And bursting into a laugh, he clapped the engineer on the back in token
of amity and good-will.

"How grateful I ought to be," said the young man, concealing his anger
under the sarcastic words which he thought the most suitable to answer
the covert irony of his interlocutors, "to meet with so much generosity
and tolerance, when my criminal conduct would deserve--"

"What! Is a person of one's own blood, one who bears one's name," said
Dona Perfecta, "to be treated like a stranger? You are my nephew, you
are the son of the best and the most virtuous of men, of my dear brother
Juan, and that is sufficient. Yesterday afternoon the secretary of the
bishop came here to tell me that his lordship is greatly displeased
because I have you in my house."

"And that too?" murmured the canon.

"And that too. I said that in spite of the respect which I owe the
bishop, and the affection and reverence which I bear him, my nephew is
my nephew, and I cannot turn him out of my house."

"This is another singularity which I find in this place," said Pepe Rey,
pale with anger. "Here, apparently, the bishop governs other people's
houses."

"He is a saint. He is so fond of me that he imagines--he imagines that
you are going to contaminate us with your atheism, your disregard for
public opinion, your strange ideas. I have told him repeatedly that, at
bottom, you are an excellent young man."