“I like him now. That is why I regret that he should devote himself to such a questionable enterprise.”

“What enterprise?”

“His Church.”

With a forced calmness she replied, “This is the only time I ever heard the first religion of Christendom called a ‘questionable enterprise.’”

“Leo X. spoke of it as a ‘profitable fable.’ Perhaps that was better.”

“Did Leo X. say that of the Catholic Church?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t believe it.”

“Because you have too high an opinion of Leo?”

44“No; but he was a Pope of Rome, and I simply cannot believe it.”