vo's, readiness of speech
without his father's sense of humour. In him, as Martin had hinted, the
strain of the sire predominated, for in all essentials Adrian was as
Spanish in mind as in appearance.

For instance, the sudden and violent passions into which he was apt to
fall if thwarted or overlooked were purely Spanish; there seemed to be
nothing of the patient, phlegmatic Netherlander about this side of him.
Indeed it was this temper of his perhaps more than any other desire or
tendency that made him so dangerous, for, whereas the impulses of his
heart were often good enough, they were always liable to be perverted by
some access of suddenly provoked rage.

From his birth up Adrian had mixed little with Spaniards, and every
influence about him, especially that of his mother, the being whom he
most loved on earth, had been anti-Spanish, yet were he an hidalgo
fresh from the Court at the Escurial, he could scarcely have been
more Castilian. Thus he had been brought up in what might be called
a Republican atmosphere, yet he was without sympathy for the love of
liberty which animated the people of Holland. The sturdy independence
of the Netherlanders, their perpetual criticism of kings and established
rules, their vulgar and unheard-of assumption that the good things of
the world were free to all honest and hard-working citizens, and not
merely the birthright of blue blood, did not appeal to Adrian. Also from
childhood he had been a member of the dissenting Church, one of the
New Religion. Yet, at heart, he rejected this faith with its humble
professors and pastors, its simple, and sometimes squalid rites; its
long and earnest prayers offered to the Almighty in the damp of a cellar
or the reek of a cowhouse.

Like thousands of his Spanish fellow-countrymen, he was constitutionally
unable to appreciate the fact that true religion and true faith are the
natural fruits of penitence and effort, and that individual repentance
and striving are the only sacrifices required of man.

For safety's sake, like most politic Netherlanders, Adrian was called
upon from time to time to attend worship in the Catholic churches. He
did not find the obligation irksome. In fact, the forms and rites of
that stately ceremonial, the moving picture of the Mass in those
dim aisles, the pealing of the music and the sweet voices of hidden
choristers--all these things unsealed a fountain in his bosom and at
whiles moved him well nigh to tears. T