"Holy Father, it will all begin again," Leighton sadly sighed.
"Let it begin again!" Hadrian challenged, white-flaming, irate, retiring to the secret chamber.
Their Eminencies went out through the other door. They were not at all pleased with the Pope. In the first antechamber several cardinals were congregated anxious for news, Orezzo and Courtleigh each in a sedan-chair, Percy, Fiamma, della Volta, Semphill, Carvale, and Whitehead. Ragna was of opinion that the charges ought publicly to be answered, that is to say if they could be answered: but—— Could the accusations satisfactorily be disposed of? No one put the question: but the aroma of the idea of it was in the air.
"There was so much mystery about His Holiness:" Orezzo said.
"There always has been. He is a most incomprehensible creature, indeed:" Talacryn pronounced.
"One might expect anything, everything of Him: the height and depth of good and bad: extreme virtue, extreme vice: one almost could believe Him to be capable of anything:" Sterling adjudicated.
"Oh yes, until you have heard Him explain," little Carvale put in. "Did none of Your Eminencies ever watch Him in His talk? I have. Shall I tell you the difference between our Holy Father and ourselves? We see things from a single view-point. He sees things from several. We decide that the thing is as we see it. But He has seen it otherwise, and He presents it as a more or less complete coaction of its qualities. See this sapphire. Well, you see the face of it: underneath, if I take it off my finger, there are a number of facets to be seen and a number more which are hidden by the gold of the setting. Now my meaning is that our Holy Father has seen all the facets as well as the table of the sapphire, or the thing. Consequently He knows a great deal more about the sapphire, or the thing, than we do. You must have noted that in Him. You must have noted how that every now and then, when He deigns to explain, He makes mysteries appear most wonderfully lucid."
"But, if one might venture to ask, how often does He condescend to explain—except to His cat?" Sterling interjected.
"I'm bound to admit that He opened my eyes considerably during that fortnight we spent together in town just before His election," Courtleigh threw out of his chair. Ragna went to him and spoke of the desirability of capital punishment.
"Well, anyhow, I believe in Him," Whitehead murmured.