It is
his saint's day--he has half-holiday. He is a good boy. It is a little
pleasure for him and for us."
"Oh!" said Steptoe, softened into a rough apology. "I forgot. All right.
Has he had any visitors lately--lady, for instance?"
Father Dominico cast a look half of fright, half of reproval upon his
guest.
"A lady HERE!"
In his relief Steptoe burst into a coarse laugh. "Of course; you see
I forgot that, too. I was thinking of one of his woman folks, you
know--relatives--aunts. Was there any other visitor?"
"Only one. Ah! we know the senor's rules regarding his son."
"One?" repeated Steptoe. "Who was it?"
"Oh, quite an hidalgo--an old friend of the child's--most polite,
most accomplished, fluent in Spanish, perfect in deportment. The Senor
Horncastle surely could find nothing to object to. Father Pedro was
charmed with him. A man of affairs, and yet a good Catholic, too. It
was a Senor Van Loo--Don Paul the boy called him, and they talked of the
boy's studies in the old days as if--indeed, but for the stranger being
a caballero and man of the world--as if he had been his teacher."
It was a proof of the intensity of the father's feelings that they had
passed beyond the power of his usual coarse, brutal expression, and he
only stared at the priest with a dull red face in which the blood seemed
to have stagnated. Presently he said thickly, "When did he come?"
"A few days ago.
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