The Cardinal's Snuff-Box Part 17

"Oh, I shall have uses for it."

His outstretched hand--a slim old tapering, bony hand, in colour like dusky ivory--closed peremptorily, in a dumb-show of receiving; and now, by the bye, you could not have failed to notice the big lucent amethyst, in its setting of elaborately-wrought pale gold, on the third finger.

"Come! Give!" he insisted, imperative.

Rueful but resigned, Beatrice shook her head.

"You have caught me finely," she sighed, and gave.

"You should n't have jingled your purse--you should n't have flaunted your wealth in my face," laughed the Cardinal, putting away the notes. He took snuff again. "I think I honestly earned that pinch," he murmured.

"At any rate," said Beatrice, laying what unction she could to her soul, "I am acquainted with a dignitary of the Church, who has lost a handsome silver snuffbox--beautiful repousse work, with his arms engraved on the lid."

"And I," retaliated he, "I am acquainted with a broken-down old doctor and his wife, in Trastevere, who shall have meat and wine at dinner for the next two months--at the expense of a niece of mine. 'I am so glad,'

as Alice of Wonderland says, 'that you married into our family.'"

"Alice of Wonderland--?" doubted Beatrice.

The Cardinal waved his hand.

"Oh, if you prefer, Punch. Everything in English is one or the other."

Beatrice laughed. "It was the I of which especially surprised my English ear," she explained.

"I am your debtor for two hundred lire. I cannot quarrel with you over a particle," said he.

"But why," asked she, "why did you give yourself such superfluous pains?

Why couldn't you ask me for the money point-blank? Why lure it from me, by trick and device?"

The Cardinal chuckled.

"Ah, one must keep one's hand in. And one must not look like a Jesuit for nothing."

"Do you look like a Jesuit?"

"I have been told so."

"By whom--for mercy's sake?"

"By a gentleman I had the pleasure of meeting not long ago in the train--a very gorgeous gentleman, with gold chains and diamonds flas.h.i.+ng from every corner of his person, and a splendid waxed moustache, and a bald head which, I think, was made of polished pink coral. He turned to me in the most affable manner, and said, 'I see, Reverend Sir, that you are a Jesuit. There should be a fellow-feeling between you and me. I am a Jew. Jews and Jesuits have an almost equally bad name!'"

The Cardinal's humorous grey eyes swam in a glow of delighted merriment.

"I could have hugged him for his 'almost.' I have been wondering ever since whether in his mind it was the Jews or the Jesuits who benefited by that reservation. I have been wondering also what I ought to have replied."

"What did you reply?" asked Beatrice, curious.

"No, no," said the Cardinal. "With sentiments of the highest consideration, I must respectfully decline to tell you. It was too flat.

I am humiliated whenever I recall it."

"You might have replied that the Jews, at least, have the advantage of meriting their bad name," she suggested.

"Oh, my dear child!" objected he. "My reply was flat--you would have had it sharp. I should have hurt the poor well-meaning man's feelings, and perhaps have burdened my own soul with a falsehood, into the bargain.

Who are we, to judge whether people merit their bad name or not? No, no.

The humiliating circ.u.mstance is, that if I had possessed the substance as well as the show, if I had really been a son of St. Ignatius, I should have found a retort that would have effected the Jew's conversion."

"And apropos of conversions," said Beatrice, "see how far we have strayed from our muttons."

"Our muttons--?" The Cardinal looked up, enquiring.

"I want to know what you think--not of my hat--but of my man."

"Oh--ah, yes; your Englishman, your tenant." The Cardinal nodded.

"My Englishman--my tenant--my heretic," said she.

"Well," said he, pondering, while the parentheses became marked again,--"I should think, from what you tell me, that you would find him a useful neighbour. Let me see... You got fifty lire out of him, for a word; and the children went off, blessing you as their benefactress. I should think that you would find him a valuable neighbour--and that he, on his side, might find you an expensive one."

Beatrice, with a gesture, implored him to be serious.

"Ah, please don't tease about this," she said. "I want to know what you think of his conversion?"

"The conversion of a heretic is always 'a consummation devoutly to be desired,' as well, you may settle it between Shakespeare and Byron, to suit yourself. And there are none so devoutly desirous of such consummations as you Catholics of England--especially you women. It is said that a Catholic Englishwoman once tried to convert the Pope."

"Well, there have been popes whom it would n't have hurt," commented Beatrice. "And as for Mr. Marchdale," she continued, "he has shown 'dispositions.' He admitted that he could see no reason why it should not have been Our Blessed Lady who sent us to the children's aid.

Surely, from a Protestant, that is an extraordinary admission?"

"Yes," said the Cardinal. "And if he meant it, one may conclude that he has a philosophic mind."

"If he meant it?" Beatrice cried. "Why should he not have meant it? Why should he have said it if he did not mean it?"

"Oh, don't ask me," protested the Cardinal. "There is a thing the French call politesse. I can conceive a young man professing to agree with a lady for the sake of what the French might call her beaux yeux."

"I give you my word," said Beatrice, "that my beaux yeux had nothing to do with the case. He said it in the most absolute good faith. He said he believed that in a universe like ours nothing was impossible--that there were more things in heaven and earth than people generally dreamed of--that he could see no reason why the Blessed Virgin should not have sent us across the children's path. Oh, he meant it. I am perfectly sure he meant it."

The Cardinal smiled--at her eagerness, perhaps.

"Well, then," he repeated, "we must conclude that he has a philosophic mind."

"But what is one to do?" asked she. "Surely one ought to do something?

One ought to follow such an admission up? When a man is so far on the way to the light, it is surely one's duty to lead him farther?"

"Without doubt," said the Cardinal.

"Well--? What can one do?"

The Cardinal looked grave.