It was her way of facing
the issue. Instinctively she knew that he would draw back, and that the
struggle would begin. It might almost seem that she had invited it; for
she had let the Man from Outside hold her hand for far longer than
courtesy required, while her father looked on with fretful eyes--even
with a murmuring which was not a benediction. Indeed, he had evaded
shaking hands with his hated visitor by suddenly offering him a cigar,
and then in the doorway itself handing a lighted match.
"His eminence, Cardinal Christophe, gave these cigars to me when he
passed through St. Saviour's five years ago," Jean Jacques had remarked
loftily, "and I always smoke one on my birthday. I am a good Catholic,
and his eminence rested here for a whole day."
He had had a grim pleasure in avoiding the handshake, and in having the
Protestant outsider smoke the Catholic cigar! In his anger it seemed to
him that he had done something worthy almost of the Vatican, indeed of
the great Cardinal Christophe himself.
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