"It's all right, Dane, Cardinal di Contini-Verchese understands. We met first as Dane and Ralph, and we knew each other far better that way, didn't we? Formality is new to our relationship. I'd prefer it remain Dane and Ralph in private. His Eminence won't mind, will you, Vittorio?" "No. I am fond of Christian names. But returning to what I was saying about having friends in high places, my son. It could be a trifle uncomfortable for you when you enter whichever seminary is decided upon, this long friendship with our Ralph. To have to keep going into involved explanations every time the connection between you is remarked upon would be very tedious. Sometimes Our Lord permits of a little white lie"-he smiled, the gold in his teeth flashing-"and for everyone's comfort I would prefer that we resort to one such tiny fib. For it is difficult to explain satisfactorily the tenuous connections of friendship, but very easy to explain the crimson cord of blood. So we will say to all and sundry that Cardinal de Bricassart is your uncle, my Dane, and leave it at that," ended Cardinal Vittorio suavely. Dane looked shocked, Cardinal Ralph resigned. "Do not be disappointed in the great, my son," said Cardinal Vittorio gently. "They, too, have feet of clay, and resort to comfort via little white lies. It is a very useful lesson you have just learned, but looking at you, I doubt you will take advantage of it. However, you must understand that we scarlet gentlemen are diplomats to our fingertips. Truly I think only of you, my son. Jealousy and resentment are not strangers to seminaries any more than they are to secular institutions. You will suffer a little because they think Ralph is your uncle, your mother's brother, but you would suffer far more if they thought no blood bond linked you together. We are first men, and it is with men you will deal in this world as in others."
Dane bowed his head, then leaned forward to stroke the cat, pausing with his hand extended. "May I? I love cats, Your Eminence."
No quicker pathway to that old but constant heart could he have found. "You may. I confess she grows too heavy for me. She is a glutton, are you not, Natasha? Go to Dane; he is the new generation."
There was no possibility of Justine transferring herself and her belongings from the southern to the northern hemisphere as quickly as Dane had; by the time she worked out the season at the Culloden and bade a not unregretful farewell to Bothwell Gardens, her brother had been in Rome two months. "How on earth did I manage to accumulate so much junk?" she asked, surrounded by clothes, papers, boxes.
Meggie looked up from where she was crouched, a box of steel wool soap pads in her hand.
"What were these doing under your bed?"
A look of profound relief swept across her daughter's flushed face. "Oh, thank God! Is that where they were? I thought Mrs. D's precious poodle ate them; he's been off color for a week and I wasn't game to mention my missing soap pads. But I knew the wretched animal ate them; he'll eat anything that doesn't eat him first. Not," continued Justine thoughtfully, "that I wouldn't be glad to see the last of him."
Meggie sat back on her heels, laughing. "Oh, Jus! Do you know how funny you are?" She threw the box onto the bed among a mountain of things already there. "You're no credit to Drogheda, are you? After all the care we took pushing neatness and tidiness into your head, too."
"I could have told you it was a lost cause. Do you want to take the soap pads back to Drogheda? I know I'm sailing and my luggage is unlimited, but I daresay there are tons of soap pads in London."
Meggie transferred the box into a large carton marked MRS. D. "I think we'd better donate them to Mrs. Devine; she has to render this flat habitable for the next tenant." An unsteady tower of unwashed dishes stood on the end of the table, sprouting gruesome whiskers of mold. "Do you ever wash your dishes?"
Justine chuckled unrepentantly. "Dane says I don't wash them at all, I shave them instead."
"You'd have to give this lot a haircut first. Why don't you wash them as you use them?"
"Because it would mean trekking down to the kitchen again, and since I usually eat after midnight, no one appreciates the patter of my little feet." "Give me one of the empty boxes. I'll take them down and dispose of them now," said her mother, resigned; she had known before volunteering to come what was bound to be in store for her, and had been rather looking forward to it. It wasn't very often anyone had the chance to help Justine do anything; whenever Meggie had tried to help her she had ended feeling an utter fool. But in domestic matters the situation was reversed for once; she could help to her heart's content without feeling a fool.
Somehow it got done, and Justine and Meggie set out in the station wagon Meggie had driven down from Gilly, bound for the Hotel Australia, where Meggie had a suite.
"I wish you Drogheda people would buy a house at Palm Beach or Avalon," Justine said, depositing her case in the suite's second bedroom. "This is terrible, right above Martin Place. Just imagine being a hop, skip and jump from the surf! Wouldn't that induce you to hustle yourselves on a plane from Gilly more often?"
"Why should I come to Sydney? I've been down twice in the last seven years-to see Dane off, and now to see you off. If we had a house it would never be used."
"Codswallop."
"Why?
"Why? Because there's more to the world than bloody Drogheda, dammit! That place, it drives me batty!"
Meggie sighed. "Believe me, Justine, there'll come a time when you'll yearn to come home to Drogheda."
"Does that go for Dane, too?"
Silence. Without looking at her daughter, Meggie took her bag from the table. "We'll be late. Madame Rocher said two o'clock. If you want your dresses before you sail, we'd better hurry."
