Manuel lifted his radiant eyes with a look of calm confidence.
"Dear friend, you must trust me!" he said, "They have sent for me, have they not, to this place you call the Vatican? They desire to see me, and to question me. That being so, whatever God bids me say, I will say; fearing nothing!"
A strong tremour shook the Cardinal's nerves,—he essayed to find words of wisdom and instruction, but somehow language failed him,—he felt blinded and strengthless, and warned by this impending sense of feebleness, made an instant effort to brace himself up and master the strange fainting that threatened to overwhelm him as it had frequently done before. He succeeded, and without speaking again to Manuel, but only bending one earnest look upon him, he quitted his rooms and proceeded slowly down the great marble staircase of the Palazzo Sovrani,—a staircase famous even in Rome for its architectural beauty—Manuel stepping lightly at his side—and reaching his carriage, entered it with his foundling, and was rapidly driven away.
Arrived at the Vatican, the largest palace in the world, which contains, so historians agree in saying, no less than eleven thousand different apartments with their courts and halls and corridors, they descended at the Portone di Bronzo,—the Swiss Guard on duty saluting as the Cardinal passed in. On they went into the vestibule, chilly and comfortless, of the Scala Pia;—and so up the stone stairs to the Cortile do San Damaso, and thence towards the steps which lead to the Pope's private apartments. Another Guard met them here and likewise saluted,—in fact, almost at every step of the way, and on every landing, guards were on duty, either standing motionless, or marching wearily up and down, the clank, clank of their footsteps waking dismal echoes from the high vaulted roofs and uncarpeted stone corridors. At last they reached the Sala Clementina, a vast unfurnished hall, rich only with mural decorations and gilding, and here another Guard met them who, without words, escorted the Cardinal and his young companion through a number of waiting-rooms, made more or less magnificent by glorious paintings, wonderful Gobelin tapestries, and unique sculptures, till they reached at last what is called the anti-camera segreto, where none but Cardinals are permitted to enter and wait for an audience with the Supreme Pontiff. At the door of this "Holy of Holies" stood a Guarda Nobile on sentry duty,—but he might have been a figure of painted marble for all the notice he took of their approach. As they passed into the room, which was exceedingly high and narrow, Monsignor Gherardi rose from a table near the window, and received the Cardinal with a kind of stately gravity which suitably agreed with the coldness and silence of the general surroundings. A small lean man, habited in black, also came forward, exchanging a few low whispered words with Gherardi as he did so, and this individual, after saluting the Cardinal, mysteriously disappeared through a little door to the right. He was the Pope's confidential valet,—a personage who was perhaps more in the secrets of everybody and everything than even Gherardi himself.
"I am afraid we shall have to keep you waiting a little while," said Gherardi, in his smooth rich voice, which despite its mellow ring had something false about it, like the tone produced by an invisible crack in a fine bell, "Your young friend," and here he swept a keen, inquisitive glance over Manuel from face to feet, and from feet to face again, "will perhaps be tired?"
"I am never tired!" answered Manuel.
"Nor impatient?" asked Gherardi with a patronising air.
"Nor impatient!"
"Wonderful boy! If you are never tired or impatient, you will be eminently fitted for the priesthood," said Gherardi, his lip curling with a faint touch of derision, "For even the best of us grow sometimes weary in well-doing!"
And turning from him with a movement which implied both hauteur and indifference, he addressed himself to Bonpre, whose face was clouded, and whose eyes were troubled.