"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 alas and alas--as he truly said--it's hardly a
question of actuality."
And he lit a cigarette.