“No, that is true,” said Florida, letting her fingers drop again on the keys. Don Ippolito rose from the sofa where he had been sitting beside her while they read, and walked the length of the room. Then he came towards her and said meekly, “Madamigella, I did not mean to repel any interest you feel in me. But it was a strange question to ask a priest, as I remembered I was when you asked it.” “Don’t you always remember that?” demanded the girl, still without turning her head. “No; sometimes I am suffered to forget it,” he said with a tentative accent. She did not respond, and he drew a long breath, and walked away in silence. She let her hands fall into her lap, and sat in an attitude of expectation. As Don Ippolito came near her again he paused a second time. “It is in this house that I forget my priesthood,” he began, “and it is the first of your kindnesses that you suffer me to do so, your good mother, there, and you. How shall I repay you? It cut me to the heart that you should ask forgiveness of me when you did, though I was hurt by your rebuke. Oh, had you not the right to rebuke me if I abused the delicate unreserve with which you had always treated me? But believe me, I meant no wrong, then.” His voice shook, and Florida broke in, “You did nothing wrong. It was I who was cruel for no cause.” “No, no. You shall not say that,” he returned. “And why should I have cared for a few words, when all your acts had expressed a trust of me that is like heaven to my soul?” She turned now and looked at him, and he went on. “Ah, I see you do not understand! How could you know what it is to be a priest in this most unhappy city? To be haunted by the strict espionage of all your own class, to be shunned as a spy by all who are not of it! But you two have not put up that barrier which everywhere shuts me out from my kind. You have been willing to see the man in me, and to let me forget the priest.” “I do not know what to say to you, Don Ippolito. I am only a foreigner, a girl, and I am very ignorant of these things,” said Florida with a slight alarm. “I am afraid that you may be saying what you will be sorry for.” “Oh never! Do not fear for me if I am frank with you. It is my refuge from despair.” The passionate vibration of his voice increased, as if it must break in tears. She glanced towards the other room with a little movement or stir. “Ah, you needn’t be afraid of listening to me!” cried the priest bitterly. “I will not wake her,” said Florida calmly, after an instant. “See how you speak the thing you mean, always, always, always! You could not deny that you meant to wake her, for you have the life-long habit of the truth. Do you know what it is to have the life-long habit of a lie? It is to be a priest. Do you know what it is to seem, to say, to do, the thing you are not, think not, will not? To leave what you believe unspoken, what you will undone, what you are unknown? It is to be a priest!”