The Cardinal's Snuff-Box Part 7

"But I 'm doubting it's a bit too late--troppo tardo," he said to Marietta, whom he found bringing hot water to his dressing-room.

"It is not very late," said Marietta. "Only half-past ten."

"She is a woman--therefore to be loved; she is a d.u.c.h.ess--therefore to be lost," he explained, in his native tongue.

"Cosa." questioned Marietta, in hers.

XI

Beatrice and Emilia, strolling together in one of the flowery lanes up the hillside, between ranks of the omnipresent poplar, and rose-bush hedges, or crumbling pink-stuccoed walls that dripped with cyclamen and snapdragon, met old Marietta descending, with a basket on her arm.

Marietta courtesied to the ground.

"How do you do, Marietta?" Beatrice asked.

"I can't complain, thank your Grandeur. I have the lumbago on and off pretty constantly, and last week I broke a tooth. But I can't complain.

And your Highness?"

Marietta returned, with brisk aplomb.

Beatrice smiled. "Bene, grazie. Your new master--that young Englishman,"

she continued, "I hope you find him kind, and easy to do for?"

"Kind--yes, Excellency. Also easy to do for. But--!" Marietta shrugged her shoulders, and gave her head two meaning oscillations.

"Oh--?" wondered Beatrice, knitting puzzled brows.

"Very amiable, your Greatness; but simple, simple," Marietta explained, and tapped her brown old forehead with a brown forefinger.

"Really--?" wondered Beatrice.

"Yes, n.o.bility," said Marietta. "Gentle as a canarybird, but innocent, innocent."

"You astonish me," Beatrice avowed. "How does he show it?"

"The questions he asks, Most Ill.u.s.trious, the things he says."

"For example--?" pursued Beatrice.

"For example, your Serenity--" Marietta paused, to search her memory.-- "Well, for one example, he calls roast veal a fowl. I give him roast veal for his luncheon, and he says to me, 'Marietta, this fowl has no wings.'

But everyone knows, your Mercy, that veal is not a fowl. How should veal have wings?"

"How indeed?" a.s.sented Beatrice, on a note of commiseration. And if the corners of her mouth betrayed a tendency to curve upwards, she immediately compelled them down. "But perhaps he does not speak Italian very well?" she suggested.

"Mache, Potenza! Everyone speaks Italian," cried Marietta.

"Indeed?" said Beatrice.

"Naturally, your Grace--all Christians," Marietta declared.

"Oh, I did n't know," said Beatrice, meekly. "Well," she acknowledged, "since he speaks Italian, it is certainly unreasonable of him to call veal a fowl."

"But that, Magnificence," Marietta went on, warming to her theme, "that is only one of his simplicities. He asks me, 'Who puts the whitewash on Monte Sfiorito? 'And when I tell him that it is not whitewash, but snow, he says, 'How do you know?' But everyone knows that it is snow.

Whitewash!"

The sprightly old woman gave her whole body a shake, for the better exposition of her state of mind. And thereupon, from the interior of her basket, issued a plaintive little squeal.

"What have you in your basket?" Beatrice asked.

"A little piglet, n.o.bility--un piccolo porcellino," said Marietta.

And lifting the cover an inch or two, she displayed the anxious face of a poor little sucking pig.

"E carino?" she demanded, whilst her eyes beamed with a pride that almost seemed maternal.

"What on earth are you going to do with him?" Beatrice gasped.

The light of pride gave place to a light of resolution, in Marietta's eyes.

"Kill him, Mightiness," was her grim response; "stuff him with almonds, raisins, rosemary, and onions; cook him sweet and sour; and serve him, garnished with rosettes of beet-root, for my Signorino's Sunday dinner."

"Oh-h-h!" shuddered Beatrice and Emilia, in a breath; and they resumed their walk.

XII

Francois was dining--with an appearance of great fervour.

Peter sat on his rustic bench, by the riverside, and watched him, smoking a cigarette the while.

The d.u.c.h.essa di Santangiolo stood screened by a tree in the park of Ventirose, and watched them both.

Francois wore a wide blue ribbon round his pink and chubby neck; and his dinner consisted of a big bowlful of bread and milk.

Presently the d.u.c.h.essa stepped forth from her ambush, into the sun, and laughed.

"What a sweetly pretty scene," she said. "Pastoral--idyllic--it reminds one of Theocritus--it reminds one of Watteau."

Peter threw his cigarette into the river, and made an obeisance.