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“Oh, nonsense, Anna! Poor chap, you don’t expect him to be always whimpering, do you? I tell you, the English aren’t demonstrative.”

“Nor are the Spaniards, but they have a great deal of heart all the same; and Harry has absolutely none—I don’t believe he has any soul either.”

“So much the better then; he can’t be damned.”

This was an unusually acute and spiteful remark—for Dick. The Doña had never confided to him her vicarious terrors touching the apostasy of Pepa, who had not had her children baptised, and, during her last illness, had refused to the end the ministrations of Holy Church; but one cannot pass many years in close physical intimacy with another person without getting an inkling, though it be only subconsciously, of that person’s secret thoughts; and though Dick had never consciously registered his knowledge of the Doña’s, the above remark had been made with intention to wound.

His irritation at her criticism of Harry was caused by a sense of personal guilt: twice, perhaps, during the last year had his own thoughts dwelt spontaneously upon Pepa—certainly not oftener.