Clement opened his hand and dropped the little crucifix, which he had been fingering during their talk, with a gesture of rejection, on the floor behind him. The palm of the hand, still stretched and open, bore sharp red marks. The point of the cross had evidently just been pressed into it with convulsive energy.
"Obedience is holiness," the Pontiff said at last, with a sweep of his hand.
Francesco discovered himself unwittingly gazing in the direction of Anjou. The Pontiff intercepted the look. Perhaps there was a reason for his question which Francesco was far from guessing, as he suavely said:
"You do not conceive, my son, that the Church can err in the choice of her instruments?"
"I have heard of some striking instances of the readiness of the servants of the Church," he replied with a straight look at Anjou, "to suppress the spirit when it suited them to do so."
At these words a change, visible even in the shadows, crossed the features of the Provencal leader.
"The spirit is capable of various interpretations," he snarled with a vicious glare at the young monk, whose air of loathing had stung him to the quick.
"But not the instrument," Francesco retorted hotly.
Clement at this point thought fit to interpose, yet not without a sting of rebuke to the brother of Louis of France.