"My dear Ralph, if you took it into your head to don sackcloth and ashes, you'd manage to make yourself seem romantic and dashing! The riding habit suits you, though, it really does. Almost as well as a soutane, and don't waste your breath telling me you aren't very well aware it becomes you more than a priest's black suit. You have a peculiar and a most attractive way of moving, and you have kept your fine, figure; I thinkperhaps you always will. I also think that when I am recalled to Rome I shall take you with me. It will afford me great amusement to watch your effect on our short, fat Italian prelates. The beautiful sleek cat among the plump startled pigeons."
Rome! Father Ralph sat up in his chair.
"Was it very bad, my Ralph?" the Archbishop went on, smoothing his beringed milky hand rhythmically across the silky back of his purring Abyssinian cat. "Terrible, Your Grace."
"These people, you have a great fondness for them."
"Yes."
"And do you love all of them equally, or do you love some of them more than others?"
But Father Ralph was at least as wily as his master, and he had been with him now long enough to know how his mind worked. So he parried the smooth question with deceptive honesty, a trick he had discovered lulled His Grace's suspicions at once. It never occurred to that subtle, devious mind that an outward display of frankness might be more mendacious than any evasion. "I do love all of them, but as you say, some more than others. It's the girl Meggie I love the most. I've always felt her my special responsibility, because the family is so son-oriented they forget she exists." "How old is this Meggie?"
"I'm not sure exactly. Oh, somewhere around twenty, I imagine. But I made her mother promise to lift her head out of her ledgers long enough to make sure the girl got to a few dances, met a few young men. She's going to waste her life away stuck on Drogheda, which is a shame."
He spoke nothing but the truth; the Archbishop's ineffably sensitive nose sniffed it out at once. Though he was only three years his secretary's senior, his career within the Church hadn't suffered the checks Ralph's had, and in many ways he felt immeasurably older than Ralph would ever be; the Vatican sapped one of some vital essence if one was exposed to it very early, and Ralph possessed that vital essence in abundance.
Relaxing his vigilance somewhat, he continued to watch his secretary and resumed his interesting game of working out precisely what made Father Ralph de Bricassart tick. At first he had been sure there would be a fleshly weakness, if not in one direction, in another. Those stunning good looks and the accompanying body must have made him the target of many desires, too much so to preserve innocence or unawareness. And as time went on he had found himself half right; the awareness was undoubtedly there, but with it he began to be convinced was a genuine innocence. So whatever Father Ralph burned for, it was not the flesh. He had thrown the priest together with skilled and quite irresistible homosexuals if one was a homosexual; no result. He had watched him with the most beautiful women in the land; no result. Not a flicker of interest or desire, even when he was not in the slightest aware he was under observation. For the Archbishop did not always do his own watching, and when he employed minions it was not through secretarial channels. He had begun to think Father Ralph's weaknesses were pride in being a priest, and ambition; both were facets of personality he understood, for he possessed them himself. The Church had places for ambitious men, as did all great and self-perpetuating institutions. Rumor had it that Father Ralph had cheated these Clearys he purported to love so much out of their rightful inheritance. If indeed he had, he was well worth hanging on to. And how those wonderful blue eyes had blazed when he mentioned Rome! Perhaps it was time he tried another gambit. He poked forward a conversational pawn lazily, but his eyes under hooded lids were very keen.
"I had news from the Vatican while you were away,Ralph," he said, shifting the cat slightly. "My Sheba, you are selfish; you make my legs numb."
"Oh?" Father Ralph was sinking down in his chair, and his eyes were having a hard time staying open.
"Yes, you may go to bed, but not before you have heard my news. A little while ago I sent a personal and private communication to the Holy Father, and an answer came back today from my friend Cardinal Monteverdi-I wonder if he is a descendant of the Renaissance musician? Why do I never remember to ask him when I see him? Oh, Sheba, must you insist upon digging in your claws when you are happy?"
"I'm listening, Your Grace, I haven't fallen asleep yet," said Father Ralph, smiling. "No wonder you like cats so much. You're one yourself, playing with your prey for your own amusement." He snapped his fingers. "Here, Sheba, leave him and come to me! He is unkind."
The cat jumped down off the purple lap immediately, crossed the carpet and leaped delicately onto the priest's knees, stood waving its tail and sniffing the strange smells of horses and mud, entranced. Father Ralph's blue eyes smiled into the Archbishop's brown ones, both half closed, both absolutely alert.
"How do you do that?" demanded the Archbishop. "A cat will never go to anyone, but Sheba goes to you as if you gave her caviar and valerian. Ingrate animal."
"I'm waiting, Your Grace."
"And you punish me for it, taking my cat from me. All right, you have won, I yield. Do you ever lose? An interesting question. You are to be congratulated, my dear Ralph. In future you will wear the miter and the cope, and be addressed as My Lord, Bishop de Bricassart."
That brought the eyes wide open! he noted with glee. For once Father Ralph didn't attempt to dissimulate, or conceal his true feelings. He just beamed.
