"But it's a pity all the same," the bishop concluded. The cardinal audibly thought, "You have perhaps not many very kindly feelings towards me personally, Mr. Rose." "I have no kindly feelings at all toward Your Eminency; and I believe you to be aware of my reasons. I trust that I never should be found wanting in reverence to your Sacred Purple: but apart from that--" indignant recollection stiffened and inflamed the speaker--"indeed I only am speaking civilly to you now because you are the successor of Augustine and Theodore and Dunstan and Anselm and Chichele and Chichester, and because my friend the Bishop of Caerleon has made you my guest for the nonce. My Lord Cardinal, I do not know what you want of me, nor why you have come to me: but let me tell you that you shall not entangle me again in my talk. You are going the Catholic way to work with me; and that is the wrong way. Frankness and open honesty is the only way to win me--if you want me." "Well, well! You were going to give me your own view of your Vocation." "Your Eminency first was about to tell me how you found me after your letters to my publishers had been returned." "I applied to several Catholics who, formerly, had been your friends; and, when they could tell me nothing, I had a letter sent to all the bishops of my province directing inquisition to be made among the clergy. Your personality, if not your name, was certain to be known to at least one of these if you still remained Catholic, you know." "If I still remained Catholic!" George growled with contemptuous ire. "People in your position, Mr. Rose, have been known to commit apostasy." "And it is precisely because people in my position habitually commit apostasy that I decline to do what is expected of me. No. I'll follow my cat's example of exclusive singularity. It would be too obliging and too silly to give you Catholics that weapon to use against me. No, no, Eminency, rest assured that I rather will be a nuisance and poor, as I am, than an apostate and rich, as I might be." The cardinal raised his eyebrows. "I trust you have a worthier motive than that!" "I mentioned that I was not in revolt against the Faith, but against the Faithful." "And the Grace of God?" "Oh, of course the Grace of God," George hastened in common courtesy conventionally to adjoin. The fine dark brows came down again, and the cardinal continued, "As soon as I had issued the mandate to my suffragans, Dr. Talacryn at once furnished the desired information." "I see," said George. Then, "Where would Your Eminency like me to begin?" "Tell me your own tale in your own way, dear child." George softly and swiftly stroked his little cat. He compelled himself to think intensely, to marshal salient facts on which he had brooded day and night unceasingly for years, and to try to eliminate traces of the acerbity, of the devouring fury, with which they still inspired him.