"It is easy enough to go anywhere nowadays," said Martin surlily.
"I wish you would go to the devil," I thought. "That would certainly be easy enough."
But it would have been premature to force my own company upon Fanny any longer. I relied upon the presence of death and her brother to hinder Martin's suit from developing beyond the point it had already reached. It remained to be seen whether the damage was irreparable. I went again on the Saturday night, following with interest the service that had seemed a council-meeting. This time it began with singing, in which everybody joined and in which I took part with hearty inarticulateness. But a little experience convinced me that my course was beset with pitfalls, that not Mary Jane aspiring to personify a duchess could glide on thinner ice than I attempting to behave as one of these strange people, with their endless and all-embracing network of religious etiquette. To my joy I discovered that I could pursue my suit without going to synagogue, a place of dire peril, for it seems that the Spaniards are a distinct sect, mightily proud of their blood and their peculiar pronunciation, and the Radowskis, being Poles, did not expect to see me worshipping with themselves, which enabled me to continue my devotions in the Holy Chapel of St. Vincent. It also enabled me to skate over many awkward moments, the Poles being indifferently informed as to the etiquette of their Peninsular cousins. That I should have been twice taken for one of their own race rather surprised me, for my physiognomical relationship to it seemed of the slightest. The dark complexion, the foreign air, doubtless gave me a superficial resemblance, and in the face it is the surface that tells. I read up Spanish history and learnt that many Jews had become Christians during the persecutions of the Holy Inquisition, and that many had escaped the fires of the auto-da-fé by feigning conversion, the while secretly performing their strange rites, and handing down to their descendants the traditions of secrecy and of Judaism, these unhappy people being styled Marranos. Perchance I was sprung from some such source, but there was no hint of it in my genealogy so far as known to me; my name Mendoza was a good old Andalusian name, and my ancestors had for generations been good sons of the only true Church. The question has no interest for me now.
For, although like Cæsar I am entitled to say that I came, saw, and conquered, conquering not only Fanny but my rival, yet am I still a bachelor. I had driven Martin on one side as easily as a steamer bearing down upon a skiff, yet my own lips betrayed me. It was the desire to penetrate the mystery of the restaurant that undid me, for if a woman cannot keep a secret, a man cannot refrain from fathoming one. The rose-gardens of Love were open for my walking when the demon in possession prompted me to speech that silvered the red roses with hoar-frost and ice.
One day I sat holding her dear hand in mine. She permitted me no more complex caresses, being still in black. Such was the sense of duty of this beautiful, warm-blooded Oriental creature, that she was as cold as her father's tombstone, and equally eulogistic of his virtues. She spoke of them now, though I would fain have diverted the talk to hers. Failing that, I seized the opportunity to solve the haunting puzzle.
"Do you know, I fancy I once saw your father," I said, earnestly.
"Indeed!" she observed, with much interest. "Where?"
"In a restaurant not many miles from here. It was before noon."
"In a restaurant?" she repeated. "Hardly very likely. There isn't any restaurant near here he would be likely to go to, and certainly not at the time you mention, when he would be in the city. You must be mistaken."
I shook my head. "I don't think so. I remember his face so well. When I saw his photograph I recognized him at once."