cathedrals her soul would still be a thin flame on the mighty altar of
Rome. Still, next to doctors, priests were her favorite sport.

"Ah, Bishop Wiston," she would declare, "I do not want to talk of myself.
I can imagine the stream of hysterical women fluttering at your doors,
beseeching you to be simpatico"--then after an interlude filled by the
clergyman--"but my mood--is--oddly dissimilar."

Only to bishops and above did she divulge her clerical romance. When she
had first returned to her country there had been a pagan, Swinburnian
young man in Asheville, for whose passionate kisses and unsentimental
conversations she had taken a decided penchant--they had discussed
the matter pro and con with an intellectual romancing quite devoid of
sappiness. Eventually she had decided to marry for background, and the
young pagan from Asheville had gone through a spiritual crisis, joined
the Catholic Church, and was now--Monsignor Darcy.

"Indeed, Mrs. Blaine, he is still delightful company--quite the
cardinal's right-hand man."

"Amory will go to him one day, I know," breathed the beautiful lady,
"and Monsignor Dark will understand him as he understood me."

Amory became thirteen, rather tall and slender, and more than ever on to
his Celtic mother. He had tutored occasionally--the idea being that he
was to "keep up," at each place "taking up the work where he left off,"
yet as no tutor ever found the place he left off, his mind was still in
very good shape. What a few more years of this life would have made of
him is problematical. However, four hours out from land, Italy bound,
with Beatrice, his appendix burst, probably from too many meals in bed,