"I know, I know," he exclaimed, "I remember your page on the return of spring, which consoles the poor whom winter has frozen.

Oh! I read it three times over! And are you aware that your writing is full of Latin turns of style.

I noticed more than fifty expressions which could be found in the 'Bucolics.' Your book is a charm, a perfect charm!" As he was no fool, and realised that the little priest before him was a man of high intelligence, he ended by interesting himself, not in Pierre personally, but in the profit which he might possibly derive from him.
Amidst his feverish intrigues, he unceasingly sought to utilise all the qualities possessed by those whom God sent to him that might in any way be conducive to his own triumph.

So, for a moment, he turned away from Rome and looked his companion in the face, listening to him and asking himself in what way he might employ him--either at once in the crisis through which he was passing, or later on when he should be pope.

But the young priest again made the mistake of attacking the temporal power, and of employing that unfortunate expression, "a new religion." Thereupon the Cardinal stopped him with a gesture, still smiling, still retaining all his amiability, although the resolution which he had long since formed became from that moment definitive.