Laura strolled through an orchard, gathered a few apples, and then, with her brother’s aid and mine, seated herself on the trunk of a tree that leant over the river, and sat there gazing at it.
While she was taking it in, her brother Cæsar started to talk. Without any preliminary explanation, he talked to me about his family, about his life, about his ideas and his political plans. He expressed himself with ease and strength; but he had the uneasy expression of a man who is afraid of something.
“I figure,” he said, “that I know what there is to do in Spain. I shall be an instrument. It is for that that I am training myself. I want to create all my ideas, habits, prejudices, with a view to the rôle I am going to play.”
“You do not know what Spain is like,” said Laura. “Life is very hard here.”
“I know that well. There is no social system here, there is nothing established; therefore it is easier to create one for oneself.”
“Yes, but some protection is requisite.”
“Oh, I will find that.”
“Where?”
“I think those Church people we knew in Rome will do for me.”
“But you are not a Clerical.”