Evasio Mon smiled gently.
"Of course," he murmured. "That is what I said to Leon, and to Sor Teresa also, who naturally is troubled about you. Though there are other alternatives. Neither Marcos nor the Church need have it. You could have it yourself as your father, my old and dear friend, intended it."
"How could I have it myself?" asked Juanita, whose curiosity was aroused.
Mon shrugged his shoulders.
"The Pope could annul such a marriage as yours by a stroke of the pen if he wished." He paused, looking at her beneath his light lashes. "And I am told he does wish it. What the Pope wishes--well, one must try to be a good Catholic if one can."
Juanita smiled. She did not perhaps consider herself called upon to admit the infallibility of his Holiness in matters of the heart. She knew better than the Pope. Mon saw that he had struck a false note.
"I am a sentimentalist myself," he said, with a frank laugh. "I should like every girl to marry for love. I should like love to be treated as something sacred--not as a joke. But I am getting to be an old man, Juanita. I am behind the times. Do I hear Sarrion in the passage?"
He rose as he spoke and went towards the door. Sarrion came in at that moment. The Spanish sense of hospitality is strongly Arabic. Mon had ridden many miles. Sarrion greeted him almost eagerly.