k, glided into the room without
the faintest sign of emotion. And he whispered a few words in the ear of
the Cardinal, who, on seeing him, had become calm again. "What curate?"
asked Boccanera. "Oh! yes, Santobono, the curate of Frascati. I
know--tell him I cannot see him just now."

Paparelli, however, again began whispering in his soft voice, though not
in so low a key as previously, for some of his words could be overheard.
The affair was urgent, the curate was compelled to return home, and had
only a word or two to say. And then, without awaiting consent, the
train-bearer ushered in the visitor, a _protege_ of his, whom he had left
just outside the little door. And for his own part he withdrew with the
tranquillity of a retainer who, whatever the modesty of his office, knows
himself to be all powerful.

Pierre, who was momentarily forgotten, looked at the visitor--a big
fellow of a priest, the son of a peasant evidently, and still near to the
soil. He had an ungainly, bony figure, huge feet and knotted hands, with
a seamy tanned face lighted by extremely keen black eyes. Five and forty
and still robust, his chin and cheeks bristling, and his cassock,
overlarge, hanging loosely about his big projecting bones, he suggested a
bandit in disguise. Still there was nothing base about him; the
expression of his face was proud. And in one hand he carried a small
wicker basket carefully covered over with fig-leaves.

Santobono at once bent his knees and kissed the Cardinal's ring, but with
hasty unconcern, as though only some ordinary piece of civility were in
question. Then, with that commingling of respect and familiarity which
the little ones of the world often evince towards the great, he said, "I
beg your most reverend Eminence's forgiveness for having insisted. But
there were people waiting, and I should not have been received if my old
friend Paparelli had not brought me by way of that door. Oh! I have a
very great service to ask of your Eminence, a real service of the heart.
But first of all may I be allowed to offer your Eminence a little
present?"

The Cardinal listened with a grave expression. He had been well
acquainted with Santobono in the years when he had spent the summer at
Frascati, at a princely residence which the Boccaneras had possessed
there--a villa rebuilt in the seventeenth century, surrounded by a
wonderful park, whose famous terrace overlooked the Campagna, stretching
far and bare like the sea.