"Then old Martins has taken my share," said Antonio curtly. "I repeat I shall not marry."
"The reason?"
"My ... my work."
"Work? Is your Worship the only man in Portugal who works? There's a bit of work, now and again, on my own farm. Is it the worse done because there's a mistress, and three stout sons and the best daughter a man ever had? Work! My wife and I squabble sometimes; but the best day's work I ever did was to get married."
The monk held his peace. Senhor Jorge, genuinely desirous of promoting Antonio's happiness as well as Margarida's, chaffed him with rough heartiness.
"Come, come," said he. "Your head's full of cobwebs. You've been hiding yourself too long in holes and corners. Don't be a fool. It's all very well while you're young and healthy; but, when days and nights of sickness come, who will nurse you then, and put up with your foibles? And who will carry on the wine-making when you're dead and gone? Come, you don't want to let the grand old family of Da Rocha die out? Besides ... a man without a woman is only half a man."
Senhor Jorge uttered his concluding sentence with a meaning change of tone. But, even if his own daughter Margarida had not been involved, the lavrador had too much delicacy to expand this clinching argument. Antonio, however, scented the meaning.
What was he to say? All these arguments against celibacy, and a host of others more refined, had hurled themselves in his teeth a dozen years before, when he first contemplated the vow of chastity. But the answers which satisfied him were not available in the presence of Senhor Jorge. He could not reply that he had deliberately renounced his high-sounding names until events forced him to resume them; that he welcomed roughness and solitary vigils of pain in thankful honor of the Man of Sorrows; and that the succession of Saint Benedict's spiritual family was secure until the end of the world. With bent head and knitted brows he remained mute.
"Then I will persuade you no more," said Senhor Jorge. "If my wife knew I had said half so much, she would never forgive me. By Saint Braz! To think I should be begging and praying anybody to be so kind as to marry Marge! Before I asked for Perpetua, I had to go down almost on my bended knees. Pssh! Sometimes, before she braided up her hair, I've watched Margaridinha playing about the house and I've thought how I would hum and haw and hesitate when a suitor should come along. I thank your Worship. For to-night I've done with him. If he wants to speak to me after Mass next Sunday he may; but next Sunday will be his last chance."
Antonio flung himself against the door before his ruffled host could open it.