"Tut-tut; you are a prince-cardinal. In Rome at least that is a very different thing!"
He turned half round in his seat and looked with a certain indulgent fondness upon the gay young men who were conducting a battle of flowers with the laughing girls beneath them. Two of them had laid hold of another by the legs and were holding him over the trellised flowers that he might kiss a girl whom her companions were elevating from below for a like purpose. As their young lips met the Pontiff slapped the purple silk on his thigh and laughed aloud.
"Ah, rascals, merry rascals!" (here he sighed). "What it is to be young! Take an old man's advice, Live while you are young. Yes, live and leave penance, for old age is sufficient penance in itself. (Tut—what am I saying? Let his pocket do penance!) He who kissed was my nephew Girolamo, ever the flower of the flock, my dear Girolamo. I think you said, Prince Conrad, that you were a cardinal. Well, most of these young men are cardinals (or will be, so soon as I can get the gold to set them up. They spend too much money, the rascals)."
"These are cardinals? And priests?" queried Conrad, vastly astonished.
The Holy Father nodded and took another sip of the perfumed Sicilian.
"To be a cardinal is nothing," he said calmly. "It is a step—nothing more. The high road of advancement, the spirit of the time. When I have princedoms for them all, why, they must marry and settle—raise dynasties, found princely houses. So it shall be with you, son Conrad. Your brother was alive, Prince of Courtland, married to this fair lady (what was her name? Yes, yes, Joanna). You, a younger son, must be provided for, the Church supported. Therefore you received that which was the hereditary right of your family—the usual payments to Holy Church being made. You were Archbishop, Cardinal, Prince of the Church. In time you would have been Elector of the Empire and my assessor at the Imperial Diet. That was your course. What harm, then, that you should make love to your brother's wife? Natural—perfectly natural. Fortunate, indeed, that you had a brother so complaisant——"
"Sir," said Conrad, half rising from his seat, "I have already had the honour of informing you——"
"Yes, yes, I forgot—pardon an old man. (Ah, the rascal, would he? Served him right! Ha, ha, well smitten—a good girl!)"
Another had tried the trick of being held over the balcony, but this time the maiden below was coy, and, instead of a kiss, the youth had received only a sound smack on the cheek fairly struck with the palm of a willing hand.
"Yes, I remember. It was but a sin of the soul. (Stupid fellow! stupid fellow! Girolamo is a true Delia Rovere. He would not have been served so.) Yes, a sin of the soul. And now you wish to marry? Well, I will receive back your hat. I will annul your orders—the usual payments being made to Holy Church. I have so many expenses—my building, the decorations of my chapel, these young rascals—ah, little do you know the difficulties of a Pope. But whom do you wish to marry? What, your brother's widow? Ah, that is bad—why could you not be content——? Pardon, your pardon, my mind is again wandering."