“Of Juanita’s happiness?” ... suggested the Count.

“Yes.”

“Then think again and tell me whether you, as a man of the world, can for a moment imagine that Juanita’s chance of happiness would be greater in the convent—­whether the Church could make her happier than you could if you give her the opportunity of leading the life that God created her for.”

Marcos made no answer.  And oddly enough Sarrion seemed to expect none.

“That is ...,” he explained in the same careless voice, “if we may go on the presumption that you are content to place Juanita’s happiness before your own.”

“I am content to do that.”

“Always?” asked Sarrion, gravely.

“Always.”

There was a short silence.  Then the Count came into the room, and as he passed Marcos he laid his hand for a moment on his son’s broad back.

“Then, my friend,” he said, crossing the room and taking up his gloves, “let us get to action.  That will please you better than words, I know.  Let us go and see Leon—­the weakest link in their fine chain.  Juanita has no one in the world but us—­but I think we shall be enough.”

Leon de Mogente lived in an apartment in the Plaza del Pilar.  His father, for whom he had but little affection, had made him a liberal allowance which had been spent, so to speak, on his Soul.  It elevated the Spirit of this excellent young man to decorate his rooms in imitation of a sanctuary.

He lived in an atmosphere of aesthetic emotion which he quite mistook for holiness.  He was a dandy in the care of his Soul, and tricked himself out to catch the eye of High Heaven.

The Marquis de Mogente was out.  He had crossed the Plaza, the servant thought to say a prayer in the Cathedral.  On the suggestion of the servant, the Sarrions decided to wait until Leon’s return.  The man, who had the air of a murderer (or a Spanish Cathedral chorister), volunteered to go and seek his master.

“I can say a prayer myself,” he said humbly.

“And here is something to put in the poor-box,” answered Sarrion with his twisted smile.

“By my soul,” he exclaimed, when they were left alone, “this place reeks of hypocrisy.”

He looked round the walls with a raised eyebrow.

“I have been trying to discover,” he went on, “what was in the mind of Francisco as he lay dying in that house in the Calle San Gregorio—­what he was trying to carry out—­why he made that will.  He sent for Leon, you see, and must have seen at a glance that he had for a son—­a mule, of the worst sort.  He probably saw that to leave money to Leon was to give it to the Church, which meant that it would be spent for the further undoing of Spain and the propagation of ignorance and superstition.”

For Ramon de Sarrion was one of those good Spaniards and good Catholics who lay the entire blame for the downfall of their country from its great estate to a Church, which can only hope to live in its present form as long as superstition and crass ignorance prevail.