"Because I love her," Wardwell answered so promptly and bluntly that the Cardinal smiled.
"Were you ever baptized in any church?" the latter asked, after a little pause.
"I do not think so."
"Have you heard, perhaps, that I have personally very strong objection to my people marrying those who are not Catholics?"
"I have heard you say it. Your Eminence must understand," Wardwell explained, "that some reporter hears nearly everything that you say in public."
"I am glad to know that that is your business," the Cardinal said briefly. "Some of my best friends through long years have been newspaper men of this town. They are men of wide and sympathetic understanding. Now," he went on, "has it occurred to you that I have probably good reasons for opposing such marriages as the one for which you ask?"
"I do not doubt you have good reasons, your Eminence."
"What might you think to be one of them?"
"I suppose there's enough to fight about," said Wardwell promptly—so promptly that he saw the Cardinal smiling, and felt himself blushing furiously under the boyish white skin.
"You seem to have acquired a working knowledge," said the aged man with his smile, "of—But let us hope that it is not so bad as you have been led to believe. There are other reasons, several of them," he continued in a different tone. "You will find them all good. But back of them all there is a very human, very practical one. It is this. The Catholic party considers himself bound until death by a divine law. The other party, in practice, hardly ever considers himself bound by anything but the law of the land, and a certain vague sense of justice. It is never fair," he ended gravely. "Never a fair partnership."