The Cardinal's Snuff-Box Part 21

"You should not have told me that, till I had finished my cup. Now I shall feel that I am sharing a dissipation with our spoliators."

"That should give an edge to its aroma," laughed she. "And besides, the Whites aren't all responsible for our spoliation--some of them are not so white as your fancy paints them. They'd be very decent people, for the most part--if they were n't so vulgar."

"If you stick up for the Whites like that when I am Pope, I shall excommunicate you," the priest threatened. "Meanwhile, what have you to say against the Blacks?"

"The Blacks, with few exceptions, are even blacker than they're painted; but they too would be fairly decent people in their way--if they were n't so respectable. That is what makes Rome impossible as a residence for any one who cares for human society. White society is so vulgar--Black society is so deadly dull."

"It is rather curious," said the priest, "that the chief of each party should wear the colour of his adversary. Our chief dresses in white, and their chief can be seen any day driving about the streets in black."

And Peter, during this interchange of small-talk, was at liberty to feast his eyes upon her.

"Perhaps you have not yet reached the time of life where men begin to find a virtue in snuff?" the priest said, producing a smart silver snuff box, tapping the lid, and proffering it to Peter.

"On the contrary--thank you," Peter answered, and absorbed his pinch like an adept.

"How on earth have you learned to take it without a paroxysm?" cried the surprised d.u.c.h.essa.

"Oh, a thousand years ago I was in the Diplomatic Service," he explained. "It is one of the requirements."

Emilia Manfredi lifted her big brown eyes, filled with girlish wonder, to his face, and exclaimed, "How extraordinary!"

"It is n't half so extraordinary as it would be if it were true, my dear," said the d.u.c.h.essa.

"Oh? Non e poi vero?" murmured Emilia, and her eyes darkened with disappointment.

Peter meanwhile was looking at the snuffbox, which the priest still held in his hand, and admiring its brave repousse work of leaves and flowers, and the escutcheon engraved on the lid. But what if he could have guessed the part he had pa.s.sively played in obtaining it for its possessor--or the part that it was still to play in his own epopee? Mark again the predestination!

"The storm is pa.s.sing," said the priest.

"Worse luck!" thought Peter.

For indeed the rain and the wind were moderating, the thunder had rolled farther away, the sky was becoming lighter.

"But there's a mighty problem before us still," said the d.u.c.h.essa. "How are we to get to Ventirose? The roads will, be ankle-deep with mud."

"If you wish to do me a very great kindness--" Peter began.

"Yes--?" she encouraged him.

"You will allow me to go before you, and tell them to come for you with a carriage."

"I shall certainly allow you to do nothing of the sort," she replied severely. "I suppose there is no one whom you could send?"

"I should hardly like to send Marietta. I 'm afraid there is no one else. But upon my word, I should enjoy going myself."

She shook her head, smiling at him with mock compa.s.sion.

"Would you? Poor man, poor man! That is an enjoyment which you will have to renounce. One must n't expect too much in this sad life."

"Well, then," said Peter, "I have an expedient. If you can walk a somewhat narrow plank--?"

"Yes--?" questioned she.

"I think I can improvise a bridge across the river."

"I believe the rain has stopped," said the priest, looking towards the window.

Peter, manning his soul for the inevitable, got up, went to the door, opened it, stuck out his head.

"Yes," he acknowledged, while his heart sank within him, "the rain has stopped."

And now the storm departed almost as rapidly as it had arrived. In the north the sky was already clear, blue and hard-looking--a wall of lapis-lazuli. The dark cloud-canopy was drifting to the south. Suddenly the sun came out, flashing first from the snows of Monte Sfiorito, then, in an instant, flooding the entire prospect with a marvellous yellow light, ethereal amber; whilst long streamers of tinted vapour--columns of pearl-dust, one might have fancied--rose to meet it; and all wet surfaces, leaves, lawns, tree-trunks, housetops, the bare crags of the Gnisi, gleamed in a wash of gold.

Puffs of fresh air blew into the kitchen, filling it with the keen sweet odour of wet earth. The priest and the d.u.c.h.essa and Emilia joined Peter at the open door.

"Oh, your poor, poor garden!" the d.u.c.h.essa cried.

His garden had suffered a good deal, to be sure. The flowers lay supine, their faces beaten into the mud; the greensward was littered with fallen leaves and twigs--and even in one or two places whole branches had been broken from the trees; on the ground about each rose-bush a snow of pink rose-petals lay scattered; in the paths there were hundreds of little pools, shining in the sun like pools of fire.

"There's nothing a gardener can't set right," said Peter, feeling no doubt that here was a trifling tax upon the delights the storm had procured him.

"And oh, our poor, poor hats!" said the d.u.c.h.essa, eyeing ruefully those damaged pieces of finery. "I fear no gardener can ever set them right."

"It sounds inhospitable," said Peter, "but I suppose I had better go and build your bridge."

So he threw a ladder athwart the river, and laid the planks in place, as he had seen Gigi do the day before.

"How ingenious--and, like all great things, how simple," laughed the d.u.c.h.essa.

Peter waved his hand, as who should modestly deprecate applause. But, I 'm ashamed to own, he didn't disclaim the credit of the invention.

"It will require some nerve," she reflected, looking at the narrow planks, the foaming green water. "However--"

And gathering in her skirts, she set bravely forward, and made the transit without mishap. The priest and Emilia, gathering in their skirts, made it after her.

She paused on the other side, and looked back, smiling.

"Since you have discovered so efficacious a means of cutting short the distance between our places of abode," she said, "I hope you will not fail to profit by it whenever you may have occasion--on Thursday, for example."

"Thank you very much," said Peter.

"Of course," she went on, "we may all die of our wetting yet. It would perhaps show a neighbourly interest if you were to come up to-morrow, and take our news. Come at four o'clock; and if we're alive... you shall have another pinch of snuff," she promised, laughing.

"I adore you," said Peter, under his breath. "I'll come with great pleasure," he said aloud.

"Marietta," he observed, that evening, as he dined, "I would have you to know that the Aco is bridged. Hence, there is one symbol the fewer in Lombardy. But why does--you mustn't mind the Ollendorfian form of my enquiry--why does the chaplain of the d.u.c.h.essa wear red stockings?"

"The chaplain of the d.u.c.h.essa--?" repeated Marietta, wrinkling up her brow.