Him in a crimson-velvet chair, asking what pontifical name He would choose.

"Hadrian the Seventh:" the response came unhesitatingly, undemonstratively.

"Your Holiness would perhaps prefer to be called Leo, or Pius, or Gregory, as is the modern manner?" the Cardinal-Dean inquired with imperious suavity.

"The previous English pontiff was Hadrian the Fourth: the present English pontiff is Hadrian the Seventh. It pleases Us; and so, by Our Own impulse, We command."

Then there was no more to be said. The election of Hadrian the Seventh was proclaimed in the Conclave. They came to the ceremony of adoration. One by one, Their Eminencies kissed the Supreme Pontiff's foot and hand and cheek. Contact with senile humanity made His juvenile soul shudder. All the time he was saying in His mind "Not unto Us, O Lord, not unto Us...." Yet that seemed such a silly inadequate thing to say. It was not humility, it was physical loathing which nauseated Him all secretly. Some had the breaths of bustards, and all but one were hot. He would have liked to tear off His Own cheek with clawed tongs. By a peculiar mental gymnastic, He vaulted to the verse, "Who sweeps an house as in Thy Sight makes that and th' action fine." He clutched the thought and clung to it. "Greatest and Best, or by what other Name Thou wishest to be called, I am only Thy means. This horrible osculation is no more than a chance for them to benefit themselves by honouring Thee through me. Let them. I will be the means—Thy means to all men. Ouf! How it hurts!" His external serenity was unflinchingly feline. He just tolerated attention. The arrows of cardinalitial eyes[Pg 87] impinged upon Him; and glanced off the ice of His mail. He withdrew His sensibilities from the surface; and concentrated them in the inmost recesses of his soul, foreseeing, forescheming. "One step's enough for me" was another tag, which became detached from the bundles of His memory to float in the ocean of His counsels. He made sure of the one step: fearlessly strode and stood; and prepared for the next. He never looked behind. The amethyst, the pontifical name, and now——? Yes! "Begin as you mean to go on," He advised Himself.

[Pg 87]

When the huge princes of the church bourgeoned in ermine and vermilion, Hadrian, mitred and coped in silver and gold, followed Macca who bore the triple cross. Tumultuous sumptuous splendour proceeded through the Conclave into the gallery of benediction over the porch of St. Peter's. Masons were removing brickwork 

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