Already his two years of desultory and omnivorous reading had given him a facile familiarity with many things, which left him utterly free of the timidity, awkwardness, or non-interest of a beginner.

His usually reserved manner, which had been lack of expression rather than of conviction, had deceived his tutors.

The audacity of a mind that had never been dominated by others, and owed no allegiance to precedent, made his merely superficial progress something marvelous.
At the end of the first year he was a phenomenal scholar, who seemed capable of anything.

Nevertheless, Father Sobriente had an interview with Don Juan, and as a result Clarence was slightly kept back in his studies, a little more freedom from the rules was conceded to him, and he was even encouraged to take some diversion.

Of such was the privilege to visit the neighboring town of Santa Clara unrestricted and unattended.