that an
opportunist code of morals, like that of the Jesuits, was inoculable and
now predominated throughout the Church. Indeed, the Jesuits might
disappear, but their doctrine would survive them, since it was the one
weapon of combat, the one system of strategy which might again place the
nations under the dominion of Rome. And in reality the struggle which
continued lay precisely in the attempts to accommodate religion to the
century, and the century to religion. Such being the case, Pierre
realised that such men as Monsignor Nani might acquire vast and even
decisive importance.

"Ah! if you knew, if you knew," continued Don Vigilio, "he's everywhere,
he has his hand in everything. For instance, nothing has ever happened
here, among the Boccaneras, but I've found him at the bottom of it,
tangling or untangling the threads according to necessities with which he
alone is acquainted."

Then, in the unquenchable fever for confiding things which was now
consuming him, the secretary related how Monsignor Nani had most
certainly brought on Benedetta's divorce case. The Jesuits, in spite of
their conciliatory spirit, have always taken up a hostile position with
regard to Italy, either because they do not despair of reconquering Rome,
or because they wait to treat in due season with the ultimate and real
victor, whether King or Pope. And so Nani, who had long been one of Donna
Serafina's intimates, had helped to precipitate the rupture with Prada as
soon as Benedetta's mother was dead. Again, it was he who, to prevent any
interference on the part of the patriotic Abbe Pisoni, the young woman's
confessor and the artisan of her marriage, had urged her to take the same
spiritual director as her aunt, Father Lorenza, a handsome Jesuit with
clear and kindly eyes, whose confessional in the chapel of the Collegio
Germanico was incessantly besieged by penitents. And it seemed certain
that this manoeuvre had brought about everything; what one cleric working
for Italy had done, was to be undone by another working against Italy.
Why was it, however, that Nani, after bringing about the rupture, had
momentarily ceased to show all interest in the affair to the point even
of jeopardising the suit for the dissolution of the marriage? And why was
he now again busying himself with it, setting Donna Serafina in action,
prompting her to buy Monsignor Palma's support, and bringing his own
influence to bear on the cardinals of the Congregation? Th