"Do you know," said he, "it would be very kind of you to lunch with me--will you?
Come and join me at that restaurant yonder with the pink front as soon as you are at liberty.

I shall have settled my own business in an hour's time, and I shall be delighted to have your company at table." Pierre began by declining, but he could offer no possible excuse, and at last surrendered, won over, despite himself, by Prada's real charm of manner.

When they had parted, the young priest only had to climb a street in order to reach the Cardinal's door.

With his natural expansiveness and craving for popularity, Sanguinetti was easy of access, and at Frascati in particular his doors were flung open even to the most humble cassocks.
So Pierre was at once ushered in, a circumstance which somewhat surprised him, for he remembered the bad humour of the servant whom he had seen on calling at the Cardinal's residence in Rome, when he had been advised to forego the journey, as his Eminence did not like to be disturbed when he was ill.

However, nothing spoke of illness in that pleasant villa, flooded with sunshine.