On the lintel of the gate were the arms of Spain, and at the sides, two medallions bearing hands wounded in the palm.
The convent door was old and quartered. Cæsar knocked.
A lay-brother, with a suspicious glance, came out to admit him, told him to wait, and left him alone. After some while, he came back and asked him to follow him.
They went down a small passage and up a staircase, which was at the end, and then along a corridor on the main floor. On one side of this corridor, in his cell, they found Father Herreros.
Cæsar, after bowing and introducing himself, sat down, as the monk asked him to do, in a chair with its back to the light. Cæsar began to explain why he had come, and as he had prepared what he was going to say, he employed his attention, while speaking, on the cage and the kind of big bird which were before his eyes.
Father Herreros had a big rough head, black heavy eyebrows, a short nose, an enormous mouth, yellow teeth, and grey hair. He wore a chocolate-coloured robe, open enough to show his whole neck down to his chest. The movement of the good monk’s lips was that of a man who wished to pass for keen and insinuating. His robe was dirty and he doubtless had the habit of leaving cigarette stubs on the table.
The cell had one window, and in front of it a bookcase. Cæsar made an effort to read the titles. They were almost all Latin books, the kind that nobody reads.
Father Herreros began to ask Cæsar questions. In his brain, he was doubtless wondering why Cardinal Fort’s nephew should come to him.
After many useless words they got to the concrete point that Cæsar wanted to take up, Father Herreros’s acquaintance in Spain, and the monk said that he knew a very rich widow who had property in Toledo. When Cæsar went to Madrid, he would give him a letter of recommendation to her.
“I cannot keep you any longer now, because a Mexican lady is waiting for me,” said Father Herreros.