As Fifi entered she made a low bow—not the one that Madame Bourcet had taught her, but a much better one, taught her by her own tender little heart. And instantly, as before, there was an electric sympathy established between the old man and the young girl, as the old and young eyes exchanged confidences.
“My child,” were the Holy Father’s first words, in a voice singularly young and sweet for an old man. “I have seen you before, and now I know why it was that the sight of your eyes so moved me. You are my Barnabas’ granddaughter.”
And then Fifi made one of the most outlandish speeches imaginable for a young girl to make to the Supreme Pontiff. She said:
“Holy Father, as I looked into your eyes that night when your coach was passing through the street of the Black Cat, I said to myself, ‘There is an old man with a father’s heart,’ and I felt as if I had seen my own father.”
And instead of meeting this speech with a look of cold reproof, the Holy Father’s eyes grew moist, and he said:
“It was the cry of kindred between us. Now, sit near to me—not in that armchair.”
“Here is a footstool,” cried Fifi, and drawing the footstool up to the Holy Father’s knees, she seated herself with no more fear than Cartouche had of his Emperor.
“Now, my child,” said the Holy Father, “the old must always be allowed to tell their stories first,—the young have time to wait. I know that you can not have seen your grandfather, or even remember your own father, he died so young.”
“Yes, Holy Father, I was so little when he died.”
“I could have loved him as a son, if I had known him,” the Holy Father continued, speaking softly as the old do of a bygone time. “But never was any one so much a part of my heart as Barnabas was. We were born within a month of each other, at Cesena, a little old town at the foot of the Apennines. I think I never saw so pretty and pleasant an old town as Cesena—so many fine young men and excellent maidens, such venerable old people. One does not see such nowadays.”