Children adored him because he was like a child; youth revelled in his company because he was still a youth, and couldn't be shocked. In the proper land and century he might have been a Richelieu--at present he was a very moral, very religious (if not particularly pious) clergyman, making a great mystery about pulling rusty wires, and appreciating life to the fullest, if not entirely enjoying it.
He and Amory took to each other at first sight--the jovial, impressive prelate who could dazzle an embassy ball, and the green-eyed, intent youth, in his first long trousers, accepted in their own minds a relation of father and son within a half-hour's conversation.
"My dear boy, I've been waiting to see you for years. Take a big chair and we'll have a chat."
"I've just come from school--St. Regis's, you know."
"So your mother says--a remarkable woman; have a cigarette--I'm sure you smoke. Well, if you're like me, you loathe all science and mathematics--"
Amory nodded vehemently.
"Hate 'em all. Like English and history."
"Of course. You'll hate school for a while, too, but I'm glad you're going to St. Regis's."
"Why?"
"Because it's a gentleman's school, and democracy won't hit you so early. You'll find plenty of that in college."
"I want to go to Princeton," said Amory. "I don't know why, but I think of all Harvard men as sissies, like I used to be, and all Yale men as wearing big blue sweaters and smoking pipes."
Monsignor chuckled.
"I'm one, you know."
"Oh, you're different--I think of Princeton as being lazy and good-looking and aristocratic--you know, like a spring day. Harvard seems sort of indoors--"
"And Yale is November, crisp and energetic," finished Monsignor.
"That's it."
They slipped briskly into an intimacy from which they never recovered.
"I was for Bonnie Prince Charlie," announced Amory.
"Of course you were--and for Hannibal--"
"Yes, and for the Southern Confederacy." He was rather sceptical about being an Irish patriot--he suspected that being Irish was being somewhat common--but Monsignor assured him that Ireland was a romantic lost cause and Irish people quite charming, and that it should, by all means, be one of his principal biasses.
After a crowded hour which included several more cigarettes, and during which Monsignor learned, to his surprise but not to his horror, that Amory had not been brought up a Catholic, he announced that he had another guest. This turned out to be the Honorable Thornton Hancock, of Boston, ex-minister to The Hague, author of an erudite history of the Middle Ages and the last of a distinguished, patriotic, and brilliant family.