Cather describes the garden setting in great detail. It is carved into the mountains overlooking Rome. The setting is refined and cultivated, underscored by the cardinal's tastes for fine wine, gourmet food, and art. As the Catholic Church has become the predominant civilizing element of Europe, so too will it serve to civilize the American Southwest.
The host cardinal admits that his knowledge of the North American continent derives primarily from the Leatherstocking novels of James Fenimore Cooper. But he is eager to champion Ferrand's nomination to the Vicarate if it means he can retrieve an El Greco painting of St. Francis of Assisi his great-grandfather had donated from his collection to a Franciscan missionary priest in the New World.
The cardinals find Bishop Ferrand's single-mindedness annoying, and change the subject to current political and cultural events. Bishop Ferrand is unable to take part in the conversation and worries that he has been on the frontier so long that he can no longer engage in clever discussion. Sensing that Ferrand might have second-thoughts about appointing Latour to such a remote, uncivilized, and desolate post, Allande tells Ferrand that it is too late.
Father Latour is described as a thirty-five-year-old French Jesuit missionary. The French Jesuits are believed by the cardinals to be great organizers. Ferrand predicts that the New Mexico territory will "drink up [Latour's] youth and strength as it does the rain." Latour also will be called upon to make great personal sacrifices, perhaps even becoming a martyr.
Cather foreshadows the color themes she dedicates to the southwestern landscape by describing the dome of St. Peter's as bluish-gray with "a flash of copper light." Later, as the sun sets, Cather describes the sky as "waves of rose and gold." She will eventually use various shades of copper and gold to describe the terrain of New Mexico. In addition, her description of the "soft metallic surface" of St. Peter's contrasts with the hardness of the American frontier depicted by the bishop. Cather also describes the light as both intense and soft, revealing the relative easiness of European life in comparison to the lives of American missionaries.
