e it that
he's just run down for a week. He works a great deal too hard when he's
in Rome. He's the only Cardinal I've ever heard of, who takes practical
charge of his titular church. But here in the country he's out-of-doors
all the blessed day, hand in hand with Emilia. He's as young as she is,
I believe. They play together like children--and make--me feel as staid
and solemn and grown-up as one of Mr. Kenneth Grahame's Olympians."

Peter laughed. Then, in the moment of silence that followed, he happened
to let his eyes stray up the valley.

"Hello!" he suddenly exclaimed. "Someone has been painting our mountain
green."

The Duchessa turned, to look; and she too uttered an exclamation.

By some accident of reflection or refraction, the snows of Monte
Sfiorito had become bright green, as if the light that fell on them
had passed through emeralds. They both paused, to gaze and marvel for
a little. Indeed, the prospect was a pleasing one, as well as a
surprising--the sunny lawns, the high trees, the blue lake, and then
that bright green mountain.

"I have never known anything like those snow-peaks for sailing under
false colours," Peter said. "I have seen them every colour of the
calendar, except their native white."

"You must n't blame the poor things," pleaded the Duchessa. "They can't
help it. It's all along o' the distance and the atmosphere and the sun."

She closed her fan, with which she had been more or less idly playing
throughout their dialogue, and replaced it on the table. Among the books
there--French books, for the most part, in yellow paper--Peter saw, with
something of a flutter (he could never see it without something of a
flutter), the grey-and-gold binding of "A Man of Words."

The Duchessa caught his glance.

"Yes," she said; "your friend's novel. I told you I had been re-reading
it."

"Yes," said he.

"And--do you know--I 'm inclined to agree with your own enthusiastic
estimate of it?" she went on. "I think it's extremely--but
extremely--clever; and more--very charming, very beautiful. The fatal
gift of beauty!"

And her smile reminded him that the application of the tag was his own.

"Yes," said he.

"Its beauty, though," she reflected, "is n't exactly of the obvious
sort--is it? It does n't jump at you, for instance. It is rather in the
texture of the work, than on the surface. One has to look, to see it."

"One always has to look, to see beauty that is worth seeing," he safely