"I mean," she explained hastily, "it would be dreadful if you made a marriage like that. To say so is unpardonable impertinence on my part, no doubt. But, to be perfectly frank, I ... well, I suppose I've idealized you a little. You're not like other people I've met. And it shocked me to think of you settling down and, so to speak, giving up the fight." "What fight?" asked the monk, not willing to help her out. "Fight is the wrong word. Never mind. You know what I mean. Of course, this Margarida is good and domesticated and she'll make some farmer or tradesman an excellent wife. But can she read or write? Has she more than three ideas in her head? Could she talk with you, or understand you, or even sympathize with you, in anything that matters?" "I suppose she could," said Antonio. "The simple things of life are the things that matter." "To simple people, certainly. But you are not simple. You are complicated. Your teeth are easily set on edge. You are sentimental, romantic." "I am sentimental? I am romantic?" he echoed, with an unfree incredulous laugh. "You are the first to find it out." "It's true, all the same. What about that shut-up dismal monastery down there? Haven't you woven more romance around it than any ladye ever wove around her dead knight? What about the azulejos? Aren't you you as sentimental over them as any love-sick youth over a withered rose or a lock of hair? Why, you were ready to quarrel with us all, your old friends included, for the sake of a sentimental memory." "Tell me," the monk demanded, turning to read her eyes, "what do you know about Margarida? What have you heard? Who has been talking to you?" She was silent. "From whom have you heard Margarida's name?" he insisted. "You will think very badly of me," she confessed. "I heard it from Fisher, my maid. Oh, yes! look scandalized by all means. I don't care. The poor girl is in exile. Joanninha, our Portuguese cook, doesn't know much English, and she's old enough to be Fisher's mother. Mrs. Baxter never speaks to Fisher except to scold her or order her about. If I didn't let her chatter now and again to me, she'd go mad. Not that I listen to half she says; but I should be telling you a downright lie if I pretended that I didn't prick up my ears when she began about you and Margarida." "What did she say?" "Very little. Only that Joanninha had been gossiping in the village shop, and that somebody had said something about the Senhor Oliveira da Rocha marrying this Margarida."