"This is wonderful," he said. "Perfectly wonderful! A most astonishing study."
Roma smiled and bowed to him.
"Christ of course, and such reality, such feeling, such love! But shall I tell you what surprises me most of all?"
"What?"
"What surprises me most is the extraordinary resemblance between your Christ and the Pope."
"Really?"
"Indeed yes! Didn't you know it? No? It is almost incredible. Younger certainly, but the same features, the same expression, the same tenderness, the same strength! Even the same vertical lines over the nose which make the shako dither on one's head when something goes wrong and His Holiness is indignant."
Roma's smile was dying off her face like the sun off a field of corn, and she was looking sideways out of the window.
"Has the Pope any relations?" she asked.
"None whatever, not a soul. The only son of an only son. You must have been thinking of the Holy Father himself, and asking yourself what he was like thirty years ago. Come now, confess it!"