"Well, I can see for myself now that all that you've told me is real—that the world's really Christian, and so on. It was those Chinese guards, I think, which as much as anything——"
"Chinese? . . . I don't remember them."
The prelate smiled again.
"Well, I scarcely noticed them at the time, either. But I've been
thinking about them. And then all the rest of it . . . and the
Pope. . . . By the way, I couldn't make out his face very well.
Is that a picture of him?"
He stood up suddenly and stepped across to where the portrait hung. There was nothing very startling about the picture. It showed just a very ordinary face with straight closed lips, of a man seated in an embossed chair, with the familiar white cap, cassock, and embroidered stole with spade-ends.
"He looks quite ordinary," mused Monsignor aloud. "It's . . . it's like the face of a business man."
"Oh yes, he's ordinary. He's an extremely good man and quite intelligent. He's never had any very great crisis to face, you know. They say he's a good financier. . . . You look disappointed."
"I hadn't expected him to look like that," said the prelate, musing.
"Why not?"
"Well, he seems to have an extraordinary position in the world. I should have expected more of a——"