‘What do you mean, child?’
‘After we came home you put on the grey veil and went out alone. That is always confession, isn’t it? When you came home you put up the veil and kissed me. Your cheeks were just a little wet still. So it was the priest, wasn’t it, who made you cry?’
Maria would not deny the truth.
‘It was something the confessor said to me,’ she answered.
‘I told you so!’ returned the small boy. ‘I hate him!’
He was well aware that if he stayed another moment where he was his mother would tell him that it was very wrong to hate anybody, so he struggled out of her hold, slipped from her knees to the floor, knelt down and began to say his small evening prayer with such amazing alacrity that Maria’s breath was taken away and she could not get in a word of rebuke; in spite of herself she smiled over his bent head and felt very irreverently inclined to laugh at his manœuvre. But before he had finished her face was very grave, and when he got up from his knees she spoke to him before she kissed his forehead.
‘Listen to me, my boy,’ she said. ‘You know that I always tell you the truth, don’t you?’
‘Yes,’ answered Leone. ‘So do I. It’s cowardly to tell lies. Mario Campodonico is a coward, and he lies like anything.’
‘Never mind Mario. I don’t want you to say that you hate priests.’