His curtness disappointed Isabel. After her painful experience of his perverse obstinacy the morning before, she could not expect him to be converted from his folly or cured of his religious mania all in a moment, and she had come prepared for vigorous debate. But his cold self-possession and, above all, his avoidance of her eyes, dismayed her. "Of course, you've thrown the rose away?" she asked. "No, I have not thrown it away." "Why?" He spread his cloak on a carved stone bench for her to sit on, and did not answer. "Why?" she repeated. "I want Father Antonio to explain. Are monks allowed to treasure up dead flowers? You'll be asking next for a tress of my hair." He maintained his grim silence. Embarrassment and injured pride colored her cheeks a warm red; but she was determined to make him speak. "I mean," she added, "that you won't ask for a lock of my hair at all. You'll expect me to go down in the dust and offer it you on my knees, and to coax you and implore you for days and days until you condescend to accept it. Your Majesty is a true Lord of Creation. He leaves me to do all the wooing." This time Antonio looked at her fairly and squarely. She sat down and faced him with a pout on her lips and a toss of the head. In her heart she felt sure of victory; and she yearned to get over the preliminary skirmishes as soon as possible. "Begin, your Reverence," she said. "Preach at me. Excommunicate me. Do your worst. I am ready." "Ought I to begin," he asked, "by craving pardon for trespassing last night in the chapel?" "No, you ought not. It wouldn't be sincere; because you believe the chapel is more yours than mine. And, most decidedly, you oughtn't to begin as if we are mortal enemies. Why are your tones as sharp and cold as icicles? And why do you glare at me as if you hate me?" "I hate nobody," he replied. "But I hate this talk which we are compelled to have." "Then let us make haste and be done with it. Explain. I want to know why you pretend to be still a monk, when you're really a farmer?" "I pretend nothing," said Antonio firmly. "You will keep my secret. You will not name it even to your father. Above all, you will hide it from your servants, and from the chief of the Villa Branca Fazenda. I am, and I shall be till I die, a monk of the Order of Saint Benedict." "Monks have been abolished in Portugal for years and years," she objected. "You mean that monks have been exiled and monasteries suppressed. Monks cannot be abolished. Men can pull down blinds and put up shutters and sit in darkness; but they cannot abolish the sun." "Choose some other illustration," she begged. "Surely it is monks who put up shutters and draw down blinds and shut out the light."