you for giving it me. It is really a great labour, this daily letter to
the Cardinal-Protector. I am thinking of resigning if I am allowed."

"My dear father, don't do that. If I may say so to your face, I think
you have a very shrewd mind; and unless Rome has balanced information
she can do nothing. I don't suppose your colleagues are as careful as
yourself."

Percy smiled, lifting his dark eyebrows deprecatingly.

"Come, father," he said.

* * * * *

The two priests parted at the steps of the corridor, and Percy stood for
a minute or two staring out at the familiar autumn scene, trying to
understand what it all meant. What he had heard downstairs seemed
strangely to illuminate that vision of splendid prosperity that lay
before him.

The air was as bright as day; artificial sunlight had carried all before
it, and London now knew no difference between dark and light. He stood
in a kind of glazed cloister, heavily floored with a preparation of
rubber on which footsteps made no sound. Beneath him, at the foot of the
stairs, poured an endless double line of persons severed by a partition,
going to right and left, noiselessly, except for the murmur of Esperanto
talking that sounded ceaselessly as they went. Through the clear,
hardened glass of the public passage showed a broad sleek black roadway,
ribbed from side to side, and puckered in the centre, significantly
empty, but even as he stood there a note sounded far away from Old