The Cardinal's snuff-box
“And it is a horrid month in England,” she went on.
“It is an abominable month in England,” he acknowledged.
“Here it is blue, like larkspur, and all fragrant of the vintage,
and joyous with the songs of the vintagers,” she said. “There it is
dingy-brown, and songless, and it smells of smoke.”
“Yes,” he agreed.
“But you are a sportsman? You go in for shooting?” she conjectured.
“No,” he answered. “I gave up shooting years ago.”
“Oh--? Hunting, then?”
“I hate hunting. One is always getting rolled on by one's horse.”
“Ah, I see. It--it will be golf, perhaps?”
“No, it is not even golf.”
“Don't tell me it is football?”
“Do I look as if it were football?”
“It is sheer homesickness, in fine? You are grieving for the purple of
your native heather?”
“There is scarcely any heather in my native county. No,” said Peter,
“no. To tell you the truth, it is the usual thing. It is an histoire de
femme.”
“I 'might have guessed it,” she exclaimed. “It is still that everlasting
woman.”
“That everlasting woman--?” Peter faltered.
“To be sure,” said she. “The woman you are always going on about. The
woman of your novel. This woman, in short.”
And she produced from behind her back a hand that she had kept there,
and held up for his inspection a grey-and-gold bound book.
“MY novel--?” faltered he. (But the sight of it, in her possession, in
these particular circumstances, gave him a thrill that was not a thrill
of despair.)
“Your novel,” she repeated, smiling sweetly, and mimicking his tone.
Then she made a little moue. “Of course, I have known that you were your
friend Felix Wildmay, from the outset.”
“Oh,” said Peter, in a feeble sort of gasp, looking bewildered. “You
have known that from the outset?” And his brain seemed to reel.
“Yes,” said she, “of course. Where would the fun have been, otherwise?
And now you are going away, back to her shrine, to renew your worship. I
hope you will find the courage to offer her your hand.”
Peter's brain was reeling. But here was the opportunity of his life.
“You give me courage,” he pronounced, with sudden daring. “You are in a
position to help me with her. And since you know so much, I should like
you to know more. I should like to tell you who she is.”
“One should be careful where one bestows one's confidences,” she warned
him; but there was something in her eyes, there was a glow, a softness,
that seemed at the same time to invite them.
“No,” he said, “better than telling you who she is, I will tell you
where I first saw her. It was at the Francais, in December, four years
ago, a Thursday night, a subscription night. She sat in one of the
middle boxes of the first tier. She was dressed in white. Her companions
were an elderly woman, English I think, in black, who wore a cap; and an
old man, with white moustache and imperial, who looked as if he might be
a French officer. And the play--.”
He broke off, and looked at the Duchessa. She kept her eyes down.
“Yes--the play?” she questioned, in a low voice, after a little wait.
“The play was Monsieur Pailleron's 'Le monde ou l'on s'ennuie',” he
said.
“Oh,” said she, still keeping her eyes down. Her voice was still very
low. But there was something in it that made Peter's heart leap.
“The next time I saw her,” he began...
But then he had to stop. He felt as if the beating of his heart must
suffocate him.
“Yes--the next time?” she questioned.
He drew a deep breath. He began anew--
“The next time was a week later, at the Opera. They were giving
Lohengrin. She was with the same man and woman, and there was another,
younger man. She had pearls round her neck and in her hair, and she had
a cloak lined with white fur. She left before the opera was over. I did
not see her again until the following May, when I saw her once or twice
in London, driving in the Park. She was always with the same elderly
Englishwoman, but the military-looking old Frenchman had disappeared.
And then I saw her once more, a year later, in Paris, driving in the
Bois.”
The Duchessa kept her eyes down. She did not speak.
Peter waited as long as flesh-and-blood could wait, looking at her.
“Well?” he pleaded, at last. “That is all. Have you nothing to say to
me?”
She raised her eyes, and for the tiniest fraction of a second they gave
themselves to his. Then she dropped them again.
“You are sure,” she asked, “you are perfectly sure that when,
afterwards, you met her, and came to know her as she really is--you are
perfectly sure there was no disappointment?”
“Disappointment!” cried Peter. “She is in every way immeasurably beyond
anything that I was capable of dreaming. Oh, if you could see her, if
you could hear her speak, if you could look into her eyes--if you
could see her as others see her--you would not ask whether there was a
disappointment. She is... No; the language is not yet invented, in which
I could describe her.”
The Duchessa smiled, softly, to herself.
“And you are in love with her--more or less?” she asked.
“I love her so that the bare imagination of being allowed to tell her of
my love almost makes me faint with joy. But it is like the story of the
poor squire who loved his queen. She is the greatest of great ladies.
I am nobody. She is so beautiful, so splendid, and so high above me, it
would be the maddest presumption for me to ask her for her love. To ask
for the love of my Queen! And yet--Oh, I can say no more. God sees my
heart. God knows how I love her.”
“And it is on her account--because you think your love is hopeless--that
you are going away, that you are going back to England?”
“Yes,” said he.
She raised her eyes again, and again they gave themselves to his. There
was something in them, there was a glow, a softness ...
“Don't go,” she said.
Up at the castle--Peter had hurried down to the villa, dressed, and
returned to the castle to dine--he restored the snuff-box to Cardinal
Udeschini.
“I am trebly your debtor for it,” said the Cardinal.