* * * * *
And outside, in the Piazza, amid the out-pouring thousands, as they were
rushing for their carriage, Manisty's stride overtook her.
'Well--you were impressed?'--he said, looking at her sharply.
The girl's pride was somehow nettled by his tone.
'Yes--but by the old man--more than by the Pope,'--she said quickly.
'I hope not,' he said, with emphasis.--'Otherwise you would have missed the
whole point.'
'Why?--Mayn't one feel it was pathetic, and touching--'
'No--not in the least!' he said, impatiently. 'What does the man himself
matter, or his age?--That's all irrelevant,--foolish sentiment. What makes
these ceremonies so tremendous is that there is no break between that man
and Peter--or Linus, if you like--it comes to the same thing:--that the
bones, if not of Peter, at any rate of men who might have known Peter,
are there, mingled with the earth beneath his feet--that he stands there
recognised by half the civilised world as Peter's successor--that five
hundred, a thousand years hence, the vast probability is there will still
be a Pope in St. Peter's to hand on the same traditions, and make the same
claims.'
'But if you don't acknowledge the tradition or the claims!--why shouldn't
you feel just the human interest?'
'Oh, of course, if you want to take the mere vulgar, parochial view--the
halfpenny interviewer's view--why, you must take it!' he said, almost with
violence, shrugging his shoulders.
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