When he arrived at the door, which was opened to him by Calabressa, he contrived to throw off, by a strong effort of will, any appearance of anxiety.  He entered and sat down, saying only,

“Well!—­what news?”

Calabressa laughed slightly; and went to a cupboard, and brought forth a bottle and two small glasses.

“If you were Zaccatelli,” he said, “I would say to you, ‘My Lord,’ or ‘Your Excellency,’ or whatever they call those flamingoes with the bullet heads, ’I would advise you to take a little drop of this very excellent cognac, for you are about to hear something, and you will need steady nerves.’  Meanwhile, Brother Lind, it is not forbidden to you and me to have a glass.  The Council provide excellent liquor.”

“Thank you, I have no need of it,” said Lind, coldly.  “What do you mean about Zaccatelli?”

“This,” said the other, filling himself out a glass of the brandy, and then proceeding to prepare a cigarette.  “If the moral scene of the country, too long outraged, should determine to punish the Starving Cardinal, I believe he will get a good year’s notice to prepare for his doom.  You perceive?  What harm does sudden death to a man?  It is nothing.  A moment of pain; and you have all the happiness of sleep, indifference, forgetfulness.  That is no punishment at all:  do you perceive?”

Calabressa continued, airily—­

“People are proud when they say they do not fear death.  The fools!  What has any one to fear in death?  To the poor it means no more hunger, no more imprisonment, no more cold and sickness, no more watching of your children when they are suffering and you cannot help; to the rich it means no more triumph of rivals, and envy, and jealousy; no more sleepless nights and ennui of days; no more gout, and gravel, and the despair of growing old.  Death!  It is the great emancipation.  And people talk of the punishment of death!”

He gave a long whistle of contempt.

“But,” said he, with a smile, “it is a little bit different if you have to look forward to your death on a certain fixed day.  Then you begin to overvalue things—­a single hour of life becomes something.”

He added, in a tone of affected condolence—­

“Then one wouldn’t wish to cause any poor creature to say his last adieux without some preparation.  And in the case of a cardinal, is a year too little for repentance?  Oh, he will put it to excellent use.”

“Very well, very well,” said Ferdinand Lind, with an impatient frown gathering over the shaggy eyebrows.  “But I want to know what I have to do with all this?”

“Brother Lind,” said the other, mildly, “if the Secretary Granaglia, knowing that I am a friend of yours, is so kind as to give me some hints of what is under discussion, I listen, but I ask no questions.  And you—­I presume you are here not to protest, but to obey.”

“Understand me, Calabressa:  it was only to you as a friend that I spoke,” said Lind, gravely.  And then he added, “The Council will not find, at all events, that I am recusant.”