“But, if one might venture to ask, how often does He condescend to explain—except to His cat?” Sterling interjected.
“I’m bound to admit that He opened my eyes considerably during that fortnight we spent together in town just before His election,” Courtleigh threw out of his chair. Ragna went to him and spoke of the desirability of capital punishment.
“Well, anyhow, I believe in Him,” Whitehead murmured.
“Yes:” Leighton energetically blinked. “You’ll excuse me if I’m shoppy, but I say with St. Anselm, ‘Neque enim quaero intelligere ut credam: sed credo ut intelligam. Nam et hoc credo quia nisi credidero non intelligam.’ ”
The gong in the secret chamber loudly and suddenly sounded. The scarlet limbs of Sir John and Sir Iulo darted towards it. Talacryn was shaking an unwilling dubious head. Van Kristen gave him a tall look of disgust. “Well, I guess Your Eminency will feel pretty small some day if you don’t believe in Him too. There are no flies on Hadrian:” and he stalked away with the dignity of a grand boy honourably enraged.
“No no, Percy,” said Talacryn, running after him. “Of course I believe in Him: but just for that reason I don’t want Him to defend Himself. I want to keep Him quiet. I think it unwise to rake up the past. There would be so many frightful scandals, whatever.”
“Have you told Him that?”
“Have I not indeed.”
“And what did He say?”
Talacryn once more shook his head.
“Well then I advise Your Eminency to go ‘way back and sit down,’ as we say in the States.”
Newspaper tirades did begin again. The previous attacks on the Pope almost were forgotten, (horribly pungently palate-tickling though they were,) at a time when men’s minds were filled with wars and rumours of wars. But the Fleet Street fishers, who knew their business, were aware that the public appetite is capricious and must be tempted with a variety of bait. Even wars and rumours of wars are apt to pall. One must not cry “Wolf” too often. Tired of Black-gnats, trout must be tried with Mayflies: for newspapers must be sold, or the soap-and-cocoa people will quake; and newspapers will not sell unless their news are new. So, when the editor of the Daily Anagraph received a couple of letters from Jerry Sant and Mrs. Crowe, proffering certain tasty information, and asking for an offer for same, he consulted his proprietors. The subject certainly was not entirely novel: but what had gone before merely had been so to speak an appetizer. This was the strong meat, the pièce de résistance in the banquet of garbage. Sant was in possession of exclusive information. The publication of it would mean a boom for the paper. Editors cannot afford to be curious about the morals of their contributors, or indeed of anything bar the quality of their contributions. Neither proprietors nor editor were actuated by any sort of malice, personal or professional, in defaming the Pope. Their motive was merely commercial. Therefore, they offered £4,000 apiece to Sant and his accomplice; and they invested a similar sum in amateur investigations. At intervals during the next few weeks, the Daily Anagraph published articles reflecting on the character of God’s Vicegerent; and two columns daily were set apart for anonymous ex-parte statements concerning His career. Oh, it all began again! The points insisted on were that He was, and never had been anything but, a lazy luxurious (the second intention was “debauched”) Jesuitical machiavellian and false-pretentious ignoramus.—Oh it all indubitably began again. Mediocrities, entrusted with power over their fellow-creatures, invariably develop into tyrants. All history proves it: the tyranny of the clergy was bad enough: but it was as nothing in comparison with the sordid tyranny of the Press which we now complacently tolerate.
Calumny culminated with a concoction of the calvous Crowe’s. It was admitted that the high-water mark was reached. Hitherto, the very virulence of the assaults had engendered a certain amount of unexpressed sympathy among stockbrokers, naval, Varsity, and other thoughtful men. “Our Representative” had called at Archbishop’s House, had interviewed Monsignor this and Monsignor Canon that, inviting the candid expression of opinion on the subject of Pontifical Infallibility, as viewed in the fight of recent journalistic enterprise and research. The distinction between infallibility and impeccability had been impressed upon “Our Representative”: but that was all. No defence was offered either by the Pope or by His poor benighted papists. Then, by slow degrees, the elect, the intelligent, began to persuade themselves that, after all, the early misdemeanours of George Arthur Rose, if they were as stated, were altogether apart from the pontifical acts of Hadrian the Seventh. The latter distinctly were admired throughout the world: the former—well, they were a pity. So, public opinion was. And then came Mrs. Crowe. She had a song to sing (oh!) of secret debauchery on the part of Hadrian the Seventh. She was concise in the matter of names and dates and places. She alleged that, at dusk on a certain evening in September, the 29th, she herself had seen the Pope, disguised in black like an ordinary priest, taking tea—He Who never ate in public—with two nameless women (far too beautiful to be respectable in her opinion) in a house on Via Morino. She was in the street. His so-called Holiness and His female companions were by the lighted window. Presently the blinds were closed; and she knew not what went on behind them. She watched the house for an hour and a half; and then the Pope came out muffling His face, (a thing He never at any other time had been known to do, but necessary on this occasion to complete
