with the _majordomo_.

He knew all now; wireless messages had streamed in hour after
hour during the flight across the Atlantic. At Naples, where the
volor had first touched land, the papers already mentioned full
and exhaustive accounts of the outbreak, with the latest reports;
and by the time that he reached Rome he was as well informed of
the real facts of the case as were any who were not in the inner
circle of those who knew.

The Swiss guard presented his fantastic halberd, as he passed in
panting after his climb; a man in scarlet livery took his hat and
cloak; another preceded him through the first anteroom, where an
ecclesiastic received him; and with this priest he passed on
through the second and third rooms up to the door of the inner
chamber. The priest pushed the door open for him and he went in
alone; the door closed noiselessly behind him. The room was the
same as that which he remembered, all gold and red damask,
lighted from the roof, with the great brass-inlaid writing table
at the farther end, and the broad settee against the right-hand
wall, but it seemed to him in his apprehensiveness that the
solemnity was greater and the hushed silence even deeper. Two
figures sat side by side on the settee, each in the scarlet
ferraiuola of ceremony. One, Cardinal Bellairs, looked up at him
and nodded, even smiling a little; the other stood up and bowed
slightly, before extending his hand to be kissed. This second
figure was a great personality--Italian by birth, an
extraordinary linguist, a very largely made man, both stout and
tall, with a head of thick and perfectly white hair. He had been
a "Papabile" at the last election; and, it was thought, was