DESERT***


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The Turquoise Cup, and, The Desert

By

Arthur Cosslett Smith

1903







"KHADIJA BELIEVES IN ME"





CONTENTS

 I  The Turquoise Cup

II  The Desert





THE TURQUOISE CUP


The Cardinal Archbishop sat on his shaded balcony, his well-kept hands
clasped upon his breast, his feet stretched out so straight before him
that the pigeon, perched on the rail of the balcony, might have seen
fully six inches of scarlet silk stocking.

The cardinal was a small man, but very neatly made. His hair was as
white as spun glass. Perhaps he was sixty; perhaps he was seventy;
perhaps he was fifty. His red biretta lay upon a near-by chair. His head
bore no tonsure. The razor of the barber and the scythe of Time had
passed him by. There was that faint tinge upon his cheeks that comes to
those who, having once had black beards, shave twice daily. His features
were clearly cut. His skin would have been pallid had it not been olive.
A rebellious lock of hair curved upon his forehead. He resembled the
first Napoleon, before the latter became famous and fat.

The pigeon's mate came floating through the blue sky that silhouetted
the trees in the garden. She made a pretence of alighting upon the
balcony railing, sheered off, coquetted among the treetops, came back
again, retreated so far that she was merely a white speck against the
blue vault, and then, true to her sex, having proved her liberty only to
tire of it, with a flight so swift that the eye could scarcely follow
her, she came back again and rested upon the farther end of the balcony,
where she immediately began to preen herself and to affect an air of
nonchalance and virtue.

Her mate lazily opened one eye, which regarded her for a moment, and
then closed with a wink.

"Ah, my friends," said the cardinal, "there are days when you make me
regret that I am not of the world, but this is not one of them. You have
quarrelled, I perceive. When you build your nest down yonder in the
cote, I envy you. When you are giving up your lives to feeding your
children, I envy you. I watch your flights for food for them. I say to
myself, 'I, too, would struggle to keep a child, if I had one. Commerce,
invention, speculation--why could I not succeed in one of these? I have
arrived in the most intricate profession of all. I am a cardinal
archbishop. Could I not have been a stockbroker?' Ah, signore and
signora," and he bowed to the pigeons, "you get nearer heaven than we
poor mortals. Have you learned nothing--have you heard no whisper--have
you no message for me?"

"Your eminence," said a servant who came upon the balcony, a silver tray
in his hand, "a visitor."

The cardinal took the card and read it aloud--"The Earl of Vauxhall."

He sat silent a moment, thinking. "I do not know him," he said at
length; "but show him up."

He put on his biretta, assumed a more erect attitude, and then turned to
the pigeons.

"Adieu," he said; "commercialism approaches in the person of an
Englishman. He comes either to buy or to sell. You have nothing in
common with him. Fly away to the Piazza, but come back tomorrow. If you
do not, I shall miss you sorely."

The curtains parted, and the servant announced, "The Earl of Vauxhall."

The cardinal rose from his chair.

A young man stepped upon the balcony. He was tall and lithe and blond,
and six-and-twenty.

"Your grace," he said, "I have come because I am in deep trouble."

"In that event," said the cardinal, "you do me much honor. My vocation
is to seek out those who are in trouble. When _they_ seek _me_ it argues
that I am not unknown. You are an Englishman. You may speak your own
language. It is not the most flexible, but it is an excellent vehicle
for the truth."

"Thank you," said the young man; "that gives me a better chance, since
my Italian is of the gondolier type. I speak it mostly with my arms,"
and he began to gesticulate.

"I understand," said the cardinal, smiling, "and I fear that my English
is open to some criticism. I picked it up in the University of Oxford.
My friends in the Vatican tell me that it is a patois."

"I dare say," said the young man. "I was at Cambridge."

"Ah," said the cardinal, "how unfortunate. Still, we may be able to
understand one another. Will you have some tea? It is a habit I