something like a
hush. I divined, and divined correctly, that the Cardinal had not yet
arrived. The minutes went slowly on; the appointed hour was past. At
length a sound was heard which seemed to emanate from an anteroom, and
presently a figure was solemnly gliding forward--a figure slight,
emaciated, and habited in a long black cassock. This was relieved at the
throat by one peeping patch of purple, and above the throat was a face
the delicate sternness of which was like semitransparent ivory. The
company parted, making way for the great Churchman, and then a scene
enacted itself which cannot be better described than in the words
written many years previously by the author of _Lothair_ himself. "The
ladies did their best to signalize what the Cardinal was and what he
represented, by reverences which a posture-master might have envied and
certainly could not have surpassed. They seemed to sink into the earth,
and slowly and supernaturally to emerge."

When the banquet was over, and the guests were taking their departure,
our host begged me to remain, so that he and I and the Cardinal might
have a little conversation by ourselves. We were presently secreted in
a small room or closet, and our little talk must have lasted till close
upon six o'clock. I half thought for a moment that this might be a
planned arrangement so that then and there I might be received into the
Roman fold. Matters, however, took a very different course. Under the
Cardinal's guidance the conversation almost immediately--how and why I
cannot remember--turned to the subject of Spiritualism, and he soon was
gravely informing us that, of all the signs of the times, none was more
sinister than the multiplication of Spiritualist seances, which were,
according to him, neither more nor less than revivals of black magic. He
went on to assert, as a fact supported by ample evidence, that the devil
at such meetings assumed a corporeal form--sometimes that of a man,
sometimes that of a beautiful and seductive woman, the results being
frequent births, in the prosaic world around us, of terrible hybrid
creatures half diabolic in nature, though wholly human in form. On this
delicate matter he descanted in such unvarnished language that the
details of what he said cannot well be repeated here. Of the truth of
his assertions he obviously entertained no doubt and such was his dry,
almost harsh solemnity in making them that, as I listened, I could
hardly believe my ea