"Do you think that is quite fair to her? If she loves Ramon Alfarez—-"
Once again Garavel's brows signalled surprise. "Ah, you know?"
"Yes, sir. I was about to say, if she really loves him, I can't make any difference; but suppose she should care for me?"
"Again it could make no difference, once she had married Ramon. But she is too young to know her own mind. These young girls are impressionable, romantic, foolish. I can see no object in deliberately courting trouble. Can you? In affairs of the heart it is well to use judgment and caution—qualities which come only with age. Youth is headstrong and blinded by dreams, hence it is better that marriage should be arranged by older persons."
"Exactly! That's why I want you to arrange mine." The banker smiled in spite of himself, for he was not without a sense of humor, and the young man's sincerity was winning.
"It is out of the question," he said; "useless to discuss. Forgetting for the moment all other considerations, there is an obstacle to your marriage into a Spanish family, which you do not stop to consider—one which might well prove insurmountable. I speak of religion."
"No trouble there, sir."
"You are, then, a Catholic?"
"It was my mother's faith, and I was brought up in it until she died. After that, I—sort of neglected it. You see, I am more of a Catholic than anything else."
"What we call a 'bad Catholic'?"