The Turquoise Cup, and, The Desert | Page 5

it, Bobby?" she exclaimed.
She turned and saw that the earl was not alone.
"Your grace," he said, "I present you to Lady Nora Daly."
She bent with a motion half genuflexion, half courtesy, and then straightened herself, smiling.
The cardinal did not notice the obeisance, but he did notice the smile. It seemed to him, as he looked at her, that the treasures of St. Mark's, the jewelled chalices and patens, the agate and crystal vessels, the reliquaries of gold and precious stones, the candlesticks, the two textus covers of golden cloisonné, and even the turquoise cup itself, turned dull and wan and common by comparison with her beauty.
"Your eminence," she said, "you must pardon Bobby's gaucherie. He presented you to me and called you 'your grace.' He forgot, or did not know, that you are a cardinal--a prince--and that I should have been presented to you. Bobby means well, but he is an English peer and a guardsman, so we don't expect much else of Bobby."
"He has done a very gracious thing today," said the cardinal. "He has brought me to you."
Lady Nora looked up quickly, scenting a compliment, and ready to meet it, but the cardinal's face was so grave and so sincere that her readiness forsook her and she stood silent.
The earl seemed to be interested in a crucifix of the eleventh century.
"While my lord is occupied with the crucifix," said the cardinal, "will you not walk with me?"
"Willingly," said Lady Nora, and they went out into the church.
"My dear lady," said the cardinal, after an interval of silence, "you are entering upon life. You have a position, you have wealth, you have youth, you have health, and," with a bow, "you have beauty such as God gives to His creatures only for good purposes. Some women, like Helen of Troy and Cleopatra, have used their beauty for evil. Others, like my Queen, Margarita, and like Mary, Queen of the Scots, have held their beauty as a trust to be exploited for good, as a power to be exercised on the side of the powerless."
"Your eminence," said Lady Nora, "we are now taught in England that Queen Mary was not altogether proper."
"She had beauty, had she not?" asked the cardinal.
"Yes," replied Lady Nora.
"She was beheaded, was she not?" asked the cardinal.
"Yes," said Lady Nora, "and by a very plain woman."
"There you have it!" exclaimed the cardinal. "If Elizabeth had been beautiful and Mary plain, Mary would have kept her head. It is sad to see beautiful women lose their heads. It is sad to see you lose yours."
"Mine?" exclaimed Lady Nora, and she put her hands up to her hat-pins, to reassure herself.
"Yes," said the cardinal, "I fear that it is quite gone."
Lady Nora looked at him with questioning eyes. "Yes," she said, "I must have lost it, for I do not understand you, and I have not always been dull."
"My dear lady," said the cardinal, "the Earl of Vauxhall was good enough to pay me a visit this afternoon."
"Oh," exclaimed Lady Nora, clapping her hands, "if I only could have been behind the curtains! What did he say?"
"He said," replied the cardinal, "that he had asked you to be his wife."
"Indeed he has," said Lady Nora, "and so have others."
"He also said," continued the cardinal, "that you had promised to marry him when he brought you the turquoise cup."
"And so I will," said Lady Nora.
"He proposed to buy the cup," continued the cardinal. "He offered four thousand pounds, which, he said, was all he had in the world."
"Good old Bobby!" exclaimed Lady Nora. "That was nice of him, wasn't it?" and her eyes glistened.
"Yes," said the cardinal, "that was nice of him; but when I had explained how impossible it was to sell the cup he bade me good-by, and, as he was going, said, 'I shall have it. All is fair in love and war.' I feared then that he meant to take the cup. Since I have seen you I am certain of it."
"What larks!" cried Lady Nora. "Fancy Bobby with a dark lantern, a bristly beard, and a red handkerchief about his neck. All burglars are like that, you know; and then fancy him creeping up the aisle with his Johnnie--no, his jimmy--and his felt slippers--fancy Bobby in felt slippers--and he reaches the treasury door, and just then the moon comes up and shines through that window and illuminates the key in St. Peter's hand, and Bobby says, 'An omen,' and he takes out his own key-ring and the first one he tries fits the lock and the door flies open, and Bobby lifts the cup, locks the door, goes down to the steps by the Doge's palace--no gondola--too late, you know, so he puts the cup in his teeth, takes a header, and swims to