The Pontiff spoke of Spain. Signor Panciera chopped his right wrist with his left hand. Spain was finished. Portugal? Portugal was English. England? England was England. The Pope and the ambassador produced a smile a-piece: the one meant triumphant pride of race: the other, boundless and intelligent admiration. Hadrian swooped eastwards: the Balkan States? His Excellency began to discriminate: that little group of separate sovereignties was very difficult. He seemed to hesitate, to pick his words:--of course the subject interested him very greatly. The Pope was quite singularly still. Now and again, as His massive dark guest passed Him in pacing, He plumped in a question. The Balkan States? Signor Panciera strode on toward the window, as though seeking the response there: came back: began a reply: returned to the window: came back again with a fresh half-dozen of unilluminating words. Hadrian went to one of his cupboards: took out two little brown bagatelle-balls; and placed them in the royal ambassador's hands. "Your Excellency's aid to conversation," He purred with a recondite smile. "Don't be discomposed. All men have some trick of this kind. Ours is to play with Our rings or to push up Our glasses. Your friend Fiamma plaits the fringe of his sash. The Cardinal-Dean strokes the mother-of-pearl disk which stands on his wig for the tonsure. The Secretary of State munches his new teeth. And you like to click a pair of bagatelle-balls, if We rightly remember. You were saying that that little group of separate sovereignties was very difficult. Because of their present autonomy?" Click-click-click went the balls on the brown palm: and the ambassador tralated their clicking. "Yes Holiness, for that reason: but also, I think, because they are racially distinct from the nations with which they expect to be incorporated." "Russia, Germany, Austria, Turkey, for example?" (Click) "I think we may neglect Russia." "Yes? In the case of Roumania?" "I think that Roumanian sentiment has veered round toward Germany." "Well now, let us ignore opinions; and go to these racial differences of which you speak." "I am of opinion that the Roumanian people find themselves in sympathy with the German peoples," Signor Panciera persisted. "Bulgaria then?" Signor Panciera took two or three journeys to the window and back, vigorously clicking the balls. "Holiness, You do not ask for my opinion; and I only can give You the speculations of an amateur ethnologist." (Click-click) "I have----" (Click) "I can tell You what my studies have taught me--no more." "But that is most interesting, Signore. We are all students. Some are anxious to learn: some are not: but both are better off than the man who knows that he has nothing more to learn. Tell Us what your studies have taught you." "I really believe that the principalities south of the Danube contain the descendants of those Byzantines who were pushed northward by the incursion of Turks in the fifteenth century."