Etienne turned away in a dumb rage, and the small sharp-featured Abigail got behind the back-kitchen door to dance three steps and a double shuffle all to herself.
When he had recovered his powers of speech Etienne called her the several kinds of fiend which can be defined by the French language, but this broke no bones.
"Well, dear Señorita," she remarked very sagely, when tasked by Concha with duplicity (after the manner of Satan reproving sin), "he never asked me, and besides, then he would not have given me the six Napoleons!"
Which last proposition of the Abigail of Sarria would not have gained in credibility had it been supported by a Papal Bull.
CHAPTER XLIX
LIKE FIRE THROUGH SUMMER GRASS
On the whole Rollo could not complain of his reception at the Abbey of Montblanch. His heart had indeed been at war within him as he took his way up the long zigzags of the hill road. There was the very thorn branch which had brushed off his hat as he set forth so gladsomely with his new commission in his pocket, his comrades riding staunchly by his side, and the Abbot's good horse between his knees.
Well, he had done his best. Things, after their manner, had turned out cross-grained—that was all. He had, thank Heaven, enough of Mendizábal's generous draft left in his pocket to repay the Abbot for what he had spent upon their outfit. After returning the commission, it only remained as delicately as possible to impart the disastrous news of the coming dissolution of monasteries and the date of the assumption of all conventual property by the State.
Then he would depart. Sarria and Concha were not so far off. He began to take heart even before he reached the great gate of the Abbey.