And sitting down, he turned his dark face and gleaming eyes full on his confrere, who with a shrug of his massive shoulders expressed in his attitude a disdainful relinquishment of the whole business.
"You have not," pursued Moretti deliberately, "grasped anything like the extent of this man Leigh's determination and indifference to results. Please mark that last clause,—indifference to results. He is apparently alone in the world,—he seems to have nothing to lose, and no one to care whether he succeeds or fails;—a most dangerous form of independence! And in his persistence and eloquence he is actually stopping—yes, I repeat it,—stopping and putting a serious check on the advancement of the Roman Catholic party. And of course any check just now means to us a serious financial loss both in England and America,—a deficit in Vatican revenues which will very gravely incommode certain necessary measures now under the consideration of His Holiness. I expected you to grasp the man and hold him,—not by intimidation but by flattery."
"You think he is to be caught by so common a bait?" said Gherardi,
"Bah! He would see through it at once!"
"Maybe!" replied Moretti, "But perhaps not if it were administered in the way I mean. You seem to have forgotten the chief influence of any that can be brought to bear upon the heart and mind of a man,—and that is, Woman."
Gherardi laughed outright.
"Upon my word I think it would be difficult to find the woman suited to this case!" he said. "But you who have a diplomacy deeper than that of any Jew usurer may possibly have one already in view?"
"There is now in Rome," pursued Moretti, speaking with the same even deliberation of accent, "a faithful daughter of the Church, whose wealth we can to a certain extent command, and whose charm is unquestionable,—the Comtesse Sylvie Hermenstein—"
Gherardi started. Moretti eyed him coldly.
"You are not stricken surely by the childlike fascination with which this princess of coquettes rules her court?" he enquired sarcastically.
"I?" echoed Gherardi, shifting his position so that Moretti's gaze could not fall so directly upon him. "I? You jest!"