Santa Maria, what a lie!" "Why 'Santa Maria,' then, if it is a lie ?" he asked triumphantly.

He did not observe how her breast was heaving, how her hands were clenched; for she was really busy with thoughts of her dead Carvillho Gonzales; but for the moment he could only see the point of an argument.
She made a gesture of despair.

"So--that's it.

Habit in us is so strong.
It comes through the veins of our mothers to us.

We say that God is a lie one minute, and then the next minute we say, 'God guard you!' Always--always calling to something, for something outside ourselves.
That is why I said Santa Maria, why I ask her to pray for the soul of my friend, to pray to the God that breaks me and mine, and sends us over the seas, beggars without a home." Now she had him back out of the vanities of his philosophy.