"They hadn't invented such smart alecks, I'll tell you that," Lucien said. His younger son preened, as if at praise.

The Eglise Saint-Patrice in Riviere-du-Loup was called a cathedral these days, though it was the same building it had always been. Quite a few motorcars parked nearby. Times were… Lucien wouldn't say they were good, but he thought it now and again.

As people filed into the church (being the stubborn Quebecois farmer he was, Galtier refused to think of it as a cathedral, no matter what Bishop Pascal declared), some of them talked about the stocks they'd bought, and about how much money they'd made from them. Lucien felt Marie's eyes on him. Ever so slightly, he shook his head. He'd stayed away from the bourse, and intended to go right on staying away from it. It struck him as being much more like gambling than any legitimate way to make money. Gambling, now, gambling was all very well-so long as you knew you could lose as easily as you could win.

He was almost to the door when he heard the word scandal for the first time. Now he and his wife looked at each other. He shrugged. Marie did the same. A moment later, he heard the word again. Something juicy had happened. And I've been on the farm minding my own business, and so I haven't the faintest idea what it is, he thought regretfully.

"Tabernac," he muttered. The look Marie sent him this time was definitely reproachful. He pretended not to notice. It wasn't-quite-as if he'd cursed on holy ground. The other side of the door, it would have been a different business.

No sooner had he gone inside than someone else-a woman-said scandal, and immediately started giggling. "What's going on, mon pere ?" Georges asked. Scandal-especially scandal that might be funny-drew him the way maple syrup drew ants.

A young priest named Father Guillaume stood by the altar in Bishop Pascal's place. As Lucien took his seat in the pews, he asked the fellow next to him, a townsman, "Where's the bishop?"

"Why, with the children, of course," the man answered, and started to laugh. Lucien fumed. He didn't want to admit he didn't know what was going on. That would make him look like a farmer who came to town only to sell things and to hear Mass. Of course, he was a farmer who came to town only to sell things and to hear Mass, but he didn't want to remind the world of it.

His eldest daughter, Nicole; her husband, the American doctor named Leonard O'Doull; and their son, Lucien, sat down behind his family. He started to lean back and ask them what was so delicious, but Father Guillaume began speaking in Latin just then, so he had to compose himself in patience.

He dared hope the priest's sermon would enlighten him, but it only left him more tantalized and titillated than ever. Father Guillaume talked about those without sin casting the first stone. He praised Pascal, and wished him good fortune in whatever he chose to do with the rest of his life.

Lucien wiggled like a man with a dreadful and embarrassing itch. What ever the scandal was, it must have got Bishop Pascal! He'd never cared for Pascal; the man was too pink, too clever, too… too expedient, to suit him. But Pascal had always come up smelling like a rose-till now. And I don't even know what he did! Galtier thought in an agony of frustration.

He went up and took communion from Father Guillaume. He swallowed the wafer as fast as he could; he didn't want to speak of scandal with the Body of Christ still on his tongue. But then he made a beeline for his son-in-law.

"What? You don't know? Oh, for heaven's sake?" Dr. O'Doull exclaimed. He'd come to Quebec during the war, speaking tolerably good Parisian French. After ten years here, his accent remained noticeable, but only a little. He sounded more as if he'd been born in la belle province-la belle republique, now-every day.

"No, I don't know," Galtier ground out. "Since you are such a font of knowledge, suppose you enlighten me."

"Mais certainement, mon beau-pere," O'Doull said, grinning. "Bishop Pascal's lady friend just had twins."

"Twins!" Lucien said. "Le bon Dieu!"

"God was indeed good to Bishop Pascal, wouldn't you agree?" his son-in-law said, and laughed out loud. "I should say, to former Bishop Pascal, for he has resigned his see in light of this… interesting development. Father Guillaume will serve the spiritual needs of Riviere-du-Loup until the see has a new bishop."

"Twins," Galtier repeated, as if he'd never heard the word before. "Yes, I can see how he would have to resign after that."

No one was surprised when priests had lady friends. They were men of the cloth, yes, but they were also men. A lot of women, down through the years, had sighed over Father, later Bishop, Pascal. Lucien didn't understand it, but he'd never been a woman, either. And few people were astonished if the lady friends of priests sometimes presented them with offspring. That, too, was just one of those things. Life went on, people looked the other way, and the little bastards were often very well brought up.

"But twins!" Lucien said. "You can't look the other way at twins. By the nature of things, a bishop's twins are a scandal."

"Exactly so, mon beau-pere," Leonard O'Doull said. "And that is why Bishop Pascal is Bishop Pascal no more, but plain old Pascal Talon."

"Pascal Talon!" Galtier exclaimed. "That's right-that is his family. I hadn't thought of his family name in years, though. No one has, I'm sure."

"Of course not, not when he belonged to the Church for all those years," Dr. O'Doull said. "That's what belonging to the Church means. That's what it does. It takes you away from your family and puts you in God's family." He laughed again. "But, now that he's gone and made God's family bigger…"

Galtier laughed, too. He asked, "Since you are in town and hear all these things the moment they happen-and since you don't bother telling your poor country cousins about them-could you tell me what M. Pascal Talon plans to do now that he is Bishop Pascal no more?" Whatever it was, he had the nasty feeling the man would make a great success of it.

And, sure enough, his son-in-law said, "I understand he's decided Riviere-du-Loup is too small a place for a man of his many talents. He will be moving to Quebec City, they say, where he can be appreciated for everything he is."

A snake, a sneak, a worm, a collaborator, a philanderer-yes, in the capital of the Republic he should do well for himself, Galtier thought. He found some more questions: "And what of the twins? Are they boys or girls, by the way? And what of their mother? Is Pascal now a married man?"

"They're a boy and a girl. Very pretty babies-I've seen them," O'Doull replied. Being a doctor, he'd seen a lot of babies. If he said they were pretty, Lucien was prepared to believe him. He went on, "I am given to understand that Suzette is now Mme. Talon, yes, but I don't think she'll be going to Quebec City with her new husband."

Marie heard that and let out a loud sniff. "He made himself a member of God's family. If he cheated on his vows to the Lord, how can anyone think he won't cheat on his vows to a woman? Poor Suzette."

"Yes, very likely Pascal will cheat on her, but she must have known he cheated when she first started her games with him," Lucien said.

"Why do you always blame the woman?" his wife demanded.

"Why do you always blame the man?" he returned, also heatedly.

"Excuse me." Dr. O'Doull made as if to duck. "I'm going somewhere safer-the trenches during the war were probably safer."

"It will be all right," Galtier said. "We've been married this long. We can probably last a little longer."

Marie didn't argue, but her expression was mutinously eloquent. And, as a matter of fact, Galtier wondered why he did take the former Bishop Pascal's side. It wasn't as if he liked the man. He never had. He'd never trusted him, either. Pascal had always been too smooth, too rosy, to be reliable. That was what Lucien had thought, at any rate. Plainly, a lot of people had had a different opinion.