The Cardinal's Snuff Box

All that evening, something which he had not been conscious of

noticing especially when it was present to him--certainly he

had paid no conscious attention to its details--kept recurring

and recurring to Peter's memory: the appearance of the

prettily-arranged terrace-end at Ventirose: the white awning,

with the blue sky at its edges, the sunny park beyond; the

warm-hued carpets on the marble pavement; the wicker chairs,

with their bright cushions; the table, with its books and

bibelots--the yellow French books, a tortoise-shell paperknife,

a silver paperweight, a crystal smelling-bottle, a bowlful of

drooping poppies; and the marble balustrade, with its delicate

tracery of leaves and tendrils, where the jessamine twined

round its pillars.

This kept recurring, recurring, vividly, a picture that he

could see without closing his eyes, a picture with a very

decided sentiment. Like the gay and gleaming many-pinnacled

facade of her house, it seemed appropriate to her; it seemed in

its fashion to express her.

Nay, it seemed to do more. It was

a corner of her every-day environment; these things were the

companions, the witnesses, of moments of her life, phases of

herself, which were hidden from Peter; they were the companions

and witnesses of her solitude, her privacy; they were her

confidants, in a way. They seemed not merely to express her,

therefore, but to be continually on the point--I had almost

said of betraying her. At all events, if he could only

understand their silent language, they would prove rich in

precious revelations. So he welcomed their recurrences, dwelt

upon them, pondered them, and got a deep if somewhat

inarticulate pleasure from them.

On Thursday, as he approached the castle, the last fires of

sunset were burning in the sky behind it--the long irregular

mass of buildings stood out in varying shades of blue, against

varying, dying shades of red: the grey stone, dark, velvety

indigo; the pink stucco, pink still, but with a transparent

blue penumbra over it; the white marble, palely, scintillantly

amethystine. And if he was interested in her environment, now

he could study it to his heart's content: the wide marble

staircase, up which he was shown, with its crimson carpet, and

the big mellow painting, that looked as if it might be a

Titian, at the top; the great saloon, in which he was received,

with its polished mosaic floor, its frescoed ceiling, its

white-and-gold panelling, its hangings and upholsteries of

yellow brocade, its satinwood chairs and tables, its bronzes,

porcelains, embroideries, its screens and mirrors; the long

dining-hall, with its high pointed windows, its slender marble

columns supporting a vaulted roof, its twinkling candles in

chandeliers and sconces of cloudy Venetian glass, its brilliant

table, its flowers and their colours and their scents.