Crowds of English visitors appeared; and would have been distracting. They dotted themselves about the Ducal Hall and Hadrian walked among them. At one of these receptions, the pontifical glance lighted, on entering, on a dark gaunt Titan seamed with concealed pain, who was accompanied by a quiet fastidious English lady (wife and mother), and three children, two glorious girls and a proud shy English boy. They were a typical group, typical of all that is best—trial, culture, moderate success, and English quality. Hadrian at once shook hands with them.
“Please wait till the others are gone,” He said; and passed on to a cocky little gentleman with a pink eye, and a plump barefaced party who tried to stand easily in the cross-legged pose of the male photograph of 1864. These sank to their knees, but stood up again at a word.
“Well, Holy Father, who would have thought,” etcetera, from the first; and “Oh, I’m sure I shall never dare to call Your Holiness ‘Boffin’ again” from the second.
“Yes you do,” replied Hadrian; and gave them a blessing, to which the plump one nervously responded,
“Quite so, I’m sure, as it were!”
Another couple kneeled, a weird brief-bodied man in a pince-nez and a small suppressed woman with beautiful shortsighted eyes. They were raised; and the man would chatter like a hailstorm, wittily and with Gallic gesticulation, and quite insincerely. They were blessed; and the Pontiff went-on (with some elevation of gait) to the others.
When the audience was over a slim gentleman in scarlet, with the delicate pensive beauty of a St. John the Divine by Gian Bellini, conducted the English family to the apostolic antechamber. Here Hadrian offered them some fruit and wine; and showed them the view from the windows.
“Now perhaps Mrs. Strong would like to see the garden,” He presently said.
It was a very happy thought. His Holiness carried His little yellow cat, and they all went down together; and strolled about the woods and the box-alleys and the vineyards. They picked the flowers; and the children picked the fruit. They admired the peacocks: and rested on white marble hemicycles in the sun-flecked shade of cypresses; and they talked of this, that, and the other, as well as these and those. A chamberlain came through the trees, and delivered a small veiled salver to the gentleman who followed the pontifical party at fifty paces. At the moment of departure he came near. The salver contained five little crosses of gold and chrysoberyls set in diamonds. Three were elaborate and two severely plain. Hadrian presented them to His guests.
“You will accept a memorial of this happy day; and of course” (with that rare dear smile of His) “you will not expect the Pope to give you anything but popery. Goodbye, dear friends, goodbye.”
“How He has improved!” said the dark girl, as they went out.
“O mother, and did you see the buckles on His shoes!” said the fair one.
“I call Him a topper,” said the boy.
“He isn’t a bit changed,” said the wife to the silent husband.
“I think that He has found His proper niche at last,” the great man answered.
Percy Van Kristen arrived; and was brought into the secret chamber. Though only a little over thirty, he looked as old as Hadrian. The glowing freshness of his olive-skin had faded: but his superb eyes were as brightly expectant and his small round head as cleanly black as ever. He looked tired, but wholesome; and he was immaculately groomed. The Pope said a few words of greeting and of remembrance; and asked him to speak of himself. Van Kristen was shy: but not unwilling. Leading questions elicited that he was one of that pitiable class of men for whom the gods have provided everything but a career. Majority had brought him three-quarters of a million sterling. There was no necessity for him to go into commerce. Politics were impossible for respectable persons. He was too old for the services. The fact was, he had not the natural energy which would have hewn out a career—a career in the worldly sense—for himself; and by consequence, the world had shoved him aside on to the shelf of objects whose functions are purely decorative. His mode of life was that of a man of fashion, simple, exquisite. Perhaps he read a great deal; and, of course, his home took up most of his time—but that was a secret. Hadrian deftly extracted from him that he had founded and was maintaining a home for a hundred boys of his city, where he provided a complete training in electrical engineering and a fair start in life. His splendid eyes glittered as he spoke of this. It seemed that he had kept his own world in entire ignorance of his ardent effort to be useful; and one naturally enjoys talking of one’s own affairs when the proper listener at last is encountered. No: he never had felt inclined to marry and rear a family of his own. He did not think that that sort of thing was much in his line. Yes: after leaving Oxford, he had had some thoughts of the priesthood. But Archbishop Corrie had laughed him out of that. He was not clever enough for the priesthood. That was the real truth, in his private opinion. Oh yes, he would like it very well—as much as anything: but really he hardly felt himself equal to it. He didn’t want to seem to push himself forward in any way. Yes: the Dynam House could get on quite well without him. They were fortunate in having a capable manager whom everyone liked; and his own share didn’t amount to much more than playing fives with the boys, and paying the bills, and finding out and getting all the latest dodges. If he could run over and look round the place, say twice a year, say two
