All the servants of the Cathedral envied him his post, which was the most lucrative of all, to say nothing of the favour he enjoyed with the archbishop and the canons.
"Virgin's blue" considered the Cathedral as his own peculiar property, and he often came very near turning out those who inspired him with any antipathy.
He fixed his bold eyes on the vagabond he saw walking about the church, making an effort to raise his overhanging brows.

Where had he seen this strange fellow before?
Gabriel noted the effort he made to recall his memory, and turned his back to examine with pretended interest a coloured panel hanging on a pillar.
Flying from the curiosity excited by his presence in the fane, he went out into the cloister; there he felt more at his ease, quite alone.
The beggars were chattering, seated on the doorsteps of the Mollete; many of the clergy passed through them, entering the church hurriedly by the door of the Presentacion; the beggars saluted them all by name, but without stretching out their hands.

They knew them, they all belonged to the "household," and among friends one does not beg.

They were there to fall on the strangers, and they waited patiently for the coming of the English; for, surely, all the strangers who came from Madrid by the early morning train could only be from England.
Gabriel waited near the door, knowing that those coming from the cloister must enter by it.

He crossed the archbishop's arch, and, following the open staircase of the palace, descended into the street, re-entering the church by the Mollete door.