The Cardinals Snuff-Box | Page 7

"I have no wish to recover the object I have lost," he continued blandly.
"The loss of it is a new, thrilling, humanising experience. It will make a
man of me--and, let us hope, a better man. Besides, in a sense, I lost it
long ago --'when first my smitten eyes beat full on her,' one evening at
the Francais, three, four years ago. But it's essential to my happiness
that I should see the person into whose possession it has fallen. That is
why I am not angry with you for being a witch. It suits my convenience.
Please arrange with the powers of darkness to the end that I may meet
the person in question tomorrow at the latest. No!" He raised a
forbidding hand. "I will listen to no protestations. And, for the rest, you
may count upon my absolute discretion.
'She is the darling of my heart And she lives in our valley,'"
he carolled softly.
"E del mio cuore la carina, E dimor' nella nostra vallettina,"
he obligingly translated. "But for all the good I get of her, she might as
well live on the top of the Cornobastone," he added dismally. "Yes,
now you may bring me my coffee--only, let it be tea. When your coffee
is coffee it keeps me awake at night."
Marietta trudged back to her kitchen, nodding at the sky.

The next afternoon, however, the Duchessa di Santangiolo appeared on
the opposite bank of the tumultuous Aco.

IX
Peter happened to be engaged in the amiable pastime of tossing
bread-crumbs to his goldfinches.
But a score or so of sparrows, vulture-like, lurked under cover of the
neighbouring foliage, to dash in viciously, at the critical moment, and
snatch the food from the finches' very mouths.
The Duchessa watched this little drama for a minute, smiling, in silent
meditation: while Peter--who, for a wonder, had his back turned to the
park of Ventirose, and, for a greater wonder still perhaps, felt no
pricking in his thumbs--remained unconscious of her presence.
At last, sorrowfully, (but there was always a smile at the back of her
eyes), she shook her head.
"Oh, the pirates, the daredevils," she sighed.
Peter started; faced about; saluted.
"The brigands," said she, with a glance towards the sparrows' outposts.
"Yes, poor things," said he.
"Poor things?" cried she, indignant. "The unprincipled little monsters!"
"They can't help it," he pleaded for them. "'It is their nature to.' They
were born so. They had no choice."
"You actually defend them!" she marvelled, rebukefully.
"Oh, dear, no," he disclaimed. "I don't defend them. I defend nothing. I
merely recognise and accept. Sparrows--finches. It's the way of the

world--the established division of the world."
She frowned incomprehension.
"The established division of the world--?"
"Exactly," said he. "Sparrows--finches the snatchers and the
snatched-from. Everything that breathes is either a sparrow or a finch.
'T is the universal war--the struggle for existence --the survival of the
most unscrupulous. 'T is a miniature presentment of what's going on
everywhere in earth and sky."
She shook her head again.
"YOU see the earth and sky through black spectacles, I 'm afraid," she
remarked, with a long face. But there was still an underglow of
amusement in her eyes.
"No," he answered, "because there's a compensation. As you rise in the
scale of moral development, it is true, you pass from the category of the
snatchers to the category of the snatched-from, and your ultimate
extinction is assured. But, on the other hand, you gain talents and
sensibilities. You do not live by bread alone. These goldfinches, for a
case in point, can sing--and they have your sympathy. The sparrows
can only make a horrid noise--and you contemn them. That is the
compensation. The snatchers can never know the joy of singing --or of
being pitied by ladies."
"N . . . o, perhaps not," she consented doubtfully. The underglow of
amusement in her eyes shone nearer to the surface. "But--but they can
never know, either, the despair of the singer when his songs won't
come."
"Or when the ladies are pitiless. That is true," consented Peter.
"And meanwhile they get the bread, crumbs," she said.
"They certainly get the bread-crumbs," he admitted.

"I 'm afraid "--she smiled, as one who has conducted a syllogism safely
to its conclusion--"I 'm afraid I do not think your compensation
compensates."
"To be quite honest, I daresay it does n't," he confessed.
"And anyhow"--she followed her victory up--"I should not wish my
garden to represent the universal war. I should not wish my garden to
be a battle-field. I should wish it to be a retreat from the battle--an
abode of peace--a happy valley--a sanctuary for the snatched-from."
"But why distress one's soul with wishes that are vain?" asked he.
"What could