At the back of her brain there was a well-defined desire. She kept it there to gloat over in private and at intervals: for she was far too clever a woman to let her passion master her at this stage. It was the mainspring of her acts, the goal of her thoughts, the ultimate of her existence: but she kept it well concealed and controlled. Now and then, in the lonely depth of night, it surged to her oppression: but dawn and the respectability of her temper, brought it within bounds. She played a careful game, adding to her counters as opportunity occurred. She had the Liblabs and their four pounds a week to support her: she had (what she called) the secret history of the Pope in her possession: she was capturing the pious English. And then, one evening she acquired quite a priceless item of scandal which, sooner or later, she would use for the procuration of her Georgie. She had been wandering about alone in some of those new streets on the Viminal Hill, which Modern Rome built in imitation of the suburban residences of British merchants: streets where comfortable red-brick detached mansions stand each in a railed garden. As she was passing one of these fine but homely residences, the electric light sprang up in the drawing-room; and she was aware of three figures seated in the bay-window. An afternoon-tea-table was between them. They were two gorgeous white women with fair hair, evidently mother and daughter. Those she did not know: but the third was George Arthur Rose. She peered between the gilded bronze bars of the gate. It was dusk. No one but herself was in the street. And there, not twenty yards away, behind a pane of glass, was the man she worshipped. She gave up herself to her emotions during one minute. Then he and the women retired to the back of the room; and a decorous black-coated lacquey closed the curtains. For a moment, she felt like battering at the gate. Her heart violently palpitated. The connotation of the experience suddenly struck her. What was the Pope doing here? She knew that He went about everywhere: but they said that He never ate or drank in company; and she had seen Him finish a cup of tea. How dainty the elevation of that left little finger was! Ah! Why was He not dressed in white as usual? Disguised--taking tea in a private house--with two nameless women! Ah, why indeed! She focussed her fury. The number on the gate--yes. She ran to the end of the street and read "Via Morino." She crossed the road and returned; and found a niche where she could hide in the shadow of a pillared wall. Here, she watched and waited as a terrier waits on and watches a kitten demure in a tree--yapping and yelping almost inaudibly, well-nigh bursting with suppressed impulse to pounce. Perhaps she waited half-an-hour. Then a couple of lacqueys came-down to the gate: opened it; and obsequiously bowed to an ecclesiastic who passed out into the street flinging the right fold of his cloak over his left shoulder.