But the Duchessa did n’t appear to heed it.

“Don’t you think it would be a touching episode for your friend to write a story round?” she asked.

We may guess whether he was relieved.

“Oh—­oh, yes,” he agreed, with the precipitancy of a man who, in his relief, would agree to anything.

“Have you ever seen such courage?” she went on.  “The wonderful babies!  Fancy fifteen days, fifteen days and nights, alone, unprotected, on the highway, those poor little atoms!  Down in their hearts they are really filled with terror.  Who would n’t be, with such a journey before him?  But how finely they concealed it, mastered it!  Oh, I hope they won’t be robbed.  God help them—­God help them!”

“God help them, indeed,” said Peter.

“And the little girl, with her medal of the Immaculate Conception.  The father, after all, can hardly be the brute one might suspect, since he has given them a religious education.  Oh, I am sure, I am sure, it was the Blessed Virgin herself who sent us across their path, in answer to that poor little creature’s prayers.”

“Yes,” said Peter, ambiguously perhaps.  But he liked the way in which she united him to herself in the pronoun.

“Which, of course,” she added, smiling gravely into his eyes, “seems the height of absurdity to you?”

“Why should it seem the height of absurdity to me?” he asked.

“You are a Protestant, I suppose?”

“I suppose so.  But what of that?  At all events, I believe there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in the usual philosophies.  And I see no reason why it should not have been the Blessed Virgin who sent us across their path.”

“What would your Protestant pastors and masters do, if they heard you?  Isn’t that what they call Popish superstition?”

“I daresay.  But I’m not sure that there’s any such thing as superstition.  Superstition, in its essence, is merely a recognition of the truth that in a universe of mysteries and contradictions, like ours, nothing conceivable or inconceivable is impossible.”

“Oh, no, no,” she objected.  “Superstition is the belief in something that is ugly and bad and unmeaning.  That is the difference between superstition and religion.  Religion is the belief in something that is beautiful and good and significant —­something that throws light into the dark places of life—­that helps us to see and to live.”

“Yes,” said Peter, “I admit the distinction.”  After a little suspension, “I thought,” he questioned, “that all Catholics were required to go to Mass on Sunday?”

“Of course—­so they are,” said she.

“But—­but you—­” he began.

“I hear Mass not on Sunday only—­I hear it every morning of my life.”

“Oh?  Indeed?  I beg your pardon,” he stumbled.  “I—­one—­one never sees you at the village church.”

“No.  We have a chapel and a chaplain at the castle.”