"Bring him to me," he said.
The Cardinal, having led Francis into the room, stood apart in the embrasure of a window overlooking the courtyard. Innocent fixed his eyes steadily upon the little poor man of Assisi. Even at their first meeting he had been struck by the youthful, almost childish figure, the small, round head, and the pallor of the lean face, illuminated with its large patient eyes. It was like watching a timid wild thing approaching him. Francis walked with slow, hesitating steps. His knees and fingers were trembling, his eyes shone with tears, his face was paler than usual, but a smile wavered upon it. He did not come in fear, but shaken with an emotion that was partly hope and partly doubt. He looked toward the seated figure in the chair, wearing a high tiara of damascened white cloth rising above a simple pointed crown, and a white pallium with red crosses. He hoped for some sign, but the Pope remained inflexible, his hands laid upon his knees, his eyes motionless, a figure of impenetrable reserve; and Francis could find no word to say. At last he knelt, still trembling, with the tears streaming from his eyes. The Cardinal moved in the window; and the slight noise seemed for a moment to give Francis confidence.
"Father Pope," he began simply; but he could say no more.
"My son," said Innocent at last, moved by the suffering eyes, "why have you come to us again?"
"Father Pope," answered Francis in a sweet, almost shrill voice, "when you sent me from you, you did not bid me not to come again."
He smiled as he spoke, very simply, winningly, a smile that was almost a caress. Some hint of softening in the eyes of the Pope gave him more confidence.
"Most Holy Father," he began again, "I have come to you once more, because you have not yet granted my request. You are a great person, whom God has exalted above all men, and I think that perhaps you had not time to listen to me, who am the meanest of God's creatures; so that you did not understand the excellence of that life which the Lord hath commanded us to follow. Or perchance it was that the Lord wished to try my faith, and, lest I was over-confident in myself, to show me that without his will I am capable of nothing, and to humiliate my pride. Father Pope, I think this last is the true reason: for how could you not see the excellence of the way God hath chosen for us, which is a pattern of the way the disciples themselves followed?"
And the Pope, having no answer to this candour, sat immobile.
"It is a little thing that we ask of you," continued Francis; "only that you should approve of our vow to follow a life like that which the disciples led on the shores of the Lake of Galilee."
"My son," said Innocent, "search well your heart. Is it not pride which makes you think that God hath chosen you for this work?"