nd-nine instead of forty.

For days now, for weeks, Brother Ambrose had witnessed and endured the
false piety of the man. How he'd ever got admitted to the order in the
first place beat all supposition. It must have been his sanctimonious
apple-cheeks or (Heaven forbid such simony), some rich relative greased
the palm of the Prior. _Saint, forsooth!_

Brother Ambrose recalled just a week previous; they had been outside the
walls, a round dozen of the brothers, gathering the first few bushels of
grapes to make the good Benedictine wine. And all men tended to their
duty in the vineyard--save who? Save lecherous Lorenzo, whose job was to
attend the press. Picked the assignment himself, most likely, so he
could ogle the brown thighs and browner ankles of Dolores squatting on
the Convent bank, _gitana_ slut with her flashing eyes and hint of sweet
delight in those cherry-red lips and coquettish tossing shoulders. A man
could see she was child of the devil, flesh to tempt to eternal
hellfire.

But how skillful Brother Lorenzo had been in keeping the glow in his
dead eye from being seen by the others! Only Ambrose had known it was
there. Invisible to even the world, perhaps; but lurking just the same
in Lorenzo's feverishly disguised brain. _Si_, there and lusting beyond
a doubt. By one's faith, the blue-black hair of Dolores would make any
weak man itch; and the stories that had floated on the breeze that day,
livelily exchanged between her and that roguish Sanchicha, the
_lavandera_; Lorenzo must surely have lapped them all up like a hungry
spaniel, though he cleverly turned his head away so you would not guess.
After all, Ambrose, scarcely a step closer, could recall clearly every
word of the bawdy tales!

Back to the table again; and Brother Ambrose once more noticed how Fray
Lorenzo never let his fork and knife lie crosswise, an obvious tribute
he, himself, always made in Our Senor's praise. Nor did Lorenzo honor
the Trinity by drinking his orange-pulp in three quiet sips; rather (the
Arian heretic) he drained it at a gulp. Now, he was out trimming his
myrtle-bush. And touching up his roses.

Gr-r-r, again! Watching his enemy putter away in the deepening twilight
that followed the decline of the Andalusian sun, Brother Ambrose
recalled the other traps he had lain to trip the hypocrite. Traps set
and failed; but, oh, so delicious anyhow, these attempts to send him
flying off to Hell where he belonged: a Cathar or a Ma