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
contracted in England, and I find it to be a good one. I sit here at
five o'clock, drink my cup of tea, feed the pigeons that light upon the
railing, and have a half-hour in which to remember how great is England,
and"--with a bow--"how much the rest of the world owes to her."

"A decent sort of chap, for an Italian," thought the earl. The cardinal
busied himself with the tea-pot.

"Your grace," said the earl, finally, "I came here in trouble."

"It cannot be of long standing," said the cardinal. "You do not look
like one who has passed through the fire."

"No," said the earl, "but I scarcely know what to say to you. I am
embarrassed."

"My son," said the cardinal, "when an Englishman is embarrassed he is
truly penitent. You may begin as abruptly as you choose. Are you a
Catholic?"

"No," replied the earl, "I am of the Church of England."

The cardinal shrugged his shoulders the least bit. "I never cease to
admire your countrymen," he said, "On Sundays they say, 'I believe in
the Holy Catholic Church,' and, on work-days, they say, 'I believe in
the Holy Anglican Church.' You are admirably trained. You adapt
yourselves to circumstances."

"Yes," said the earl, a trifle nettled, "I believe we do, but at present
I find myself as maladroit as though I had been born on the
Continent--in Italy, for example."

"Good," laughed the cardinal; "I am getting to be a garrulous old man. I
love to air my English speech, and, in my effort to speak it freely, I
sometimes speak it beyond license. Can you forgive me, my lord, and will
you tell me how I can serve you?"

"I came," said the Earl of Vauxhall, "to ask you if there is any way in
which I can buy the turquoise cup."

"I do not understand," said the cardinal.

"The turquoise cup," repeated the earl. "The one in the treasury of St.
Mark's."

The cardinal began to laugh--then he suddenly ceased, looked hard at the
earl and asked, "Are you serious, my lord?"

"Very," replied the earl.

"Are you quite well?" asked the cardinal.

"Yes," said the earl, "but I am very uncomfortable."

The cardinal began to pace up and down the balcony.

"My lord," he asked, finally, "have you ever negotiated for the Holy
Coat at Treves; for the breastplate of Charlemagne in the Louvre; for
the Crown Jewels in the Tower?"

"No," said the earl; "I have no use for them, but I very much need the
turquoise cup."

"Are you a professional or an amateur?" asked the cardinal, his eyes
flashing, his lips twitching.

"As I understand it," said the earl, slowly, a faint blush stealing into
his cheeks, "an 'amateur' is a lover. If that is right, perhaps you had
better put me down as an 'amateur.'"

The cardinal saw the blush and his anger vanished.

"Ah," he said, softly, "there is a woman, is there?"

"Yes," replied the earl, "there is a woman."

"Well," said the cardinal, "I am listening."

"It won't bore you?" asked the earl. "If I begin about her I sha'n't
know when to stop."

"My lord," said the cardinal, "if there were no women there would be no
priests. Our occupation would be gone. There was a time when _men_ built
churches, beautified them, and went to them. How is it now; even here in
Venice, where art still exists, and where there is no bourse? I was
speaking with a man only to-day--a man of affairs, one who buys and
sells, who has agents in foreign lands and ships on the seas; a man who,
in the old religious days, would have given a tenth of all his goods to
the Church and would have found honor and contentment in the remainder;
but he is bitten with this new-fangled belief of disbelief. He has a
sneaking fear that Christianity has been supplanted by electricity and
he worships Huxley rather than Christ crucified--Huxley!" and the
cardinal threw up his hands. "Did ever a man die the easier because he
had grovelled at the knees of Huxley? What did Huxley preach? The
doctrine of despair. He was the Pope of protoplasm. He beat his wings
against the bars of the unknowable. He set his finite mind the task of
solving the infinite. A mere creature, he sought to fathom the mind of
his creator. Read the lines upon his tomb, written by his wife--what do
they teach? Nothing but 'let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die.' If
a man follows Huxley, then is he a fool if he does not give to this poor
squeezed-lemon of a world another twist. If I believed there was nothing
after this life, do you think I should be sitting here, feeding the
pigeons? Do you think--but there, I have aired my English speech and
have had my fling at Huxley. Let me fill your cup and then tell me of
this woman whom I have kept waiting all this time by my vanity and my
ill manners. Is she English, French, Spanish, or American? There are
many Americans nowadays."

"No," said the earl, "she is Irish."

"The most dangerous of all," remarked the cardinal.

"It is plain that you know women," said the earl.

"I?" exclaimed the cardinal. "No; nor any living man."

"Her father." resumed the earl, "was a great brewer in Dublin. He made
ripping stout. Perhaps you use it. It has a green label, with a bull's
head. He kept straight all through the home-rule troubles, and he
chipped in a lot for the Jubilee fund, and they made him Lord Vatsmore.
He died two years ago and left one child. She is Lady Nora Daly. She is
waiting for me now in the Piazza."

"Perhaps I am detaining you?" said the cardinal.

"By no means," replied the earl. "I don't dare to go back just yet. I
met her first at home, last season. I've followed her about like a
spaniel ever since. I started in for a lark, and now I'm in for keeps.
She has a peculiar way with her," continued the earl, smoothing his hat;
