Antonio had met his match. If Isabel had been a man he could have met imperiousness with imperiousness, sarcasm with sarcasm, demand with demand, until he had established his will. But Isabel mastered him. He could only stand before her, like a refined and handsome José, awaiting orders.
"What you must understand is this," she said. "You have promised to come and talk to me now and then, while my father is in Lisbon. You've promised, and I want you to do it. I must talk to somebody sometimes, mustn't I? But I'd rather not have you at all than have any more times like Friday afternoon with Mrs. Baxter. You may think that, because she finished the story of her life on Friday, you've got the worst of it over; but you haven't. You've still to hear about the dear Marchioness of Witheringfield. Mrs. Baxter didn't know the dear Marchioness from Eve; but the tale will take an hour, all the same. Also, you've to hear how Mrs. Baxter lost the Baxter jewels, which she never possessed; and how she undermined her health nursing me through a month's fever, though it was really only a two-days' cold in the head; and how she rescued the little Viscount Datton from a burning house, which she never saw in her life. Don't think me spiteful. I simply can't stand it. Of course, you must put up with Mrs. Baxter once in a while; but, speaking generally, if you're coming any more to talk to me, I want you to talk to me here, at this pool, in the mornings."
"If I come here, to this pool, in the mornings," asked Antonio, who had recovered himself, "how do you know that I shan't inflict on you a string of histories as long as Mrs. Baxter's?"
Although he did not mean to fish for a compliment, his ears expected some pleasing reply; and he was a little crestfallen when she replied brusquely:
"Perhaps you will. Only don't you see, they will be histories I haven't heard fifty times already. Come to-morrow morning. Now we ought to be going. It must be close on four o'clock."
III
The next morning Isabel and Antonio conversed, to the accompaniment of the cascade's deep music, for nearly an hour. The morning following, their talk lasted eighty minutes. On the Wednesday Antonio again drank tea with Mrs. Baxter, who regaled him with the full story of the little Viscount Datton's escape from the blaze at Datton Towers; of his lordship's ingratitude and eventual marriage; and of the young Viscountess Datton's scandalous callousness when her consort broke his collar-bone in a steeple-chase. On the Friday morning the monk met Isabel again at the pool. Business took him to Villa Branca on the Saturday; but Sunday afternoon saw him striding over the stepping-stones once more.
Although these sunny hours were seasons of delight and refreshment to Antonio's human spirit, they did not parch the springs of his Christly life. Every night he continued the pious practice of self-examination; and he was able, in all honesty and reverence, to justify himself by the example of his Lord. Diligebat Jesus Martham et sororem ejus Mariam, "Jesus loved Martha and her sister Mary;" and, on the eve of His passion he fortified His weary spirit for the last conflict by abiding quietly in Martha's and Mary's house. And, in this sense—diligebat not amabat—Antonio loved Isabel. He was drawn to her by silken cords of pity for a loneliness and lovelessness far worse than his own. He loved, with a fine spiritual sympathy unwarped by earthly passion, the brave, truthful ardent soul underneath the ice of her pride. No doubt he found a sensuous pleasure in the softness of her voice, in her ever-varying beauty, and in her never-failing grace; but these charms delighted him by reason of an exquisite fitness, like the fitness of richly embroidered vestments and pure golden chalices or monstrances in great acts of spiritual worship. He loved her with a sacred and not with a profane love.
Nevertheless, the monk knew that he was only a weak mortal, and that he had drifted into a situation rife with perils. He remembered that better Christians than he had made shipwreck of their faith through yielding themselves too confidently to feminine companionship. He recalled the solemn warning of Saint Paul: "Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall." But, so far as his own safety was concerned, a single consideration sufficed to reassure him. In a few days Sir Percy would return, and it was almost certain that he would bid his women-folk pack their chattels and depart before the second instalment of purchase-money fell due. Within a month, perhaps within a week, Isabel would pass out of Antonio's life. Once more he would have to settle down with José to their dull and lonesome grind, and probably years would drag away before he could hear an English voice again.