"Did it strike you that he was acting a part?"
"Indeed yes: I think he was acting a part nearly all the time. But I'm sure he wasn't conscious of it. He's as transparent and guileless as a child, whatever."
"It seemed to me that he had all these pungent little speeches cut and dried. He said them like a lesson."
"Well, poor fellow, he's thought of nothing else for years; and I find, Yrmnts, that mental concentration, carried to anything like that extreme, gives a sort of power of prevision. I really believe that he had foreseen something, and was quite prepared for us."
"Strange," said the cardinal, whose supercilious oblique regard indicated dearth of interest in ideas that were out of his depth.
"He behaved very well about the money though?"
"Very well indeed. But, what a fool! Well, Frank, we can only pray that he may turn out well. I think he will. I really think he will. I hope and trust that we shall find the material of sanctity there. An unpleasant kind of sanctity perhaps. He will be difficult. That singular character, and the force which all those self-concentrated years have given him:—oh, he'll never submit to management, depend upon it. Frank, I've seen just that type of face among academic anarchists. It will be our business to watch him, for he will go his own way; and his way will have to be our way. It won't be the wrong way: but—oh yes, he will be very difficult. Well:—God only knows! Will you be on the look-out for a telegraph office, Frank, while I get through my Little Hours? Perhaps we had better——"
The cardinal opened his breviary at Sext; and made the sign of the cross.