poning the _denouement_ with
the secret enjoyment of an artistic _diplomate_, began to protest,
raising his little plump hands with the anxious air of a man who
considers everything lost: "Oh! but you must see his Eminence; it is
absolutely necessary! Think of it! The Prefect of the Index! We can only
act after your visit to him, for as you have not seen _him_ it is as if
you had seen nobody. Go, go to Frascati, my dear son."

And thereupon Pierre could only bow and reply: "I will go, Monseigneur."

XI.

ALTHOUGH Pierre knew that he would be unable to see Cardinal Sanguinetti
before eleven o'clock, he nevertheless availed himself of an early train,
so that it was barely nine when he alighted at the little station of
Frascati. He had already visited the place during his enforced idleness,
when he had made the classical excursion to the Roman castles which
extend from Frascati to Rocco di Papa, and from Rocco di Papa to Monte
Cavo, and he was now delighted with the prospect of strolling for a
couple of hours along those first slopes of the Alban hills, where,
amidst rushes, olives, and vines, Frascati, like a promontory, overlooks
the immense ruddy sea of the Campagna even as far as Rome, which, six
full leagues away, wears the whitish aspect of a marble isle.

Ah! that charming Frascati, on its greeny knoll at the foot of the wooded
Tusculan heights, with its famous terrace whence one enjoys the finest
view in the world, its old patrician villas with proud and elegant
Renascence facades and magnificent parks, which, planted with cypress,
pine, and ilex, are for ever green! There was a sweetness, a delight, a
fascination about the spot, of which Pierre would have never wearied. And
for more than an hour he had wandered blissfully along roads edged with
ancient, knotty olive-trees, along dingle ways shaded by the spreading
foliage of neighbouring estates, and along perfumed paths, at each turn
of which the Campagna was seen stretching far away, when all at once he
was accosted by a person whom he was both surprised and annoyed to meet.
He had strolled down to some low ground near the railway station, some
old vineyards where a number of new houses had been built of recent
years, and suddenly saw a stylish pair-horse victoria, coming from the
direction of Rome, draw up close by, whilst its occupant called to him:
"What! Monsieur l'Abbe Froment, are you taking a walk here, at this early
hour?"

Thereupon Pierre re