“I was presented to him in Paris the day before I left for Florence,” replied Aubrey, “at the studio of his niece, Donna Angela Sovrani.”

“Ah!” and Gherardi balanced a paper-knife lightly on the point of his long forefinger, “An unpleasant woman that!  One of the female ‘geniuses’ who presume nowadays to compete with men in art and literature.”

“In Donna Sovrani’s case there can be no question of competition,” answered Leigh quietly, “She is by far and away the best artist of her time.”

“You think so?  Very good, very good!” and Gherardi laughed a little, “You are very chivalrous!  You have a touch of the American in you, have you not?—­there is a tendency in the men of the New World to be always on their knees before women.  Strange, very strange!”

“We begin our lives in that way,” replied Leigh, “We kneel to our mothers!”

A slight flush reddened Gherardi’s yellow paleness, but he kept his smile well in evidence.

“Charmingly expressed—­very charmingly!” he said suavely, “And so you have met our dear St. Felix!  Well, well!  And did he tell you all about the wonderful miracle he performed at Rouen?”

A cloud of surprise intermingled with contempt darkened Leigh’s intellectual brows.

“Never!” he said emphatically, “I should not have thought so much of him if he had laid any claim to such a pretence!”

Gherardi laughed again softly.

“What a pity,” he observed, “What a pity you clever heretics are so violent!  You think the power of the Church is a decaying one, and that our Lord has ceased to supply its ministers with the Spirit of Grace and the powers of healing?  But this is where you are mistaken!  The Church—­the Roman Church—­remains as it always was and always will be; impregnable!—­the source of inspiration, the seat of miracle, the only clue and road to everlasting life!  And as for its power—­” here he closed his hand and dropped it on the table with a silent force which was strangely expressive, “its power is immeasurable!  It reaches out in every direction—­it grasps—­it holds,—­it keeps!  Why will you and your co-workers ‘kick’ like St. Paul ‘against the pricks’?  It is quite useless!  The Church is too strong for any one of you—­aye, and for any army of you!  Do you not hear the divine Voice from heaven calling daily in your ears, ’Why persecutest thou Me?’”

“Yes,” answered Aubrey deliberately, “I hear that every time I enter a church!  I hear it every time I see an ordained priest or minister of the Gospel misusing his time in construing to his own purposes the classic simplicity of Christ’s doctrine.  In some places of worship, such as the tawdry church of the ‘Annunziata’ in Florence that protest seems to reach its climax.  When one sees the unwashen priests expectorating every five minutes or so [Footnote:  A fact] on the very altars where they perform Mass;—­when one notes the dirt, the neglect, the gim-crackery;—­the sickening and barbarous superstition everywhere offered as being representative of sublime Deity,—­the Force which has raised the heaven above us with its endless star-patterns of living universe,—­then the cry of ’Why persecutest thou Me?’ seems to roll through the arches like the thunder which sometimes precedes a general earthquake!”