"He's come out as chaplain to Prince George," explained the priest in rapid Latin. "We'd better see him."

"Very good. . . . Yes," said Monsignor.

He turned to the priest again.

"Hadn't you better tell him about me?"

"You don't mind?"

"Of course not."

Father Jervis got up and slipped quickly out of the room.

"I'm delighted to see you again, Monsignor," began the Bishop, coming in, followed by Father Jervis three minutes later.

Monsignor straightened himself after the kissing of the ring.

"You're very kind, my lord," he said.

As the Bishop sat down, he examined him carefully, noticing that there was nothing noticeable about him. He seemed a characteristic prelate--large, genial, ruddy and smiling, with bright eyes and well-cut mouth. He was in his purple and ferraiuola, and carried himself briskly and cheerfully.

"I came to see if you were going to the reception to-night. If so, we might go together. But it's rather late!"

"We haven't heard about that."

"Oh! it's purely informal. The Holy Father probably won't appear himself, except perhaps for a moment."

"Oh! At the Vatican?"

"Yes. There will be an enormous crowd, of course. . . . The Prince has gone to bed, poor little chap! He's done up altogether; and I thought of slipping over for a half-hour or so."

Monsignor glanced at his friend.

"I think it would be an excellent thing," observed the old priest.

"Well, there's a carriage waiting," said the Bishop, rising.

"I think we'd better go, if we're going. We shall be back within the hour."

(II)

It was within ten minutes of the time that the three had arranged to meet again at the foot of the Scala Regia that Monsignor suddenly realized that he had lost himself.

He had wandered for half an hour, after making his salutations to the Master of the Apostolic Palace, who, in the Pope's absence, was receiving the visitors; and, at first with Father Jervis and the Bishop, who had pointed out to him the notabilities, and presently drifting from them in the crowds, by himself, had gone up and down and in and out through endless corridors, courts, loggie, and great reception-rooms of the enormous place, watching the amazing crowds, and exchanging bows and nods with persons who bowed and nodded to him.

The whole system of the thing seemed new to him. He had imagined (he scarcely knew why) the Vatican to be a place of silence and solemn dignity and darkness, with a few sentries here and there, a few prelates, a cardinal or two--with occasionally a group of very particular visitors, or, on still rarer occasions, a troop of pilgrims being escorted to some sight or some audience.

Certainly it was not at all like this to-night.

First, the whole place was illuminated in nearly every window.

Huge electric lights blazed behind screens in all the courts; bands of music were stationed at discreet intervals one from another; and through every section that he went, through corridors, reception-rooms, up and down stairways, seething in every court, streaming through every pa.s.sage and thoroughfare, moved a mult.i.tude of persons--largely ecclesiastics, but also very largely otherwise (though there were no ladies present)--talking, questioning, laughing, wholly, it seemed, at their ease, and appearing to find nothing unusual in the entire affair. Here and there in some of the great rooms small courts seemed to be in process--a company of perhaps thirty or forty would be standing round two or three notabilities who sat. There was usually a cardinal here, sometimes two or three; and on three or four occasions he saw what he imagined must be royalty of some kind, seated with a cardinal, while the rest stood.

It was to him a very extraordinary spectacle, in spite of his further initiation that day into this new world, so utterly unfamiliar to him; and it seemed once more to drive home to his consciousness this strange state of affairs of which his friend had tried to persuade him, but which he yet found difficult wholly to take in. Certainly the world and the Church seemed on very cordial terms. . . .

But now he had lost himself altogether. He had wandered up a long corridor, thinking that it would lead him back to the Court of St.

Damasus, whence he knew his way well enough; and he now paused, hesitating. For it seemed to him that every step he was taking led him farther from the lights and the din of voices and music.

He could see behind him, framed in a huge open doorway, as on an illuminated disc, a kaleidoscope of figures moving; and in front, as he stood, the corridor, although here the lights burned as brilliantly as elsewhere, seemed to lead away into comparative darkness. Yet he felt certain of his direction.

Then, as he stood, a door opened somewhere in front, and he thought he heard voices talking again. It rea.s.sured him, and he went on.

It was not until he found himself in a small lobby (comparatively small that is, for it was not less than forty feet square, and the painted coffered ceiling was twenty feet above his head), that he stopped again, completely bewildered. There was no longer any sound to guide him, for he had closed a couple of pa.s.sage-doors behind him as he came; and he noticed that practically complete silence was on all sides; a single illuminated half-globe shone gently from the ceiling overhead.

He stood some time considering and listening to the silence, till he became aware that it was not silence. There was a very faint murmur of a voice behind one of the four doors that opened on this lobby; and beside the door there rested (he now noticed for the first time) the halberd of a Swiss, as if the soldier had just been called within. This decided him; he went to the door, laid his hand upon the handle, and immediately the murmur ceased.

He pushed down the handle and opened the door.

For a moment as he stared within he could not understand: he had expected a pa.s.sage--a guard-room--at least something secular. Yet it was some kind of a chapel or sacristy into which he was looking: he observed the outline of an altar with its crucifix; and two figures.

Then one of the figures--in the habit of a Franciscan, barefooted, with a purple stole across its shoulders--had sprung towards him, and half pushed, half waved him backwards again.

"What are you doing here? How dare you----I beg pardon, Monsignor, but----"

"I beg pardon, father; I had lost my way. . . . I am a stranger."

"Back--back that way, Monsignor," stammered the friar. "The guard should have told you."

The truth was dawning on the prelate little by little, helped by the flash of the other kneeling white figure he had seen within.

"Yes," stammered the friar again. "The Holy Father. Back that way, Monsignor. Yes, yes--that door straight opposite."

It was over; the two doors had closed almost simultaneously, behind the friar as he had gone back to his duty, and behind the priest who now stood again at the end of the long corridor down which he had come. He stood here now, strangely moved and affected.

He had seen nothing remarkable in itself--the Pope at confession.

And yet in some manner, beyond the startling fact that he had groped his way, all unknowing, to the Pope's private apartments, and at such a moment, the dramatic contrast between the glare and noise of the reception outside--itself the climax of a series of brilliant external splendours--and the silent half-lighted chapel where the Lord of All kneeled to confess his sins, caused a surprising disturbance in his soul.

Up to now he had been introduced step by step into a new set of experiences, Christian indeed, yet amazingly worldly in their aspect; he had begun to learn that religion could transform the outer world, and affect and use for its own purposes all the pomps and glories of outward existence; he had begun to realize that there was nothing alien to G.o.d--no line of division between the Creator and the creature; and now, in one instant, he had been brought face to face again with inner realities, and had seen, as it were, a glimpse of the secret core of all the splendour. The Pope attended by princes--the Pope on his knees before a barefooted friar. These were the two magnetic points between which blazed Religion.

He stood there, trembling a little, trying to steady his bewildered brain--even now, in spite of his years, not unlike the brain of a child. He pa.s.sed his tongue over his suddenly dry lips. Then he began to move down the pa.s.sage again, to find his friends.

CHAPTER VII

(I)