"As the señor has studied in the seminary," said the
Chapel-master, "he will know something about music."

"It is the only thing that I remember of all those
studies."

"But having travelled so much all over the world, you
must have heard a great deal of good music."

"That is so. Music is to me the most pleasing of all
the arts. I do not know much about it, but I feel it"

"Very well, very well, we shall be good friends. You
must tell me all sorts of things ; how I envy you having
travelled so much."

He spoke like a restless child, without sitting down.
Although the "Silenciario" offered him a chair at each
of his flittings round the room, he wandered from side
to side in his shabby cloak, his hat in his hand — ^ poor
worn-out hat with not a trace of pile left, knocked in,
with a layer of grease on its flaps, miserable and old,
like the cassock and the shoes. But in spite of this
poverty the Chí4)el-master had a certain refinement about
him. His hair, rather too long for his ecclesiastical
dress, curled round his temples, and the dignified way



THE SHADOW OF THE CATHEDRAL 27

¡Q which he folded his cloak round his body re-
amded one of the cloak of a tenor at the opera.
He hud a sort of easy g^ce that betrayed the artist
who, under the priestly robes, was longing to get
rid of them, leaving them at his feet like a winding
sheet

Some deep notes from the bell, like distant thmider^
floated into the room through the cloister.
