She had endeavored to interrupt him once or twice, and did so now, her eyes flashing. "Are you an atheist?" she demanded, abruptly. "Are you not a Catholic?"
"I am neither an atheist nor a Catholic. The question of religion has no interest for me whatever. I wish it had none for you."
She looked at him sternly. For a moment I thought the Doomswoman would annihilate the renegade. But her face softened suddenly. "I will pray for you," she said, and turned to the man at her right.
Estenega's face turned the chalky hue I always dreaded, and he bent his lips to her ear.
"Pray for me many times a day; and at other times recall what I said about the relative value of possible and improbable heavens. You are a woman who thinks."
"Don Diego," exclaimed Valencia, unable to control her impatience longer, and turning sharply from the caballero who was talking to her in a fiery undertone, "thou hast not spoken to me for ten minutes."
"For ten hours, señorita. Thou hast treated me with the scorn and indifference of one weary of homage."
She blushed with gratification. "It is thou who hast forgotten me."
"Would that I could!"
"Dost thou wish to?"