ther deepening of the parentheses.

"Surely," he contended, "a cardinal should know much. Is it not 'the
badge of all our tribe,' as your poet Byron says?"

Beatrice laughed. Then, "Byron--?" she doubted, with a look.

The Cardinal waved his hand--a gesture of amiable concession.

"Oh, if you prefer, Shakespeare. Everything in English is one or the
other. We will not fall out, like the Morellists, over an attribution.
The point is that I should be a good judge of hats."

He took snuff.

"It's a shame you haven't a decent snuff-box," Beatrice observed, with
an eye on the enamelled wooden one, cheap and shabby, from which he
helped himself.

"The box is but the guinea-stamp; the snuff's the thing.--Was it
Shakespeare or Byron who said that?" enquired the Cardinal.

Beatrice laughed again.

"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.

"Yes," she innocently answered.

The Cardinal chuckled--the satisfied chuckle of one whose unsuspected
tactics have succeeded.

"Then give me the couple of hundred lire."

He put forth his hand.

But Beatrice held back.

"What for?" she asked, suspicion waking.

"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 s