"Which means we shouldn’t tempt Brother Francis’s modesty," interposed Alice.
Francis looked at Alice inquiringly. "You are a Catholic?" he said, "your husband not."
Francis waved his hand toward his informant: "Mr. Kimberly."
The answer surprised Alice. She looked at Kimberly.
There was an instant of embarrassment. "Francis feels our pagan atmosphere so keenly," Kimberly said slowly, "that I gave him the news about you as a bracer--just to let him know we had a friend at court even if we were shut out ourselves."
"He told me," continued Francis, with humor, "that a Catholic lady was coming this afternoon, and to put on my new habit."
"Which, of course, you did not do," interposed Kimberly, regaining the situation.
Brother Francis looked deprecatingly at his shiny serge.
Dolly and Alice laughed. "Mr. Kimberly didn’t understand that you kept on your old one out of humility," said Alice. "But how did you know anything about my religion?" she asked, turning to Kimberly.
Francis took this chance to slip away to his charge.
"Arthur De Castro is the culprit," answered Kimberly. "He told me some time ago."
"For some things. Won’t you pour tea for Mrs. MacBirney, Dolly? Let us go downstairs, anyway."
He walked with Alice into the house, talking as they went.
Dolly bent over Uncle John’s chair. "Isn’t she nice?" she whispered, nodding toward Alice as Alice disappeared with Kimberly. "You know Madame De Castro went to school in Paris with her mother, who was a De Gallon, and her father--Alice’s grandfather--was the last man in Louisville to wear a queue."
Uncle John seemed not greatly moved at this information, but did look reminiscent. "What was her father’s name?"
"Alice’s father was named Marshall. He and her mother both are dead. She has no near relatives."
"Precisely; he met with reverses a few years ago."
Uncle John looked after Alice with his feeble, questioning grin. "Fine looking," he muttered, still looking after her much as the toothless giant looked after Christian as he passed his cave. "Fine looking."
Dolly was annoyed: "Oh, you’re always thinking about fine looks! She is nice."
Alice had been married five years--it seemed a long time. The first five years of married life are likely to be long enough to chart pretty accurately the currents of the future, however insufficient to predict just where those currents will carry one.