“Then what is it?”

Marcos made no answer.  The Count lighted another cigarette, to gain time, perhaps.

“Listen to me,” he said at length.  “We have always understood each other, except about Juanita.  We have nearly always been of the same mind—­you and I.”

Marcos was leaning his arms on the table and looked across the room towards his father with a slow smile.

“Let us try and understand each other about Juanita before we go any farther.  You think that there may be thoughts in your mind which are beyond my comprehension.  It may not be as bad as that.  I allow you, that as the heart grows older it loses a certain sensitiveness and delicacy of feeling.  Still the comprehension of such feelings in younger persons may survive.  You think that Juanita should be allowed to make her own choice —­is it not so—­learnt in England, eh?”

“Yes,” was the answer.

“And I reply to that; a convent education—­the only education open to Spanish girls—­does not fit her to make her own choice.”

“It is not a question of education.

“No, it is a question of opportunity,” said Sarrion sharply.  “And a convent schoolgirl has no opportunity.  My friend, a father or a mother, if they are wise, will choose better than a girl thrown suddenly into the world from the convent gates.  But that is not the question.  Juanita will never get outside the convent gates unless we drag her from them—­half against her own will.”

“We can give her the choice.  We have certain rights.”

“No rights,” replied Sarrion, “that the Church will recognise, and the Church holds her now within its grip.”

“She is only a child.  She does not know what life means.”

“Exactly so,” Sarrion exclaimed, “and that makes their plan all the easier of execution.  They can bring pressure to bear upon her assiduously and quite kindly so that she will be brought to see that her only chance of happiness is the veil.  Few men, and no women at all, can be happy in a life of their own choosing if they are assured by persons in daily intercourse with them—­persons whom they respect and love—­that in living that life they will assuredly be laying up for themselves an eternity of damnation.  We must try and look at it from Juanita’s point of view.”

Marcos turned and glanced at his father with a smile.

“That is not so easy,” he said.  “That is what I have been trying to do.”

“But you must not overdo it,” replied Sarrion, significantly.  “Remember that her point of view may be an ignorant one and must be biassed by the strongest and most dangerous influence.  Look at the question also from the point of view of a man of the world—­and tell me... tell me after thinking it over carefully—­whether you think that you would feel happy in the future, knowing that you had allowed Juanita to choose a convent life with her eyes blinded.”

“I was not thinking of my happiness,” said Marcos, quite simply and curtly.