Edward Crowberry's face was not without nobility. For the first time Antonio thoroughly understood him. He perceived that Edward's quickness to seize the humors of life connoted a deep sense of its pathos. Under the glittering spray of his jests and sarcasms was an unending undertone of world-woe. Young Crowberry saw, better than others, the sharp outlines of Time's successive moments because their infinitely varying curves and angles cut brilliant patterns in the near background of Eternity.
An inward voice spoke to Antonio. It was as clear as any of the commands which had guided him in the great crises of his history; and he obeyed it without parleying.
"Let us go down," he said.
They went down. Sir Percy had not arrived. The monk walked out and scanned the path. Nobody was in sight.
"You believe," he said to young Crowberry, as he re-entered the chapel, "that some work, some sacred work, is reserved for you in the future? Are you willing to do a good work this very night?"
"You mean," said the youth, "am I willing to sit up with you and to disprove that monstrous tale about a monk's ghost? I am willing. I told you so yesterday."
"No and Yes," Antonio answered. "We will disprove the midnight ghost. But I mean something else. Will you work with me against Sir Percy to save these azulejos?"