All these probings left him unpricked. His contentment obstinately refused to be ruffled. Breaking his rule, he drank two glasses of sweet wine and ate a whole broa of Margarida's making. When he rose to go Margarida's manner was perceptibly less aloof, and she begged him to come again. At the street door Theophilo said:
"Your Excellency has heaped kindness upon kindness. How shall I ever repay him?"
"By permitting me to visit his house again to-morrow night," answered Antonio; "your Worship will have become my creditor. Adeus."
He worked his hand free from Theophilo's iron grip and returned to the hospedaria, where he fell asleep as soon as his head touched the pillow. Next morning, after Mass, he did not lose a moment in opening negotiations for the raising of an immediate conto of reis on his encumbered assets. But Luis and Theophilo, in pledging all they possessed, had almost exhausted the ready-money resources of Navares. Late in the after noon Antonio thought he was succeeding; but the existence of the Oporto usurers' second mortgage on the farm blocked the way. At four o'clock he gave up the struggle and went to Santa Cruz to say his Office. At half-past five he sat down in the hospedaria to dine.
Just after the soup tureen had been placed on the table a tremendous noise arose from the street. Every dog in Navares was outside, barking his hardest, and the iron shoes of a spirited horse were hammering on the cobbles. The Gallego waiter rushed downstairs to welcome the guest. Doors banged, hostlers shouted, buckets clanked, a horse neighed. The inn cat, which Antonio had been nursing, leaped from his knee and rushed downstairs to the lobby whence the prolonged wail of a badly scratched dog immediately ascended.
The monk, alone at the table, filled his gaudy plate with vegetable soup and began to eat. The stranger came upstairs to his room amidst a babble of welcoming voices. Through the thin wall Antonio could hear him drop his heavy boots on the bare floor. A cheerful splashing followed. The Gallego waiter, hurrying in with a dish of bacalhau, white cabbage, and hard-boiled eggs, excitedly explained to Antonio that the newcomer was an Englishman; and, five minutes later, a plumpish, rather florid man, with a clean-shaven face and soft yellow hair, strode into the room calling out an order for green wine.
Antonio rose and found himself face to face with young Crowberry. But, somehow, he could not feel in the least degree surprised.
"Good evening, Teddy," he said quietly. "Welcome to Navares."
Young Crowberry jumped. He stared blankly across the soup at the gray-haired man with the gentle voice. Then he flung himself forward against the table so impetuously that a brown water-pot was overturned and an empty glass jumped down to the floor with a crash.
"Da Rocha! By Jove! Da Rocha!" he cried, wringing the monk's hand. "Man, I've come all the way from England to find you. Why the deuce did you drop writing? And what do you mean by growing gray hairs? How's José and all the little Josés, and the champagne and all the little champagnes, and the orange brandy? Have you pawned the spoons? Da Rocha! By Jove!"