“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 Do
