The Cardinal's Snuff Box

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."