olutely and
obviously essential. It was possible indeed for Peter to be a
subject of Nero in things pertaining to Caesar; but how could
that be possible to Peter's successor when the Kingdom of Christ
which he ruled on earth had become a Supra-national Society to
which the nations of the earth looked for guidance?

The phrase he had just heard ran in his mind.

"An Italian for the sake of Italy and his own existence in Rome.
Not an Italian for the sake of the rest of Christendom."

It seemed simple, somehow, just like that.

He was roused by a touch on his knee, and simultaneously was
aware of a new sound from the piazza.

"Look," said the old priest sharply. "They're beginning to move."

(III)

A curious seething movement had broken out in the piazza,
resembling the stir of a troubled ant-hill, on either side of the
broad green way down which the Pope would come; and already into
the head of the street up which the priests looked figures were
emerging. Simultaneously a crash of brazen music had filled the
air. A movement of attention, exactly like the lift of a swell
along the foot of a cliff, passed down the crowded street to the
left and lost itself round the corner towards S. Angelo.

Then they began to come, swinging over from the piazza to the
street as if from a pool into a narrow channel. Troops came
first--company after company--each with a band leading. First
the Austrian guard in white and gold on white chargers--passing
from the flash and dazzle their uniforms threw back in the
sunlight into the glow of the shadowed street. And then, by the
time that the Austrians were passing below the window, came
troop after troop down from the piazza in all the uniforms of
the civilized world.

At first Father Jervis murmured a name or two; he even laid his
hand upon his friend's arm as the Life-guards of England came
clashing by with their imperturbable faces above their silver
splendour; but presently the amazing spectacle forming in the
piazza, and, above all, on the steps of St. Peter's, silenced
them both. Monsignor Masterman gave scarcely a glance even to the
monstrous figures of the Chinese imperial guard, who went by
presently in black armour and vizarded helmets, like old Oriental
gods. For in the piazza itself the procession of princes was
forming; and the steps of the basilica already began to burn with
purple and scarlet where the Cardinals and the Papal Court were
making ready for the comin