The footman opens the door, she gives him an order: "Palazzo Braschi!" As she enters the carriage she casts a little book at her feet, and, instead of speaking, rubs her lips vehemently with her perfumed handkerchief.

Finally she says, with a shudder, that she was obliged to kiss the Cardinal's hand, and that it was anything but clean.
But at any rate the visit was successful.

Ah, if her husband only knew! She had played a really horrible part.

The Cardinal was the very one who had once met Giovanni Selva in the library of Santa Scolastica at Subiaco, and had assailed him, telling him he was a profaner of the sacred walls, and promising him that he would most certainly go to hell, or even further down! Donna Rosetta had fanned his fire, in order to break up the secret accord between the Vatican and Palazzo Braschi.

She had told him that the religious _haute_ of Turin much desired the man chosen by the Vatican, and obnoxious to the Quirinal.