"Sometimes one is not given the chance to lift it," interposed Angela, "It is torn off ruthlessly by a force greater than one's own. 'Call no man happy till his death,' you know."

"Yes, I know," and the Abbe settled himself in his chair more comfortably;--he loved an argument with "the Sovrani", and was wont to declare that she was the only woman in the world who had ever made him wish to be a good man,--"But that maxim can be taken in two ways. It may mean that no man is happy till his death,--which I most potently believe,--or it may mean that a man is only JUDGED after his death, in which case it cannot be said to affect his happiness, as he is past caring whether people think ill or well of him. Besides, after death it must needs be all right, as every man is so particularly fortunate in his epitaph!"

Angela smiled a little.

"That is witty of you," she said, "but the fact of every man having a kindly-worded epitaph only proves goodness of heart and feeling in his relatives and friends--"

"Or grat.i.tude for a fortune left to them in his will," declared the Abbe gaily, "or a sense of relief that the dear creature has gone and will never come back. Either motive, would, I know, inspire me to write most pathetic verses! Now you bend your charming brows at me,--mea culpa! I have said something outrageous?"

"Not from the point of view at which YOU take life," said Angela quietly, "but I was just then thinking of a cousin of mine,--a very beautiful woman; her husband treated her with every possible sort of what I should term civil cruelty,--polite torture--refined agony. If he had struck her or shot her dead it would have been far kinder. But his conduct was worse than murder. He finally deserted her, and left her penniless to fight her own way through the world. Then he died suddenly, and she forgot all his faults, spoke of him as though he had been a model of goodness, and lives now for his memory, ever mourning his loss. In her case the feeling of regret had nothing to do with money, for he spent all her fortune and left her nothing even of her own. She has to work hard for her living now,--but she loves him and is as true to him as if he were still alive. What do you say to that?"

"I say that the lady in question must be a charming person!" replied the Abbe, "Perfectly charming! But of course she is deceiving herself; and she takes pleasure in the self-deception. She knows that the man had deserted her and was quite unworthy of her devotion;--but she pretends to herself that she does NOT know. And it is charming, of course! But women will do that kind of thing. It is extraordinary,--but they will. They all deceive themselves in matters of love. Even you deceive yourself."

Angela started.

"I?" she exclaimed.

"Yes--you--why not?" And the Abbe treated her to one of his particularly paternal smiles. "You are betrothed to Florian Varillo,--but no man ever had or ever could have all the virtues with which you endow this excellent Florian. He is a delightful creature,--a good artist--unique in his own particular line,--but you think him something much greater than even artist or man--a sort of G.o.d, (though the G.o.ds themselves were not impeccable) only fit to be idealised. Now, I am not a believer in the G.o.ds,--but of course it is delightful to me to meet those who are."

"Signor Varillo needs neither praise nor defence," said Angela with a slight touch of hauteur, "All the world knows what he is."

"Yes, precisely! That is just it,--all the world knows what he is,--"

and the Abbe rubbed his forehead with an air of irritation, "And I am vexing you by my talk, I can see! Well, well!--You must forgive my garrulity;--I admit my faults--I am old--I am a cynic--I talk too much--I have a bad opinion of man, and an equally bad opinion of the Forces that evolved him. By the way, I met that terrible reformer and socialist Aubrey Leigh at the Emba.s.sy the other day--the man who is making such a sensation in England with his 'Addresses to the People.'

He is quite an optimist, do you know? He believes in everything and everybody,--even in me!"

Angela laughed, and her laughter sweet and low, thrilled the air with a sense of music.

"That is wonderful!" she said gaily,--"Even in you! And how does he manage to believe in you, Monsieur l'Abbe? Do tell me!"

A little frown wrinkled the Abbe's brow.

"Well! in a strange way," he responded. "You know he is a very strange man and believes in very strange things. When I treat humanity as a jest--which is really how it should be treated--he looks at me with a grand air of tolerance, 'Oh, you will progress;' he says, 'You are pa.s.sing through a phase.' 'My dear sir,' I a.s.sure him, 'I have lived in this "phase", as you call it, for forty years. I used to pray to the angels and saints and to all the different little Madonnas that live in different places, till I was twenty. Then I dropped all the pretty heaven-toys at once;--and since then I have believed in nothing--myself, least of all. Now I am sixty--and yet you tell me I am only pa.s.sing through a phase.' 'Quite so,' he answered me with the utmost coolness, 'Your forty years--or your sixty years, are a Moment merely;--the Moment will pa.s.s--and you will find another Moment coming which will explain the one which has just gone. Nothing is simpler.'

And when I ask him which will be the best Moment,--the one that goes, or the one that comes--he says that I am making the coming Moment for myself--'which is so satisfactory' he adds with that bright smile of his, 'because of course you will make it pleasant!' 'Il faut que tout homme trouve pour lui meme une possibilite particuliere de vie superieure dans l'humble et inevitable realite quotidienne.' I do not find the 'possibilite particuliere'--but this man a.s.sures me it is because I do not trouble to look for it. What do you think about it?"

Angela's eyes were full of dreamy musing.

"I think Mr. Leigh's ideas are beautiful," she said, slowly, "I have often heard him talk on the subject of religion--and of art, and of work,--and all he says seems to be the expression of a n.o.ble and sincere mind. He is extraordinarily gifted."

"Yes,--and he is becoming rather an alarming personage in England, so I hear,--" returned the Abbe--"He writes books that are distinctly dangerous, because true. He wants to upset shams like our Socialist writer Gys Grandit. Gys Grandit, you know, will never be satisfied till, like Rousseau, he has brought about another French Revolution. He is only a peasant, they say, but he writes with the pen of a prophet.

And this Englishman is of the same calibre,--only his work is directed against religious hypocrisies more than social ones. I daresay that is why I always feel so uneasy in his presence!" And Vergniaud laughed lightly. "For the rest, he is a brilliant creature enough, and thoroughly manly. The other evening at the Club that little Vicomte de Lorgne was chattering in his usual offensive manner about women, and Leigh astonished everyone by the way in which he pulled him up. There was almost a very pretty quarrel,--but a stray man happened to mention casually,--that Leigh was considered one of the finest shots in England. After that the dear Vicomte vanished, and did not return."

Angela laughed.

"Poor de Lorgne! Yes--I have heard that Mr. Leigh excels in everything that is distinctly English--riding, shooting, and all that kind of thing. He is not effeminate."

"Few Englishmen are," said the Abbe,--"And yet to my mind there is something not altogether English in this man. He has none of the heavy British mental and physical stolidity. He is strong and muscular certainly,--but also light and supple,--and with that keen, intellectual delicate face of his, he is more of the antique Greek type than like a son of Les Isles Sans-Soleil."

"Sans-Soleil," echoed Angela, "But there is plenty of sunshine in England!"

"Is there? Well, I have been unfortunate,--I have never seen any,--"

and the Abbe gave a shrug of half regret, half indifference. "It is very curious the effect that this so brave England has upon me! In crossing to its sh.o.r.es I suffer of course from the mal de mer--then when I arrive exhausted to the white cliffs, it is generally raining--then I take train to London, where it is what is called black fog; and I find all the persons that I meet either with a cold, or going to have a cold, or just recovering from a cold! It is not lively--the very funerals are dull. And you--this is not your experience?"

"No--frankly I cannot say it is," replied Angela, "I have seen rain and fog in Rome that cannot be surpa.s.sed for wretchedness anywhere. Italy is far more miserable in cold weather than England. I pa.s.sed a summer once in England, and it was to me like a glimpse of Paradise. I never saw so many flowers--I never heard so many birds--(you know in Italy we kill all the singing birds and eat them), and I never met so many kind and gentle people."

"Well!--perhaps the religious sects in England are responsible for the general feeling of depression in the English atmosphere," said the Abbe with a light laugh, "They are certainly foggy! The one round Sun of one Creed is unknown to them. I a.s.sure you it is best to have one light of faith, even though it be only a magic lantern,--a toy to amuse the children of this brief life before their everlasting bedtime comes--"

He broke off abruptly as a slow step was heard approaching along the pa.s.sage, and in another moment Cardinal Bonpre entered the room.

"Ah, le bien aime Felix!" cried Vergniaud, hastening to meet him and clasp his outstretched hand, bowing slightly over it as he did so, "I have taken the liberty to wait for you, cher Monseigneur, being anxious to see you--and I understand your stay in Paris will not be long?"

"A few days at most, my dear Abbe",--replied the Cardinal, gently pressing the hand of Vergniaud and smiling kindly. "You are well? But surely I need not ask--you seem to be in the best of health and spirits."

"Ah, my seeming is always excellent," returned the Abbe, "However, I do not fare badly. I have thrown away all hard thinking!"

"And you are happier so?"

"Well, I am not quite sure! There is undoubtedly a pleasure in a.n.a.lysing the perplexities of one's own mind. Still, on the whole, it is perhaps better to enjoy the present hour without any thought at all."

"Like the b.u.t.terflies!" laughed Angela.

"Yes,--if b.u.t.terflies DO enjoy their hour,--which I am not at all prepared to admit. In my opinion they are very dissatisfied creatures,--no sooner on one flower than off they go to another. Very like human beings after all! But I imagine they never worry themselves with philosophical or religious questions."

"And do you?" enquired Bonpre, smiling, as he sat down in the easy chair his niece placed for him.

"Not as a rule!--" answered Vergniaud frankly, with a light laugh--"But I confess I have done a little in that way lately. Some of the new sciences puzzle me,--I am surprised to find how closely they approach to the fulfilment of old prophecies. One is almost inclined to believe that there must be a next world and a future life."

"I think such belief is now placed beyond mere inclination," said the Cardinal--"There is surely no doubt of it."

Vergniaud gave him a quick side-glance of earnest scrutiny.

"With you, perhaps not--" he replied--"But with me,--well!--it is a different matter. However, it is really no use worrying one's self with the question of 'To be, or not to be.' It drove Hamlet mad, just as the knotty point as to whether Hamlet himself was fat or lean nearly killed our hysterical little boy, Catullus Mendes. It's best to leave eternal subjects like G.o.d and Shakespeare alone."

He laughed again, but the Cardinal did not smile.

"I do not agree with you, Vergniaud," he said--"I fear it is because we do not think sufficiently for ourselves on the One eternal subject that so much mischief threatens us at the present time. To take gifts and ignore the Giver is surely the blackest ingrat.i.tude, yet that is what the greater part of humanity is guilty of in these days. Never was there so much beholding and yet ignoring of the Divine as now. Science is searching for G.o.d, and is getting closer to Him every day;--the Church remains stationary and refuses to look out beyond her own pale of thought and conventional discipline. I know,--" and the Cardinal hesitated a moment, "I know I can speak quite plainly to you, for you are what is called a freethinker--yet I doubt whether you are really as free as you imagine!"

The Abbe shrugged his shoulders.

"I imagine nothing!" he declared airily, "Everything is imagined for me nowadays,--and imagination itself is like a flying Geni which overtakes and catches the hair of some elusive Reality and turns its face round, full-shining on an amazed world!"

"A pretty simile!" said Angela Sovrani, smiling.

"Is it not? Almost worthy of Paul Verlaine who was too 'inspired' to keep either his body or his soul clean. Why was I not a poet!

Helas!--Fact so much outweighs fancy that it is no longer any use penning a sonnet to one's mistress's eyebrow. One needs to write with thunderbolts in characters of lightning, to express the wonders and discoveries of this age. When I find I can send a message from here to London across s.p.a.ce, without wires or any visible means of communication,--and when I am told that probably one of these days I shall be able at will to SEE the person to whom I send the message, reflected in s.p.a.ce while the message is being delivered,--I declare myself so perfectly satisfied with the fairy prodigies revealed to me, that I have really no time, and perhaps no inclination to think of any other world than this one."

"You are wrong, then," said the Cardinal, "Very wrong, Vergniaud. To me these discoveries of science, this apparent yielding of invisible forces into human hands, are signs and portents of terror. You remember the line 'the powers of heaven shall be shaken'? Those powers are being shaken now! We cannot hold them back;--they are here, with us;--but they mean much more than mere common utility to our finite selves. They are the material declarations of what is spiritual. They are the scientific proofs that Christ's words to 'THIS generation,' namely, this particular phase of creation,--are true. 'Blessed are they which have not seen and yet believed,' He said;--and many there are who have pa.s.sed away from us in rapt faith and hope, believing not seeing, and with whom we may rejoice in spirit, knowing that all must be well with them. But now--now we are come upon an age of doubt in the world--doubt which corrodes and kills the divine spirit in man, and therefore we are being forced to SEE that we may believe,--but the seeing is terrible!"

"Why?"

"Because in the very beholding of things we remain blind!" answered the Cardinal, "Our intense selfishness obscures the true light of every fresh advance. We accept new marvels of knowledge, as so much practical use to us, and to the little planet we live on,--but we do not see that they are merely reflections of the Truth from which they emanate. The toy called the biograph, which reflects pictures for us in a dazzling and moving continuity, so that we can see scenes of human life in action, is merely a hint to us that every scene of every life is reflected in a ceaseless moving panorama SOMEWHERE in the Universe, for the beholding of SOMEONE,--yes!--there must be Someone who so elects to look upon everything, or such possibilities of reflected scenes would not be,--inasmuch as nothing exists without a Cause for existence. The wireless telegraphy is a stupendous warning of the truth that 'from G.o.d no secrets are hid', and also of the prophecy of Christ 'there is nothing covered that shall not be revealed'--and, 'whatsoever ye have spoken in darkness shall be revealed in light.' The latter words are almost appalling in their absolute accord with the latest triumphant discoveries of science."