He patted my hand.

'Don't be upset, my dear fellow. Noblesse oblige, you know.'

I laughed hysterically.

'You ridiculous creature, Elliott.'

'That's better. Now call up the bishop and say that I wish to make my confession and receive Extreme Unction. I would be grateful if he'd send the Abbe Charles. He's a friend of mine.'

The Abbe Charles was the bishop's vicar general whom I had occasion to mention before. I went downstairs and telephoned. I spoke to the bishop himself.

'Is it urgent?' he asked.

'Very.'

'I will attend to it at once.'

The doctor arrived and I told him what I had done. He went up with the nurse to see Elliott and I waited on the ground floor in the dining-room. It is only twenty minutes' drive from Nice to Antibes and little more than half an hour later a black sedan drew up at the door. Joseph came to me.

'C'est Monseigneur en personne, Monsieur,' he said in a flurry. 'It's the bishop himself.'

I went out to receive him. He was not as usual accompanied by his vicar general, but, why I did not know, by a young abbe who bore a basket that contained, I supposed, the utensils needed to administer the sacrament. The chauffeur followed with a shabby black valise. The bishop shook hands with me and presented his companion.

'How is our poor friend?'

'I'm afraid he's very ill, Monseigneur.'

'Will yoube so obliging as to show us into a room where we can enrobe?'

'The dining-room is here, Monseigneur, and the drawing-room is on the next floor.'

'The dining-room will do very well.'

I ushered him in. Joseph and I waited in the hall. Presently the door opened and the bishop came out, followed by the abbe holding in both hands the chalice surmounted by a little platter on which lay the consecrated wafer. They were covered by a cambric napkin so fine that it was transparent. I had never seen the bishop but at a dinner or luncheon party, and a very good trencherman he was, who enjoyed his food and a glass of good wine, telling funny and sometimes ribald stories with verve. He had struck me then as a sturdy, thickset man of no more than average height. Now, in surplice and stole, he looked not only tall, but stately. His red face, puckered as a rule with malicious yet kindly laughter, was grave. There was in his appearance nothing left of the cavalry officer he had once been; he looked, what indeed he was, a great dignitary of the Church. I was hardly surprised to see Joseph cross himself. The bishop inclined his head in a slight bow.

'Conduct me to the sick man,' he said.

I made way for him to ascend the stairs before me, but he bade me precede him. We went up in solemn silence. I entered Elliott's room.

'The bishop has come himself, Elliott.'

Elliott struggled to raise himself to a sitting position.

'Monseigneur, this is an honour I did not venture to expect.'

'Do not move, my friend.' The bishop turned to the nurse and me. 'Leave us.' And then to the abbe: 'I will call you when I am ready.'

The abbe glanced around and I guessed that he was looking for a place to set down the chalice. I pushed aside the tortoise-shell-backed brushes on the dressing-table. The nurse went downstairs and I led the abbe into the adjoining room which Elliott used as a study. The windows were open to the blue sky and he went over and stood by one of them. I sat down. A race of Stars was in progress and their sails gleamed dazzling white against the azure. A big schooner with a black hull, her red sails spread, was beating up against the breeze towards the harbour. I recognized her for a lobster boat, bringing a catch from Sardinia to supply the gala dinners at the casinos with a fish course. Through the closed door I could hear the muffled murmur of voices. Elliott was making his confession. I badly wanted a cigarette, but feared the abbe would be shocked if I lit one. He stood motionless, looking out, a slender young man, and his thick waving black hair, his fine dark eyes, his olive skin revealed his Italian origin. There was the quick fire of the South in his aspect and I asked myself what urgent faith, what burning desire had caused him to abandon the joys of life, the pleasures of his age, and the satisfaction of his senses, to devote himself to the service of God.

Suddenly the voices in the next room were still and I looked at the door. It was opened and the bishop appeared.

'Venez,' he said to the priest.

I was left alone. I heard the bishop's voice once more and I knew he was saying the prayers that the Church has ordained should be said for the dying. Then there was another silence and I knew that Elliott was partaking of the body and the blood of Christ. From I know not what feeling, inherited, I suppose, from far-away ancestors, though not a Catholic I can never attend Mass without a sense of tremulous awe when the little tinkle of the servitor's bell informs me of the Elevation of the Host; and now, similarly, I shivered as though a cold wind ran through me, I shivered with fear and wonder. The door was opened once more.

'You may come in,' said the bishop.

I entered. The abbe was spreading the cambric napkin over the cup and the little gilt plate on which the consecrated wafer had lain. Elliott's eyes shone.

'Conduct Monseigneur to his car,' he said.

We descended the stairs. Joseph and the maids were waiting in the hall. The maids were crying. There were three of them and one after the other they came forward and, dropping to their knees, kissed the bishop's ring. He blessed them with two fingers. Joseph's wife nudged him and he advanced, fell to his knees too, and kissed the ring. The bishop smiled faintly.

'You are a freethinker, my son?'

I could see Joseph making an effort over himself.

'Yes, Monseigneur.'

'Do not let it trouble you. You have been a good and faithful servant to your master. God will overlook the errors of your understanding.'

I went out into the street with him and opened the door of his car. He gave me a bow as he stepped in and smiled indulgently.

'Our poor friend is very low. His defects were of the surface; he was generous of heart and kindly towards his fellow men.'

Thinking that Elliott might want to be alone after the ceremony in which he had taken part, I went up to the drawing-room and began to read, but no sooner had I settled myself than the nurse came in to tell me that he wanted to see me. I climbed the flight of stairs to his room. Whether owing to a shot that the doctor had given him to help him to support the ordeal before him or whether from the excitement of it, he was calmly cheerful and his eyes were bright.

'A great honour, my dear fellow,' he said. 'I shall enter the kingdom of heaven with a letter of introduction from a prince of the Church. I fancy that all doors will be open to me.'

'I'm afraid you'll find the company very mixed,' I smiled.

'Don't you believe it, my dear fellow. We know from Holy Writ that there are class distinctions in heaven just as there are on earth. There are seraphim and cherubim, archangels and angels. I have always moved in the best society in Europe and I have no doubt that I shall move in the best society in heaven. Our Lord has said: The House of my Father hath many mansions. It would be highly unsuitable to lodge the hoi polloi in a way to which they're entirely unaccustomed.'

I suspected that Elliott saw the celestial habitations in the guise of the chateaux of a Baron de Rothschild with eighteenth-century panelling on the walls, Buhl tables, marquetry cabinets, and Louis Quinze suites covered with their original petit-point.

'Believe me, my dear fellow,' he went on after a pause, 'there'll be none of this damned equality in heaven.'