He lifted his eyebrows playfully, and rubbed his plump hands one over the other with such an intolerably innocent air of enjoyment that Stella positively hated him.  She felt her capacity for self-restraint failing her.  Under the influence of strong emotion her thoughts lost their customary discipline.  In attempting to fathom Father Benwell, she was conscious of having undertaken a task which required more pliable moral qualities than she possessed.  To her own unutterable annoyance, she was at a loss what to say next.

At that critical moment her mother appeared—­eager for news of the conquest of Romayne.

“My dear child, how pale you look!” said Mrs. Eyrecourt.  “Come with me directly—­you must have a glass of wine.”

This dexterous device for entrapping Stella into a private conversation failed.  “Not now, mamma, thank you,” she said.

Father Benwell, on the point of discreetly withdrawing, stopped, and looked at Mrs. Eyrecourt with an appearance of respectful interest.  As things were, it might not have been worth his while to take the trouble of discovering her.  But when she actually placed herself in his way, the chance of turning Mrs. Eyrecourt to useful account was not a chance to be neglected.  “Your mother?” he said to Stella.  “I should feel honored if you will introduce me.”

Having (not very willingly) performed the ceremony of presentation, Stella drew back a little.  She had no desire to take any part in the conversation that might follow—­but she had her own reasons for waiting near enough to hear it.

In the meanwhile, Mrs. Eyrecourt turned on her inexhaustible flow of small-talk with her customary facility.  No distinction of persons troubled her; no convictions of any sort stood in her way.  She was equally ready (provided she met him in good society) to make herself agreeable to a Puritan or a Papist.

“Delighted to make your acquaintance, Father Benwell.  Surely I met you at that delightful evening at the Duke’s?  I mean when we welcomed the Cardinal back from Rome.  Dear old man—­if one may speak so familiarly of a Prince of the Church.  How charmingly he bears his new honors.  Such patriarchal simplicity, as every one remarked.  Have you seen him lately?”

The idea of the Order to which he belonged feeling any special interest in a Cardinal (except when they made him of some use to them) privately amused Father Benwell.  “How wise the Church was,” he thought, “in inventing a spiritual aristocracy.  Even this fool of a woman is impressed by it.”  His spoken reply was true to his assumed character as one of the inferior clergy.  “Poor priests like me, madam, see but little of Princes of the Church in the houses of Dukes.”  Saying this with the most becoming humility, he turned the talk in a more productive direction, before Mrs. Eyrecourt could proceed with her recollections of “the evening at the Duke’s.”

“Your charming daughter and I have been talking about Clovelly,” he continued.  “I have just been spending a little holiday in that delightful place.  It was a surprise to me, Mrs. Eyrecourt, to see so many really beautiful country seats in the neighborhood.  I was particularly struck—­you know it, of course?—­by Beaupark House.”