"The faith of the simple-hearted is always moving," he said. "It isn't the faith of the people I question. It is the good faith of the Roman Catholic Church towards the people."
"I see," Sophy said thoughtfully. Then she turned to him again.
"You are so much more serious about it than the other Italians I've known, who were anti-clerical. They seemed just to shrug their shoulders over it—took it half laughingly."
"A man shouldn't take it with a shrug or half laughingly that the women of his country are under the thumb of a hierarchy," said Amaldi with some vehemence. "There is a great hour coming for women, all over the world—yet a true Italian can't wish this for his country-women, as long as their fuller power would be just another weapon in the hands of priests."
"You look far ahead, Marchese. Your mother told me to-day of another movement that you foresaw. Something about 'Iconoclasts.'"
"Yes," he said, "lands that have been saturated with beauty as Italy has must precipitate some reactionary movement sooner or later. First we have the mere inertia of saturation—the numbness to beauty—the incapacity to produce or even appreciate it. Next will come the positive reaction—the rise of the Image-Breakers. What queer name they will call themselves by I can't divine—but I can forefeel their rising."
Sophy walked on in silence for a moment, then she said:
"It must be wonderful to have such a country as Italy for your birthright, and to love it as much as you do."
He glanced at her with a changed look.
"Yes—I love it," he said. But he was thinking how much more than any country he loved her.