"You're the lady the Holy Father sent for?"
Roma smiled and assented.
"I'm Cortis—Gaetano Cortis—the Pope's valet, you know—and of course I hear everything."
Roma smiled again and bowed.
"I bring the Holy Father a plate of soup every morning at ten, but I'm afraid it is going to get cold this morning."
"Will he be angry?"
"Angry? He's an angel, and couldn't be angry with any one."
"He must indeed be good; everybody says so."
"He is perfect. That's about the size of it. None of your locking up his bedroom when he goes into the garden and putting the key into the pocket of his cassock, same as in the old Pope's days. I go in whenever I like, and he lets me take whatever I please. At Christmas some rich Americans wanted a skull-cap to save a dying man, and I got it for the asking. Now an old English lady wants a stocking to cure her rheumatism, and I'll get that too. I've saved a little hair from the last cutting, and if you hear of anybody...."
The valet's story of his perquisites was interrupted by the opening of the door of the throne room and the entrance of a friar in a brown habit. It was Father Pifferi.