—­Well?

—­Well, that was useless.  I was taken like a poor fly.  It was too late.  It was all over.

—­All over!

—­All over.  Monsieur Fortin let me go then.  Ah! sir, if you knew how ashamed I was.

[Footnote 1:  They are still called sisters agapetae or subintroduced women.  Perhaps it is not unnecessary to recall the fact that Gregory VII was the first of the popes to impose celibacy on the clergy.  He nullified acts performed by married priests and compelled them to choose between their wives and the priesthood.  In spite of this, and in spite of excommunication with which he threatened them, many kept their wives secretly, the rest contented themselves with concubines.  Besides, the majority of the bishops, who lived after the same manner, tolerated for bribes infractions of the rule by the lower and higher clergy.  The Council of Paris, in 1212, forbade them to receive money, proceeding from this source.  At the present time, however, the Catholic priests of the Greeks-United, those of Libar and different Oriental communions, all under papal authority, not only may, but must take wives.

St. Paul said:  “Choose for priest him who shall have but one wife.”  Would he find many of them at the present time?]

LI.

CHAMBER MORALITY.

  “Practise moderation and prudence
  with regard to certain virtues which
  may ruin the health of the body.”

  THE REV.  FATHER LAURENT SCUPOLI (Le Combat Spirituel).

—­What a strange story, said Marcel.  Oh, Veronica.  But did you not make more resistance?

—­Resistance!  I was lame from it for more than a fortnight.  I walked like a duck.  People said to me:  “What is the matter with you, Mademoiselle Veronica?  They say you have broken something!” Ah, if they had suspected what it was.

—­What a scandal!  Monsieur Fortin!

—­He was stronger than I; but I don’t give him all the blame.  We must be just.  It was my fault too.  That is what comes of playing with fire.

—­But it seems to me, Veronica, that you displayed a little willingness.

—­Ah, Monsieur le Cure, you are scolding me for telling you all this so plainly.  Was it not better for me to act thus, than to let Monsieur Fortin run right and left and expose himself to all sorts of affronts, as some do?  That man had a temperament of fire.  And that temperament must have expended itself on someone.  The business about little Gilquin made me reflect.  I sacrificed myself, and I acted as much in his interests as in the interests of religion.

—­And does not temperament speak in you also, Veronica?

—­Ah, that is only told in confession.

—­Nevertheless it is fine to rule your passions, to be chaste.

—­Ah, yes, as you were saying once when I came in:  “Chaste without hope.”  All that is rubbish.  God has well done all that he has done; I can’t get away from that.