“This is vain talk, my son,” said the Abbot. “Were I of the children of this world, my righteous indignation——”
“Pooh!” said Geoffrey.
“——would light on thee heavily. But we who have renounced the world and its rottenness” (here his voice fell into a manner of chanting) “make a holiday of forgiving injuries, and find a pleasure even in pain.”
“Open this door then,” Geoffrey answered, “and I’ll provide thee with a whole week of joy.”
“Nay,” said Father Anselm, “I had never gathered from thy face that thou wert such a knave.”
“At least in the matter of countenances I have the advantage of thee,” the youth observed.
“I perceive,” continued the Father, “that I must instruct thy spirit in many things,—submission, among others. Therefore thou shalt bide with us for a month or two.”
“That I’ll not!” shouted Geoffrey, forgetting his rôle of prisoner.
“She cannot unlock thee,” Father Anselm said, with much art slipping Elaine into the discourse.
Geoffrey glared at the Abbot, who now hoped to lay a trap for him by means of his temper. So he went further in the same direction. “Her words are vainer than most women’s,” he said; “though a lover would trust in them, of course.”