“That explains the length of the Japanese Emperor’s visit to England, and Roosevelt’s arrival last week. Yes, it’s very king-like. Statesmanship is all very well up to a point. Then, its force seems to fade; and kingship’s chance comes. Lucky England to have a real King!”
“I thought Your Holiness would be pleased. And now what will be the outcome?”
“Who knows?” Hadrian thought for a minute; and then mounted an imaginary pulpit, and preached like a purposeful literary man. “First, they’ll quarrel terribly for certain: because five of them are distinct entities, and the others (the nonentities) out of sheer terror will make themselves a nuisance. Secondly, when the nonentities have been reassured, or squashed, the five entities will have to reach a common ground. If they do that, We shall be very much surprised. Thirdly, supposing an agreement to have been reached, Their Majesties and the President will have to get it constitutionally confirmed. Autocracy is supposed to be dead; and the usual constitutional farce will have to be performed.”
“Why do You say ‘autocracy is supposed to be dead,’ Holy Father?”
“Oh because the euphuism ‘constitutional monarchy’ has taken its place. The twentieth century doesn’t like the word Autocrat; and pretends that the thing does not exist. But it does: not in the old hereditary form: but Aristos, the Strong Man, invariably dominates. It’s in the order of nature. And Demos likes him for it, only the silly thing won’t say so. That’s all. Semphill, you might send a marconigraph to the Earl Marshal. We require news of this Congress of Windsor at least once a day.”
The Pope returned the gems to the beneficiato in attendance: took the Times with Him and went across the basilica into the gardens. A tramontana bit Him to the bone; and He tightly wrapped His cloak round Him, facing the wind and the blinding glare of the sun. He briskly walked a couple of miles, until blood-warmth stung his mind into activity. By Leo IV’s ruined wall, He met Cardinal Carvale engaged in a similar exercise, his delicate cheeks fervid and flushed, and his grave eyes blazing. Good priests generally retain their bloom through the full five-and-forty years of youth. Hadrian invited his companionship and conversation for the return to Vatican. They were a pair, these two medium-sized slim athletic men, the one in white and the other in vermilion, both very brilliant in the sunlight, with vivid aspect and vivid gait. They looked like men who really were alive. Their discourse was just the vigorous rather epigrammatic talk of wholesome well-bred men. As they turned into the court of the Belvedere, His Eminency said “Oh, by the by, Holy Father, perhaps I ought to tell you that they cannot understand at St. Andrew’s College why You never have been to see them.”
“But you understand:” Hadrian promptly put in.
“Well—yes:” the cardinal responded. In his candid gaze there was intuition, sympathy—and something else.
The Pontiff read it. “When did they tell you that?”
“Yesterday.”
“Oh. Do you often go there?”
“About once a fortnight, Holiness.”
“Carvale, do you like going there?”
“—Yes, on the whole I do. The youngsters are glad to see me; and the older men” (a radiant smile disclosed his exquisite teeth as he spread an arm)—“they like vermilion to take note of them. And I think it does my soul good” (he spoke gravely) “to visit the old place. I put it off as long as I could: I would have been glad to forget the horrors. Strange to say, I forgot them after I had been there a few times.”
Hadrian’s heart informed Him. He understood it all quite well. “Carvale let us go to St. Andrew’s now. We can get there in time for dinner.”
The cardinal instantly looked happy; and the two continued to walk swiftly through the City, going by Tordinona, Orso, Piazza Colonna and the Trevi Fountain. As they passed the crucifix at the corner of an alley, Hadrian bowed. His Eminency did not. “Why don’t you salute our Divine Redeemer?” the Pope inquired.
“Well of course I always raise my hat to The Lord in the tabernacle when I pass a church—”
“And you bow to Us, and even to Our handwriting: but—Listen, Carvale: ‘It is idolatry to talk about Holy Church and Holy Father, to bow to fallible sinful man, if you do not bend knee and lip and heart to every thought and image of God manifest as Man—’ Is that explicit enough? Well; it was a protestant parson who wrote it—one Arnold of Rugby.”
“He was right, Holiness;” said the cardinal turning back and bowing.
They walked on in silence. The Pope was doing a thing which He could not away with. It might be thought that He, a former student, was come to the college (which had expelled Him) to swagger. Of course it would be thought. Let it be thought. Then the hateful memory of every nook and corner, in which, as a student, He had been so fearfully unhappy, surged in His mind: the gaudy chapel where He had received this snub, the ugly
