Fray Juan Perez, a truly guileless priest, started at the name; then he gazed intently, and with a sort of pity, at the youth; after which he bent his head toward the tiles beneath his feet, smiled, and shook his head like one whose thoughts were very active.
"I do, indeed, know the lady," he said, "and even when last at court, on this errand of Colon's, their own confessor being ill, I shrived her, as well as my royal mistress. That she is worthy of Doña Isabella's esteem is true; but thy admiration for this noble maiden, which must be something like the distant reverence we feel for the clouds that sail above our heads, can scarce be founded on any rational hopes."
"Thou canst not know that, father. If this expedition end as we trust, all who engage in it will be honored and advanced; and why not I, as well as another?"
"In this, thou may'st utter truth, but as for the Doña—" The Franciscan checked himself, for he was about to betray the secret of the confessional. He had, in truth, listened to the contrition of Mercedes, of which her passion for Luis was the principal cause; and it was he who, with a species of pious fraud of which he was himself unconscious, had first pointed out the means by which the truant noble might be made to turn his propensity to rove to the profit of his love; and his mind was full of her beautiful exhibition of purity and natural feeling, nearly even to overflowing. But habit and duty interfered in time, and he did not utter the name that had been trembling on his lips. Still, his thoughts continued in this current, and his tongue gave utterance to that portion of them which he believed to be harmless. "Thou hast been much about the world, it would seem, by Master Alonzo's greeting," he continued, after a short pause; "didst ever meet, son, with a certain cavalier of Castile, named Don Luis de Bobadilla—a grandee, who also bears the title of Conde de Llera?"
"I know little of his hopes, and care less for his titles," returned Luis, calmly, who thought he would manifest a magnanimous indifference to the Franciscan's opinions—"but I have seen the cavalier, and a roving, mad-brained, graceless youth it is, of whom no good can be expected."
"I fear this is but too true," rejoined Fray Juan Perez, shaking his head in a melancholy manner—"and yet they say he is a gallant knight, and the very best lance in all Spain."
"Ay, he may be that," answered Luis, hemming a little louder than was decorous, for his throat began to grow husky—"Ay, he may be that; but of what avail is a good lance without a good character. I hear little commendable of this young Conde de Llera."
"I trust he is not the man he generally passeth for,"—answered the simple-hearted monk, without in the least suspecting his companion's disguise; "and I do know that there are some who think well of him—nay, whose existence, I might say whose very souls, are wrapped up in him!"
"Holy Franciscan!—why wilt thou not mention the names of one or two of these?" demanded Luis, with an impetuosity that caused the prior to start.
"And why should I give this information to thee, young man, more than to another?"