"If you will excuse me," he said to Luis, "it would be better, when you see the Father Superior, if the woman would dress rather less indecently. You see, we are monks and are not used to it."
We went down the hill accompanied by the old woman in black, who was chuckling at Brother Juan's last remark.
"If only the woman would ... he ... he ... we are monks and aren't used to it ... ho ... ho."
I was surprised. It had not seemed to me that I was indecent. I was wearing an ordinary English midsummer walking dress. Luis said:
"I think it was the opening at your neck that worried him. You see we haven't really taken up the open neck in Murcia as yet."
Directed by the old woman, we scrambled down steep paths to the bottom of the orange-coloured ravine, and up the other side past the aloes; we went through an olive grove, and again up a steep zigzag road to the second monastery. Here lived the clerkly man, but we did not know his name. This monastery began with a terra-cotta-coloured Gothic church with three tall towers and a cupola of blue glazed tiles, and rambled on up the ridge of a long hill to end in a tall building which looked like an overgrown Turkish bath. A grey building with a huge entrance door was pointed out as the pension of the monastery. We wandered into a large courtyard and to us came a fat priest wearing a biretta. He was courteous but firm.
"We have no room," he said.
But we remembered that the clerkly one had said that there was room. I suppose again my dress was the real objection.
We went back towards the village of the little Señor. On our way we again crossed the dusty road which led to La Luz. A carriage was driving along it. In the carriage were two priests. Luis said:
"There probably goes the Father Superior. Shall we ask him now?"