“You don’t seriously believe all that?” she said.

“No, I don’t seriously believe it.  But one breathes it in with the air of one’s nursery, and it sticks.  I don’t believe it, but I fear it just enough to be made uneasy.  The evil eye, for instance.  How can one spend any time in Italy, where everybody goes loaded with charms against it, and help having a sort of sneaking half-belief in the evil eye?”

She shook her head, laughing.

“I ’ve spent a good deal of time in Italy, but I have n’t so much as a sneaking quarter-belief in it.”

“I envy you your strength of mind,” said he.  “But surely, though superstition is a luxury forbidden to Catholics, there are plenty of good Catholics who indulge in it, all the same?”

“There are never plenty of good Catholics,” said sire.  “You employ a much-abused expression.  To profess the Catholic faith, to go to Mass on Sunday and abstain from meat on Friday, that is by no means sufficient to constitute a good Catholic.  To be a good Catholic one would have to be a saint, nothing less—­and not a mere formal saint, either, but a very real saint, a saint in thought and feeling, as well as in speech and action.  Just in so far as one is superstitious, one is a bad Catholic.  Oh, if the world were populated by good Catholics, it would be the Millennium come to pass.”

“It would be that, if it were populated by good Christians —­wouldn’t it?” asked Peter.

“The terms are interchangeable,” she answered sweetly, with a half-comical look of defiance.

“Mercy!” cried he.  “Can’t a Protestant be a good Christian too?”

“Yes,” she said, “because a Protestant can be a Catholic without knowing it.”

“Oh—?” he puzzled, frowning.

“It’s quite simple,” she explained.  “You can’t be a Christian unless you’re a Catholic.  But if you believe as much of Christian truth as you’ve ever had a fair opportunity of learning, and if you try to live in accordance with Christian morals, you are a Catholic, you’re a member of the Catholic Church, whether you know it or not.  You can’t be deprived of your birthright, you see.”

“That seems rather broad,” said Peter; “and one had always heard that Catholicism was nothing if not narrow.”

“How could it be Catholic if it were narrow?” asked she.  “However, if a Protestant uses his intelligence, and is logical, he’ll not remain an unconscious Catholic long.  If he studies the matter, and is logical, he’ll wish to unite himself to the Church in her visible body.  Look at England.  See how logic is multiplying converts year by year.”

“But it’s the glory of Englishmen to be illogical,” said Peter, with a laugh.  “Our capacity for not following premisses to their logical consequences is the principal source of our national greatness.  So the bulk of the English are likely to resist conversion for centuries to come—­are they not?  And then, nowadays, one is so apt to be an indifferentist in matters of religion—­and Catholicism is so exacting.  One remains a Protestant from the love of ease.”