“You owe me a great deal more than that:” she barked.
“Mr. Sant alludes to a specific sum of twenty pounds odd which was due to this lady’s deceased husband for books, newspapers, and stationery, supplied some years ago when he kept a shop:” the Pope explained to the cardinals, with a gesture to Talacryn. The Cardinal of Caerleon extracted a slip from the portfolio; and read a receipt for the amount named plus 5 percent interest. This document was dated the thirty-first of the previous March. The Pope continued, “You know, Madam, that We paid this bill the moment We were in a position to pay it. You also know that payment was long delayed solely because you yourself, by calumniating and libelling Us to Our employers and to those who called themselves Our friends, prevented Us from earning more than a bare sustenance—”
Jerry burst in, “Well, if Ye’ve paid her why shouldn’t Ye pay me?”
“Because We do not owe you anything.”
“Then Ye mean me ta pit some more about Ye in the papers?”
“Listen, Mr. Sant. We look upon you as a deeply injured man—”
“Hech! Now that’s something like!”
“We look upon you as a deeply injured man, injured by himself. You have been your own enemy. You have suffered loss and damage simply because you have allowed yourself to persist in doing silly things and wicked things. Now, is it useless to ask you to change all that? Will you turn over a new leaf and begin your life again? You shall not be left alone. You shall be helped.”
“A want ma money.”
“If you wish to do well for yourself, if you wish honestly to earn a better living than you ever have earned, you shall have the opportunity.”
An appeal to a goodness which is not in him is, to a vain and sensitive soul, a stinging insult. Jerry’s face became wetter and redder. “And fhat about damages for the past?” he barked.
“You shall have a chance for the future.”
“Then Ye willna pay! Ye want me to show Ye up in the papers again?”
“You may put what you please in the papers. We will not pay even a farthing to prevent you, Mr. Sant—not one farthing.”
“Then I’m not to get anything?”
“At a threat? No. Nothing!” Defiance hurled denial at the brute.
“Fhat are we waiting here for, wumman?” Sant snarled at Mrs. Crowe. “Here let’s get out of this. He makes me fair sick with His holy preaching!” At the door, he turned round, bragging boldly like a cock beside his partlet; and waved his bowler hat, “E‑e‑e‑h but A’ll mak’ Ye squirm, Ye … inseck!” he foamed.
Ragna was furious. “Holiness, why don’t You shoot them at once? You are Sovereign within these walls. Give order for their arrest before they leave the palace, Holiness; and have them shot!”
“It is Our will that they be left to the common executioner,” the Pope disdainfully ordained, sitting very hieratically in his chair, young, rigid, and terrific as the Flamen Virbialis. The audience had been a fresh phase of agony to Him: He had tried to merge His humanity in His apostolature, and had failed; and the failure was torment, physical, poignant. He was indignant; and He was dangerous. Their Eminencies inquiringly looked at Him. Leighton blinked; and thought it a dreadful pity. Talacryn was for running out and trying to persuade the blackmailers even at some cost—anything was better than scandal, he said. The Pope told him not to be a stupid fool with his infernal hankerings after compromise. “Fancy paying for silence!” His Holiness scornfully adjoined.
“No but Holy Father, I think if You were to leave them to me, I could find some way of silencing them. Silence is what we want indeed, whatever.”
“Your Eminency is well skilled in the art of silencing people, bad and good. It is by no means an honourable art; and you are prohibited from practising it. We believed that you had ceased to practise it in 1899. Were We in error?”
“No indeed no, indeed, Holiness. It was merely a suggestion of mine, indeed,” the cardinal burbled.
“Drop it then!” the Pontiff slammed at him.
“Indeed I do, Holiness, indeed I do, whatever.”
“One would hardly have believed that such blatant wickedness could have existed in the world,” Sterling gravely meditated.
“Holy Father, it will all begin again,” Leighton sadly sighed.
“Let it begin again!” Hadrian challenged, white-flaming, irate, retiring to the secret chamber.
Their Eminencies went out through the other door. They were not at all pleased with the Pope. In the first antechamber several cardinals were congregated anxious for news, Orezzo and Courtleigh each in a sedan-chair, Percy, Fiamma, della Volta, Semphill, Carvale, and Whitehead. Ragna was of opinion that the charges ought publicly to be answered, that is to say if they could be answered: but—Could the accusations satisfactorily be disposed of? No one put the question: but the aroma of the idea of it was in the air.
“There was so much mystery about His Holiness:” Orezzo said.
“There always has been. He is a most incomprehensible creature, indeed:” Talacryn pronounced.
“One might expect anything, everything of Him: the height and depth of good and bad: extreme virtue, extreme vice: one almost could believe Him to be capable of anything:” Sterling adjudicated.
“Oh yes, until you have heard Him explain,” little Carvale put in. “Did none of Your Eminencies ever watch Him in His talk? I have. Shall I tell you the difference between our Holy Father and ourselves? We see things from a single viewpoint. He sees things from several. We decide that the thing is as we see it. But He has seen it otherwise, and He presents it as a more or less complete coaction of its qualities. See this sapphire. Well, you see the face of it: underneath, if I take it off my finger, there are a number of facets to be seen and a number more which are hidden by the gold of the setting. Now my meaning is that our Holy Father has seen all the facets
