A gold cross was suspended from his neck by a massive chain of gold.

He was delicately featured, with a little pointed beard, tiny mustachios, and long, fair hair that fell in waves about his effeminate face.

He had the whitest of hands, very delicately veined in blue, and it was--as I soon observed--his habit to carry them raised, so that the blood might not flow into them to coarsen their beauty.

Attached to his left wrist by a fine chain was a gold pomander-ball of the size of a small apple, very beautifully chiselled.

Upon one of his fingers he wore the enormous sapphire ring of his rank.
That he was a prince of the Church I saw for myself; but I was far from being prepared for the revelation of his true eminence--never dreaming that a man of the humble position of Doctor Fifanti would entertain a guest so exalted.
He was no less a person than the Lord Egidio Oberto Gambara, Cardinal of Brescia, Governor of Piacenza and Papal Legate to Cisalpine Gaul.
The revelation of the identity of this elegant, effeminate, perfumed personage was a shock to me; for it was not thus by much that I had pictured the representative of our Holy Father the Pope.
He smiled upon me amiably and something wearily, the satiate smile of the man of the world, and he languidly held out to me the hand bearing his ring.