ou mean that we may hope to see the
Italians driven from Rome in our time?" enquired Madame de Lafere.

"They are on the verge of bankruptcy--for their sins," the Cardinal
answered. "When the crash comes--and it can't fail to come before many
years--there will necessarily be a readjustment. I do not believe that
the conscience of Christendom will again allow Peter to be deprived of
his inheritance."

"God hasten the good day," said Monsignor Langshawe.

"If I can live to see Rome restored to the Pope, I shall die content,
even though I cannot live to see France restored to the King," said the
old Frenchwoman.

"And I--even though I cannot live to see Britain restored to the Faith,"
said the Monsignore.

The Duchessa smiled at Peter.

"What a hotbed of Ultramontanes and reactionaries you have fallen into,"
she murmured.

"It is exhilarating," said he, "to meet people who have convictions."

"Even when you regard their convictions as erroneous?" she asked.

"Yes, even then," he answered. "But I'm not sure I regard as erroneous
the convictions I have heard expressed to-night."

"Oh--?" she wondered. "Would you like to see Rome restored to the Pope?"

"Yes," said he, "decidedly--for aesthetic reasons, if for no others."

"I suppose there are aesthetic reasons," she assented. "But we, of
course, think there are conclusive reasons in mere justice."

"I don't doubt there are conclusive reasons in mere justice, too," said
he.

After dinner, at the Cardinal's invitation, the Duchessa went to the
piano, and played Bach and Scarlatti. Her face, in the soft candlelight,
as she discoursed that "luminous, lucid" music, Peter thought... But
what do lovers always think of their ladies' faces, when they look up
from their pianos, in soft candlelight?

Mrs. O'Donovan Florence, taking her departure, said to the Cardinal, "I
owe your Eminence the two proudest days of my life. The first was when I
read in the paper that you had received the hat, and I was able to boast
to all my acquaintances that I had been in the convent with your
niece by marriage. And the second is now, when I can boast forevermore
hereafter that I've enjoyed the honour of making my courtesy to you."

"So," said Peter, as he walked home through the dew and the starlight of
the park, amid the phantom perfumes of the night, "so the Cardinal
does n't approve of mixed marriages and, of course, his niece does n't,
either. But what can it matter to me? For