“You will not come to Subiaco?” Noemi inquired timidly.
A note of hidden melancholy rang in her voice, and aroused in Benedetto’s heart a sense of sweet pain, which at once turned to fear, so new was it.
“No,” said he, “I think not.”
Noemi wished, and still did not wish to say she was sorry. She pronounced some confused words.
They heard some one in the ante-room. Noemi bowed, and Benedetto doing the same, the interview came to an end, without any further leave taking.
The Duchess also was anxious to speak with Benedetto. She brought her companions, both male and female, with her. No longer young, but still frivolous, half superstitious, half sceptical, egotistical but not heartless, she was devoted to the consumptive daughter of her old coachman, Having heard of the Saint of Jenne and his miracles, she had arranged this excursion, partly for amusement, partly to satisfy her curiosity, and she wished to ascertain if it would be wiser to have the Saint come to Rome, or to send the girl to him. At the house of a cardinal, her cousin, she had become acquainted with one of the priests now staying at Jenne, This man, having met her, had given her his own opinion of the Saint, announcing the downfall of his reputation. But, as the Duchess had little confidence in any priest, and was curious to know a man to whom such a romantic past was attributed, and as her companions—one woman in particular—shared her curiosity she resolved, at any cost, to find a means of approaching him.
An elderly, English gentlewoman was of her party; a lady famous for her wealth and her peculiar toilettes, for her theosophic and Christian mysticism, metaphysically in love with the Pope and also with the Duchess who laughed at her friends. These friends, on beholding Benedetto in that strange outfit, exchanged glances and smiles which very nearly became giggles; but the elderly Englishwoman forestalling them all constituted herself their spokeswoman. She said, in bad French, that she was aware she was speaking to a man of culture, that she, with her friends, of both sexes and of all nationalities, was working to unite all Christian Churches under the Pope, reforming Catholicism in certain particulars which were really too absurd, and which no one honestly believed were of any further use, such particulars as ecclesiastical celibacy and the dogma of hell. She needed a saint to accomplish these reforms. Benedetto would be that saint, because a spirit (she herself was not a spiritualist, but a friend of hers was), the Spirit of the Countess Blavatzky herself, had revealed this fact. It was therefore necessary that he should come to Rome, and there his saintly gifts would also enable him to render a service to the Duchess di Civitella, here present. She ended her discourse thus:
“Nous vous attendons absolument, monsieur! Quittez ce vilain trou! Quittez-le bientôt! Bientôt!”
Having let his stern gaze wander rapidly round the circle of mocking or stolid faces, from the Duchess’s lorgnon to the journalist’s eye-glass, Benedetto replied:
“À l’instant, madame!”