CHAPTER 11
MONSIGNOR LAFELLE made another afternoon call on the Beaubien a few days later. That lady, fresh from her bath, scented, powdered, and charming in a loose, flowing Mandarin robe, received him graciously.
“But I can give you only a moment, Monsignor,” she said, waving him to a chair, while she stooped and tenderly took up the two spaniels. “I have a dinner to-night, and so shall not listen unless you have something fresh and really worth while to offer.”
“My dear Madam,” said he, bowing low before he sank into the great leather armchair, “you are charming, and the Church is justly proud of you.”
“Tut, tut, my friend,” she returned, knitting her brows. “That may be fresh, I admit, but not worth listening to. And if you persist in that vein I shall be obliged to have William set you into the street.”
“I can not apologize for voicing the truth, dear Madam,” he replied, as his eyes roved admiringly over her comely figure. “The Church has never ceased to claim you, however far you may have wandered from her. But I will be brief. I am leaving for Canada shortly on a mission of some importance. May I not take with me the consoling assurance that you have at last heard and yielded to the call of the tender Mother, who has never ceased to yearn for her beautiful, wayward daughter?”
The Beaubien smiled indulgently. “There,” she said gently, “I thought that was it. No, Monsignor, no,” shaking her head. “When only a wild, thoughtless girl I became a Catholic in order that I might marry Gaspard de Beaubien. The priest urged; and I––poof! what cared I? But the past eighteen years have confirmed me in some views; and one is that I shall gain nothing, either here or hereafter, by renewing my allegiance to the Church of Rome.”
Monsignor sighed, and stroked his abundant white hair. Yet his sigh bore a hope. “I learned this morning,” he said musingly, “that my recent labors with the Dowager Duchess of Altern in England have not been vain. She has become a communicant of Holy Church.”
“What!” exclaimed the Beaubien. “The Duchess of Altern––sister of Mrs. J. Wilton Ames? Why, she was a high Anglican––”