The Cardinal's Snuff Box

"But I have just told you," she cried "She is the Duchessa di

Santangiolo."

"Who is the Duchessa di Santangiolo?" he asked.

Marietta, blinking harder, shrugged her shoulders.

"But"--she raised her voice, screamed almost, as to one deaf

--"but the Duchessa di Santangiolo is the Signorino's landlady

la, proprietaria di tutte queste terre, tutte queste case,

tutte, tutte."

And she twice, with some violence, reacted her comprehensive

gesture, like a swimmer's.

"You evade me by a vicious circle," Peter murmured.

Marietta made a mighty effort-brought all her faculties to a

focus--studied Peter's countenance intently. Her own was

suddenly illumined.

"Ah, I understand," she proclaimed, vigorously nodding. "The

Signorino desires to know who she is personally!"

"I express myself in obscure paraphrases," said he; "but you,

with your unfailing Italian simpatia, have divined the exact

shade of my intention."

"She is the widow of the Duca di Santangiolo," said Marietta.

"Enfin vous entrez dans la voie des aveux," said Peter.

"Scusi?" said Marietta.

"I am glad to hear she's a widow," said he. "She--she might

strike a casual observer as somewhat young, for a widow."

"She is not very old," agreed Marietta; "only twenty-six,

twenty-seven. She was married from the convent. That was

eight, nine years ago. The Duca has been dead five or six."

"And was he also young and lovely?"

Peter asked.

"Young and lovely! Mache!" derided Marietta. "He was past

forty. He was fat. But he was a good man."

"So much the better for him now," said Peter.

"Gia," approved Marietta, and solemnly made the Sign of the

Cross.

"But will you have the kindness to explain to me," the young

man continued, "how it happens that the Duchessa di Santangiolo

speaks English as well as I do?"

The old woman frowned surprise.

"Come? She speaks English?"

"For all the world like an Englishman," asseverated Peter.

"Ah, well," Marietta reflected, "she was English, you know."

"Oho!" exclaimed Peter. "She was English! Was she?" He bore

a little on the tense of the verb. "That lets in a flood of

light. And--and what, by the bye, is she now?" he questioned.

"Ma! Italian, naturally, since she married the Duca," Marietta

replied.

"Indeed? Then the leopard can change his spots?" was Peter's

inference.