“But you was so good as to say when we were in Paris, ma’am----” “Never remind me of anything I said. I can’t endure it! I believe you want to get in the swim, don’t you?” “Please, I don’t quite understand, ma’am.” Her visitor was silently finishing nibbling at a caviare biscuit and reflecting what a goose she had been to go to Egypt instead of utilizing this Massarene vein. She must certainly, she thought, do all she could for these people. “You’re Catholic, aren’t you?” she said abruptly. The horror of an Ulster woman spread itself over the flaccid and pallid clay in which the features of her hostess were moulded. “Oh no, my lady, we were never Romans,” she said, so aghast that she was carried out of herself into the phraseology of her earlier years. “We were never Romans. How could you think it of us?” “It would be better for you if you were,” said Lady Kenilworth unfeelingly and irreverently. “Catholics are _chic_; and then all the great Catholic families push a convert unanimously. They’d get a sweep to all the best houses if he only went often enough to the Oratory.” “We’ve always been loyal people,” murmured Mrs. Massarene piteously; “always Orange as Orange could be.” “Loyalty’s nothing,” said Lady Kenilworth, contemptuously eyeing the beautiful gold urn with the envious appreciation of a dealer’s glance. “Loyalty don’t ‘take the cake.’ Nobody is afraid of it. It’s all fear now that we go by----” “And gain,” she was about to add but checked the words unuttered. “I wish you were Catholic,” she said instead. “It would make everything so much smoother for you. I suppose you couldn’t change? They’d make it very easy for you.” Margaret Massarene gasped. Life had unfolded many possibilities to her of which she had never dreamed; but never such a possibility as this. “Couldn’t you?” said her guest sharply. “After all, it’s nothing to do. The Archbishop would see to it all for you. They make it very easy where there is plenty of money.” “I don’t think I could, my lady; it would be eternal punishment for me in the world to come,” said Mrs. Massarene faintly, whilst her groom of the chambers restrained a violent inclination to box her on the ears for the vulgarity of her two last words. He had been long trained in the necessary art of banishing from his countenance every ray of expression, every shadow of indication that he overheard what was said around him, but nature for once prevailed over training; deep and unutterable disgust was spoken on his bland yet austere features. Eternal punishment! did the creature think that Harrenden House was a Methody chapel? As for Lady Kenilworth, she went into a long and joyous peal of laughter; laughed till the tears brimmed over in her pretty ingenuous turquoise-colored eyes.