"But you are strong for your years. How old are you?"
"Twenty-one."
Michel could safely risk that falsehood; for, although he had as yet no beard on his chin, he had attained his full growth, and his active and restless brain had already caused him to lose the first bloom of youth. In this last reply he complied with a special injunction which his father had laid upon him when they parted, and which came to his mind most opportunely: "If you come to Sicily to join me one day or another," said old Pier-Angelo, "remember that, until you have actually joined me, you must not say a word of truth in reply to people who seem to you curious and inquisitive. Tell them neither your name, nor your age, nor your profession, nor mine, nor whence you come, nor whither you are going. The police are more meddlesome than shrewd. Lie boldly and have no fear."
"If my father should hear me," thought Michel, after he had thus distinguished himself, "he would be satisfied with me."
"It is well," said the abbé, and he stepped away from the prelate's door, so that the latter could see the poor devil who had thus attracted his attention. Michel's eyes met the moribund's terrible glance, and he thereupon felt more distrust and aversion than respect for that narrow and despotic brow. Warned by an inward presentiment that he was in a dangerous position, he changed the customary expression of his face, and substituting sheepishness for pride therein, he bent his knee, hung his head in order to escape the prelate's scrutiny, and pretended to await his benediction.
"His eminence blesses you mentally," said the abbé, after consulting the cardinal's eyes, and he motioned to the bearers to go forward.
The chair passed through the gateway and proceeded slowly along the avenue.
"I would like well to know," thought Michel, as he looked after the procession, "whether my instinct deceived me, or whether that man is the enemy of my family."
He was about to continue his journey, when he observed that Abbé Ninfo had not followed the cardinal, but was waiting until the last mule had passed, in order to lock the gate and restore the key to his pocket. This strange caretaking on the part of a man so close to the cardinal was well calculated to make an impression on him, and the keen, sidelong glance which that unattractive personage stealthily bestowed upon him impressed him even more.
"It is evident that I am already watched in this unhappy country," he thought; "and that my father did not dream of the enmities against which he warned me to be on my guard."