“He has been very kind to me, and I shall always be grateful to him.”
The cardinal received me the next day with every sign of delight at seeing me. He praised the reserve with which I had spoken of him to the prince, and said he need not remind me of the necessity for discretion as to our old Venetian adventures.
“Your eminence,” I said, “is a little stouter, otherwise you look as fresh as ever and not at all changed.”
“You make a mistake. I am very different from what I was then. I am fifty-five now, and then I was thirty-six. Moreover, I am reduced to a vegetable diet.”
“Is that to keep down the lusts of the flesh?”
“I wish people would think so; but no one does, I am afraid.”
He was glad to hear that I bore a letter to the Venetian ambassador, which I had not yet presented. He said he would take care to give the ambassador a prejudice in my favour, and that he would give me a good reception.
“We will begin to break the ice to-morrow,” added this charming cardinal. “You shall dine with me, and his excellence shall hear of it.”
He heard with pleasure that I was well provided for as far as money was concerned, and that I had made up my mind to live simply and discreetly so long as I remained in Rome.
“I shall write about you to M—— M——,” he said. “I have always kept up a correspondence with that delightful nun.”