irritation. In the meantime, a Tuscan voice was heard above the clamour
of Marinier's assailants.

"_Stia bono!_" it said. "As yet nothing has been decided! Wait! I have
not yet spoken!"

The speaker was Father Salvati, a _Scolopio,_ and an old man with snowy
hair, a florid complexion, and bright eyes.

"Nothing has as yet been decided," he repeated. "I, for one, approve of
uniting, but I have one special end in view, while the discourses I have
heard seem to me to favour a very different end. Intellectual progress
is good, renovation of the formulas according to the spirit of the times
is also good, a Catholic reform is excellent. I hold with Rafaello
Lambruschini, who was a great man; with the _'Pensieri di un
solitario'_; but it appears to me that Professor Minucci is advocating a
reform of an eminently intellectual nattire, and that----"

Here Dane lifted his small, white, refined hand,

"Allow me, Father," he said. "My dear friend Marinier sees that the
discussion is reopened. I beg him to resume his seat." The Abbe raised
his eyebrows slightly, but obeyed. The others also sat down, quite
satisfied. They had little faith in the Abbe's discretion, and it would
have been a great misfortune had he left _ab irato_. Father Salvati
resumed his discourse.

He was opposed to giving an eminently intellectual character to the
movement of reform, not so much on account of the danger from Rome as of
the danger of troubling the simple faith of a multitude of quiet souls.