Concha spoke no word, and Julia, having begun, left nothing unsaid, but told him every detail in a slow mechanical voice, as if bidden thereto by a stronger will than her own.
‘He is all the world to me,’ she said simply, in conclusion.
‘Yes; and the happiest women are those who live in a small world.’
A silence fell upon them. The old priest surreptitiously looked at his watch. He was essentially a man of action.
‘My child,’ he said, rising, ‘when you are an old woman with children to harass you and make your life worth living, you will probably look back with thankfulness to this moment. For you have done that which was your only chance of happiness.’
‘Why do you always help me?’ she asked, as she had asked a hundred times.
‘Because happiness is so rare that I hate to see it wasted,’ he answered, going towards the door with a grim laugh.
He passed out of the room and crossed the patio slowly. Then, when the great door had closed behind him, he gathered up the skirts of his cassock and hurried down the narrow street. In such thoroughfares as were deserted he ran with the speed and endurance of a spare, hard-living man. Woman-like, Julia had, after all, done things by half. She had timed her confession too late.
At the hotel they told the Padre that General Vincente was at dinner and could not be disturbed.
‘You do not know who I am,’ said Concha, in an irony which, under the circumstances, he alone could enjoy. Then he passed up the stairs and bade the waiter begone.
‘But I carry the General’s dessert,’ protested the man.
‘No,’ said Concha half to himself, ‘I have that.’
Vincente was indeed at table with Estella. He looked up as the priest entered, fingering a cigarette delicately.
‘How soon can you take the road?’ asked Concha abruptly.
‘Ten minutes—the time for a cup of coffee,’ was the answer, given with a pleasant laugh.
Vincente looked at his old friend, and the smile never left his lips, though his eyes were grave enough. It was hard to say whether aught on earth could disturb this man’s equanimity. Then the General rose and went to the window which opened upon the courtyard. In the quiet corner near the rain-tank, where a vine grows upon trellis-work, the dusty travelling-carriage stood, and upon the step of it, eating a simple meal of bread and dried figs, sat the man who had the reputation of being the fastest driver in Spain.