Beatrice walking with a priest--ay, I am not sure it would n't

be more accurate to say conspiring with a priest: but you

shall judge.

They were in a room of the Palazzo Udeschini, at Rome--a

reception room, on the piano nobile. Therefore you see it: for

are not all reception-rooms in Roman palaces alike?

Vast, lofty, sombre; the walls hung with dark-green tapestry--a

pattern of vertical stripes, dark green and darker green; here

and there a great dark painting, a Crucifixion, a Holy Family,

in a massive dim-gold frame; dark-hued rugs on the tiled floor;

dark pieces of furniture, tables, cabinets, dark and heavy; and

tall windows, bare of curtains at this season, opening upon a

court--a wide stone-eaved court, planted with fantastic-leaved

eucalyptus-trees, in the midst of which a brown old fountain,

indefatigable, played its sibilant monotone.

In the streets there were the smells, the noises, the heat, the

glare of August of August in Rome, "the most Roman of the

months," they say; certainly the hottest, noisiest, noisomest,

and most glaring. But here all was shadow, coolness,

stillness, fragrance-the fragrance of the clean air coming in

from among the eucalyptus-trees.

Beatrice, critical-eyed, stood before a pier-glass, between two

of the tall windows, turning her head from side to side,

craning her neck a little--examining (if I must confess it) the

effect of a new hat. It was a very stunning hat--if a man's

opinion hath any pertinence; it was beyond doubt very

complicated. There was an upward-springing black brim; there

was a downward-sweeping black feather; there was a defiant

white aigrette not unlike the Shah of Persia's; there were

glints of red.

The priest sat in an arm-chair--one of those stiff, upright

Roman arm-chairs, which no one would ever dream of calling

easy-chairs, high-backed, covered with hard leather, studded

with steel nails--and watched her, smiling amusement,

indulgence.

He was an oldish priest--sixty, sixty-five. He was small,

lightly built, lean-faced, with delicate-strong features: a

prominent, delicate nose; a well-marked, delicate jaw-bone,

ending in a prominent, delicate chin; a large, humorous mouth,

the full lips delicately chiselled; a high, delicate, perhaps

rather narrow brow, rising above humorous grey eyes, rather

deep-set. Then he had silky-soft smooth white hair, and,

topping the occiput, a tonsure that might have passed for a

natural bald spot.

He was decidedly clever-looking; he was aristocratic-looking,

distinguished-looking; but he was, above all, pleasant-looking,

kindly-looking, sweet-looking.

He wore a plain black cassock, by no means in its first youth

--brown along the seams, and, at the salient angles, at the

shoulders, at the elbows, shining with the lustre of hard

service. Even without his cassock, I imagine, you would have

divined him for a clergyman--he bore the clerical impress, that

odd indefinable air of clericism which everyone recognises,

though it might not be altogether easy to tell just where or

from what it takes its origin. In the garb of an Anglican

--there being nothing, at first blush, necessarily Italian,

necessarily un-English, in his face--he would have struck you,

I think, as a pleasant, shrewd old parson of the scholarly

--earnest type, mildly donnish, with a fondness for gentle mirth.

What, however, you would scarcely have divined--unless you had

chanced to notice, inconspicuous in this sober light, the red

sash round his waist, or the amethyst on the third finger of

his right hand--was his rank in the Roman hierarchy. I have

the honour of presenting his Eminence Egidio Maria Cardinal

Udeschini, formerly Bishop of Cittareggio, Prefect of the

Congregation of Archives and Inscriptions.




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