"Are you a professional or an amateur?" asked the cardinal, his eyes
flashing, his lips twitching.

"As I understand it," said the earl, slowly, a faint blush stealing into
his cheeks, "an 'amateur' is a lover. If that is right, perhaps you had
better put me down as an 'amateur.'"

The cardinal saw the blush and his anger vanished.

"Ah," he said, softly, "there is a woman, is there?"

"Yes," replied the earl, "there is a woman."

"Well," said the cardinal, "I am listening."

"It won't bore you?" asked the earl. "If I begin about her I sha'n't
know when to stop."

"My lord," said the cardinal, "if there were no women there would be no
priests. Our occupation would be gone. There was a time when _men_ built
churches, beautified them, and went to them. How is it now; even here in
Venice, where art still exists, and where there is no bourse? I was
speaking with a man only to-day--a man of affairs, one who buys and
sells, who has agents in foreign lands and ships on the seas; a man who,
in the old religious days, would have given a tenth of all his goods to
the Church and would have found honor and contentment in the remainder;
but he is bitten with this new-fangled belief of disbelief. He has a
sneaking fear that Christianity has been supplanted by electricity and
he worships Huxley rather than Christ crucified--Huxley!" and the
cardinal threw up his hands. "Did ever a man die the easier because he