The Cardinals Snuff-Box | Page 9

right
hand; and the too-greedy sparrows would dart off, avid, on that false

lead. Whereupon, quickly, stealthily, she would rain a little shower of
crumbs, from her left hand, on the grass beside her, to a confiding
group of finches assembled there. And if ever a sparrow ventured to
intrude his ruffianly black beak into this sacred quarter, she would
manage, with a kind of restrained ferocity, to "shoo" him away, without
thereby frightening the finches.
And all the while her eyes laughed; and there was colour in her cheeks;
and there was the forceful, graceful action of her body.
When the bread was finished, she clapped her hands together gently, to
dust the last mites from them, and looked over at Peter, and smiled
significantly.
"Yes," he acknowledged, "you outwitted them very skilfully. You, at
any rate, have no need of a dragon."
"Oh, in default of a dragon, one can do dragon's work oneself," she
answered lightly. "Or, rather, one can make oneself an instrument of
justice."
"All the same, I should call it uncommonly hard luck to be born a
sparrow--within your jurisdiction," he said.
"It is not an affair of luck," said she. "One is born a sparrow--within my
jurisdiction--for one's sins in a former state.--No, you little
dovelings"--she turned to a pair of finches on the greensward near her,
who were lingering, and gazing up into her face with hungry, expectant
eyes--"I have no more. I have given you my all." And she stretched out
her open hands, palms downwards, to convince them.
"The sparrows got nothing; and the goldfinches, who got 'your all,'
grumble because you gave so little," said Peter, sadly. "That is what
comes of interfering with the laws of Nature." And then, as the two
birds flew away, "See the dark, doubtful, reproachful glances with
which they cover you."
"You think they are ungrateful?" she said. "No--listen."

She held up a finger.
For, at that moment, on the branch of an acacia, just over her head, a
goldfinch began to sing--his thin, sweet, crystalline trill of song.
"Do you call that grumbling?" she asked.
"It implies a grumble," said Peter, "like the 'thank you' of a servant
dissatisfied with his tip. It's the very least he can do. It's perfunctory--I
'm not sure it is n't even ironical."
"Perfunctory! Ironical!" cried the Duchessa. "Look at him! He's
warbling his delicious little soul out."
They both paused to look and listen.
The bird's gold-red bosom palpitated. He marked his modulations by
sudden emphatic movements of the head. His eyes were fixed intently
before him, as if he could actually see and follow the shining thread of
his song, as it wound away through the air. His performance had all the
effect of a spontaneous rhapsody. When it was terminated, he looked
down at his auditors, eager, inquisitive, as who should say, "I hope you
liked it?"--and then, with a nod clearly meant as a farewell, flew out of
sight.
The Duchessa smiled again at Peter, with intention.
"You must really try to take a cheerier view of things," she said.
And next instant she too was off, walking slowly, lightly, up the green
lawns, between the trees, towards the castle, her gown fluttering in the
breeze, now dazzling white as she came into the sun, now pearly grey
as she passed into the shade.
"What a woman it is," said Peter to himself, looking after her. "What
vigour, what verve, what sex! What a woman!"
And, indeed, there was nothing of the too-prevalent epicene in the
Duchessa's aspect; she was very certainly a woman. "Heavens, how she

walks!" he cried in a deep whisper.
But then a sudden wave of dejection swept over him. At first he could
not account for it. By and by, however, a malicious little voice began to
repeat and repeat within him, "Oh, the futile impression you must have
made upon her! Oh, the ineptitudes you uttered! Oh, the precious
opportunity you have misemployed!"
"You are a witch," he said to Marietta. "You've proved it to the hilt. I
've seen the person, and the object is more desperately lost than ever."

X
That evening, among the letters Peter received from England, there was
one from his friend Mrs. Winchfield, which contained certain statistics.
"Your Duchessa di Santangiolo 'was' indeed, as your funny old servant
told you, English: the only child and heiress of the last Lord Belfont.
The Belfonts of Lancashire (now, save for your Duchessa, extinct)
were the most bigoted sort of Roman Catholics, and always educated
their daughters in foreign convents, and as often as not married them to
foreigners. The Belfont men, besides, were ever and anon marrying
foreign wives; so there will be a goodish deal of un-English blood in
your Duchessa's own ci-devant