“I think it is the worst step he ever took--for himself, I mean. Either it is a real effort, in which case it will provoke immense indignation--or it is a sham, and will discredit him. Why do you ask?” “I was wondering whether any disturbance will be made in the abbey.” “I should be sorry for the brawler.” A bell rang sharply from the row of telephone labels. Oliver rose and went to it. Mabel watched him as he touched a button--mentioned his name, and put his ear to the opening. “It is Snowford’s secretary,” he said abruptly to the two expectant faces. “Snowford wants to--ah!” Again he mentioned his name and listened. They heard a sentence or two from him that seemed significant. “Ah! that is certain, is it? I am sorry.... Yes.... Oh! but that is better than nothing.... Yes; he is here.... Indeed. Very well; we will be with you directly.” He looked on the tube, touched the button again, and came back to them. “I am sorry,” he said. “The President will take no part at the Feast. But it is uncertain whether he will not be present. Mr. Snowford wants to see us both at once, Mr. Francis. Markenheim is with him.” But though Mabel was herself disappointed, she thought he looked graver than the disappointment warranted. CHAPTER V I Percy Franklin, the new Cardinal-Protector of England, came slowly along the passage leading from the Pope’s apartments, with Hans Steinmann, Cardinal-Protector of Germany, blowing at his side. They entered the lift, still in silence, and passed out, two splendid vivid figures, one erect and virile, the other bent, fat, and very German from spectacles to flat buckled feet. At the door of Percy’s suite, the Englishman paused, made a little gesture of reverence, and went in without a word. A secretary, young Mr. Brent, lately from England, stood up as his patron came in. “Eminence,” he said, “the English papers are come.” Percy put out a hand, took a paper, passed on into his inner room, and sat down. There it all was--gigantic headlines, and four columns of print broken by startling title phrases in capital letters, after the fashion set by America a hundred years ago. No better way even yet had been found of misinforming the unintelligent. He looked at the top. It was the English edition of the _Era_. Then he read the headlines. They ran as follows: “THE NATIONAL WORSHIP. BEWILDERING SPLENDOUR. RELIGIOUS ENTHUSIASM. THE ABBEY AND GOD. CATHOLIC FANATIC. EX-PRIESTS AS FUNCTIONARIES.” He ran his eyes down the page, reading the vivid little phrases, and drawing from the whole a kind of impressionist view of the scenes in the Abbey on the previous day, of which he had already been informed by the telegraph, and the discussion of which had been the purpose of his interview just now with the Holy Father. There plainly was no additional news; and he was laying the paper down when his eye caught a name.