"I hope you do," interrupted Gherardi, "And that you will by and by grasp the fact that my views are shared by almost everyone holding any Church authority. But you must go about in Rome, and make enquiries for yourself . . . now, let me see! Do you know the Princesse D'Agramont?"
"No."
"Oh, you must know her,—she is a great friend of Donna Sovrani's, and a witty and brilliant personage in herself. She is rather of your way of thinking, and so is out of favour with the Church. But that will not matter to you; and you will meet all the dissatisfied and enthusiastic of the earth in her salons! I will tell her to send you a card."
Aubrey said something by way of formal acknowledgment, and then took his leave. He was singularly depressed, and his face, always quick to show traces of thought, had somewhat lost its former expression of eager animation. The wily Gherardi had for the time so influenced his sensitive mind as to set it almost to the tune of the most despairing of Tennyson's "Two Voices",
"A life of nothings, nothing worth,
From that first nothing ere his birth,
To that last nothing under earth."
What was the use of trying to expound a truth, if the majority preferred a lie?
"Will one bright beam be less intense,
When thy peculiar difference
Is cancelled in the world of sense?"
And Gherardi noted the indefinable touch of fatigue that gave the slight droop of the shoulders and air of languor to the otherwise straight slim figure as it passed from his presence,—and smiled. He had succeeded in putting a check on unselfish ardour, and had thrown a doubt into the pure intention of enthusiastic toil. That was enough for the present. And scarcely had Aubrey crossed the threshold—scarcely had the echo of his departing footsteps died away—when a heavy velvet curtain in the apartment was cautiously thrust aside, and Monsignor Moretti stepped out of a recess behind it, with a dignity and composure which would have been impossible to any but an Italian priest convicted of playing the spy. Gherardi faced him confidently.
"Well?" he said, with a more exhaustive enquiry expressed in his look than in the simple ejaculation.
"Well!" echoed Moretti, as he slowly advanced into the centre of the room, "You have not done as much as I expected you would. Your arguments were clever, but not—to a man of his obstinacy, convincing."