He could study her environment to his heart's content, indeed
--or to his heart's despair. For all this had rather the effect
of chilling, of depressing him. It was very splendid; it was
very luxurious and cheerful; it was appropriate and personal to
her, if you like; no doubt, in its fashion, in its measure, it,
too, expressed her. But, at that rate, it expressed her in an
aspect which Peter had instinctively made it his habit to
forget, which he by no means found it inspiriting to remember.
It expressed, it emphasised, her wealth, her rank; it
emphasised the distance, in a worldly sense, between her and
himself, the conventional barriers.
And she . . .
She was very lovely, she was entirely cordial, friendly, she
was all that she had ever been--and yet--and yet--Well,
somehow, she seemed indefinably different. Somehow, again, the
distance, the barriers, were emphasised. She was very lovely,
she was entirely cordial, friendly, she was all that she had
ever been; but, somehow, to-night, she seemed very much the
great lady, very much the duchess . . . .
"My dear man," he said to himself, "you were mad to dream for a
single instant that there was the remotest possibility of
anything ever happening."
The only other guests, besides the Cardinal and Monsignor
Langshawe, were an old Frenchwoman, with beautiful white hair,
from one of the neighbouring villas, Madame de Lafere, and a
young, pretty, witty, and voluble Irishwoman, Mrs. O'Donovan
Florence, from an hotel at Spiaggia. In deference, perhaps,
to the cloth of the two ecclesiastics, none of the women were
in full evening-dress, and there was no arm-taking when they
went in to dinner. The dinner itself was of a simplicity which
Peter thought admirable, and which, of course, he attributed to
his Duchessa's own good taste. He was not yet familiar enough
with the Black aristocracy of Italy, to be aware that in the
matter of food and drink simplicity is as much the criterion of
good form amongst them, as lavish complexity is the criterion
of good form amongst the English-imitating Whites.
The conversation, I believe, took its direction chiefly from
the initiative of Mrs. O'Donovan Florence. With great
sprightliness and humour, and with an astonishing light-hearted
courage, she rallied the Cardinal upon the neglect in which her
native island was allowed to languish by the powers at Rome.
"The most Catholic country in three hemispheres, to be sure,"
she said; "every inch of its soil soaked with the blood of
martyrs. Yet you've not added an Irish saint to the Calendar
for I see you're blushing to think how many ages; and you've
taken sides with the heretic Saxon against us in our struggle
for Home Rule--which I blame you for, though, being a landowner
and a bit of an absentee, I 'm a traitorous Unionist myself."