“The box is but the guinea-stamp; the snuff's the thing.--Was it Shakespeare or Byron who said that?” enquired the Cardinal.
“I think it must have been Pulcinella. I'll give you a lovely silver one, if you'll accept it.”
“Will you? Really?” asked the Cardinal, alert.
“Of course I will. It's a shame you haven't one already.”
“What would a lovely silver one cost?” he asked.
“I don't know. It does n't matter,” answered she.
“But approximately? More or less?” he pursued.
“Oh, a couple of hundred lire, more or less, I daresay.”
“A couple of hundred lire?” He glanced up, alerter. “Do you happen to have that amount of money on your person?”
Beatrice (the unwary woman) hunted for her pocket--took out her purse--computed its contents.
The Cardinal chuckled--the satisfied chuckle of one whose unsuspected tactics have succeeded.
“Then give me the couple of hundred lire.”
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.
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.
“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.