For how could the
Cardinal know that I was here? How could he have known when he
gave the order? But I had short time to think of these things,
or others. We passed through two rooms, in one of which some
secretaries were writing, we stopped at a third door. Over all
brooded a silence which could be felt. The usher knocked,
opened, and, with his finger on his lip, pushed aside a curtain
and signed to me to enter. I did so and found myself behind a
screen.
'Is that M. de Berault?' asked a thin, high-pitched voice.
'Yes, Monseigneur,' I answered trembling.
'Then come, my friend, and talk to me.'
I went round the screen, and I know not how it was, the watching
crowd outside, the vacant ante-chamber in which I had stood, the
stillness and silence all seemed to be concentrated here, and to
give to the man I saw before me a dignity which he had never
possessed for me when the world passed through his doors, and the
proudest fawned on him for a smile. He sat in a great chair on
the farther side of the hearth, a little red skull-cap on his
head, his fine hands lying still in his lap.
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