Tommaso bowed low.  The earl blushed.

Lady Nora looked at her watch.

“Five o’clock!” she exclaimed, “and Aunt Molly will be wanting her tea.  The launch is at the stairs.  Will you come, Bobby?  And you, your eminence, will you honor me?”

“Not to-day, my lady,” replied the cardinal, “but perhaps some other.”

“To-morrow?” she asked.

“Yes,” said the cardinal.

“Thank you,” said Lady Nora; “the launch will be at the landing at half-past four.”

“Is it an electrical contrivance?” asked the cardinal, with a smile.

“Yes,” replied Lady Nora.

“Then,” said the cardinal, “you need not send it.  I will come in my barca.  Electricity and the Church are not friendly.  We have only just become reconciled to steam.”

Lady Nora laughed.  “Good-by,” she said, “until to-morrow,” and again she made her courtesy.

“Until to-morrow,” said the cardinal; and he watched them down the aisle.

“Tommaso,” he said to the sacristan, “give me the turquoise cup.”

Tommaso handed it to him, silent but wondering.

“Now lock the door,” said the cardinal, “and give me the key.”

Tommaso complied.  The cardinal put the cup under his robe and started down the aisle.

“Tommaso,” he said, “you are now closed for the annual cleaning.  You understand, do you not?”

“Perfectly, your eminence,” replied Tommaso, and then he added—­“When a stranger gives me two hundred and fifty lire it is time to lock my door.”

The cardinal went out of the church, the turquoise cup under his cassock.  He crossed the Piazza slowly, for he was both limping and thinking.  He came to the shop of Testolini, the jeweller, under the North arcade, paused a moment, and entered.  The clerks behind the counters sprang to their feet and bowed low.

“Signor Testolini?” asked the cardinal; “is he within?”

“Yes, your eminence,” said the head clerk.  “He is in his bureau.  I will summon him.”

“No,” said the cardinal, “if he is alone I will go in,” and he opened the door at the back of the shop and closed it behind him.  In ten minutes he came out again.  Signor Testolini followed, rubbing his hands and bowing at each step.

“Perfectly, your eminence,” he said.  “I quite understand.”

“It must be in my hands in ten days,” said the cardinal.

“Ten days!” exclaimed Testolini; “impossible.”

“What is that strange word?” said the cardinal; “it must be a vulgarism of New Italy, that ‘impossible.’  I do not like it and I will thank you not to use it again when speaking to me.  In ten days, Signore.”

“Yes, your eminence,” said Testolini, “but it will be in the afternoon.”

“In ten days,” said the cardinal, very quietly.

“Yes, your eminence,” said Testolini.

“He looks like Napoleon,” whispered the head clerk to his neighbor.