‘Yes,’ said the priest quietly.
‘I wonder why.’
‘So do I,’ he said in a tone that Señora Barenna never understood.
‘You are always kinder to her than you are to me,’ went on the lady in her most martyred manner. ‘Her penances are always lighter than mine. You are patient with her and not with me. And I am sure I have never done you any injury—’
The old Padre smiled. Perhaps he was thinking of those illusions which she had during the years pulled down one by one—for the greater peace of his soul.
‘There is the carriage,’ he said. ‘Let us hasten to General Vincente—if you wish to see him.’
In a few minutes they were rattling along the road, while Esteban Larralde and Julia sat side by side in the shade of the great wall that surrounded the fruit garden. And one at least of them was gathering that quick harvest of love which is like the grass of the field, inasmuch as to-day it is, and to-morrow is not.
General Vincente was at home. He was one of those men who are happy in finding themselves where they are wanted. So many have, on the contrary, the misfortune to be always absent when they are required, and the world soon learns to progress without them.
‘That man—that Larralde is in Ronda,’ said Señora Barenna, bursting in on the General’s solitude. Vincente smiled, and nevertheless exchanged a quick glance with Concha, who confirmed the news by a movement of his shaggy eyebrows.
‘Ah, these young people!’ exclaimed the General with a gay little sigh. ‘What it is to be young and in love! But be seated, Iñez—be seated. Padre—a chair.’