‘You mean that sorceress Madame Pisa-Vitri. She is bent on the destruction of the Church, Miss Newman.’
‘I hope not, Cardinal Power, because if she is bent upon it, she will probably compass it.’
‘A pretty state of things indeed, for the Catholic Roman Church to have to grovel in the dust before a—combination of this kind!’ said the prelate bitterly. He had it on the tip of his tongue to say ‘before a woman,’ but checked himself in time.
‘But I do not understand, Cardinal Power,’ said Lesbia, ‘how the balancing in your mind of the question of your Church’s future made you think of me, as you say it did. What have I to do with the pros and cons?’
She said this in order to help him out; but her look told him plainly that she did understand. He therefore felt no awkwardness in plunging forth with in medias res.
‘You have this to do with them, Miss Newman, that the suggestions you made to me on a former occasion about Madonna-worship—I say you, because I look upon you and your uncle as one in this connection—may now, by the force of circumstances, be worth considering. We are as an ox fallen into a pit, and we must be pulled out, though it be the Sabbath.’
‘I see. Infallibility must accommodate itself to the exigencies of a fallible world,’ said Lesbia, at which both the others chuckled. ‘Well, better late than never, Cardinal Power. If his Holiness could be induced to say as much to Signora Pisa-Vitri as you have now insinuated to me, all might yet be well. You say she is bent on destroying the Church; I don’t believe it. I believe she is bent on nothing more than compelling the Church to do its duty. She is within her right in using her power relentlessly, for she is a Catholic. I—speaking to you as a non-Catholic—can but suggest and advise.’
