Besides, the affair was a blow to Antonio's pride. He had often recalled, with some complacency, his skillful treatment of the young English beauty who gave him the hot-house flower, as well as his tact towards other great ladies who had failed to dissemble their regard. Yet here he was, enmeshed in the first net which a pair of rustic match-makers had troubled to spread. Again, if a Francisco Manoel Oliveira da Rocha were free to wed, it would not be with a daughter of Senhor Jorge. He swung down the muddy track slashing murderously with his thin English walking-stick at the wet brambles. But Father Antonio had not ceased to be a monk. Every night he examined his conscience, and nearly all day long, in his endeavor toward perfection, he maintained a keen-eyed watch against the approaches of sin. So he reined in his bitter thoughts with sudden strength, and set himself to analyze their causes. Experience had taught him how easily un-Christian pride can be confused with righteous anger. Before his trim white house rose into sight Antonio re-entered the state of grace, and was once more in love and charity with all his neighbors. The results of Senhor Jorge's proceedings were bound to be gravely embarrassing; but his motives, after all, could not be called disgraceful. It was a father's duty to secure his daughter's happiness; and Antonio could not deny that Senhor Jorge's choice implied a certain compliment to himself. Again, the lavrador could not be blamed for the devices he was using to press the business forward. No one, save José, knew that a Benedictine monk was living on the borders of the parish; and probably Senhor Jorge thought he was doing a shy young bachelor a service by taking charge of the courtship. These charitable thoughts towards the people who had drawn Antonio into a mess did not, however, help him to get out of it. The slight coldness and stiffness of his farewells could hardly have been noticed by Donna Perpetua and the family. And on Thursday they would expect him at their serão. What was he to do? According to the cowardly and selfish rules of worldly prudence, his only safe course was to sham some illness or to invent some bogus call of business which would enable him to evade the serão. But such ways were not Antonio's. He had given his promise and he meant to keep it. Indeed, reflection convinced him that the serão would give him his best opportunity of putting an end to the affair. Outside the church Senhor Jorge had publicly compromised Antonio; at the serão Antonio would publicly put himself right again. The parish should see that he was not a woman-hater and a hermit: but the parish should see, also, that he was not a marrying man.