‘So are the sailors in a storm-tossed vessel. The good Samaritan troubled himself with what, others might have said, had no concern for him.’
‘I will not discuss it,’ said his Eminence abruptly. ‘The world has formed its own vulgar estimate of your order, and I, at least, agree with the majority. He paused for a second or two, and then, with a tone of some irritation, said, ‘What is this story Rome is full of, about some Egyptian woman, or a Greek, arrested and confined by a warrant of the Holy Office; they have mingled your name with it, somehow?’
‘A grave charge, your Eminence; Satanic possession and witchcraft——’
‘Massoni,’ broke in Caraffa, with a malicious twinkle of his dark eye, ‘remember, I beseech you, that we are alone. What do you mean, then, by witchcraft?’
‘Were I to say to your Eminence that, after a certain interview with you, I had come away, assuring myself that other sentiments were in your heart than those you had avowed to me; that you had but half revealed this, totally ignored that, affected credulity here, disbelief there, my subtlety, whether right or wrong, would resolve itself into a mere common gift—the practised habit of one skilled to decipher motives; but if, while in your presence, standing as I now do here, I could, with an effort of argument or abstraction, open your whole heart before me, and read there as in a book, and, while doing this, place you in circumstances where your most secret emotions must find vent, so that not a corner nor a nook of your nature should be strange to me, by what name would you call such an influence?’
‘What you describe now has never existed, Massoni. Tricksters and mountebanks have pretended to such power in every age, but they have had no other dupes than the unlettered multitude.’
‘How say you, then, if I be a believer here? What say you, if I have tested this woman’s power, and proved it? What say you, if all she has predicted has uniformly come to pass; not a day, nor a date, nor an hour mistaken! I will give an instance. Of Delia Rocca’s mission and its objects here, I had not the very faintest anticipation. That the exiled family of France cherished hope enough to speculate on some remote future, I did not dream of suspecting; and yet, through her foretelling, I learned the day he would arrive at Rome, the very hotel he would put up at, the steps he would adopt to obtain an audience of the Chevalier, the attempts he would make to keep his mission a secret from me; nay, to the very dress in which he would present himself, I knew and was prepared for all.’
‘All this might be concerted; what more easy than to plan any circumstance you have detailed, and by imposing on your credulity secure your co-operation?’
‘Let me finish, sir. I asked what success would attend his plan, and learned that destiny had yet left this doubtful—that all was yet dependent on the will of one whose mind was still unresolved. I pressed eagerly to learn his name, she refused to tell me, openly avowing that she would thwart his influence, if in her power. I grew angry and even scoffed at her pretended powers, declaring, as you have just suggested, that all she had told me might be nothing beyond a well-arranged scheme. “For once, then, you shall have a proof,” said she, “and never shall it be repeated; fold that sheet of paper there, as a letter, and seal it carefully and well. The name I have alluded to is written within,” said she. I started, for the paper contained no writing—not a word, not a syllable—I had scanned it carefully ere I folded it. Of this I can pledge my solemn and sacred word.’
‘Well, when you broke the seal,’ burst in the Cardinal.