And then he sighed. The poor fellow was thinking at that moment, of balloons.

Denis remembered this conversation. Earth-worship: the cult of those generative forces which weld together in one mighty instinct the highest and lowliest of terrestrial creatures. . . . The unalienable right of man and beast to enact that which shall confound death, and replenish the land with youth, and joy, and teeming life. The right which priestly castes of every age have striven to repress, which triumphs over every obstacle and sanctifies, by its fruits, the wildest impulses of man. The right to love!

Musing thus, he began to understand why men of old, who looked things squarely in the face, should have deified this friendly, all-compelling passion. He reverenced the fierce necessity which drives the living world to its fairest and sole enduring effort. Be fruitful and multiply. He recognized for the firs ttime that he was not a lonely figure on earth, but absorbed into a solemn and eternal movement; bound close to the throbbing heart of the Universe. There was grandeur, there was repose, in being able to regard himself as an integral part of nature, destined to create and leave his mark. He felt that he was growing into harmony with permanent things—finding himself. He realized now what Keith had meant.

It cost him quite an effort to tear himself away from that ledge. He began to descend once more.

Near the entrance of the Cave he paused abruptly. It seemed as if a sound had issued from the interior of the rock. He listened. It came again—a human sound, unquestionably, and within a few yards of his face. A whisper. There was something going on—Earth-worship. . . .

Suddenly a succession of words broke upon the stillness—breathless words, spoken in a language which not everybody could have translated. He recognized the voice. It said:

"EGO TE AMARE TANTUM! NON VOLERE? NON PIACERE? NON CAPIRE? O Lord, can't you understand?"

It was Mr. Marten's voice. Mr. Marten was being romantic. No answer came to his fervent pleadings. Perhaps they were not coherent enough. He began again, TREMOLO AGITATO, CON MOLTO SENTIMENTO:

"O EGO TE AMARE TANTUM! NEMO SAPIT NIHIL. DUCHESSA IN BARCA AQUATICA CUM MAGNA COMPANIA. REDIBIT TARDISSIMO. NIENTE TIMOR. AMARE MULTISSIMO! EGO MORIRE FINE TE. MORIRE. MORITURUS. CAPITO? NON CAPIRE? Oh, CAPIRE be blowed!"

There was a short pause. The language seems to have been understood this time. For, amid a ripple of laughter, a rich Southern voice was heard to say with a sigh of mock resignation:

"SIA FATTA LA VOLONTA DI DIO!"

Then silence. . . .

Denis turned. He walked up the steps as in a dream, neither slowly nor fast. No one was ever more unhappy, though he scarcely felt as yet the depths of his own humiliation. It was more like a stab—a numbing assassin-like stab. He could hear the beatings of his heart.

He reached the upper level of the town, he knew not how.

All lay quiet as he found his way among the familiar buildings. It was after midnight; most of the lamps had been extinguished. The streets were deserted. He heard, in the distance, the song of a drunken wayfarer reeling homewards from a tavern or from the Club.

In one of the little roadways that converge upon the market-place something was astir. It was a dim phantom of willowy outline, swaying capriciously to and fro, like a black feather tossed by the wind. Miss Wilberforce! She fluttered down a doorstep and began crooning a vulgar song about "Billy had a letter for to go on board a ship." Denis moved to the other side of the narrow path, hoping to escape unobserved. The light was too strong.

"My young friend," she cried in quite a hoarse and altered tone of voice, "we should know each other! We've had the pleasure haven't we? Been down to the sea, have you? And what are the wild waves saying?"

Denis stood there, petrified with disgust. Was it possible? Was this the lady who had charmed him the other day? Who had spoken of England and conjured up the memories of his own home in the Midlands? With a playful gesture, she sent her hat careering across the street and began to fumble at her breast, unlacing or unbuttoning something. It was horrible, in the moonlight.

A boot, flying merrily over his head, recalled him to his senses. He turned to go, and had already made a few paces when the voice croaked after him:

"Does your mother know you're out?"



CHAPTER XIII



Some good genius took him by the hand next day and led him to the house of Count Caloveglia, in response to that friendly twice-repeated invitation. The old man saw at a glance that something serious was amiss. He plunged at once, with quick insight, into what he took to be extraneous topics of conversation.

"I am glad you like my fig tree! It gives a distinctive tone to this quiet courtyard, don't you think? I could not have wished for anything more appropriate. Its shape, its associations, are alike pleasing. The fig is a legendary tree; a volume could be written about the stories and superstitions which have twined themselves around it. Some think it was the Biblical Tree of Knowledge. Judas Iscariot, they say, hanged himself on a fig tree. It came from the East-Bacchus brought it on his journey as a gift to mortal men. How much we owe to those of the Greek gods who were yet not wholly divine! The Romans, too, held it in veneration. You have doubtless heard about the FICUS RUMINALIS, at hose feet the cradle of Romulus and Remus was stranded? Among many nations it became the outward symbol of generative forces. The Egyptians consecrated the fig to Isis, that fecund Mother of Earth. Statues of Priapus were carved out of its wood in allusion, possibly, to its reckless fertility or for some analogous reason; it was also held to be sacred, I know not why, to Mercury—"

Denis, during this little speech, had begun to look more troubled than ever. The other continued:

"There is something in the very twistings of that smooth trunk and those heavy-laden branches that suggests fruitfulness, How voluptuously they writhe! A kindly growth, lover of men, their dwellings and ordered ways. That is why we foster it. We are all utilitarians here, Mr. Denis; we think of the main purposes of life. Besides food, it gives us welcome shade at this season; the leaves fall off in winter and allow the sunlight to percolate into our rooms. You will not find evergreen trees planted near our windows. We know the value of sunshine; where the sun enters, we say, the physician does not enter. In England the light is feebler and yet they made this mistake, during the Georgian period of architecture. They thought that houses were invented to be looked at, not to be lived in. Determined to be faithful to the tradition and regardless of the difference in climate, they planted the ilex about those mansions which must be dank and gloomy in wintertime, however charming, externally, to those who relish the chill Palladian outlines. You have lately been to Florence, I hear? Come! Let us sit indoors. The courtyard is rather too sultry to-day, in spite of the shade. My old servant will bring some tea, presently. Or perhaps you would prefer some wine and a biscuit? Or a glass of liqueur? . . . Well? And Florence?"

"It has left me rather confused, so far," replied Denis. "Some of the things are overwhelming."

"Overwhelming? That is perhaps because you do not see the movement in its continuity, because you have not traced the stream to its source. I can understand your feelings. But one need not be overwhelmed by these men. They were lovable folks, who played with their art like some child that has discovered a long-lost toy. It is a pity that their activities were so hampered by the conventions of religious dogma. Viewed by itself, the Renaissance may seem overwhelming; it shoots up like a portentous lily out of the blood-drenched soil of a thousand battlefields. Let me take you to its real source."

He showed him that little statuette, the Locri Faun. Denis was enchanted by it.

"You have heard of Sir Herbert Street? He also thinks highly of this thing. He is now adviser in art matters to Mr. van Koppen who is a patron of mine and who, I hear, will arrive to-morrow or the day after."

"Street? I met him at my mother's house. Wasn't he at South Kensington? A great man for dining out. You cannot pick up an evening paper without reading something about him. That kind of man! All the same, he wrote a good book on the Siena School. I liked it, didn't you?"

"It is a fair appreciation, from the collector's point of view. He has stayed with me here once or twice, and given me reason to form a high opinion of his capacities. Now if you will compare this Faun with your Florentine art, you will see what I mean by going to the fountain. There is a difference not only in technique, but in outlook. The man who wrought this did not trouble about you, or me, or himself. He had not moods. His art is purely intellectual; he stands aloof, like a glacier. Here the spring issued, crystal-clear. As the river swells in size it grows turbid and discoloured with alien elements—personality, emotions."

"I have noticed that," said Denis. "It is what we call the malady of thought. This Faun, you say, was found on the mainland yonder?"

"Near the site of old Locri, on a piece of ground which still belongs to me. I suspect there are still a good many Greek relics to be excavated on the site. We have discovered a Demeter some years ago; a mutilated head in marble; it is now in Paris. You can see the very place from my roof here, on bright days. These men, Mr. Denis, were our masters. Do not be misled by what you are told of the wanton luxury of those shores; do not forget that your view of that age has filtered through Roman stoicism and English puritanism which speak with envy lurking at their hearts—the envy of the incomplete creature for him who dares express himself. A plague has infected the world—the plague of repression. Don't you think that the man who made this Faun was entitled to dine well?"

"I cannot quite make it out," said Denis, still examining the statuette.

"Ah! How does it make you feel?"

"Uneasy."

"You are unaware of a struggle between your own mind and that of the artist? I am glad. It is the test of beauty and vitality that a beholder refuses to acquiesce at first glance. There is a conflict to be undergone. This thing thrusts itself upon us; it makes no concessions, does it? And yet one cannot but admire! You will seldom encounter that sensation among the masterpieces of the Renaissance. They welcome you with open arms. That is because we know what the creators were thinking about. They are quite personal and familiar; they had as many moods, one suspects, as a fashionable prima donna. They give pleasure. This Faun gives pleasure and something more—a sense of disquieting intimacy. While intruding upon your reserve with his solemn, stark and almost hostile novelty, he makes at the same time a strange appeal—he touches upon chords in our nature of which we ourselves were barely cognisant. You must yield, Mr. Denis, to this stranger who seems to know so much about you. When you have done so, you will make a surprising discovery. You have gained a friend—one of those who never change."

"I am trying to," replied Denis. "But it is difficult. We are not brought up that way, nowadays."

"No. Men have lost their frankness, their self-assurance. Whoever yields, must be confident of his own strength. Our contemporaries have lost that feeling. They dare not be themselves. They eke out lack of sincerity by profusion of commonplace. Unlike the heroes of Homer, they repress their fears—they repress everything, save their irrepressible flatulence of mind. They are expansive in unimportant matters and at wrong moments—blown about in a whirl of fatuous extremes. The impersonal note has vanished. Why has it gone, Mr. Denis?" he suddenly asked. "And when did it go?"

The other was rather puzzled what to reply.

"I suppose you could trace its disappearance to the days of which you spoke, when artists began to display their moods to the world. Perhaps further still. Some Roman writers were fond of talking about their own affairs. If they do, the public naturally becomes interested. People like Byron must have had a good deal to do with it. He was always harping on his private life."

He paused, but the Count merely asked:

"No further back than that?"

"I don't know. Christianity made us interested in other people's feelings. Brotherliness, you know. That must have helped. So did Socrates, by the way. Of course it lowers the general standard. Where everybody can read and write, there's an end of good taste. No, I don't mean that exactly," he added, feeling that he was expressing himself very stupidly.

"Well?"

"Oh, everything! The telegraph and society papers and interviewing and America and yellow journalism . . . and all those family memoirs and diaries and autobiographies and Court scandals. . . . They produce a new kind of public, a public which craves for personalities rather than information. They want to learn about our clothes and incomes and habits. Not a questioning public, I mean; a prying public—"

"A cannibalistic public," said the Count, quietly. "Men cannot live, it seems, save by feeding on their neighbour's life-blood. They prey on each other's nerve-tissues and personal sensations. Everything must be shared. It gives them a feeling of solidarity, I suppose, in a world where they have lost the courage to stand alone. Woe to him who dwells apart! Great things are no longer contemplated with reverence. They are hauled down from their pedestals in order to be rendered accessible to a generation of pigmies; their dignity is soiled by vulgar contact. This lust of handling—what is its ordinary name? Democracy. It has abraded the edge of that keen anthropocentric outlook of the Greeks which exalted whatever was distinctively human. Men have learnt to see beauty here, there, and everywhere—a little beauty, mark you, not much! They fail to realize that in widening their capacity of appreciation they dilute its intensity. They have watered their wine. There is more to drink. The draught is poorer."

It seemed to Denis that the Count's wine had not been watered.

"Let me show you one or two other things," said the old man.

They wandered about the premises awhile, looking at marbles, prints, intaglios, coins, till a serving man entered—a clean-shaven and rather bony old creature whom the Count called Andrea—to announce tea. Denis was feeling calmer; he had fallen under the beguiling influence of this place. He realized that his host was different from the artist type he had hitherto encountered; more profound, more veracious. Already he formed the project of returning to listen to his melodious voice, and learn some more about that Hellenic life which had hitherto been a sealed book to him. Nobody every spoke to him after the Count's fashion. He contrasted his address with the bantering, half-apologetic, supercilious tone of those other elderly persons who had heretofore deigned to enlightened him. He was flattered and pleased at being taken seriously and bidden to think in this straightforward, manly fashion; it unstrung his reserve and medicined to his wounded self-respect.

"So your mother would like to see you in Parliament?" asked the Count. "Politics are apt to be a dirty game. One cannot touch dirt without soiling one's hands. We have a deputy here, the Commendator Morena—well, one does not like to speak about him. Let me ask you a question, Mr. Denis. Why do politicians exist?"

"I suppose the answer would be that is profitable to mankind to be run by somebody."

"Profitable, at all events, to those who do the running. Your good Sir Herbert Street has lately sent me a batch of books about the ideal public life of the future. Socialistic forecasts, and that kind of literature. He is a world-improver, you know, among other things. They have amused me more than I thought they would. That venerable blunder: to think that in changing the form of government you change the heart of man. And in other respects, too, these dreamers are at sea. For surely we should aim at simplification of machinery. Conceive, now, the state of affairs where everybody is more or less employed by the community—the community, that comfortable word!—in some patriotic business or other. Everybody an official, all controlling each other! It would be worse than the Spanish Inquisition. A man could live at Toledo by subscribing to certain fixed opinions; he could be assured of a reasonable degree of privacy. Nothing could save him, under socialism. An insupportable world! When people cease to reflect they become idealists."

"I suppose they do," replied Denis, rather dubiously. Then it struck him that this might account for his own hazy state of mind—this lack of occupation or guiding principle. For the rest, he had not given much thought to such questions. To be a politician—it was one of the few projects which had never seriously entered his head. After a pause, he remarked:

"I can't help noticing that portrait over there. It's a very pretty thing."

"The little pastel? It is a sketch of my daughter Matilda. I did it myself when she was here last Christmas. Poor child, she can only come for the holidays; there is no chance of a respectable education o this island. But I can run over to see her every now and then. You will observe I am not much of a colourist!"

"You have been parsimonious with the tints. It reminds me of some of Lenbach's work which I saw at Florence; it is in the same manner."

"It appears you like art," said the Count. "Why not devote yourself to it? But perhaps your English social conditions are not propitious. Here is a letter from a friend of mind which arrived this morning; you know his name—I will not mention it! A well-known Academician, whose life is typical of your attitude towards art. Such a good fellow. He likes shooting and fishing; he is a favourite at Court, and quite an authority on dress-reform. He now writes to ask me about some detail of Greek costume which he requires for one of his lectures to a Ladies' Guild. Art, to him, is not a jealous mistress; she is an indulgent companion, who will amiably close an eye and permit a few wayside flirtations to her lover—enthusiasms for quite other ideals, and for the joys of good society in general. That is the way to live a happy life. It is not the way to create masterpieces."

"I would take myself seriously, I think," said Denis. "I would not dissipate my energies."

He meant it. To be an artist—it dawned upon him that this was his true vocation. To renounce pleasure and discipline the mind; to live a life of self-denial, submitting himself humbly to the inspiration of the great masters. . . . To be serene, like this old man; to avoid that facile, glib, composite note—those monkey-tricks of cleverness. . . .

Then, after this vision had passed before his eyes like a flash, he remembered his grief. The notion of becoming a world-famous artist lost all meaning for him. Everything was blighted. There was not a grain of solace to be found on earth.

The Count, meanwhile, was looking with concern upon his companion's grave face, whose flawless profile might have emerged into life under the thought-laden chisel of Lysippus. He wondered what he could say or do to drive away this melancholy. The youth had been so bright that day at the entertainment of the Duchess; he seemed to have stepped straight out of a sunny dialogue of Plato. Serious trouble now shone out of his eyes. Something had happened. Something was wrong with him; wrong, too—he reflected—with a world which could find no better occupation for such a person than to hand round buttered tea-cakes at an old woman's party to a crowd of cosmopolitan scandalmongers.

Denis rose, remarking:

"I wish I could stay a little longer! But it is getting so late. I'm afraid I must be going."

He held out his hand.

"You have caught me in a somewhat sad and depressed mood, I fear," replied the other, heaving a most artistic sigh. And his features suddenly looked quite careworn. As a matter of fact, he had not been so joyous for many long years—that news of Mr. van Koppen's proximate arrival having made him feel fifty years younger and, but for his ingrained sense of Hellenic moderation, almost ready to dance with delight.

"I am sorry I have been so despondent," he went on. "Sometimes one cannot help oneself. It shall not occur again! I will try to be more amusing next time you come. If I thought it would help, I would communicate my sorrows and claim your sympathy. But what does it avail to unburden oneself? Friends will share our joys, but every man is a solitary in his griefs. One soon finds that out! One soon realizes the vanity of all those talks about the consolations of philosophy and the comforts of religion, doesn't one? I suppose even you have your moments of dejection?"

"One worries about things now and then. It is perfectly natural, I daresay."

"Perfectly. We are not stones—least of all persons like yourself. I would not be at your age again, not for the wealth of Croesus! I suffered too much. All young people suffer too much; they bear it silently, like heroes. The eye of youth dilates and distorts the images. The focussing process is painful. Youth has no norm. It was in one of my worst fits of despondency, I remember, that my old teacher gave me certain advice, after I had puzzled it out, did me some good. In fact, I have acted upon it to this very day; I recall it as plainly as if he were speaking now. Well, I am sorry you are leaving. I would keep you hear if I could. But I hope you will not forget to come another day. You have cheered me up wonderfully! Shall Andrea find you a carriage?"

"What did he say?" asked Denis.

"The old teacher? Let me see. . . . He said: do not be discomposed by the opinions of inept persons. Do not swim with the crowd. They who are all things to their neighbours, cease to be anything to themselves. Even a diamond can have too many facets. Avoid the attrition of vulgar minds; keep your edges intact. He also said: A man can protect himself with fists or sword but his best weapon is his intellect. A weapon must be forged in the fire. The fire, in our case, is tribulation. It must also be kept untarnished. If the mind is clean, the body can take care of itself. He said: delve deeply; not too deeply into the past, for it may make you derivative; nor yet into yourself—it will make you introspective. Delve into the living world and strive to bind yourself to its movement by a chain of your own welding. Once that contact is established, you are unassailable. Externalize yourself! He told me many things of this kind. You think I was consoled by his words? Not in the slightest degree. I was annoyed. In fact, I thought him rather a hypocrite; anybody could have spoken as he did! I was so disappointed that I went to him next day and told him frankly what I thought of his counsel. He said—do you know what he said?"

"I cannot even guess."

"He said: 'What is all wisdom save a collection of platitudes? Take fifty of our current proverbial sayings—they are so trite, so threadbare, that we can hardly bring our lips to utter them. None the less they embody the concentrated experience of the race, and the man who orders his life according to their teaching cannot go far wrong. How easy that seems! Has any one ever done so? Never. Has any man ever attained to inner harmony by pondering the experiences of others? Not since the world began! He must pass through the fire.'"

"I had no teacher like that," observed Denis. "He must have been a man of the right kind."

"Oh, he meant well, the old rascal," replied the Count with a curious little smile.



CHAPTER XIV



Denis descended from the Old Town. At a turn of the road he overtook the bishop who was moving slowly in the same direction.

"How is Mrs. Meadows?" enquired the young man.

"Not particularly well, I'm afraid. And the Count?"

"Oh, quite all right."

They walked along in silence, having little to say to each other. That visit had done Denis good; he would return soon again, if only for the purpose of cheering up the lonely old man who, at the last moment, had given him a photograph of the Locri Faun, with a kindly inscription from himself. He was not to show it to anybody, the Count had said—not yet! The government must not hear about that relic—not yet! Later on, perhaps very soon, everything would be in order. Denis cherished that photo in his pocket. He was thinking, too, of the pastel—the face of Matilda, which seemed like a star shining through the mist. . . . Then he remembered the bishop walking at his side. He felt he ought to say something more to this dry Colonial whom he could not help contrasting, greatly to his disadvantage, with the Count.

"Hasn't it been hot to-day?"

"Stifling," replied Mr. Heard. "The warmest day we have had, so far. Not a breath of wind."

"Not a breath. . . ."

The conversation flagged once more. They did not hit it off, somehow; they seemed to drift further apart every time they met. Each was preoccupied with his own thoughts. The bishop was more taciturn than usual; the interview with his cousin had not been quite a success.

Denis, after a while, made another effort. He spoke of some of Count Caloveglia's antiquities and, one thing leading to another, told Mr. Heard the story of a friend of his in Florence who had excavated some wonderful early Italian pots, fragments o them, out of an old garden well. They were all lustred, he said.

"That must have been a very pleasant surprise," observed the bishop, who had small use for lustred ware and lunatics who collected it. Feeling that it was his turn to say something, he remarked:

"I am dining with the Duchess to-night. Will you be there?"

"No," replied the young man with an unwonted air of decision. Never again would he be seen in that austere old convent, built by the Good Duke Alfred. Never again! Promptly, however, he toned down the harshness of his answer by adding that the lady had very kindly asked him to come, but he couldn't manage it, that evening.

"I shall have to console her about the burglary," continued the bishop.

"What burglary?"

Mr. Heard explained that the premises had been entered while the Duchess was dining at Madame Steynlin's on the previous evening, the night of the water-party. Evidently the work of a man who knew his business. A man familiar with the ins and outs of the house. And a man of taste, into the bargain. All the sham articles had been left untouched; he had gone off with nothing but genuine things—a few precious crucifixes and bonbonnieres. No one had the faintest idea who the thief was. Most mysterious! The disaster could hardly have occurred but for the fact that the young girl Angelina, who was supposed to sleep on the premises, had been called away late at night to look after a suffering aunt. The old woman, it appeared, was liable to sudden heart-attacks. She had been round to see the Duchess early in the morning with endless apologies, and had fortunately been able to corroborate her niece's story.

"I am glad of it," concluded the bishop. "Because that maid, when I saw her, struck me as rather a flighty young person—the sort of girl who would take advantage of her mistress's absence to have a little flirtation with a policeman round the corner. I am glad the aunt could explain things so satisfactorily. I was wrong about that girl. Shows how careful one must be in judging of other people, doesn't it? I must say she looked to me like a regular little coquette."

Denis had so little sympathetic comment to make on this painful story that Mr. Heard was quite surprised at his indifference. He always understood the young man to be a particular friend of the Duchess.

"These artistic people!" he thought. "They have quite another way of looking at things. Dear me. I shall never live to understand them."

The two separated at the market-place without much reluctance on either side.

During dinner, the Duchess was calm about her misfortune. She bore it well. She had been vigorously consoled by Don Francesco, who pointed out that such little things are trials of faith and that she ought to be thankful for this opportunity of proving how little she cared for earthly riches. While not exactly thankful, she was certainly as resigned as anybody could have been. Angelina had already been taken into grace again, at the charitable suggestion of the priest. Every one was puzzling who the thief could be (it happened to be Mr. Richards); the police had not discovered the faintest clue.

"It does not much matter if they do," said Don Francesco. "I don't think, my dear lady, that you will get the judge to take up your case very actively. You know how he hates the clericals. In fact, I fear he will not move a finger unless the culprit also happens to be a good believer. In that case, he might lock him up. He is so fond of imprisoning Catholics!"

"A bad state of the law," commented the bishop.

"It is," replied Don Francesco, "And perhaps you do not know," he added, turning to the company, "that there has been another robbery as well, doubtless by the same hand. Yes! I only heard of it an hour ago. Poor Miss Wilberforce is the victim. She is terribly upset. A number of valuables have disappeared from her house; they must have been ransacked, she thinks, at the time of Mr. Keith's party. I understand she was rather overcome on that occasion. The thief seems to have been aware of her condition, and to have profited by it."

"Poor Miss Wilberforce!" said everybody. They were all sorry for poor Miss Wilberforce.

It was a rather full dinner-party on the whole. Mr. Heard left at half-past eleven.

Passing the Club on his way home, he remembered his intention of looking in there and perhaps doing good to a few of those fellows.

He climbed up the stairs. There was a fearful row going on. The place was crammed with members of various nationalities, drinking and arguing amid clouds of tobacco smoke. They seemed all to be at loggerheads with one another and on the verge of breaking out into violence, the south wind having been particularly objectionable all day long. A good deal of filthy and profane language was being used—it was worse than those hot places he had known in Africa. That pink-faced old drunkard known as Charlie was the only person who made any signs of recognizing him. He half rose from his chair with a genial: "Hello, Bishop—" and instantly collapsed again. Mr. Muhlen was there; he bowed rather distantly. A tremulous pale-faced youngster invited him pressingly to a drink, and just as the bishop was on the verge of accepting with a view to getting the victim out of that den of vice, the lad suddenly remarked: "Excuse me, won't you?" and tottered out of the door. They were too far gone to be spoken to with any prospects of success. Things might have been different if the restraining influence of Mr. Freddy Parker could have made itself felt, but that gentleman was at home, his lady being not very well. In the Commissioner's absence, Mr. Richards, the respectable Vice-President, was making his voice heard. Sober or not, he was certainly articulate and delighted with himself as, stroking his beard placidly, he roared out above the crowd:

"I've no use for makeshifts. Honesty is a makeshift. A makeshift for saving time. Whoever wants to save time is not fit for the society of gentlemen."

"Hear, hear!"

"Call yourself a gentleman?" enquired another.

"Just a makeshift. You won't hear honesty talked about in the great periods of the world's history. It's the small tradesman's invention, is honesty. He hasn't the the brains to earn anything more than three and a half per cent. That's why he is always in such a hurry to finish his first little deal and get on with the next one. Else he'd starve. Hence honesty. Three and a half per cent! Who's going to pick that up? People who earn three hundred don't cackle about honesty."

"Call yourself a gentleman? Outside!"

"I've no use for honesty. It's the small man's flapdoodle, is honesty. This world isn't made for small men! I am talking to you over there—the funny little bounder who made the offensive remark just now."

"Are you? Well, take that!"

A glass tumbler, which Mr. Richards dodged in quite a professional manner, came hurtling through the air and missed the bishop's forehead by about four inches.

That crowd was past his aid. He turned to go. As he did so, a curious idea flitted through his brain. This Mr. Richards—was he, perhaps, the burglar? He was; but Mr. Heard dashed aside the horrible suspicion, mindful of the mistake he had made about Angelina's character and how careful one must be in judging of other people. The voice, meanwhile, pursued him down the stairs.

"No, gentlemen! I've no use for an honest man. He always lets you down. Fortunately, he is rather rare—"

Mr. Heard slept badly that night, for the first time since his arrival on Nepenthe. It was unbearably hot. And that visit to Mrs. Meadows had also troubled him a little.

The Old Town looked different on this occasion. A sullen death-like stillness, a menacing stagnation, hung about those pink houses. Not a leaf was astir under the burning sirocco sky. Even old Caterina, when he saw her, seemed to be afflicted, somehow.

"SOFFRE, LA SIGNORA," she said. The lady was suffering.

The bishop would not have recognized his cousin after all those years; not if he had met her in the street at least. She greeted him affectionately and they talked for a long time of family matters. It was true, then. Her husband's leave had been again postponed. Perhaps she would travel back to England with him, and there await the arrival of Meadows. She would let him know definitely in a day or two.

He watched her carefully while she conversed, trying to reconstruct, out of that woman's face, the childish features he dimly remembered. They were effaced. He could see what Keith had meant when he described her as "tailor-made." There was something clear-cut about her, something not exactly harsh, but savouring of decision. She was plainly a personality—not an ordinary type. The lines of her face told their story. They had been hammered into a kind of hard efficiency. But over that exterior of tranquil self-possession was super-imposed something else—certain marks of recent trouble. Her eyes looked almost as if she had been weeping. She made a tremendous show of cheeriness, however, calling him Tommy as in olden days.

Just a little headache. This sirocco. It was bad enough when it blew in the ordinary fashion. But quite intolerable when it hung breathlessly about the air like this. Mr. Eames—he once called it PLUMBEUS AUSTER. That meant leaden, didn't it? Everybody had headaches, more or less.

Was she speaking the truth? The bishop decided that she had an headache and that this south wind was certainly unendurable. None the less, he suspected that she was employing the common subterfuge—telling the truth, but not the whole truth; perhaps not even the main part of it. She was holding back something.

"You haven't attended to these roses lately," he said, observing that the flowers had not been changed and that their fallen petals strewed the tables. "They looked so fresh when I was here alone the other day."

"What a dreadful person you are, Tommy, for noticing things. First you discover my headache, and now those flowers! I see I shall have to be careful with you. Perhaps you would like to look at my precipice and tell me if there is anything wrong with that too? You have heard of the old French lady, I daresay. She ended, you know, in not approving of it at all. We can have tea when we come back. And after that perhaps you will let me know what is wrong with baby?"

"I can tell you that without looking at him. He is teething."

"Clever boy! As a matter of fact, he isn't. But I had to make some excuse to the dear Duchess."

They climbed up the short slope and found themselves looking towards the sea over the face of a dizzy cliff. A falcon, on their approach, started with rustle of wings from its ledge and then swayed crazily over the abyss. Watching this bird, the bishop felt a sudden voice in his stomach. A sensation of blackness came before his eyes—sky and sea were merged together—his feet were treading on air. He promptly sat down.

"Not an inch nearer!" he declared. "Not for a thousand pounds. If you go along that edge again, I shall have to look the other way. It makes me feel empty inside."

"I'm not in the least giddy," she laughed. "There was an English boy who threw himself over this cliff for a bet—you have heard the story? They never found his body. It's a good place for throwing oneself down, isn't it?"

She seemed to consider the idea quite seriously.

"Well?" she pursued. "Have you any fault to find with my precipice?"

"I have. It ought to be railed in. It is dangerous. What a temptation this cliff must be to anyone who has an enemy to dispose of! It would be so simple," he added, laughing.

"That advantage has never struck me before. . . ."

These and other things passed through Mr. Heard's mind as he lay in bed that evening. He came to the conclusion that he could not quite make his cousin out. Had something upset her? And what did she mean by that sudden conundrum:

"Do you know anything, Tommy, about our laws of illegitimacy?"

"Nothing," he had replied, "except that they are a disgrace to a civilized country. Everybody knows that."

She seemed to be disappointed. Perhaps she mistrusted him. The thought gave him a little pain. He had done nothing to merit mistrust. He was frank and open himself; he liked others to be the same.

What was the use of thinking about it? He knew tantalizingly little about his cousin—nothing but scraps of information gathered from his mother's letters to him. He would call again in a day or two and make some definite arrangements about their journey to England. Perhaps he had talked more dully than usual. . . . Or could it be the south wind?

Neither of these explanations was wholly convincing.



CHAPTER XV



Nothing was happening. For the first time since many years, the Nepenthe season threatened to be a failure. It was the dullest spring on record. And yet there was a quality in that heavy atmosphere which seemed to threaten mischief. Everybody agreed that it had never been quite so bad as this. Meanwhile, people yawned. They were bored stiff. As a source of gossip, those two burglaries were a negligible quantity. So was the little accident which had just happened to Mr. Keith, who ruefully declared he had done it on purpose, in order to liven things up. No one was likely to be taken in by this kind of talk, because the accident was of an inglorious and even ludicrous kind.

Being very short-sighted he had managed to stumble backwards, somehow or other, into a large receptacle of lime which was being slaked for patching up a wall. Lime, in that condition, is boiling hot. Mr. Keith's trousers were rather badly scalded. He was sensitive on that point. He suffered a good deal. People came to express their sympathy. The pain made him more tedious, long-winded and exhortatory than usual. At that particular moment Denis was being victimized. He had thoughtlessly called to express his sympathy, to see those celebrated cannas, and because he could not bear to be alone with his thoughts just then.

"Suffering!" exclaimed Mr. Keith. "That is what you young poets want. At present you are too unperplexed and glib. Suffering! It would enlarge your repertoire; it would make you more human, individual, and truthful. What is the unforgivable sin in poetry? Lack of candour. How shall there be candour if the poet lacks worldly experience? Suffering! That is what you people want. It would make men of you."

Mr. Keith was considerably denser than Count Caloveglia. But even he, during this oration, could not help noticing that it jarred on his listener's nerves; there was something wrong, he concluded.

Denis had not a word to say in reply. As if anyone could be more suffering than himself! He was full of a dumb ache. He marvelled at Keith's obtuseness.

"Come and see my cannas," said the other with a kind of brutal tactfulness. "There is a curious story attached to them. I must tell it to you one of these days. It sounds like a fairy tale. You like fairy tales?"

"I do," replied Denis.

"Then we have one point in common. I could listen to them for hours. There is something eternal about them. If you ever want to get anything out of me, Denis, tell me a fairy tale."

"I must remember that," replied Denis with a wan smile. "There is one thing I should very much like to get out of you; the secret of your zest in life. You have so many interests. How do you manage it?"

"Heredity, I suppose. It has given me a kind of violent driving power. I take things by the throat. Have you ever heard of Thomas Keith, a soldier in a Highland regiment, who became governor of the Holy City of Medina? No, I suppose you have not. And yet he must have been a remarkable man, to obtain this unique position in the world. No interest in Arabian history? Why not? Well, Thomas Keith—that is my stock. Pirates and adventurers. Of course I live sensibly. Shall I give you my recipe for happiness? I find everything useful and nothing indispensable. I find everything wonderful and nothing miraculous. I reverence the body. I avoid first causes like the plague. You will find that a pretty good recipe, Denis."

The young man wondered whether the prescription would be of any avail for his particular complaint.

Then they went into the garden, Mr. Keith hobbling painfully with two sticks and indulging in very bad language. They paused awhile under some trellis work covered with a profusion of Japanese convolvuluses, pale blue, slate colour, rose-tinted, purple, deep red, with white and coloured bands, a marvellous display of fragile beauty.

"I have never seen anything like it!" declared Denis.

"They die away in winter. I get fresh seeds every year from Japan, the latest varieties. How they cling for support to the wooden framework! How delicate and fair! One hardly dares to touch them. Are you always going to be a convolvulus, Denis?"

"Me? Oh, I see what you mean. Were you never a convolvulus, Mr. Keith?"

His friend laughed.

"It must have been a good while ago. You don't like advice, do you? Have you ever heard of that Sparker affair?"

"You don't mean to say—"

"Yes. That was me. That was my little contribution to the gaiety of University life. So you see I am in the position to give advice to people like yourself. I think you should cultivate the function of the real, and try to remain in contact with phenomena. Noumena are bad for a youngster. But perhaps you are not interested in psychology?"

"Not exactly, I'm afraid," replied Denis, who was more anxious to see those cannas.

"So I perceive. Wouldn't you get more fun out of life if you were? I am nearly done with psychology now," he added. "It was the Greek philosophers before then. When I take up a subject this is what I do. I don't ask what are Aristotle's teachings or relations to his age or to humanity. That would lead me too far. I ask myself: what has this fellow got to say to me? To me, you understand. To me."

"That must simplify matters."

"It does," replied Keith, quite unaware of the faint tinge of College irony in the other's words. "Direct experience comes only from life. But you can get a kind of substitute out of books. Perhaps you are afraid of them? Take the fellows by the throat! See what they have to say. Make them disgorge. Get at their facts. Pull them to pieces. I tell you what, Denis. You must go through a course of Samuel Butler. You are moving in the same direction; perhaps he may be a warning to you. I took him up, I remember, during my biological period. He was exactly like yourself—bewildered by phenomena."

Denis, meekly resigned, enquired:

"Was he?"

"I spent nearly a week over Butler. I found him interesting not for what he writes, but for what he is. A landmark. Think of when he wrote. It was an age of giants—Darwin and the rest of them. Their facts were too much for him; they impinged on some obscure old prejudices of his. They drove him into a clever perversity of humour. They account for his cat-like touches, his contrariness, his fondness for scoring off everybody from the Deity downwards, his premeditated irresponsibilities, his—"

"Did he not prove that the Odyssey was written by a woman?"

"He did. Anything to escape from realities—that was his maxim. He puzzled his contemporaries. But we can now locate him with absolute certainty. He personifies the Revolt from Reason. SURTOUT, MON AMI, POINT DE ZELE. He talks about the Scylla of Atheism and the Charybdis of Christianity—a state of mind which, by the way, is not conducive to bold navigation. He was always wavering between the two in an attitude of suburban defiance, reconciling what is irreconcilable by extracting funny analogies all round for the edification of "nice people" like himself. Oh, very English! He did not lack candour or intelligence. Nor do you. He understood the teachings of the giants. So do you. But they irked him. To revenge himself he laid penny crackers under their pedestals. His whole intellectual fortune was spent in buying penny crackers. There was something cheeky and pre-adolescent about him—a kind of virginal ferocity. That iridescent charm of sexlessness which somebody, one of these days, must be good enough to analyse for us! He lacked the male attributes of humility, reverence and sense of proportion."

Mr. Keith paused, but it was only to take breath.

"Did he?" enquired Denis. "The sense of proportion—"

"The tail of a cow was just as important to him as the tail of a comet; more important, if it could be turned into a joke. Look at the back of his mind and you will always see the same thing: horror of a fact. That is what lies before you, Denis, if, in a world of facts, you refuse to assimilate them. They will disagree with you, as they disagreed with Butler. They will drive you where they drove him—into abstractions. Others went the same way. The painter Watts, for instance. He also suffered under the reign of giants. He also took refuge in abstractions. Faith leading Hope towards Despair. Why don't you write a book about these things, Denis?"

"I am going to be an artist."

"An Artist? That is better than a poet. Verse-making is a little out of date, is it not? It corresponds to juvenile stages of human development. Poets are a case of genepistasis. If they would at least get a new stock of ideas! Their demonology is so hopelessly threadbare. But why an artist? I think you were made for a bank manager, Denis. Don't look so surprised. Everybody grows up, you know. Shelley, if he had lived long enough, would have become a passable gentleman farmer. You can take my word for that."

"I suppose I shall have to," replied the young man.

"Don't take Mr. Keith's word for anything!" said a voice behind his shoulder.

It was Don Francesco, who had come upon them unawares. He now removed his hat and began to mop his forehead and various double chins with a many-tinted handkerchief as large as a tablecloth.

"My dear Don Francesco!" said Keith. "You always interrupt me in the middle of my sermons. What shall we do with you?"

"Give me something to drink," replied the priest. "Else I shall evaporate, leaving nothing but a grease stain on this beautiful garden path."

"To evaporate," said Keith, with a tinge of sadness in his voice. "What an ideal resolution!"

"I'll get some wine out of the house," suggested Denis politely. "But first of all tell me this. Mr. Keith has been giving me his recipe for happiness. What is yours?"

"Happiness is a question of age. The bachelor of forty—he is the happy man."

"That does not help me much," said Denis. "But I'll get your wine, all the same."

He went.

"A nice young fellow," observed the priest. "This little accident of yours," he continued, "does not reflect itself on your face. You always look like a baby, Keith. What is your secret? I believe you have concluded a pact with the devil for your soul."

"To tell you the truth, Don Francesco, he never made me an offer for it."

"Sensible devil! He knows he will get it sooner or later for nothing."

They conversed awhile till Denis returned, bearing sundry bottles and glasses on a tray. The priest smiled at the sight. Light-hearted allusions to Ganymede rose to his lips, but were suppressed. He swallowed down the rising inclination to be classical at the expense of good taste, and engulfed, on the top of it, as a kind of paperweight, a vast tumblerful of red Nepenthe wine. The draught instead of cheering seemed to make him suddenly despondent. He wiped his lips and remarked, in a grave and almost conscience-stricken manner:

"I have some unpleasant news for you, gentlemen. The fountain of Saint Elias has ceased to flow. We heard it this morning from a sailor, an unusually trustworthy person—a man, I mean, who can be relied upon to tell the truth when there is nothing to be gained by concealing or distorting it. The thing must have happened last night. Yes, it has dried up altogether. What is to be done?"

"You don't say so," remarked Keith. "This is really interesting! I thought something was going to happen. I suppose your people are rather alarmed?"

Denis interrupted:

"I don't understand what you are talking about. Why should not a fountain dry up if it wants to? And what does it matter to anybody?"

"What does it matter?" echoed the priest. "This is no ordinary fountain, I am sorry to say. Have you never heard of Beelzebub?"



CHAPTER XVI



Now, with regard to fountains, it is to be noted that Nepenthe, an islet of volcanic stone rising out of the blue Mediterranean, has never—for all its natural attractions—been renowned for cool springs and bubbling streamlets. There is, to be sure, a charming couplet in some old humanist about LYMPHA NEPENTHI; but modern scholars are disposed to think either that the text is corrupt and that the writer was picturing an imaginary NYMPHA—some laughing sea-lady—or else that he merely indulged in one of those poetic flights which are a feature of the literature of his period. For whatever the cause may be—whether internal fires have scorched up the natural humours of the soil, or whether the waters of Nepenthe are of such peculiar heaviness that, instead of flowing upwards in the shape of fountains, they tumble downwards into caverns below the sea—the fact remains: Nepenthe is a waterless land. And this may well be the reason, as several thoughtful observers have already pointed out, why its wines are so abundant in quantity, so cheap in price, and of such super-excellent flavour. For it is a fact conformable to that law of compensation which regulates all earthly affairs, a fact borne out by the universal experience of mankind, that God, when He takes away with one hand, gives with the other. Lack of water, on the face of things, might be deemed a considerable hardship. There are tracts in Africa where people have been known to barter wives and children for a cupful of the liquid element. Of the inhabitants of Nepenthe it must be said to their credit that they endure their lot with equanimity, and even cheerfulness. Their wine costs nothing. Why grumble at the inscrutable ways of Providence? Why be thirsty, why be sober, when you can get as drunk as a lord for the asking?

For the rest, there are indications to show that such was not the original condition of affairs on the island. On the contrary, certain legends still current among the country-folk lead one to suspect that fountains once flowed on this arid rock. And more than legends. Monsignor Perrelli, in his ANTIQUITIES OF NEPENTHE, has gone into the subject with his usual thoroughness. The reader who takes the trouble to consult that work will find, in the twenty-sixth chapter of the third section dealing with the Natural Productions and Water-Supply of the island, an enumeration of no less than twelve fountains still flowing during the author's lifetime. Some of them issued high up, in rocky clefts; others at the middle heights, among vineyards and orchards; the majority at, or near, the seashore. All of these springs, he tells us, had the following features in common: they were more or less hot, unpleasant to the taste, of foetid odour and therefore unfit for culinary or other common uses. "But let it not be supposed," he hastens to add, "that they were worthless, inasmuch as there is no such thing as a worthless gift of Providence. Whoever argues on such fallacious lines," he says, "will stand convicted both of folly and of irreverence, seeing that it is the business of mankind, when confronted by a phenomenon which seems to mock their intelligence, humbly to ponder the evidence—to investigate causes and ascertain results." In the present case the utility of the waters, if not for cooking or drinking then for other specific purposes, had been put to the proof time out of mind, in an empirical fashion; though it was not till the reign of the Good Duke Alfred that a series of classical experiments placed our knowledge of their medicinal properties on a sound scientific footing.

In a dissertation attached to this twenty-sixth chapter—a dissertation larded with illustrative extracts from Galen Celsus, Avicenna, Antonius Musa, Oribasius Salvus and about fifty others of the ancients who professed the healing art—Monsignor Perrelli condenses for his readers the results of these classical experiments; he hands down the names of these springs and their manifold healing virtues.

The Fountain of Saint Calogero, described as one of the most famous, was lukewarm, of ammoniacal and alkaline flavour; a glassful of it produced the most violent retchings and vomitings. Properly applied, however, the water had been found to relieve the gout, the discomforts of child-bearing, leprosy, irritation of the mucous membrane of the nose, impetigo, strabismus and ophthalmia. If the patient observed care in his diet, avoiding articles of calorific nature such as fried fish and boiled lentils, he would find himself greatly benefited by its use in the case of cornucopic hydrocephalus, flatulence, tympanitis and varicose veins. It was useful, furthermore, as a cure for the stings of scorpions and other venomous beasts.

The so-called "Fountain of Paradise," of nitrous ingredients, spurted forth with a prodigious hissing noise at a temperature of boiling lead, from so inaccessible a fissure in the rocks that little had been done to investigate its peculiar properties. It was held none the less to be efficacious for the distemper known as PLICA POLONICA, and the peasant folk, mixing its spray with the acorns on which their pigs were fattened, had observed that these quadrupeds prospered vastly in health and appearance.

The Fountain of Hercules, laxative and tartaric, had proved its efficacy in cases of enlarged spleen, hare-lip, vertigo, apoplexy, cachexia, cacodoria, cacochymia senilis and chilblains. It was also considered to be a sovereign remedy for that distressing and almost universal complaint, the piles.

The Fountain known as "La Salina," of arsenical nature, was frequented chiefly by women who found in its waters an alleviation for troubles which Monsignor Perrelli does not specify. It was recommended, moreover, as a sheep-dip.

The Fountain of the Virgin, purgative and blastopeptic, had given relief to sufferers from the quartan fever, herpes, elephantiasis, and to all persons of atrobiliary and lunatick temperament.

The so-called "Old Fountain," of sub-acidulate and vitriolique flavour, chalybeate and cataplastic, was renowned for removing stains from household linen. Taken in minute doses, under medical advice, it gave relief to patients afflicted with the wolfe, NOLI ME TANGERE, crudities, Bablyonian itch, globular pemphlegema, fantastical visions, koliks, asthma and affections of the heart. It also "fortifies the stomach, comforts the bowels, reduces the gallstone to sand, the sand to mud, the mud to water—water which can be passed out of the system by the usual channels."

The Fountain of Saint Vulcan, anti-blepharous and amygdaloidal, was charged with such potent minerals that a single spoonful produced a diarrhoea more distressing to witness than cholera. None the less, applied externally, it was a wondrous remedy in cases of jaundice, toothache and open wounds.

The Fountain of the Capon, sedative and scorbutic, was indicated for rheumatisms of every kind, not excluding sprained limbs, hydrophobia, lycanthropy, black choler, oppilations and procrastinating catapepsia.

The Fountain known as "Spina Santa" was resorted to by all persons suffering from maladies of the alimentary canal, such as dysentery, cloven palate, follicular hepatitis, and trabulated hyperaemia of the Bivonian passage.

The Fountain of Saint Feto had, by virtue of its smell alone, applied to her nose as she lay in her coffin, raised from the dead a certain Anna da Pasto.

The Fountain popularly called "La Pisciarella" was peculiarly adapted to those ailments which are incidental to childhood and youth—to wit: chlorosis, St. Vitus' Dance, constipation, ringworm, otootitis and other perimingeal disturbances, urticaria, moon-sickness, scrofula and incontinence of urine.

Lastly, the Fountain of Saint Elias, sulphurous and saponaceous, was renowned for its calming influence upon all who suffered from abuse of lechery or alcohol, or from ingrowing toe-nails.

This concludes the list.

"Whence we may safely infer," says Monsignor Perrelli at the termination of this chapter, "that our island is second to no part of the globe in this divine gift of salutary waters. And if some should ask why certain of these springs have recently undergone a marked diminution in volume we can but answer, simply and truthfully, that their virtues are no longer in as great demand as formerly. For is it not a fact that distempers like leprosy and PLICA POLONICA are now almost unknown on Nepenthe? It follows that the waters adapted to maladies such as these have performed their appointed task, so far as this island is concerned. They are doubtless flowing elsewhere, through mysterious channels of the earth, to carry their health-giving virtues into fresh regions for the saving of men's lives, to the glory of their Creator."

Thus far the learned and ingenious Monsignor Perrelli. . . .

It stands to reason that so remarkable a chapter should not have escaped the notice of the bibliographer who, as already observed, had been engaged for the last quarter of a century in elucidating the text of the old historian and enriching it with footnotes for the better understanding of modern students. In the interval of three and a half centuries many changes had taken place in the physical aspect of Nepenthe; among other things, these twelve streams of pestilential odour had ceased to flow, all save the fountain of Saint Elias; their very sites had been forgotten, though traditions of their former existence still lingered among the populace.

Searching among the archives for whatever might bear on the ancient history of these springs, Mr. Eames had accumulated abundant material for footnotes geological, hydrographical and balneo-therapic. Furthermore, his personal explorations on the island had enabled him to locate the site of at least four of these old fountains, and to prove that if some of them had been covered up under the debris of landslides, the majority had disappeared in consequence of a general desiccation of the province.

Lastly and chiefly, his investigations had brought him in contact with that manuscript, already mentioned, of the Dominican monk Father Capocchio-a manuscript in which he alighted upon a curious but troublesome literary discovery anent these very fountains. The author, a contemporary of Monsignor Perrelli, a hater of Nepenthe, a cleric of lascivious and lecherous temperament, has in this parchment preserved what he calls a "popular joke"—a saying which he declares to have been "common property of the whole country" on the subject of Nepenthe and its evil-smelling waters. It was one of those scholarly, ponderous and yet helplessly straightforward jokes of the late Renaissance; a joke to which Monsignor Perrelli does not allude, both for reasons of local patriotism and of general decorum; some vulgar dictum, in short, connected with the name of the patron saint of Nepenthe who, he urged, was simply a local nature-god, christianized.

When the bibliographer's eagle eye first fell upon this passage he was staggered. Then, on reflection, he found himself in an awkward predicament—his natural modesty as a man contending with a no less natural and legitimate pride and desire as historian that the fruits of his labours should not be lost.

"These," he said, "are the dilemmas which confront the conscientious annotator."

What position was he to take up? Should he exclude the miserable joke altogether from his amended and enlarged edition of Perrelli? He did not feel himself justified in this line of conduct. Some future investigator would be sure to unearth it and get the credit for his industry. Should he re-state it in such terms as to make it palatable to refined readers, diluting its primary pungency without impairing its essential signification? He was disposed to adopt that course, but, unfortunately, all attempts at verbal manipulation failed. Good scholar as Mr. Eames was, the joke proved to be obdurate, uncompromising; vainly he wrestled with it; try as he would, it stood out naked and unashamed, refusing to be either cajoled or bullied into respectability. There was no circumventing that joke, he decided. Should he reproduce it there fore IN EXTENSO? Such, after mature deliberation and not without certain moral misgivings, he conceived to be his duty towards posterity. Veiled in the obscurity of a learned tongue, the joke was surreptitiously introduced into the company of a thousand chaste footnotes that could dispense with such covering devices.

Of the subsequent history of the Saint Elias Fountain, which alone still continued to flow, the bibliographer also learned much—how its fame had grown in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries till it attracted invalids from the most distant provinces, necessitating the erection of a palatial pump-room for the better accommodations of visitors; how latterly again the waters had unaccountably fallen into disfavour with the public. And this, notwithstanding the fact that in 1872 the celebrated Privy Councillor Dr. Saponaro, Director of the Montecitorio Home for Incurables, had written, at the urgent solicitation of the Nepenthe Town Authorities (who were alarmed at the decrease in their bathing-tax revenue) a pamphlet—a pamphlet which, by the way, cost them a mint of money in view of the author's deserved reputation as an incorruptible scientist—a pamphlet extolling the virtue of the spring; proving, by elaborate chemical analysis, that its ingredients had not only not changed a white since the days of Monsignor Perrelli but actually improved in quality; and concluding with the warm recommendation that they were as well adapted as ever for curing those ailments to which the island population was peculiarly liable—namely, the consequences of excessive lechery and alcohol, and the discomfort caused by ingrowing toe-nails.

The local deputy, Don Guistino Morena, had often promised his Nepenthean constituents to look into the matter and see that something was done. But he was a busy man. Up to the present he had apparently not moved a finger.

And now this fountain, the last survivor of the twelve health-giving springs, had suddenly run dry. . . .

The bad news spread like wild-fire. It was regarded—for reasons which will presently appear—as a portent of gravest significance. The clergy met in unofficial but well-attended conclave to deliberate as to what attitude should be adopted towards the phenomenon, and what measures taken to allay popular apprehensions.

There was gossip, too, at the Club. Most of its members were of the LAISSEZ FAIRE or even rationalistic type, and one of them—an unobtrusive Hindu who was suspected of wearing stays—went so far in his indifference as to declare that the only result of the drying-up of the fountain would be "one smell less on Nepenthe." A small but compact minority, however, thought otherwise. Obsessed by vague forebodings, they found an able and eloquent interpreter of their fears in the Commissioner who, rather redder in the face than usual, strode fussily up and down the premises, tugging at his disreputable briar pipe, drinking the whisky with anybody who cared to pay for it, and declaring to all and sundry that something must be done. It was his panacea—his unvarying formula for every emergency, scandalous or otherwise. Something must be done, he avowed. And from the card-table came two approving echoes—the voices of Mr. Muhlen and Signor Malipizzo, who did not care tuppence about the fountain but never lost an opportunity of expressing their public approval of Mr. Parker's words and actions.

Something must be done and that soon, for in a few brief hours an atmosphere of gloom, a sense of impending calamity, had begun to hover over the sunny island. The natives called to mind, with consternation, that only once within the memory of their ancestors had the fountain behaved after this fashion. It was on the eve of that great volcanic outbreak on the mainland which, by a deadly shower of ashes, destroyed their crops and impoverished them to such an extent that for three consecutive months they could barely afford the most unnecessary luxuries of life. They opined with some show of reason that the little streamlet had been tempted by ancient and obscure bonds to sympathy to forsake its old home and creep away, under leagues of shimmering sea, towards the fiery heart of the volcano; there to undergo some alchemic process of readjustment, some ordeal, some torrid nuptial rite which would result in the birth of a flaming monster and the ruin of mankind.

The terrace was crowded with folk; all eyes were turned toward the distant fire-mountain. But the volcano had never looked so placid, so harmless, so attractive; its shapely flanks suffused with the crimson light of evening, while wreaths of violent vapour ascended, in lazy intermittent spirals, from the cone. They rose into the zenith playfully, one after the other, as though the volcano were desirous of drawing attention to its pretty manners, and were wafted onwards, in delicate wisps of smoke by the persistent South wind. The clergy now began to appear in goodly numbers upon the scene. They were in the best of humours and more ready than usual, it seemed, to take part in any conversation which might be going on. It had been decided, during their informal gathering, that the apprehensions of the faithful could not be better allayed at this preliminary stage than by a mild demonstration of this kind. Appearances were everything; so they had concluded, not for the first time. And it was precisely then that the simple-minded PARROCO, surrounded by a knot of devout believers, pointed to the playful cloudlets of smoke as they issued from the mouth of the crater and apposite, but calculated to calm the minds of his hearers. He said that no rosy schoolboy, smoking his first cigarette, ever looked more innocent. An ominous, fateful speech! Yet such was his holy simplicity that he failed to realize its import. He failed to perceive how inauspicious the metaphor had been till Don Francesco, in a whisper, pointed out that appearances are apt to be deceptive and, alluding to certain experiences of his own at the tender age of six years, affirmed that the smoking of a first cigarette, for all its seeming harmlessness, is liable to be followed by something in the nature of a cataclysm.

There was worse to come. For while the sun yet lingered on the horizon news of further portents came thick and fast. A plum tree belonging to a farmer of good standing had unaccountably lost all its leaves. The Duchess arrived in a state of unusual trepidation, declaring that the tortoise-shell of her lorgnette gave forth a crackling sound. She appealed to Don Francesco to explain the meaning of this extraordinary circumstance; it crackled most distinctly, she declared. Not far from the little bay where only yesterday the streamlet of Saint Elias still trickled into the sea, a fisherman had caught a one-eyed lamprey—a beast, unquestionably, of ill repute. The bibliographer, strolling about with Denis, recollected that his fox-terrier that very morning had been violently sick. He seemed to attach no great importance to the affair; all the same, he said, it was rather queer; dogs are not like that; now, if it had been Keith. . . . The baby of the principal grocer had tumbled downstairs and thereupon proceeded to swallow eight of its elder brother's marbles which had been carelessly left on the floor—without experiencing, so far as could be ascertained, any appreciable injury. A mysterious disease, known as the scabies, had broken out among the Russian apostles. The yacht of the American millionaire, Mr. van Koppen, arrived that day; there was nothing startling in this since he visited the island year after year at the same season; but why should she collide with a fishing-boat at the moment of anchoring?

And from the Old Town came news of a portentous fowl which had suddenly assumed the plumage of the male sex. It was a hen renowned, hitherto, for her temperate and normal habits and, as it happened, known by sight to the local parish priest, who, horrified at the transformation of the feathered monster and mindful of the Papal Bull NE NIMIS NOCEANT NOBIS which enjoins upon Christians the duty of destroying all unnatural productions however generated, incontinently ordered it to be put out of the way. But the destruction of this androgyne proved an arduous task. It was reported that the creature fought for its life with the energy of a demon, crowing vigorously the while and laying, in the very act of death, an egg—an egg of spheroidal form, bluish in colour, and apparently hard-boiled—an egg which the Chief Medical Officer of Health had no great difficulty in recognizing as that of a cockatrice.

In view of these and other sinister occurrences it is not surprising that a sense of insecurity should have fallen upon the more credulous section of the natives. Even sceptical persons thought it rather provoking on the part of Providence, or whoever managed these things, that the disquieting of men's minds should take place during this particular fortnight, the most important of the whole year, midway between the great feasts of Saint Dodekanus and Saint Eulalia when the island was crammed with visitors.

And there followed late at night yet another surprise. Mr. Parker had been called away from his duties at the Club in hot haste by the news that his lady was seriously ill. A few days earlier she had been stung on the lip by a mosquito; no further attention was paid to the incident, though the disagreeable south wind provoked a rise in temperature and some discomfort. On this afternoon, however, her face had suddenly begun to assume strange tints and to swell in wondrous fashion. It was no already enlarged to twice its natural size and altogether—in the words of the physician who had been summoned to her villa—"a thing to see."

It had always been a thing to see. So, at least, said those who were privileged to know. There were tropical strains in her blood-strains from some flowery land in the Caribbean Sea-strains which refused to mingle in harmonious fashion with the white elements in her ancestry. She was neither lovely nor lovable, and it was regarded as a kindly dispensation of Heaven that some malformation of the lower limbs kept her confined to her boudoir, where no visitors ever called save a few misguided newcomers to the island who were unaware of her idiosyncrasies. These idiosyncrasies, due to the enforced inactivity of her feet, took the form of a grotesque activity of the tongue. Her infirmity preventing her from learning how things really stood, she let her phantasy run riot on the occasional reports which reached the villa; and that phantasy, nourished by lack of physical exercise, indulged in a love of scandal-mongering which bordered, and sometimes trespassed, on the pathological. She distilled scandal from every pore, and in such liberal quantities that even the smiling and good-natured Don Francesco once spoke of her as "the serpent in the Paradise." But perhaps he only said that because Madame Parker was not over-fond of him—his rival the PARROCO being her friend and confessor.

Such being the case, the prospect of her possible demise was received with unconcern and even relief by all save a notable number of tradesmen who prayed fervently for her health because the lady, presuming on her connection with the official representative of the friendly state of Nicaragua, had contrived to owe them considerable sums of money. Knowing the Commissioner as they did, these victims feared that they would never be able to collect their due in the event of her death. Hence their prayers for her speedy recovery.

What would that gentleman do without her? For it was his redeeming feature that he felt, or professed to feel, affection for this graceless harridan who was the only person on earth that believed, or professed to believe, in the integrity of his motives. It is to be presumed that they saw through each other perfectly; she, at least, may well have appraised him at his true value. She must have known him for a dishonest fool. Yet this principle of mutual attachment was never relinquished. Wiser than her stepbrother, she knew that a house divided against itself must fall; she therefore approved, forcefully if without conviction, of his every word and deed. Such approval did him good. It created a fictitious self-esteem. And this was really rather unfortunate, since self-esteem, by giving him a sense of importance and consequence in the world, rendered him a good deal more objectionable to his fellow-creatures than he need have been.

Meanwhile she lingered on, and a small group of enquirers were gathered round the physician who was returning late at night from his third visit. The moralists among them saw the finger of God in the fact that her mouth, out of which had proceeded so much harm to strong men and women, should now be sealed by one of the frailest of His creatures. The doctor shrugged his shoulders at this kind of talk. He was no moralizer; he was a true Southerner, an aesthete—one of those who could appreciate the subtlest beauty of a skin disease. He waxed discursive on the subject; said that the lady's face reminded him of the rainbow in a certain picture by a local genius; avowed that there were moments when even a doctor's hard life had its compensations, and that this was one of them.

His enthusiasm carried the audience off their feet. It converted the sternest preachers into artists. They forgot to talk about moral lessons. All congratulated the good Aesculapius on his choice of the medical profession as a career and his luck in beholding a spectacle such as this; especially when he added, with glowing eloquence, that it was astonishing how so small an insect, a mere mosquito, should be able to produce an eruption of this magnitude and in colours, moreover, which would have made Titian or Peter Paul Rubens burst with envy.



CHAPTER XVII



Decidedly, things were happening, as Mr. Heard would have said.

Strange to say that gentleman himself was probably the only person on Nepenthe who still remained in ignorance of all these praeternatural occurrences. In the early morning, after admiring the sea overhung by a cloudless sky and once more thanking the Duchess in his heart for such a delightful residence when he might have been boxed up in some stuffy hotel bedroom, he descended to the beach for his morning bathe. Such was his custom. The swim did him good, it freshened him up.

Then back to breakfast and a busy morning's work, to settle up arrears of correspondence. He wrote to various friends in England; he wrote a long letter—the third since his arrival—to his mother, telling her of all such things as might interest her; a nice gossipy letter, full of information about the entertainments of the foreigners on Nepenthe, about the obliging natives, the Russian colony, the persistent sirocco, his own domestic life, his improved health. Much as he liked the place and people, he said, he expected to be leaving in a week or so. He concluded with two pages describing his last visit to his cousin. She was rather poorly or troubled in mind, he thought; he would see her again ere long.

And that reminded him—he would write to Mrs. Meadows as well. He did so, enquiring after her health, asking whether he could be of any assistance, and promising to call again shortly. "Rather a formal epistle," he concluded, on reading it through. He was unable to force the note: he could never write or talk otherwise than he felt, and this cousin, after all, was rather remote, self-centred, and difficult of comprehension. "It must go as it is," he decided. "To be quite frank, she's not exactly encouraging either. Asks such queer questions. What on earth did she mean by that conundrum about illegitimacy, I wonder?"

Then luncheon; then a long sleep till tea-time. Everyone slept at this hour during the days of sirocco-heat. What else was there to do? He had already learned to look forward to that calm post-prandial hour of slumber. One owes something to oneself, N'EST CE PAS? as Muhlen had said.

On waking he bethought him of an invitation to tea with Madame Steynlin. He would have listened gladly to her music and her instructive and charitable talk about Nepenthe and its inhabitants. But he was afraid of meeting Russians there. The lady seemed to be specializing in Muscovites just then, and Mr. Heard was not in the Russian mood. He would take what he called "a day off" from social duties.

Slipping his field glasses into his pocket, he rambled upwards by now familiar paths, past white farmhouses nestling in a riot of greenery; till he reached the barer regions. The vines were more sparsely cultivated here, and soon all trace of human handcraft was at an end. He found himself on a little plateau of volcanic cinders and lava-blocks. The spare grasses and flowers that grew between fuliginous masses of stone were already losing their bright enamel under the withering heat; a peculiar odour, acrid but stimulating to the nostrils, rose from the parched ground. Here he rested awhile. He scanned the landscape through his glasses—a wine-coloured sea at his feet, flecked with sailing boats innumerable; confronting him from the volcano whose playful antics were even then attracting the attention of a crowded Piazza. And his eye roved along the serrated contours of the mainland, its undulating shore-line, its distant peaks throbbing in the sunset glow; they rested upon many villages, coral-tinted specks of light, so far away they seemed to belong to another world. It was a pleasure to breathe on these aerial heights, surrounded by sky and sea; to survey the world as a bird might survey it. Like floating in air. . . .

He sat and smoked and pondered. He tried to get himself into perspective. "I must straighten myself out," he thought. Assuredly it was a restful place, this Nepenthe, abounding in kindly people; his affection for it grew with every day. Rest without; but where was that old rest within, that sense of plain tasks plainly to be performed, of tangible duty? Whither had it gone? Alien influences were at work upon him. Something new had insinuated itself into his blood, some demon of doubt and disquiet which threatened his old-established conceptions. Whence came it? The effect of changed environment—new friends, new food, new habits? The unaccustomed leisure which gave him, for the first time, a chance of thinking about non-professional matters? The south wind acting on his still weakened health? All these together? Or had he reached an epoch in his development, the termination of one of those definite life—periods when all men worthy of the name pass through some cleansing process of spiritual desquamation, and slip their outworn weeds of thought and feeling?

Whatever it was he seemed to be no longer his own master, as in former days. Fate had caused his feet to stray towards something new—something alarming. He was poised, as it were, on the brink of a gulf. Or rather, it was as if that old mind of his, like a boat sailing hitherto briskly before the wind, had suddenly encountered a bank of calm, of utter and ominous calm; it was a thing spell-bound; a toy of circumstances beyond human control. The canvas hung in the stagnant air. From which quarter would the quickening breeze arrive? Whither would it bring him?

And his glance fell upon a slender coquettish vessel, a new-comer, lying in the sunny harbour under the cliff. He knew it from hearsay. It was the FLUTTERBY, van Koppen's yacht. He recollected all he had ever heard about the millionaire; he tried to conjure up some idea of his features and habits from gossip overheard at odd moments.

This man, he concluded, must be intelligent beyond ordinary standards. It would be worth while making his acquaintance. America is notoriously the land of youthful precocity. But it is not every American who, as a stripling of fourteen summers, puzzling in callow boyish perplexity upon the thousand ills that afflict mankind and burning with desire for their betterment, makes a discovery in Malthusian methods destined to convulse the trade and the social life of a continent. Not everybody is like young Koppen—he attached a van to his name on reaching his seventy-fifth million—who, possessed at that time of barely three dollars in the world and not even the shadow of a moustache, had both the wit to realize the hygienic importance of a certain type of goods and the pertinacity to insist on cheapening their price, in the interest of public health, to such an extent that—to quote from subsequent advertisements—they should be "within reach of the humblest home." It is not everybody—no, not every American—who, after revolutionizing the technique of manufacture and shattering the Paris monopoly, dares boldly to advertise the improved article across the length and breadth of the land, and to thrust his commodity upon a reluctant market in the teeth of popular prejudice and commercial rivalry. Van Koppen had done all this. And it was noted that he had done it without ever for a moment losing sight of his dual aim—mercantile and philanthropic; for if he was a humanitarian by natural disposition, he became what he called "a tradesman by force of circumstance"—and not a bad tradesman, either. He had done all this and more. Unlike most self-made men who remain yoked like oxen to their sordid affairs (in harness, they aptly call it) he had been shrewd enough to retire from business in the heyday of his age, on a relatively modest competence of fifteen million dollars a year. He was spending his time at present in the gratification of personal whims, and leaving the remaining millions to be picked up by whoever cared to take the trouble. Manifestly an unusual type of millionaire—this man who had lived down half a century of obloquy and was now hailed, in well-informed circles, as the saviour of his country.

Nor was this all. Van Koppen was described as a brisk, genial, talkative old fellow, rather fat, with a clear complexion, sound teeth, shrubby grey beard, a twang barely sufficient to authenticate his transatlantic descent, and the digestion of a boa-constrictor. He was tremendously fond of buttered tea-cakes—so the Duchess said; a man who, in the words of Madame Steynlin, "really appreciated good music" and who, as the PARROCO never ceased to declare, could be relied on to give a handsome contribution towards the funds for supporting the poor and repairing a decrepit parish organ. (The parish poor were never in such dire distress, the parish organ never so hopelessly deranged, as during that annual week when the FLUTTERBY rode at anchor.)

In fact there was no doubt about it: van Koppen had the gifts of making himself beloved. But nobody's company was more markedly to his taste than that of Count Caloveglia. The two old men spent hours together in Caloveglia's shady courtyard, eating candied fruits, sipping home-made liqueurs of peaches or mountain-herbs and talking—ever talking. Between them there existed some strong and strange bond of friendship or interest. Speculation was rife as to its origin, its meaning, its end.

What was all the talk about?

Andrea, the devoted retainer, however artfully approached on the subject, was ambiguous to a distressing degree. It was understood, none the less, that Count Caloveglia was perhaps of use to the other in the accumulation of classical relics which—the Italian Government forbidding the export of antique works of art—were smuggled at night-time on board the FLUTTERBY to be incorporated in a magnificent museum somewhere out West, a museum which was destined to be presented by van Koppen as a gift to the great American people. Again, it might be inferred that these two elderly gentlemen, choice representatives of two conflicting civilizations, widely experienced and profoundly versed, each in his own way, in the knowledge of mankind, took a sincere and childlike pleasure in one another's society, going over past times and anxious, to the very end of life, to add something fresh to their store of learning.

Both these explanations were sufficiently plausible to be straightway dismissed by the majority as inadequate to account for the phenomenon. They inclined, rather, to adopt an alternative and alluring theory propounded by the Commissioner's lady. This theory laid it down that the American was bargaining for the Count's daughter, a pretty girl whom the old ruffian had shut up in a convent somewhere in anticipation of the day when a purchaser, rich enough to content his inordinate lust for gold, should present himself. Van Koppen was that purchaser. They had now been haggling, she said, for two or three years; a DENOUEMENT might be expected at any moment. If the Count's avarice could be appeased the unhappy child might expect to find herself, with as little delay as possible, an inmate of the floating harem on board the FLUTTERBY.

No visitor was safe from her lively tongue, and alas, certain little details, insignificant in themselves, gave ground for the ungenerous hypothesis that van Koppen, like all the rest of them, had a cloven hoof. There was the usual "dark side" to this otherwise charming and profitable stranger, the usual mystery, the usual fly in the ointment. In the first place it was a singular fact, much commented on, that nobody had ever been invited on board the yacht. That alone was suspicious. IF YOU WANT TO GET ANYTHING OUT OF OLD KOPPEN—so ran a local saying—DON'T PROPOSE A VISIT TO THE FLUTTERBY. More curious still was the circumstance that nobody, save the owner and certain bearded venerables of the crew, had ever been known to land on the island. How about the other passengers? Who were they? The millionaire never so much as mentioned their existence. It was surmised, accordingly, that he voyaged over the seas with a bevy of light-hearted nymphs; a disreputable mode of conduct for a man of his advanced years, and all the more aggravating to other people since, like a crafty and jealous old sultan, he screened them from public view. Impropriety could be overlooked—it could pass, where a millionaire was concerned, under the heading of unconventionality; but such glaring selfishness might end in being fatal to his reputation.

Confirmatory evidence of this scandalous state of affairs was obtained, one sunny morning, in the most unexpected fashion. A fisherman named Luigi, paddling about the stern of the FLUTTERBY where, in consequence of the kitchen refuse thrown overboard, marine beasts of every shape and kind were wont to congregate, cast down his spear at what looked like a splendid caerulean flat-fish of uncommon size and brilliance. The creature shivered and collapsed at that contact in the most unnatural, unfishlike manner; and Luigi drew up, to his amazement, a fragment of a lady's dress—to wit, a short length of sky-blue CREPE DE CHINE. Bitterly disappointed, he nevertheless took the matter with the characteristic Southern philosophy. "This will do for my little Annarella," he decided. And doubtless the child, arrayed in these celestial tints, would have been the envy of all her girl companions at the next festival of the patron saint b for the fact that Mr. Freddy Parker was strolling on the beach at the very moment of the man's return to land. By a rare piece of good luck, as he himself phrased it, his eye fell upon the dripping fabric; by a stroke of intuition not rare but unique, he divined its worth as a sociological document. Promising the man a reasonable sum of money (the Commissioner happened to have no loose change in his pocket just then) he carried the incrimination morsel in triumph to the Residency, where it was displayed by his lady, to all and sundry, in corroboration of her theory.

"That settles it," she used to say. "Unless indeed he dresses up his cabin-boy as a girl, and in that case . . ."

Mr. Heard, reposing on the rough pumiceous ground with his eye fixed upon the naughty FLUTTERBY whose virginal whiteness, with declining day, had assumed a tell-tale crimson blush, pieced together these and sundry other little bits of information. They made him more than usually thoughtful; they chimed in with his momentary mood of self-analysis.

One thing was dead certain. To circumnavigate the globe in the arms of a dozen chorus-girls was not his ideal. He was not built on those lines. He purposed, God Willing, to spend the evening of his days in another and more respectable manner. A vision arose before his imagination—a vision of a peaceful homestead among the green lanes of England, where he would lead a life of study and of kindly, unostentatious acts, with family and friends; old friends of College days, and London days, and African days; new friends from among the rising generation—straightforward and decent-minded youngsters, whom he would take to his heart like a father.

Why could not van Koppen see the beauty of such dreamings?

And yet, he argued, if the man does seclude them in this fashion—supposing they really exist—who can blame him? No woman is safe on Nepenthe with persons like Muhlen about. From chance meetings in the street, from stray conversations overheard, he had been led to take an unreasoning dislike to this foreigner, whose attitude towards the gentle sex struck him as that of a cur. Muhlen, if the yacht were his, would flaunt these ladies about the streets. The American, in keeping them secluded on board, betrayed a sense of shame, almost of delicacy; a sense of his obligations towards society which, so far as it went, was rather a laudable trait of character than otherwise.

And then—the difference between himself and the millionaire in life, training, antecedents! A career such as van Koppen's called for qualities different, often actually antagonistic, to his own. You could not possibly expect to find in a successful American merchant those features which go to form a successful English ecclesiastic. Certain human attributes were mutually exclusive—avarice and generosity, for instance; others no doubt mysteriously but inextricably intertwined. A man was an individual; he could not be divided or taken to pieces; he could not be expected to possess virtues incompatible with the rest of his mental equipment, however desirable such virtues might be. Who knows? Van Koppen's doubtful acts might be an unavoidable expression of his personality, an integral part of that nature under whose ferocious stimulus he had climbed to his present enviable position. And Mr. Heard was both shocked and amused to reflect that but for the co-operation of certain coarse organic impulses to which these Nepenthe legends testified, the millionaire might never have been able to acquire the proud title of "Saviour of his Country."

"That's queer," he mused. "It never struck me before. Shows how careful one must be. Dear me! Perhaps the ladies have inevitable organic impulses of a corresponding kind. Decidedly queer. H'm. Ha. Now I wonder. . . . And perhaps, if the truth were known, these young persons are having quite a good time of it—"

He paused abruptly in his reflections. He had caught himself in the act; in the very act of condoning vice. Mr. Thomas Heard was seriously concerned.

Something was wrong, he concluded. He would never have argued on similar lines a short time ago. This downright sympathy with sinners, what did it portend? Did it betray a lapse from his old-established principles, a waning of his respect for traditional morality? Was he becoming a sinner himself?

Thomas—the doubting apostle. He wondered whether there was anything in a name.

Then he called to mind how he had approved—yes, almost approved—of Don Francesco's deplorable act of familiarity towards the little serving maid. An absurdly small matter, but symptomatic. Things like that had happened in Africa lately. He remembered various instances where he had intervened on behalf of the natives, despite the murmured protests of the missionaries. They were such laughing, good-natured animals—so fine and healthy! What was it, this excessive love of erring humanity, and whither trending? Mr. Heard began to vex his soul to stray about in a maze of doubts. It was so miserably complex, this old, old problem of right and wrong; so unreasonably many-sided. Anon, he pulled himself together with characteristic bluntness.

"The whole question," he concluded, "is plain as a pikestaff. Am I becoming more of a Christian, or less?"

As though to learn an answer to his riddle he gazed fro he eyrie over the wide horizon, upon leagues of sea rising upward to blend their essence, under the magic touch of evening, with the purple dome overhead.

The elements, as is their wont upon such occasions, gave forth no clear reply.

None the less, while the moist south wind, shorn of the sting of midday, relaxed his pores and passed over his cheek like a warm caress, there exhaled from those limitless spaces a sense of joyous amplitude—of freedom and exhilaration.



CHAPTER XVIII



And now, in the sunlit hour of dawn, he was bathing again. An excellent habit. It did him good, this physical contact with nature. Africa had weakened his constitution. Nepenthe made him feel younger once more—capable of fun and mischief. The muscles were acquiring a fresh tone, that old zest of life was coming back to him. His health, without a shadow of doubt, had greatly improved.

While disporting himself in amphibious joy among the tepid waves he seemed to cast off that sense of unease which had pursued him of late. It was good to inhale the harsh salty savour—to submit himself to these calming voices—to float, like a careless Leviathan, in the blue immensity; good to be alive, simply alive.

Another hot and clammy day was in store for the island. No matter. This sirocco, of which older inhabitants might well complain, had so far exerted no baleful influence upon him. Quite the reverse. Under its tender moistening touch his frame, desiccated in the tropics, seemed to open out, even as a withered flower uncloses its petals in water. In Africa all this thoughts and energies had been concentrated upon a single point. Here he expanded. New interests, new sensations, seemed to lie in wait for him. Never had he felt so alert, so responsive to spiritual impressions, so appreciative of natural beauty.

Lying in motionless ecstasy on the buoyant element he watched the mists of morning as they soared into the air. Reluctantly, with imperceptible movement, they detached themselves from their watery home; they clambered aloft in spectral companies, drawn skyward, as by some beckoning hand, under the stealthy compulsion of the sun. They crept against the tawny precipices, clinging to their pinnacles like shreds of pallid gauze, and nestling demurely among dank clefts where something of the mystery of night still lingered. It was a procession of dainty shapes wreathing themselves into gracious attitudes; mounting—ever mounting. As he beheld their filmy draperies that swayed phantom-like among the crags overhead, he understood those pagan minds of olden days for whom such wavering exhalations were none other than sea-nymphs, Atlantides, offspring of some mild-eyed god of Ocean rising to greet their playfellows, the Oreads, on the hills.