She glanced at Laurie, who was eating mutton with a depressed air.
“I was talking to Mr. Vincent, the great Spiritualist,” went on the other vivaciously, “only last week. You have heard of him, Mrs. Baxter? I was suggesting to him that any place where great emotions have been felt is colored and stained by them as objectively as old walls are weather-beaten. I had such an interesting conversation, too, with Cardinal Newman on the subject”—she smiled brilliantly at Maggie, as if to reassure her of her own orthodoxy—“scarcely six weeks ago.”
There was a pregnant silence. Mrs. Baxter’s fork sank to her plate.
“I don’t understand,” she said faintly. “Cardinal Newman—surely—”
“Why yes,” said the other gently. “I know it sounds very startling to orthodox ears; but to us of the Higher Thought all these things are quite familiar. Of course, I need hardly say that Cardinal Newman is no longer—but perhaps I had better not go on.”