"Wrong!" exclaimed Kalonay, in a tone of mock dismay; "of
course it's wrong. It's wicked."

The monk turned and looked coldly over his shoulder at
Kalonay, and the Prince laughed.

"I beg your pardon," he said, "but we are told to be contented
with our lot," he argued, impenitently. "`He only is a slave
who complains,' and that is true even if a heretic did say
it."

The monk shook his head and turned again to Miss Carson with a
tolerant smile.

"He is very young," he said, as though Kalonay did not hear
him, "and wild and foolish--and yet," he added, doubtfully, "I
find I love the boy." He regarded the young man with a kind
but impersonal scrutiny, as though he were a picture or a
statue. "Sometimes I imagine he is all I might have been," he
said, "had not God given me the strength to overcome myself.
He has never denied himself in anything; he is as wilful and
capricious as a girl. He makes a noble friend, Miss Carson,
and a generous enemy; but he is spoiled irretrievably by good
fortune and good living and good health." The priest looked
at the young man with a certain sad severity. "`Unstable as
water, thou shalt not excel,'" he said.

The girl, in great embarrassment, turned her head away,
glancing from the ocean to the sky; but Kalonay seated himself