"Nay," said Francis, "no man shall be idle. Each one shall work, and their wage will be their daily bread."
He spoke no more, but knelt, waiting. Innocent had moved. He leant forward a little, with bent head and knitted brows, looking fixedly at the curious figure, with the head of a young faun, kneeling before him in a coarse stuff cloak, girt with a rope like a halter. He could not fathom that serene soul. At last he leaned back in his chair.
"My son," he said, in a gentler voice, "our task is hard. We have the care and oversight of the whole Church, and all our vigilance is directed to keeping the holy faith, as it has been handed down to us, one, pure, and universal. My son, God hath poured his grace upon you, and distinguished you with gifts of holiness. I am not worthy, there is none less worthy than I, of the charge God has confided to me. Pray for me, that I may be enlightened. On every side the Church is being menaced: by subtle and dangerous enemies without, and by schisms and heresies within. Therefore it is necessary for me to avoid the multiplication of new fraternities, however sacred and inspired with true zeal they may be; for each, through the peculiarity of their nature, and their particular devotion to one aspect of the religious life, is liable to be cut off from the main body of Holy Church; nay, even to become an hindrance, an annoyance, a little sect separated from the communion of the faithful. For all these reasons I can only advise you, as I have before, to join some existing Order."
Francis rose from his knees. He had a sense of being crushed by a cruel and superior force. His eyes were dry; but he saw nothing. He turned and moved slowly toward the door. Innocent made a sudden gesture of disappointment. Francis took a few more steps, hesitated, and then turned.
"Father Pope," he said, "there was once in the desert a woman, very poor but beautiful. A great king seeing her beauty desired to take her to wife, that by her he might have beautiful children. So it was done; and many children were born to him. And when the children were grown up, their mother spoke to them, saying: 'My children, you have no reason to be ashamed, for you are the sons of the king; go, therefore, to his court, and he will give you all things that are necessary to you.' And when they had arrived, the king admired their beauty, and finding in them his own likeness, he spoke to them, saying: 'Whose sons are ye?' And when they had answered that they were the sons of a poor woman dwelling in the desert, the king embraced them with great joy, crying: 'Fear not, because you are mine own sons. If strangers eat at my table, shall I turn away those who are my lawful children?' And the king commanded the woman that she should send him all the sons whom she had borne, in order that he might care for them."
He paused for a moment, and then continued:
"I am, Holy Father, that poor woman, whom God in his love has deigned to make beautiful, and by whom it has pleased him to have lawful children. The King of kings has told me that he will nourish all the children he has by me, for if he nourishes bastards, how much more should he nourish his lawful children?"
He spoke the last words vehemently, standing rigid before Innocent, with blazing eyes; and the Pope sat immobile, watching him with inscrutable calm.
"My son, come here," said Innocent at last.
The Cardinal turned from the window, and looked from one to another with equal interest. He was a worldly man, and the mere contact with the world had been sufficient to make him more human than the Pope: unconsciously, disinterestedly, he was summing up the characters of the two men before him. The fact that he was inferior to both fitted him to judge them, made him swift to see the flaws and defects in their diverse characters: Innocent's hard legalism and military instincts; the blithe and elusive spirituality of Francis, a nature free as air, too diverse, too liquid, too impracticable and fleeting, to have any but a momentary effect. He smiled at the comedy; it was no more to him. Behind his cynicism was a kind of tolerance, a charitable irony, a contemptuous love. The fact that both these men recognised an ideal, and denied the manifold pleasures of life to follow after it, baffled and perplexed him. That ironical attitude from which, within himself, he considered them, was the tribute which small imaginations pay to the great. He was content to be a spectator, and was willingly amused by the readiness with which each of these men detected the weak spot in the other, while remaining blind to his own.