“And his own too, sometimes, I believe,” answered the ambassador drily. “But to be frank, what I do not understand about you, Señor d’Aguilar, as I know that you have abandoned political ambitions, is why you do not enter my profession, and put on the black robe once and for all. What did I say—black? With your opportunities and connections it might be red by now, with a hat to match.” The Señor d’Aguilar smiled a little as he replied. “You said, I think, that sometimes I travel on my own business. Well, there is your answer. You are right, I have abandoned worldly ambitions—most of them. They are troublesome, and for some people, if they be born too high and yet not altogether rightly, very dangerous. The acorn of ambition often grows into an oak from which men hang.” “Or into a log upon which men’s heads can be cut off. Señor, I congratulate you. You have the wisdom that grasps the substance and lets the shadows flit. It is really very rare.” “You asked why I do not change the cut of my garments,” went on d’Aguilar, without noticing the interruption. “Excellency, to be frank, because of my own business. I have failings like other men. For instance, wealth is that substance of which you spoke, rule is the shadow; he who has the wealth has the real rule. Again, bright eyes may draw me, or a hate may seek its slaking, and these things do not suit robes, black or red.” “Yet many such things have been done by those who wore them,” replied the ambassador with meaning. “Aye, Excellency, to the discredit of Holy Church, as you, a priest, know better than most men. Let the earth be evil as it must; but let the Church be like heaven above it, pure, unstained, the vault of prayer, the house of mercy and of righteous judgment, wherein walks no sinner such as I,” and again he crossed himself. There was a ring of earnestness in the speaker’s voice that caused de Ayala, who knew something of his private reputation, to look at him curiously. “A true fanatic, and therefore to us a useful man,” he thought to himself, “though one who knows how to make the best of two worlds as well as most of them;” but aloud he said, “No wonder that our Church rejoices in such a son, and that her enemies tremble when he lifts her sword. But, Señor, you have not told me what you think of all this ceremony and people.”