The Cardinals Snuff-Box

The Cardinal's Snuff-Box, by
Henry Harland

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Title: The Cardinal's Snuff-Box
Author: Henry Harland
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE
CARDINAL'S SNUFF-BOX ***

THE CARDINAL'S SNUFF-BOX
BY HENRY HARLAND

I
"The Signorino will take coffee?" old Marietta asked, as she set the
fruit before him.
Peter deliberated for a moment; then burned his ships.
"Yes," he answered.
"But in the garden, perhaps?" the little brown old woman suggested,
with a persuasive flourish.
"No," he corrected her, gently smiling, and shaking his head, "not
perhaps--certainly."
Her small, sharp old black Italian eyes twinkled, responsive.
"The Signorino will find a rustic table, under the big willow-tree, at the
water's edge," she informed him, with a good deal of gesture. "Shall I
serve it there?"

"Where you will. I leave myself entirely in your hands," he said.
So he sat by the rustic table, on a rustic bench, under the willow, sipped
his coffee, smoked his cigarette, and gazed in contemplation at the
view.
Of its kind, it was rather a striking view.
In the immediate foreground--at his feet, indeed--there was the river,
the narrow Aco, peacock-green, a dark file of poplars on either bank,
rushing pell-mell away from the quiet waters of the lake. Then, just
across the river, at his left, stretched the smooth lawns of the park of
Ventirose, with glimpses of the many-pinnacled castle through the trees;
and, beyond, undulating country, flourishing, friendly, a perspective of
vineyards, cornfields, groves, and gardens, pointed by numberless
white villas. At his right loomed the gaunt mass of the Gnisi, with its
black forests, its bare crags, its foaming ascade, and the crenelated
range of the Cornobastone; and finally, climax and cynosure, at the
valley's end, Monte Sfiorito, its three snow-covered summits almost
insubstantial-seeming, floating forms of luminous pink vapour, in the
evening sunshine, against the intense blue of the sky.
A familiar verse had come into Peter's mind, and kept running there
obstinately.
"Really," he said to himself, "feature for feature, down to the very
'cataract leaping in glory,' the scene might have been got up, apres coup,
to illustrate it." And he began to repeat the beautiful hackneyed words,
under his breath . . . .
But about midway of the third line he was interrupted.

II
"It's not altogether a bad sort of view--is it?" some one said, in English.
The voice was a woman's. It was clear and smooth; it was crisp-cut,

distinguished.
Peter glanced about him.
On the opposite bank of the Aco, in the grounds of Ventirose, five or
six yards away, a lady was standing, looking at him, smiling.
Peter's eyes met hers, took in her face . . . . And suddenly his heart gave
a jump. Then it stopped dead still, tingling, for a second. Then it flew
off, racing perilously.--Oh, for reasons--for the best reasons in the
world: but thereby hangs my tale.
She was a young woman, tall, slender, in a white frock, with a white
cloak, an indescribable complexity of soft lace and airy ruffles, round
her shoulders. She wore no hat. Her hair, brown and warm in shadow,
sparkled, where it caught the light, in a kind of crinkly iridescence, like
threads of glass.
Peter's heart (for the best reasons in the world) was racing perilously.
"It's impossible--impossible--impossible"--the words strummed
themselves to its rhythm. Peter's wits (for had not the impossible come
to pass?) were in a perilous confusion. But he managed to rise from his
rustic bench, and to achieve a bow.
She inclined her head graciously.
"You do not think it altogether bad--I hope?" she questioned, in her
crisp-cut voice, raising her eyebrows slightly, with a droll little
assumption