The Cardinal's Snuff Box

And, like the lady in the ballad, sure enough, she greeted his

arrival with a glance of cold surprise.

At all events, eyebrows raised, face unsmiling, it was a glance

that clearly supplemented her spoken "How do you do?" by a

tacit (perhaps self-addressed?) "What can bring him here?"

You or I, indeed, or Mrs. O'Donovan Florence, in the fulness of

our knowledge, might very likely have interpreted it rather as

a glance of nervous apprehension. Anyhow, it was a glance that

perfectly checked the impetus of his intent. Something snapped

and gave way within him; and he needed no further signal that

the occasion for passionate avowals was not the present.

And thereupon befell a scene that was really quite too absurd,

that was really childish, a scene over the memory of which, I

must believe, they themselves have sometimes laughed together;

though, at the moment, its absurdity held, for him at least,

elements of the tragic.

He met her in the broad gravelled carriage-sweep, before the

great hall-door. She had on her hat and gloves, as if she were

just going out. It seemed to him that she was a little pale;

her eyes seemed darker than usual, and graver. Certainly--cold

surprise, or nervous apprehension, as you will--her attitude

was by no means cordial. It was not oncoming. It showed none

of her accustomed easy, half-humorous, wholly good-humoured

friendliness. It was decidedly the attitude of a person

standing off, shut in, withheld.

"I have never seen her in the least like this before," he

thought, as he looked at her pale face, her dark, grave eyes;

"I have never seen her more beautiful. And there is not one

single atom of hope for me."

"How do you do?" she said, unsmiling and waited, as who should

invite him to state his errand. She did not offer him her hand

but, for that matter, (she might have pleaded), she could not,

very well: for one of her hands held her sunshade, and the

other held an embroidered silk bag, woman's makeshift for a

pocket.

And then, capping the first pang of his disappointment, a kind

of anger seized him. After all, what right had she to receive

him in this fashion?--as if he were an intrusive stranger. In

common civility, in common justice, she owed it to him to

suppose that he would not be there without abundant reason.

And now, with Peter angry, the absurd little scene began.

Assuming an attitude designed to be, in its own way, as

reticent as hers, "I was passing your gate," he explained,

"when I happened to find this, lying by the roadside. I took

the liberty of bringing it to you."