at's Sandro got to do with your
Church? What does he care about it?"

"He cared about his subject the other evening; you must admit that."

"Oh, his subject! Yes, he cares about it while it's his subject."

May laughed. "I want to take just one liberty, Miss Quisante," she said.
"May I? I want to tell you that I think you're a great deal more than
half wrong about your nephew."

"Even if I am, I'm right enough for practical purposes with the other
part," said the obstinate old woman. She leant forward and spoke with a
sudden bitter emphasis. "It's not all outside, he's wrong inside too."

"It's too bad of you, oh, it really is," cried May indignantly. "You who
ought to stand up for him and be his greatest friend!"

"Oh, yes, I see! I've overshot my mark. I'm a blunderer."

"Your mark? What mark? Why do you want to tell me about him at all?"

"I don't," said Miss Quisante, folding her hands in her lap and assuming
an air of resolute reticence. But her eyes dwelt now with an imperfectly
disguised kindness on the tall fair girl who pleaded for justice and saw
no justice in the answers that she got. But the more Aunt Maria inclined
to like May Gaston, the more determined was she not to palter with truth,
the more determined to have no hand in giving the girl a false idea of
Sandro. So far as lay in her power, Sandro's Empress should know the
whole truth about Sandro.

The buzz of London, to which Miss Quisante referred as beginning to sound
her nephew's name, revealed to the ear three tolerably distinct notes.
There were the people who laughed and said the thing was no affair of
theirs; this section was of course the largest, embracing all the
naturally indifferent as well as the solid mass of the opposite political
party. There were the people who were angry at Dick Benyon's interference
and at his _protege's_ impudence; in the ranks of these were most of
Dick's political comrades, together with their wives and daughters. Here
the resentment was at the idea that there was any vacancy, actual or
prospective, which could not be filled perfectly well without the
intrusion of such a person as Quisante. Thirdly there was the small but
gradually growing group which inclined to think that there was something
in Dick's notions and a good deal in his friend's head. A reinforcement
came no doubt from the persons who were naturally prone to love the new
and took up Quisante as a welcome change, as something odd, with a
flavo