Why all this fuss, it used to be asked, about a Temporal Power on behalf of a "Kingdom that was not of this world"?
Yet, somehow, now as he looked back on it all, with his friend's comment in his mind, he began to see, not how clever or diplomatic had been the old attitude, but how absolutely and obviously essential.

It was possible indeed for Peter to be a subject of Nero in things pertaining to Caesar; but how could that be possible to Peter's successor when the Kingdom of Christ which he ruled on earth had become a Supra-national Society to which the nations of the earth looked for guidance?
The phrase he had just heard ran in his mind.
"An Italian for the sake of Italy and his own existence in Rome.
Not an Italian for the sake of the rest of Christendom." It seemed simple, somehow, just like that.
He was roused by a touch on his knee, and simultaneously was aware of a new sound from the piazza.
"Look," said the old priest sharply.

"They're beginning to move." (III) A curious seething movement had broken out in the piazza, resembling the stir of a troubled ant-hill, on either side of the broad green way down which the Pope would come; and already into the head of the street up which the priests looked figures were emerging.

Simultaneously a crash of brazen music had filled the air.

A movement of attention, exactly like the lift of a swell along the foot of a cliff, passed down the crowded street to the left and lost itself round the corner towards S.Angelo.
Then they began to come, swinging over from the piazza to the street as if from a pool into a narrow channel.