_Papa Angelicus!_ reflected Percy.
The Cardinal ceased his explanations, and made a little gesture.

Percy drew up all his faculties tense and tight to answer the questions that he knew were coming.
"I welcome you, my son," said a very soft, resonant voice.
Percy bowed, desperately, from the waist.
The Pope dropped his eyes again, lifted a paper-weight with his left hand, and began to play with it gently as he talked.
"Now, my son, deliver a little discourse.

I suggest to you three heads--what has happened, what is happening, what will happen, with a peroration as to what should happen." Percy drew a long breath, settled himself back, clasped the fingers of his left hand in the fingers of his right, fixed his eyes firmly upon the cross-embroidered red shoe opposite, and began.

(Had he not rehearsed this a hundred times!) * * * * * He first stated his theme; to the effect that all the forces of the civilised world were concentrating into two camps--the world and God.

Up to the present time the forces of the world had been incoherent and spasmodic, breaking out in various ways--revolutions and wars had been like the movements of a mob, undisciplined, unskilled, and unrestrained.
To meet this, the Church, too, had acted through her Catholicity-- dispersion rather than concentration: _franc-tireurs_ had been opposed to _franc-tireurs_.