‘Nor am I, your Eminence. It would ill become one who wears such a frock as this to deny the rights of discipline and the benefits of obedience.’
‘But you are late, sir?’
‘If I am so, your Eminence will pardon me when I give the reason. The entire of last night was passed by me in watching for the arrival of a certain youth, who did not come till nigh daybreak, and even then, so ill, so worn out and exhausted, that I have been in constant care of him ever since.’
‘And he is come—he is actually here,’ cried the Cardinal eagerly.
‘He is, at this moment, in the college.’
‘How have you been able to authenticate his identity,—the rumour goes that he died years ago?’
‘It is a somewhat entangled skein, your Eminence, but will stand the test of unravelment. Intervals there are, indeed, in his story, unfilled up; lapses of time, in which I am left to mere conjecture, but his career is traceable throughout; and I can track him from the days in which he stood an acolyte beside our altars to the hour we now talk in.’
‘It is to your sanguine hopes you have been listening rather than cold reason, Père.’
‘Look at me, Eminence—scan me well, and say, do I look like those who are slaves to their own enthusiasm?’
‘The strongest currents are often calm on the surface.’