He paused. The cardinal evaded his glance; and intently gazed at the under-side of well-manicured pink-onyx finger-nails.
"And about your Vocation, Mr. Rose. What is your present opinion?"
George wrenched himself from retrospection. "My opinion, Eminency, as I already have had the honour of telling you, is the same as it always has been."
"That is to say?"
"That I have a Divine Vocation to the Priesthood."
"You persist?"
"Eminency, I am not one of your low Erse or pseudo Gaels, flippertigibbets of frothy flighty fervour, whom you can blow hither and thither with a sixpence for a fan. Thank The Lord I'm English, born under Cancer, tenacious, slow and sure. Naturally I persist."
Cardinalitial eyebrows re-ascended. "The man, to whom Divine Providence vouchsafes a Vocation, is bound to prosecute it."
"I am prosecuting it. I never for one moment have ceased from prosecuting it."
"But now you have attained a position as an author."