"I have been advised not to."
"By whom?"
Leon looked distressed. He was pained, it would seem, that the friend of his childhood should step so bluntly on to delicate ground.
"It is a secret of the confession."
Marcos exchanged a grave glance with his father, who sat back in his chair as one may see a leader sit back while his junior counsel conducts an able cross-examination.
"Have you advised Juanita of the terms of her father's will?"
"I understand," answered Leon, "that it will make but little difference to Juanita. She has her allowance as I have mine. My father, I understand, had but little to bequeath to her."
Marcos glanced at his father again, and then at the clock. He had, it appeared, finished his cross-examination, and was now characteristically anxious to get to action.
Sarrion now took the lead in conversation, and proffered the usual condolences and desire to help, in the formal Spanish way. He could hardly conceal his contempt for Leon, who, for his part, was not free from embarrassment. They had nothing in common but the subject which had brought the Sarrions hither, and upon this point they could not progress satisfactorily, seeing that Sarrion himself had evidently sustained a greater loss than the dead man's own son.
They rose and took leave, promising to attend the mass next day. Leon became interested again at once in this side of the question, which was not without a thrill of novelty for him. He had organised and taken part in many interesting and gorgeous ceremonies. But a requiem mass for one's own father must necessarily be unique in the most varied career of religious emotion. He was a little flurried, as a girl is flurried at her first ball, and felt that the eye of the black-letter saints was upon him.