‘It is a shame!’ thought Logan.  ‘I don’t like it now I see it.’

‘As to horror of cats,’ said the Earl, ’I suppose evolution can explain it.  I wonder how they would work it out in Science Jottings.  There is a great deal of electricity in a cat.’

‘Evolution can explain everything,’ said the Jesuit demurely, ’but who can explain evolution?’

‘As to electricity in the cat,’ said Logan, ’I daresay there is as much in the dog, only everybody has tried stroking a cat in the dark to see the sparks fly, and who ever tried stroking a dog in the dark, for experimental purposes?—­did you, Lady Mary?’

Lady Mary never had tried, but the idea was new to her, and she would make the experiment in winter.

‘Deer skins, stroked, do sparkle,’ said Logan, ’I read that in a book.  I daresay horses do, only nobody tries.  I don’t think electricity is the explanation of why some people can’t bear cats.’

’Electricity is the modern explanation of everything—­love, faith, everything,’ remarked the Jesuit; ’but, as I said, who shall explain electricity?’

Lady Mary, recognising the orthodoxy of these sentiments, felt more friendly towards Father Riccoboni.  He might be a Jesuit, but he was bien pensant.

‘What I am afraid of is not a cat, but a mouse,’ said Miss Willoughby, and the two other ladies admitted that their own terrors were of the same kind.

‘What I am afraid of,’ said the Prince, ’is a banging door, by day or night.  I am not, otherwise, of a nervous constitution, but if I hear a door bang, I must go and hunt for it, and stop the noise, either by shutting the door, or leaving it wide open.  I am a sound sleeper, but, if a door bangs, it wakens me at once.  I try not to notice it.  I hope it will leave off.  Then it does leave off—­that is the artfulness of it—­and, just as you are falling asleep, knock it goes!  A double knock, sometimes.  Then I simply must get up, and hunt for that door, upstairs or downstairs—­’

‘Or in my—­’ interrupted Miss Willoughby, and stopped, thinking better of it, and not finishing the quotation, which passed unheard.

‘That research has taken me into some odd places,’ the Prince ended; and Logan reminded the Society of the Bravest of the Brave.  What he was afraid of was a pair of tight boots.

These innocent conversations ended, and, after dinner, the company walked about or sat beneath the stars in the fragrant evening air, the Earl seated by Miss Willoughby, Scremerston smoking with Logan; while the white dress of Lady Alice flitted ghost-like on the lawn, and the tip of the Prince’s cigar burned red in the neighbourhood.  In the drawing-room Lady Mary was tentatively conversing with the Jesuit, that mild but probably dangerous animal.  She had the curiosity which pious maiden ladies feel about the member of a community which they only know through novels.  Certainly this Jesuit was very unlike Aramis.