He looked from one to the other with an apprehensive glance. His pale eyes had that dulness which betokens, if not an absorption in the things to come, that which often passes for the same, an incompetence to face the present moment.
"I was about to write to you," he said, addressing himself to Sarrion. "I am having a mass celebrated tomorrow in the Cathedral. My father, I know... "
"I shall be there," said Sarrion, rather shortly.
"And Marcos?"
"I, also," replied Marcos.
"One must do what one can," said Leon, with a resigned sigh.
Marcos, the man of action and not of words, looked at him and said nothing. He was perhaps noticing that the dishonest boy had grown into a dishonest man. Monastic religion is like a varnish, it only serves to bring out the true colour, and is powerless to alter it by more than a shade. Those who have lived in religious communities know that human nature is the same there as in the world--that a man who is not straightforward may grow in monastic zeal day by day, but he will never grow straightforward. On the other hand, if a man be a good man, religion will make him better, but it must not be a religion that runs to words.
Leon sat with folded hands and lowered eyes. He was a sort of amateur monk, and, like all amateurs, he was apt to exaggerate outward signs. It was Marcos who spoke at length.
"Do you intend," he asked in his matter-of-fact way, "to make any effort to discover and punish your father's assassins?"