CHAPTER XXIII.
Toward the Flaminian Gate.
A Quarter-past nine on the following Saturday evening found our heroine and her uncle at a supper tea in the Legate’s back drawing-room in Westminster. The conversation at table was light; Lesbia, who, as we have seen before, had a talent for mimicry, entertained her host, a man of the world, whose guests felt no géne, by reproducing the ludicrous parts of the Parliamentary debate at which she had been present since they last met. When they afterwards seated themselves in easy chairs in the larger room, another sort of debate began, the final results of which proved to be in no manner a screaming farce.
‘Well now, Mr Bristley,’ said the cardinal, ‘we are in private conclave at last, so there need be no more reserve about this mystery. What is it, then; out with it.’
‘It’s Madonna-worship,’ answered Lesbia promptly.
‘Indeed!’ said the cardinal. ‘But I thought there was question of a special mission of Rome?’
‘That is her special mission,’ said Mr Bristley, with brevity like that of his niece.
‘But surely—I was under the impression that non-catholics blamed us for exalting Our Lady too much,’ objected the cardinal.
‘They may,’ retorted Mr Bristley. ‘It is not my busi-
