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 OUK OWN POMPEII 
 
OUE OWN POMPEII 
 
 A ROMANCE OF TO-MORROW 
 
 " La du plaisant A^Til la saisin immortelle 
 Sans eschange le suit, 
 La terre sans labeur, de sa grasse mamelle 
 
 Touts chose y produit, 
 D'etibas la troupe sainte autrefois amoureuse, 
 
 Nous honorant sur tons, 
 Viendra nous saluer, s'estimant bien-heureuse 
 De s'accointer de nous." 
 
 — Pierre de Rossakd. 
 
 IN TWO VOLUMES 
 VOL. I. 
 
 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SOXS 
 
 EDINBURGH AND LONDON 
 
 MDCCCLXXXVII 
 
 
R6R 
 
 Vr 
 
 TO 
 
 H. M. S. AXD E. S., 
 
 7f Ti/JEF TIVLL ACCEPT IT, 
 THIS LITTLE BOOK IS DEDICATED. 
 
OUR OWN POMPEII. 
 
 CHAPTEE I. 
 
 London Society, about the time ttiat our story 
 opens, was getting a little tired of even its latest 
 amusements. It was hoping, indeed, that some one 
 would be kind enough to invent a new dissipa- 
 tion as soon as possible. It had tried " The Or- 
 leans" — had heard of "Almack's" — had danced 
 and been danced to at " The New Club " ; and 
 was now primed, as one may say, to go off some- 
 where else, if only an aim should be given to it. 
 "V\1iat could be more lucky, therefore, at this 
 particular moment, than a happy thought that 
 occurred to Mr Smythe, himself one of Society's 
 favoured constituents, whom it condescended to 
 
 VOL. I. A 
 
OUR OWN POMPEII. 
 
 know, on condition that he should devote his 
 talents to its amusements and interests. 
 
 For to Mr Smythe (he called himself Smythe, 
 though his real name was Smith) the idea of 
 forming " The Pompeii Club " was due. 
 
 It was to be quite unique : a grand interna- 
 tional affiiir, with committees in London, Paris, 
 Vienna, Eome, and New York, to elect its mem- 
 bers. It was to be housed in a lovely little city 
 of its very own — built especially for it, in imi- 
 tation of the classical one, but without a too 
 slavish following of the original. Health, comfort, 
 and exquisite beauty were to mingle in its ideal 
 perfection. Nestling beneath the deep wooded 
 hills — washed by the Mediterranean ripples — it 
 would seem an earthly Paradise of mosaic and 
 marble, of snug chambers and noble halls, of tiny 
 streets and breezy spaces, planned by the best 
 architects, and filled with the brilliant life of 
 choice and charming people. 
 
 Mr Smythe, having made up his mind that his 
 Pompeii was feasible, and would be delightful, 
 besides enabling liim to show his good nature 
 once more by inventing another distraction for 
 
OUR OWN POMPEII. 
 
 his friends, lost no time in calling upon Lady 
 Marlowe, who, he knew, would enthusiastically take 
 up his plans, and help him to carry them to a 
 successful conclusion. 
 
 She was an extremely enterprising member of 
 Society. She boasted that you met a greater num- 
 ber of " nice people " at her parties than at any 
 other house in London. And it was characteristic 
 of her, that although she had many other advan- 
 tages, this was the only one that she ever men- 
 tioned with evident gratification. With a boldness 
 equalled by its success, she had ventured to revive 
 the salon ; and was " at home " to her friends 
 (among whom it was a privilege to count one's 
 self) every Tuesday during the season. 
 
 Discriminating people enjoyed her evenings with 
 a peculiar zest. She gave a certain distinguishing 
 tone or flavour to these by including among her 
 guests a clever, pretty, and intellectual element, 
 " which one never meets anywhere else," every- 
 body said ; while at the same time there was 
 always a sufficient contingent of " everybody," to 
 prevent them from feeling that there was " no- 
 body " there. 
 
OUR OWN POMPEII. 
 
 Both in her friendships and in her life she was 
 very independent, without being in the least Bohe- 
 mian. She was well educated and ubiquitously in- 
 tellectual. She designed art needlework ; she sang ; 
 she photographed. In addition to all these acquire- 
 ments, she had finally shown her taste by acquiring 
 a certain amount of beauty ; and after this proof, 
 it is needless to add she was very clever. Last, 
 but not least, she now and then wrote (and got 
 published) a charming novel, in the most advanced 
 and approved of our latter-day styles — novels 
 which busy themselves about four or five highly 
 developed and brilliantly typical people, with elab- 
 orate and much analysed characters, who stay 
 at or travel to delightful places in Europe, Asia, 
 and America. 
 
 Lady ]\Iarlowe was at home ; and when Mr 
 Smythe had described his plans, she felt as though 
 the crowning moment of her life were come. 
 
 " What a lovely place we will have ! " she ex- 
 claimed. " Full of cliarming people — nothing 
 but charming people. No tourists, no mob. All 
 that is most perfect from every country. Why 
 shouldn't it become a second Athens ? " 
 
OUR OWN POMPEII. 
 
 "We must at any rate be careful that it don't 
 become a second Corinth," said Mr Smythe. 
 " However, I think it a capital plan ; and the 
 first thing to be done is to organise the English 
 Committee." 
 
 So they set to work with the utmost tact and 
 discretion to sound the " right people " on the 
 subject. Most of the right people thought that 
 it would be delightful if it could be managed — 
 were anxious to be members if the club were 
 really started — though they shrank from being 
 placed on the committee or having their names 
 publicly mixed up with the affair at present. 
 
 But Mr Smythe drew such glowing pictures of 
 how delightful, how exclusive, how extremely 
 " smart " it would be ; Lady Marlowe discoursed 
 so enthusiastically on the brilliance, the beauty, 
 and the charm of a perfect modern life spent in a 
 lovely and classical city (for she always spoke as 
 though they were going to take up their abode in 
 the ancient city, revived, as if by magic, for their 
 exclusive benefit), — that at last the very " rightest " 
 of the right people were won over, and the pre- 
 liminary committee was formed. 
 
OUR OWN POMrEII. 
 
 The Duke of Oxford consented to be on it. Both 
 Lord Marshford and Lord St Kevan were secured. 
 Lord Downstreamdown represented the sporting 
 element; and of course no committee of such a 
 club would be complete without Jack de Barry, 
 who, as every one knows, was the smartest man 
 in London, though nobody quite knows why he 
 occupied this unique position. For although he 
 organised dances, played polo at Hurlingham, 
 yachted at Cowes, shot in Scotland, and, in short, 
 did the correct thing on the right spot at each 
 particular moment, all the year round, there were 
 hundreds of other men doing the same, who were 
 at the same time showier, cleverer, and more osten- 
 tatious than he. Some people thought that his 
 position was due to his having the soles of his 
 boots blacked (in the French style). Others at- 
 tributed it to his kind, pleasant, and good-hearted 
 character — he never said an ill - natured word 
 about anybody — but they, I fear, were probably 
 mistaken. 
 
 Wlien he joined, success was nearly certain. 
 And while several other leading people completed 
 the men's committee, the ladies' division began to 
 
OUR OWN POMPEII. 
 
 elect the ladies — the election being accompanied by 
 such intrigues, heart-burnings, passionate appeals, 
 and still more passionate imprecations, as the 
 reader may try to imagine, but which cannot be 
 described. 
 
 Then diplomatic negotiations were opened up 
 with the various Embassies, committees were ar- 
 ranged in the several capitals of Europe, and the 
 ballot simultaneously set to work over half the 
 world to find out who were the elect and chosen 
 people to form an ideal community, in a city 
 which should bloom forth with every antique per- 
 fection and modern luxury. 
 
 At length the club was really started. The 
 world in general heard about it with mingled feel- 
 ings of awe and envy. It was preached against 
 in a fashionable church. The Society papers were 
 divided in their opinions about it — one paper even 
 going so far as to say that it was the last vortex 
 into which a corrupt society, drunk and maddened 
 by luxury and vice, were about to fling themselves, 
 before being hurled to destruction in the whirl- 
 pool of retribution. Some offensive nobodies were 
 elected, and a few inoffensive peers were " pilled." 
 
OUR OWN POMPEII. 
 
 Indeed one duke was so treated, as a capriciously 
 selected token intended to show that the com- 
 mittee were no mere respecters of persons, and 
 selected their members by a nobler and deeper test 
 than that of suitability and position. 
 
 It will therefore be at once seen that the whole 
 affair was a tremendous success. There were 5000 
 members elected, and every member had the right 
 of introducing a friend, if the city were not full 
 already. A perfect site near San Eemo had been 
 selected by the provisional committee ; and the city 
 was begun at once, from plans prepared by an inter- 
 national committee of architects, who proposed to 
 build it on the plan of Pompeii (the old Pompeii, 
 as it was now called), without slavishly adhering to 
 the original in every detail. 
 
 Of course money was a difficulty ; but an Amer- 
 ican gentleman was discovered, of boundless wealth 
 and equally boundless social ambition. It was dip- 
 lomatically explained to him that, if he would build 
 the city, it might prove a good speculation, in 
 addition to making him a social power and giving 
 him a world-wide reputation as a benefactor of so- 
 ciety. However rich a man may be, he can do but 
 
OUR OWN POMPEII, 
 
 little good in the world in comparison with all the 
 misery and poverty that weigh down the majority 
 of the human race. And with such brilliant hopes 
 of social philanthropy held out to him,, was it likely 
 that a clever American would forego their realisa- 
 tion for the sake of a few hundred thousands of 
 pounds ? Having secured the jjromise of £50,000 
 in entrance-fees, he at once concluded the bargain. 
 And the club, being now fixed on every foundation 
 that could give it stability, began to rise like a 
 series of fairy palaces among the olive-clad hills 
 that shelter the Eiviera. 
 
 By the following spring everything was finished, 
 and one warm day in February saw the city 
 really opened. It glittered in the distance like 
 some poet's vision of dream-wrought loveliness — 
 its feet lapped by the sunny ripples of its southern 
 sea, and its walls embraced by deep masses of over- 
 hanging foliage, clinging to them and overshadow- 
 ing them with a flickering canopy of entwining 
 branches, through which the sunshine broke in little 
 points of light. 
 
 It was approached by a gateway in the wall, 
 opening directly on to a number of diminutive 
 
10 OUR OWN POMPEII. 
 
 streets. They ran in all directions, and were 
 lined by rows of tiny houses, built in exact 
 imitation of the classical ones. Some of them, 
 however, simply consisted of one or more bedrooms, 
 while others had a sitting-room in addition, which 
 could be engaged at the option of the members. 
 
 The Stadium was approached from the main 
 street. It was paved, and laid out in lawn- 
 tennis courts, with a track running round for 
 chariot races — an ancient amusement that Mr 
 Smytlie hoped to revive. At the sea end of it 
 rose a gymnasium, opening on to a noble swimming- 
 bath. The clear water reflected a stately row of 
 graceful statues, that paused at its brim and bent 
 their beautiful heads over its cool green depths. 
 The whole scene seemed to " compose " with the 
 glowing forms of the happy bathers — swimming, 
 diving, or resting upon the warm pavement — into 
 a living picture of that Hellenic life which has 
 passed away so long. 
 
 In the centre of the city was the Forum, paved 
 with mosaic. A charming little stage was built at 
 one end of it, with a proscenium full of tender tints 
 and tones, given by the mingling marbles and the 
 
OUR OWN POMPEII. 11 
 
 rich drapery of the curtains behind them. The 
 stage was flanked on either side by flights of 
 marble steps leading down to the sea. 
 
 And above them might be seen a generous view 
 of grey-green hills and far blue waters, that shone 
 with a dark Southern radiance in the sunshine, 
 and changed, enchanted by the moonlight, into a 
 magic landscape of dreamy light and vague deli- 
 cious distance. 
 
 Along the Forum, on either side of it, were 
 ranged the dining-rooms, coffee-rooms, reading- 
 rooms, and the various other apartments neces- 
 sary to the collective life of the present day, 
 each built separately in the fashion of an ex- 
 quisite little classical temple, and painted through- 
 out with frescoes, either copied from those at Pom- 
 peii or designed by the best modern artists. In 
 the cool and spacious courts, tiny fountains fell in 
 spray among the gold-fish. Soft fabrics waved in 
 the doorways, or were lifted aside to open out a 
 vision of stately colonnades, corners filled with 
 flowers, and little peeps of blue sky — strangely dark 
 amid the carved cornices, the clustering walls, and 
 the shadowed doorway, that seemed to frame them. 
 
12 OUR OWN POMPEII. 
 
 Everything was hushed, and pervaded with the 
 softest, the most hixurious spirit of classical fel- 
 icity and calm repose. Through the gleaming 
 vestibules and sunlit gardens, graceful and lovely 
 Italian servants, in short clinging classical dresses, 
 passed noiselessly to and fro. 
 
 But the splash of fountains, the sound of distant 
 music, and the deep whispers of the distant waves, 
 were not the only sounds that broke the stillness ; 
 for a pleasant chatter tilled the halls, and indi- 
 cated that all this was not some memory of buried 
 loveliness, but one that was to yield delight to 
 every one who should come to enjoy it. 
 
 Men in all those picturesque costumes of cloth 
 and flannel that comfort can suggest ; ladies dressed 
 so perfectly that mute admiration should take the 
 place of description ; and ladies dressed (to put it 
 gently) as one might see them anywhere else, — • 
 were scattered about among the glancing lights 
 and rich shadows, admiring the buildings, chatting 
 to their friends, or lounging on the comfortable 
 seats and divans that were provided. 
 
 Occasionally some one would play a few notes 
 on a piano to try its tone, or knock about the bil- 
 
OUR OWN POMPEII. 13 
 
 Hard balls in order to see if the tables were level. 
 There was one old gentleman scanning the wine-list 
 to assure himself that none of his favourite vintages 
 were omitted. And several ladies were already in- 
 quiring where the fireplace might be looked for in 
 a classical home, becoming fiercely indignant when 
 Mr Leo assured them that a bronze pan of charcoal 
 was more in keeping — helped more to give the true 
 Roman " note " to the place. One American lady 
 repeatedly demanded an " elevator " — though where 
 she wished to be elevated to was not perhaps so 
 clear. The majority of English ladies declared 
 that the place was perforated — honeycombed — 
 with draughts ; and one German baron threatened 
 to resign when he discovered that he could not 
 close all the windows, because there were no 
 windows to close. 
 
 But in spite of these little contretemps, the gene- 
 ral murmur of conversation expressed a feeling of 
 gratified pleasure ; and the various little exclam- 
 ations of delight that fell on the air might be sum- 
 marised into the constantly recurring phrase of 
 " How delightful it all is ! " 
 
 On such a day — warm as a summer's afternoon 
 
14 OUR OWN POMPEII. 
 
 in England, yet tempered by the Mediterranean 
 breeze, with the perfect city at last complete, and 
 filled with delightful and delighted people — criti- 
 cism must wholly sink for once into admiration. 
 And one could not choose a more auspicious 
 moment than the present for congratulating Lady 
 Marlowe and Mr Smythe, the various committees, 
 and the whole of the members, on the brilliant 
 fulfilment of this happiest of schemes. 
 
OUR OWN POMPEII, 15 
 
 CHAPTER 11. 
 
 The club was opened in the beginning of March, 
 and the southern French trains were daily filled 
 with members hastening to take up their quarters 
 and assist at its success. On one of these days the 
 corner seat of a first-class carriage was occupied 
 by a young man who divided his attention between 
 a newspaper and the somewhat monotonous view 
 that France provides in such abundance. He was 
 a good-looking young fellow, who combined a great 
 appreciation for all that is "nicest" in life with 
 a careless and winning grace which generally en- 
 sured his enjoyment of it, and which endeared 
 him with a peculiar charm to his friends, of whom, 
 it is needless to say, he had a great many. At 
 Harrow he did some work and a great deal of 
 play. And when he went up to Oxford to spend 
 
16 OUR OWN POMPEII. 
 
 those happy years which pass like a sunny dream 
 — filled with so much joy, and friendship, and 
 beauty, and learning, and buoyant exercise, that 
 they seem to blend into one sweet memory, one 
 long spell of poetry and romance — he plunged 
 into everything with an intellectual excitement 
 that was stimulated by the harmonious loveliness 
 around. He worked — as he himself said — when he 
 had nothing more important to do. He read a 
 great deal, sitting in the deep window-seat of his 
 dark-panelled room. He played polo and hunted. 
 He joined the Bullingdon ; spoke sometimes at the 
 Union ; knew many men in many sets ; and was 
 generally called "charming," when an adjective 
 was required to describe him. 
 
 His chief characteristic was an inquiring energy, 
 a restless activity both of mind and body, that 
 was almost too unflagging, leading him to inquire 
 so swiftly into every branch of knowledge he came 
 across — to find so many "interesting things" to 
 learn and accomplish — that he had been called 
 superficial ; though it must be added that what 
 he lost in depth he gained in breadth— in surface, 
 as it were. He had a character " large enough to 
 
OUR OWN POMPEII. 17 
 
 feel the irritation of small precautions " ; and it 
 therefore may not seem surprising that his rela- 
 tions, with that perversity which is sometimes found 
 among even the best of relatives, considered his 
 besetting weakness was a kind of idle and lazy 
 carelessness — a mental slovenliness, nearly con- 
 nected with a continual desire to lie on a sofa 
 with the eyes closed. When he went to Harrow 
 and was in the lowest form, they said it was so 
 characteristic of him. Wlien he managed to get 
 into " the sixth," they said, if he had not been so 
 lazy he might have been captain of the school. 
 Again, when he went up to Oxford and got a 
 first in " Mods " and a second in " Greats," they 
 said, feeling that they were only speaking for his 
 ultimate good, " How easy ' Mods ' must be, if dear 
 Claud got a first ! Indeed we're told that it is 
 almost impossible to take a less distinguished 
 degree than he has done." 
 
 Having left Oxford, he found himself at 
 twenty-five called to the Bar without any im- 
 mediate prospect of briefs. What could be there- 
 fore more natural than to find him called also 
 towards the sunshine and the South ? especially as 
 
 VOL. I. B 
 
18 OUK OWN POMPEII. 
 
 he had the greatest inducement of all — a pleasant 
 companion. For an old friend of his, Lord Darling- 
 ton, who had once been his fag at school, and was 
 now a frank ingenuous youth — ladies called him a 
 pretty boy — of twenty-one, was with him. He was 
 tall and slim, with a small aristocratic head, blue 
 eyes, and plenty of light wavy hair, that had a habit 
 of tumbling over his forehead as though to assert 
 its individuality. No one had ever accused him of 
 being unwholesomely or uncomfortably clever; on 
 the contrary, he was delightfully simple and con- 
 fiding. " Amiable " would be the word exactly to 
 describe him, if it were not already dedicated to 
 the process of " damning a friend with faint praise." 
 And faint praise (even when unaccompanied by 
 anything worse) would be quite inadequate to give 
 an impression of Darlington's character — a pleasant, 
 lovable character, that could be known and liked 
 at once, without any tantalising complications 
 which might interest one as a critic while alien- 
 ating one as a friend ; or unknown depths of dis- 
 position (either brilliant or portentous), among 
 which one might suddenly find one's self left 
 doubting and in the dark. 
 
OUR OWN POMPEII. 19 
 
 It must not be inferred that Claud Brownlow and 
 Darlington were the only occupants of the carriage, 
 for at the other end of it were three other people : 
 Mr Leonardo Leo, a celebrated critic, poet, and 
 musician ; and Mrs Leo, who was a no less cele- 
 brated beauty, completing what they would prob- 
 ably call " the harmonised circle of their existence " 
 by painting dreamy pictures or " tone movements," 
 formless, but redolent with colour, as her friends 
 appreciatively whispered of them. 
 
 The Leos, however, were not merely what is 
 commonly and vulgarly known as sesthetic. They 
 were something much rarer and higher than this. 
 They were broadly eclectic, deeply cultured, and 
 (imagined themselves) extremely Hellenic. 
 
 Their home in town was so hushed and dark- 
 ened, so guarded and beautified — its atmosphere, 
 as it were, was so rarefied by the highest and most 
 exquisitely exclusive culture — that profane people 
 had been known, after a short time, to be seized 
 with a brutal desire to scream, or otherwise 
 assert themselves. It is even said that once 
 a visitor in desperation did worse, and defiantly 
 announced that Dickens was his favourite author. 
 
20 OUR OWN POMPEII. 
 
 and Mozart the only composer lie cared to 
 listen to. 
 
 But Mr Leo was energetic as well as pictorial. 
 He edited a review called ' The Highest Aim,' which 
 was equally divided between literature, art, politics, 
 and society. He was an ardent Eadical of the 
 " academic school," and looked eagerly forward to 
 the time when a universal suffrage (including, as 
 his wife said, " the stronger but unrepresented sex") 
 would give the world an ideal government of per- 
 fect enlightenment, advancement, and justice ; and 
 when the highest literature, the noblest art, the 
 best government, and the most brilliant and exclu- 
 sive society, would not only be common, but entirely 
 universal. As he himself said — " The time when 
 every working man will be able to join the Arundel 
 Society, subscribe to classical concerts, read the best 
 literature, and join with other working men in en- 
 tirely governing the country, and taking their just 
 share of the unearned increment of the rich, is still 
 (with the exception of the last) a long way off. 
 But when every man has been raised to this ideal 
 position (the poor man and the rich man alike 
 raised from their respective poverty and riches to 
 
OUR OWN POMPEII. 21 
 
 a liappy state of modest comfort) by universal 
 suffrage and radical legislation, what a vast and 
 astounding progression will have been made from 
 our present tentative and imperfect condition ! " 
 
 The fifth passenger in the carriage was the great 
 Mr Giles. I say great, because, although he was as 
 yet unknown to fame, beyond a moderate but ever 
 enlarging circle of friends (and shall we whisper, 
 victims ?), he was one of the most powerful men 
 in England. 
 
 If one wished to describe his position by using 
 an elaborate metaphor, such as is sometimes em- 
 ployed in a sermon to bring home a vital truth to 
 the congregation, one might point out how the pas- 
 sengers on an Atlantic steamer, as it steams forth 
 in its beauty and elaborate perfection, hear the 
 captain give his orders, talk to him, obey him, 
 and know that he is in command, and is responsible 
 for their safety. They give no thought to the im- 
 measurable force that carries them onward, and 
 which alone prevents them from rolling, helpless 
 and forlorn, among the ocean billows. They laugh, 
 and dance, and sing, and try to engage the captain 
 in conversation, in order to show that they are on 
 
22 OUR OWX POMPEII. 
 
 terms of acquaintanceship with constituted author- 
 ity ; while far below them is a man, unseen, un- 
 known, almost unthought of, who guides their vast 
 momentum with his hand, driving them onward, 
 onward towards the distant shore they cannot see, 
 where the calm harbour invites them, and the cruel 
 waves roar round the rocks that guard it, await- 
 ing but the slightest mistake to destroy them 
 utterly and for ever. 
 
 So the Liberal party had their captain, their 
 leader ; but below, out of sight, with his hand con- 
 trolling the machinery, was Mr Giles. He was the 
 President of the Centralised Executive Committee 
 of the Eepresentative Hundreds of the party all over 
 the country. And if the Hundreds were a kind of 
 informal Parliament, the Executive Committee was 
 certainly an informal Cabinet, and Mr Giles an 
 informal prime minister — like the holder of many 
 other informal positions, having all the more power 
 because his right to it was unrecognised. 
 
 When he received what he called his " tip " from 
 the Cabinet, or the advanced portion of it with 
 whom he was in more immediate communication 
 (though even with regard to this he had been 
 
OUR OWN POMPEII. 23 
 
 known to carry out the Scriptural text, that it is 
 more blessed to give than to receive), no Eoman 
 emperor was ever more autocratic than he. 
 
 The word went forth : the Centralised Committee 
 were unanimous ; the Hundreds agreed, and clam- 
 oured, and demanded ; public opinion was trium- 
 phantly manufactured ; and the Cabinet were in- 
 duced to bring in, and enabled to pass, by the 
 united voice of a great people, measures that caused 
 the very men who passed them to feel some doubt, 
 some apprehension — and that surprised, alarmed, 
 and alienated the great majority of thoughtful and 
 educated men of either party. 
 
 " But then thoughtful and educated men, from a 
 merely voting point of view, are numerically worth- 
 less ; and therefore their opinion need not be taken 
 into account," said Mr Giles. 
 
 This was in reply to a remark of Claud's, and he 
 now followed it up with a question. 
 
 " Then you do not fear," he asked, " that you 
 will drive all the upper and ' propertied ' classes 
 over to the opposite camp ? 
 
 " Not a bit. The Whigs will stay with us long 
 enough to play our game ; and when they have all 
 
24 OUR OWN POMPEII. 
 
 gone — they are gradually going over even now — 
 we shall have perfected our machinery sufficiently 
 to crush any opposition. I myself expect the day 
 will soon arrive — as you suggested — when nearly 
 all the well-to-do people will have left us. But 
 I don't dread it ; on the contrary, we shall not then 
 be so hampered as we are now. Once let the 
 people get the idea it is a question of the upper 
 classes against the lower — the rich against the 
 poor — and we are made. We shall then perman- 
 ently secure a sufficiently large majority to enable 
 us to carry out our pet schemes for the future : a 
 graduated income-tax — with, I hope, a very steep 
 gradient — the land relieved from the landlords, 
 peasant proprietors, and so on. You know all 
 about it." 
 
 " I entirely disagree with you," said Mr Leo. " I 
 think that when the whole people have the vote — 
 especially after we have obtained female suffrage — 
 all class prejudice, class selfishness, and class in- 
 terest will disappear. I think that the whole 
 people will not be less, but will be more just ; and 
 I am quite sure that they will tolerate no economic 
 fallacies." 
 
OUE OWN POMPEII. 25 
 
 " They intend to have more of this world's goods 
 than they have at present," rejoined Mr Giles. " I 
 don't know about economic fallacies; but what I 
 do know is, that if they were fools enough not to 
 want more than they have, we should show 'em the 
 way." 
 
 " But surely," put in Mr Leo, " unless it were 
 conducted on strictly equitable principles, it would 
 simply become bribery on your part, robbery on 
 theirs." 
 
 " Oh no. The State can't rob — that's our latest 
 principle. You don't call taxation robbery. Well, 
 we shall simply arrange our taxation on a new 
 plan. What you call robbery, we shall simply call 
 the debt that the State owes to its poorest mem- 
 bers. Or — or — well, the restitution of that un- 
 earned increment which the rich have stolen from 
 the community. Bless you ! when the time comes 
 we shall have the names." 
 
 Mr Leo did not like the tone of Mr Giles's 
 remarks. He thought they were a little too much 
 flavoured with opportunism. Being himself, as 
 we have said before, an academic Eadical, with 
 transcendental ideas on politics — acquired partly by 
 
26 OUR OWN POMPEII. 
 
 a study of classiccal philosophy and politics, partly 
 by an exquisite sense of the ordered progress of the 
 universe, modelling the British constitution, as it 
 advanced, into conformity with its laws — he felt that 
 there was something higher than a party platform, 
 or even a party cry ; and that as the Eadical 
 party — the party of progress — were acting consis- 
 tently with the laws of evolution, and were there- 
 fore scientifically right, and must ultimately pre- 
 vail, it was all the less necessary to bolster them 
 up with party dodges of a questionable character. 
 He suggested that to interfere with contract, for 
 instance, had been long ago proved to be both 
 useless and economically dangerous. 
 
 " Wliy, sir," said Mr Giles, " you must belong to 
 the laissez /aire school. I didn't know that there 
 were any of 'em left. They went out when we 
 found that political economy wouldn't suit." 
 
 " We may not yet have discovered the true laws 
 of political economy," said Mr Leo, in his slow 
 deliberate way, while his " Oxford voice " enun- 
 ciated every word with extreme distinctness ; " but 
 they exist, nevertheless, and are as unalterable 
 and as certain in their operation as the laws of 
 
OUR OWN POMPEII, 27 
 
 science themselves. You cannot evade or set at 
 defiance the laws of political economy without 
 injury to yourself, unless you can alter them by 
 altering human nature itself. Though after all," 
 he added, more briskly, " I am not without hope 
 that we may be able to alter human nature a little 
 in the course of time ; for I have no doubt that, 
 like everything else, it tends to adapt itself to its 
 environment." 
 
 " It will be rather uncomfortable if it doesn't," 
 said ]\Ir Giles. " Why, don't you know, not only 
 have our party given up political economy — sent 
 it to Satan or somewhere — free contract, unlimited 
 competition, and laissez /aire, but we've given up 
 philosophical and scientific Eadicalism also. All 
 that depends on the teaching of Herbert Spencer 
 and Darwin, and that lot. We don't intend to stand 
 the tyranny of Science ; and as for ' fundamental 
 laws,' we don't like 'em. For instance, we don't 
 approve of the ' extinction of the least fit ' " 
 
 " Extinction of the least fit ! I should think 
 not, indeed ! Wliy, where would our future rulers 
 be then ? " put in Claud rather neatly. 
 
 Mr Leo was a little pained at Giles's tone. He 
 
28 OUR OWN POMPEII. 
 
 had, however, long considered that people of his 
 class were useful in working the machine — with 
 an extended franchise there is room for much 
 machinery (of the more useful but less ornamental 
 sort), and some one must work it — but that the 
 great principles of the party should be left to be 
 formulated by its higher minds. He therefore con- 
 tented himself by saying — 
 
 " "Well, well, we mustn't set the laws of science 
 at defiance, you know. Even if religion ceases to 
 influence us, we must still maintain a code of 
 ethics and morality. "We must remember that 
 fundamental justice " 
 
 " Fundamental justice now," said Mr Giles, catch- 
 ing at a phrase that he understood ; " I don't know 
 so much about that." 
 
 " Not very much, I think," suggested Claud. 
 
 " I don't go in for the philosophy of the thing, 
 but I know what we want and mean to have. 
 "Why, I've got a friend in the Cabinet — I mustn't 
 mention names — Cabinet secrets, you know. Well, 
 he just gives me the tip, or we fix together 
 what we want, and then I just send it round to 
 'the Hundreds'; and they want it — they de. 
 
OUR OWX POMPEII. 29 
 
 niand it unanimously — the members submit — the 
 Cabinet wavers and gives in — and there you 
 are ! " 
 
 " I have often thought," said Claud, " that your 
 party play with edged tools. They nurse their 
 dangerous ideas as one might a litter of young 
 wolves. 'They are so pretty,' one might say, 'so 
 harmless — dear little things — just like pups ! ' But 
 the day comes at last when you wake to find them 
 a ravening pack of wolves. Then you fly, when too 
 late, and you have to throw them one thing after 
 another — you know the Eussian story — till at last 
 the driver has to fling himself to them in order 
 to save his mistress and her family, whom he is 
 driving. Though I admit," added Claud, with the 
 lightest touch of satire in his voice, "there the 
 analogy would most probably cease, as in your 
 case the driver no doubt would throw over his 
 passengers in order to save himself." 
 
 " I don't fear the wolves," said Mr Giles. " Why, 
 if there are any — which, mind you, I don't admit 
 — I'm one of them myself." 
 
 " You admit it," cried Claud. 
 
 " Well, you see, I'm not ravenous at present ; I'm 
 
30 OUR OWN POMPEII. 
 
 only a pretty pup," said Giles, with a disagreeable 
 laugh. 
 
 " You overlook and ignore, I think, that remark- 
 able sense of political morality with which the 
 English people " began Mr Leo. 
 
 Only to be interrupted by Giles. " I don't want 
 to argue," he said ; " I don't argue — at least that's 
 not my line. I haven't to gild the pill, or cover 
 up the powder with jam — the Cabinet must do 
 that ; but what I have to do is to cram it down 
 the patient's throat and make him swallow it." 
 
 The conversation here dropped. Mr Leo began 
 to write an article for ' The Highest Aim,' on " The 
 Unexpectedness of Political Emotion." He occa- 
 sionally, however, leant forward to translate a word 
 for Mrs Leo, who was reading alternately ' Chariot ' 
 and E^nan's ' Le Pretre de Nemi,' with a view to 
 an article on the spirit of contemporary French 
 literature which she was going to write for one of 
 the magazines. 
 
 Darlington had not joined in the discussion, but 
 had contented himself with murmuring "brute" 
 under his breath once or twice when Mr Giles was 
 speaking. He had long held that no repartee to an 
 
OUR OWN POMPEII. 31 
 
 argument you do not like is so crushing as a few 
 strong terms, judiciously applied in the interjec- 
 tionary manner. This method of treating a subject 
 is particularly convenient to those classes who do 
 not so much acquire their ideas, as inherit them ; 
 and who believe that the assignment of a reason 
 in support of them is tantamount to admitting that 
 the point in question itself is open to argument. 
 It may be noticed in society that such words as 
 " beast " and " robbery," purred through aristocratic 
 lips, are considered to effectually settle and disarm 
 the objectionable person or thing respectively ; 
 while among other classes there are many party 
 cries — such as " free trade," for instance — which are 
 considered to be so far above discussion that we 
 are never gratified by hearing a single argument 
 in their favour. 
 
 Darlington contented himself with requesting 
 Claud not to speak to "that creature" again. 
 
 " I am sure," he added, " that your uncle can't 
 swallow that cad," 
 
 Claud's uncle. Lord St Kevan, was a powerful 
 "Wliig, who had held Cabinet office, but had some- 
 how been omitted from the Government that was 
 
32 OUR OWN POMPEII. 
 
 " in " at the present moment. He still, however, 
 believed that the future of his party would be as 
 glorious as its past ; and he regarded people like Mr 
 Giles as useful agents, evolved by changing cir- 
 cumstances and advancing times in order to uphold 
 the continued supremacy of his class. For he was 
 a great Whig magnate. Next to the Throne and 
 the Constitution, he centred his creed in the great 
 families of the Eevolution. He held the traditions 
 of Grey, Melbourne, Palmerston, and Eussell, and 
 he endeavoured to carry out what he believed 
 would have been their policy. He was still reel- 
 ing, under the discovery that a Liberal Cabinet 
 might not only contain but even be controlled by 
 " new men." At Brooks's he sat about mysteri- 
 ously in corners with other old peers, and shook his 
 head, and planned diplomatic arrangements, acute 
 political combinations, and high political policy. 
 Wlienever he thought the Eadicals were getting 
 too strong, for instance, he would propose that 
 a Coalition Government should be formed. But 
 though the chiefs of his party listened to him 
 deferentially, as being one of the most influential 
 and authoritative of his order, they seldom acted 
 
OUK OWN POMPEII. 33 
 
 on his advice ; for in these levelling days the " rank 
 and file " of a party have to be considered, and even 
 the wishes of the constituencies themselves must 
 to some extent be taken into account. He was, it 
 is true, alarmed ; but he had not capitulated. He 
 still looked upon j^olitics as a game in which he 
 and his order naturally commanded, both for their 
 country's benefit and for their own — -i^a?'^?/ govern- 
 ment (with its ministers, members, voters, its whole 
 machinery indeed) being the means by which that 
 game might be played. 
 
 But if the government of his country was slip- 
 ping from his grasp, he intended at least to be 
 absolute in his own family. The patria jJotcstas 
 should still be felt by his gens. It filled him with 
 horror and indignation that Claud should have 
 become a Conservative. He regarded it as un- 
 natural, unbearable, and inexplicable. The county 
 seat — he still had a county seat, which had always 
 returned a Liberal, and now that the agricultural 
 labourer was enfranchised, was safer than ever, — 
 this county seat, which he had long been nursing 
 for Claud, should now go to a distant cousin. He 
 even hinted that it would be as well if Claud re- 
 
 VOL. I. c 
 
34 OUR OWN POMPEII. 
 
 membered that he was a younger nephew (the title 
 descended to Claud's elder brother — Lord St 
 Kevan having no children), and treated the Bar ac- 
 cordingly a little more as though it were a ladder, 
 a little less as though it were horizontal and 
 merely a suitable instrument to enable young men 
 to pass their time pleasantly. 
 
 Claud was trying to explain all this to Darling- 
 ton, when Mrs Leo looked up. The son of a peer 
 was " the son of a peer " even to this advanced and 
 cultured lady. She thought that the moment had 
 come when an acquaintanceship should be made ; 
 and so, to make a beginning, she asked Darlington 
 what he was reading. When he told her it was 
 ' David Copperfield,' she felt that the time had ar- 
 rived for her to try and raise his mental tone. So 
 she replied (for it must be whispered that some of this 
 lady's detractors said she was utterly devoid of tact): 
 
 " Dickens ! Ah ! neither I nor my husband are 
 able to read him. I try; but I can't. I know 
 that my taste deprives me of a great pleasure ; but 
 he seems so vulgar, so coarse. His pathos is sick- 
 ening; his fun is worse — it is cockneyfied, Philis- 
 tine, painfully insular." 
 
OUR OWN POMPEII. 35 
 
 " What novels do you read ? " asked Darlington, 
 in an awestruck voice. For he had never met any 
 one so intellectually exclusive in his life before ; 
 and though his alarm of her was mitigated by the 
 fact that he noticed her clothes did not fit in the 
 least (they had grown in the ultra-ffisthetic school), 
 he still felt oppressed by her conscious superiority. 
 
 " Very few modern novels, except the best French 
 ones. Of course I read all of those. But I can 
 hardly bear any English novels except Howell's. 
 All the others seem to me to be so crude. One 
 always has the feeling that any moment one may 
 come across a sporting scene, or something even 
 more degrading — something that hints at stables 
 and grooms, and coverts and race-courses. English 
 authors don't treat their characters with his deli- 
 cate and exhaustive analysis, and they generally 
 have too much plot to make the book worth 
 reading." 
 
 " Then you don't care for horses ? " said Darling- 
 ton, inconsequently. 
 
 " Yes, in their proper place — in a carriage, not in 
 a book. But as I said before, I haven't much time 
 for novels, because I am busy over a little work of 
 
36 OUR OWN POMPEII, 
 
 my own — a subject I have long taken an interest 
 in. It is an essay on the comparison between 
 Hellenic morality and the morality of the middle 
 ages, as exemplified by the lives of the Medici 
 family and the Borgias." 
 
 " Dear me ! " said Darlington, with opening eyes. 
 " They did some rum things, didn't they ? " 
 
 " It is a very painful subject," replied Mrs Leo, 
 in her soft, deep, uninflexional voice. "And if it 
 had not been for a strong sense of duty, a desire to 
 purify and clarify our culture from all sanguine 
 and misleading belief in the moral virtue of the 
 ages I have treated, I should not have ventured 
 to undertake it." Then there was a pause in the 
 conversation, and the only sound in the carriage 
 was that of the train which was bearins; them on 
 towards Nice. 
 
OUE OWX POMPEII. 37 
 
 CHAPTEE III. 
 
 A FEW nights after this the weather was warm 
 enough at Pompeii to permit of the dinner being 
 served out of doors. 
 
 The red glow to the westward still lingered. 
 Soft yellows and nameless greens melted while they 
 rose upward in the sky — upward till they seemed 
 to turn into a tender echo of the liquid blue in the 
 east, now changing every moment to the radiant 
 darkness of a Southern night. Here and there a 
 star gleamed out like a drop of fire, as the light 
 faded back from the gathering flush of deepening 
 colour that shone in the wings of the evening, 
 already folded over the dying day. 
 
 Black shadows lurked among the pillars in the 
 Forum, and shrouded the mysterious vistas between 
 them in brooding gloom. But here and there an 
 
38 OUR OWN POMPEII. 
 
 electric light made a brilliant point of fire among 
 the marbles ; and the whole air towards the sea- 
 side was filled with a subdued glow from hundreds 
 of wax candles, that lit the numerous little tables 
 standing around. 
 
 At one of them Darlington and Claud were seated 
 with two other men — Jack de Barry, and a would- 
 be social comet who was just rising on the fashion- 
 able horizon, named Hugh Flashington. He was a 
 tall, good - looking, extremely active young man, 
 with an effusive manner, and an affectionate greet- 
 ing for everybody. He was very clever in his way, 
 and extremely quick at assimilating other people's 
 ideas, and reproducing them as though they were 
 his own. He aimed at being thought dashing, 
 brilliant, universal — a kind of modern Alcibiades, 
 or at least a Count d'Orsay — and considered that 
 every one was to be " taken in " if you only " took 
 them by storm" with a sufficient battery of elo- 
 quence and diplomacy. 
 
 Perhaps he had not the amount required, for he 
 had never been wholly successful. People some- 
 times found out that the truth was often in abso- 
 lute opposition to his statements ; and while some 
 
OUR OWN POMPEII, 39 
 
 were dazzled, others were more than doubtful, even 
 coupling the ugly word " humbug " with his name. 
 But if he wooed admiration by some doubtful means, 
 every one admitted that he was a pleasant com- 
 panion, and would prove an addition to any table. 
 
 The whole party were now nearing the close of 
 a suitable little dinner, and the conversation, which 
 had been fitful at first, seemed at last gradually 
 taking the place of a somewhat silent admiration of 
 the night and its surroundings. 
 
 " It reminds one a little of the piazza at Venice 
 in the evening," said Darlington, helping himself to 
 ice-pudding as he spoke ; " only it's more — more 
 like a dream, you know." 
 
 " Don't you feel as though we were all in a grand 
 opera, just waiting for the curtain to rise ? " replied 
 Claud. " If it wasn't for us people in trousers, it 
 might be a picture of Alma Tadema's come to life. 
 Just look at that servant, for instance ; " and he 
 indicated a beautiful Italian youth, whose slim and 
 graceful figure was only protected by a short cling- 
 ing tunic of Indian silk, below which his well- 
 made legs asserted themselves with classical in- 
 dependence. 
 
40 OUR OWN POMPEII. 
 
 " Ves ; he is not a bad - looking fellow," said 
 Darlington. "And they've invented a good airy 
 costume for him, which must be very comfortable 
 as long as it's hot and doesn't rain. But fancy him 
 in a thunder-storm, with little streams of water 
 running down each of his bare legs." 
 
 De Barry looked up. He was on the Committee, 
 and had never approved of the artistic servants. 
 He had wished, on the contrary, to import a num- 
 ber from the London club, who would behave and 
 be dressed according to the strictest English idea 
 of what is suitable. He therefore announced, with 
 a little air of triumph, that the Italians' looks were 
 better than their honesty, and that Smythe had 
 had to give six of them warning that very morning 
 for stealing spoons. " "We have now telegraphed 
 to London for some good club waiters. I shan't feel 
 comfortable till I'm waited upon by a man in shoes 
 and knee-breeches, who has had his hair properly 
 done. Any one would fancy, if they turned up here, 
 that we had left civilisation completely behind us." 
 
 " But it is so — so picturesque," said Claud. 
 
 " We don't want to be too picturesque," said De 
 Barry. "Wliy, some wine was actually brought 
 
OUK OWN POMPEII. 41 
 
 me the other day by a creature with a moustache. 
 It's hardly — hardly decent. We may be playing at 
 being Eomans, but at any rate we are not savages." 
 " Of course," said Claud, " we are only playing 
 at being Eomans ; but how charming it would be 
 if one could really wake up and suddenly find one's 
 self living eighteen hundred years ago ! Only 
 think," he continued, as a hundred classical ad- 
 vantages seemed to crowd themselves forward in 
 his mind, "no dentists, and what is better — no 
 need of dentists, no competitive examinations, 
 nothing to ruin one's health and spirits. There 
 would be no top hats, tight boots, or tailor's 
 bills — none of our modern life, which sickens us 
 with enmd if we pause, and maddens us with un- 
 healthy excitement if we rush onward in its front. 
 Fancy a free natural existence, when no one asked 
 ' if life were worth living,' when one hadn't to be 
 intellectual and enlightened, when no one had 
 crotchets, and everybody did not struggle to be 
 fashionable. We haven't slaves nowadays, but I 
 bet we have thousands of people who would be 
 only too glad to be slaves if their masters would 
 keep them from starvation." 
 
42 OUR OWN POMPEII. 
 
 " But there would be no clubs, no operas," said 
 De Barry. " Have you considered that there was 
 no food fit to eat — not even a French cook — and 
 certainly no wine that one could possibly drink ? 
 How could one live a day without railways, tele- 
 graphs, and newspapers? Wliere would be the 
 country houses, the yachts, the everything that 
 one requires — requires to keep one even alive ? " 
 (He did not exactly stammer, but he spoke with a 
 certain delicate hesitation, a sort of catch of hor- 
 ror in his voice.) " I don't believe their society 
 was even select. I don't believe you always knew 
 who it was you knew, you know." 
 
 riashington had been waiting for an opportunity 
 to give his views, which were spoken as they were 
 created, and were given to his friends in the form 
 of a pleasant stream of discursive chatter. 
 
 " Think of the suppers ! How one would have 
 reclined, after a warm bath, on a couch, wrapped in 
 a soft cool garment, and crowned with flowers. 
 Something like being in a glorified Turkish bath. 
 There would be philosophers to talk and improve 
 our minds, beautiful slaves to wait on us, and flute- 
 players, and all that sort of thing. We should have 
 
OUR OWN POMPEII. 43 
 
 parties like the one in Plato's ' Symposium ' ; and 
 some people would get rather excited with the wine, 
 and then we should all talk about love, and death, 
 and immortality, and politics, and scandal. Oh, vjhat 
 scandals they must have had in those days to talk 
 about ! Doesn't some one say somewhere that the 
 suppers were like the ' wines ' one has at college, 
 only much more charming ? I wonder if they were. 
 And yet I think, on the whole, I prefer our modern 
 ones ; for at any rate we have ' fiz ' and cards. I 
 think one must have cards. To have nothing on but 
 a cloak wrapped round you may be very poetic, but 
 I prefer clothes that have some ' cut ' about them — 
 sometliing to show that they come from a good 
 tailor." 
 
 Darlington was neutral, having a pleasant sense 
 that the present age is a very nice one, and that 
 one generally managed to enjoy one's self wherever 
 one was. 
 
 " Well," he said, " one gets plenty of fun out of 
 things now, and I suppose one would have got 
 plenty of fun then. If they had no cards, it didn't 
 prevent them from gambling ; and that's the great 
 thing, after all. There was plenty of fighting. I 
 
44 OUR OWN POMPEII. 
 
 should have gone off to Britain on a grand tour. 
 Nowadays every one knows everything about every- 
 where." 
 
 " Yes ; and one could have had plenty of slaves," 
 said Flashington, still wavering between the list of 
 ancient and modern dissipations that was offered to 
 hini. " AVliy don't they revive the fashion of hav- 
 ing slaves ? If only some smart person would begin 
 it, I am sure we could soon get the laws altered. 
 I wonder if we shall ever have gladiators in the 
 Albert Hall ? It is such a pity that place should 
 be so wasted ; and the old arena must have been 
 so exciting! I should have sat and looked on, 
 while Claud — Claud w^ould probably have been a 
 persecuted Christian — was fighting with the wild 
 beasts." 
 
 " You would certainly have been on the side of 
 comfort and persecution," said Claud. 
 
 " Oh ! I suppose I should have been a pagan," 
 said Flashington, " before Constantine's time, or 
 whoever it was who invented Christianity, — I 
 mean, who invented it as an established religion 
 that one could belong to." 
 
 " I wish we could persecute troublesome people 
 
OUR OWN POMPEII. 45 
 
 nowadays," said De Barry, looking up at a neigh- 
 bouring hill, where there were already signs of a 
 gigantic hotel in course of construction. " Just look 
 there ! Stoker, the great excursion man, has bought 
 that hill, and is building a beastly great hotel to 
 overlook this place. There's a nice prospect ! We 
 shall have three hundred brutes looking at us all 
 day through opera glasses, just as though we were 
 an exhibition ; and the club will be ruined ! " 
 
 "Let's go and 'rag' them," said Darlington. 
 
 But riashington's extreme ingenuity in turning 
 everything to his own advantage suggested even a 
 better plan than this. 
 
 " Wliy shouldn't we throw open the club ? " he 
 said, " Set up tables, and make it another Monte 
 Carlo. We could form a company, and be rich in 
 no time. It's so absurd paying subscriptions to 
 clubs instead of making money by them. Why, 
 long ago, when I was at Eton, I lost a lot of money 
 to a fellow in a bet. I got him elected to ' Pop,' and 
 he was so grateful that he quite forgot the debt." 
 
 The last faint glow left by the passing day had 
 now vanished, and the lights in the Forum shone 
 out all the briditer for the surrounding darkness. 
 
46 OUR OWN POMPEII. 
 
 Our party, having finished dinner, were smoking 
 and sipping their coffee, with their chairs pushed 
 a little hack, while they looked round at the occu- 
 pants of the other tables. Claud's eyes happened 
 to rest on a party of three seated at one of them. A 
 handsome lady, who was neither exactly young nor 
 middle-aged — perhaps the phrase " well preserved " 
 would best describe her ; and an inane-looking 
 youth, with a vapid expression, and an occasional 
 giggle at (what appeared to be) his own jokes, 
 were opposite to him; and facing them, with her 
 back to Claud, sat a young lady, who leaned 
 slightly forward, and seemed to be rather listen- 
 ing to the conversation of the others than joining 
 in it. She had at least a charming back, Claud 
 thought. And as she moved her head, the light 
 touched the edges of her auburn hair with gold. 
 
 " Who is that youth ? " asked Darlington, looking 
 towards the party that Claud was watching. 
 
 " Don't you know ? " said De Barry. " I thought 
 every one knew him. He's Tottie Fobbes." 
 
 " He looks an insufferable little noodle." 
 
 " Most people dislike him ; but most people 
 know him — they say he's such fun. He was too 
 
OUR OWN POMPEII. 47 
 
 wise to put up for this club ; but he has come out 
 with Lady Peterhouse, who is his aunt or some- 
 thing." 
 
 Tottie Fobbes was one of those people who could 
 only have been produced during the last third of 
 this century — a period which, if responsible for 
 the theory of " the survival of the fittest," seems in 
 practice to produce a larger supply than ever of 
 the least fit, who not only exist but flourish on 
 the very best that it has to offer. He had no mind, 
 no intellect, and apparently no soul, "\\1ien people 
 said that he was "girlish-looking," they did not 
 mean that he was pretty, but only that his face, 
 being an utter negative, was sexless. There was 
 a tradition in his family that he had once learnt 
 to read and write (he had been too delicate, accord- 
 ing to his mother, ever to go to school) ; but he sel- 
 dom gave the world a chance of judging if this 
 theory was anything more than a polite tradition. 
 With no particular income of his own, and of 
 course quite incapable of earning one, he fluttered 
 about society, and lived on what is called " the fat 
 of tlie land " — partly provided by his friends, and 
 partly by confiding tradesmen ; drew down the 
 
48 OUR OWX POMPEII. 
 
 blinds of his boudoir (boudoir being the only word 
 which could adequately describe his sitting-room), 
 and sat in the becoming light cast by pink shades 
 over wax candles, while he entertained his friends 
 at tea. He knew nothing but the latest scandal, 
 which generally reappeared as the staple of his 
 conversation in a deeply decorated and ominously 
 heightened form. In fact, his power of making 
 mischief was the only thing which prevented his 
 being as contemptible as he was incapable, and 
 which checked the pity one would otherwise feel 
 for anything so eiTete. 
 
 " But who are the ladies ? " asked Claud, still 
 watching the movements of the little head that 
 stood out so darkly against the candlelight on 
 the table. 
 
 " That is Mrs Denbigh and her daughter. She — 
 the mother — is rather a clever woman, and I sus- 
 pect knows on which side her bread is buttered. 
 The daughter is also clever, but is generally spoken 
 of as being ' a strange girl ' — chiefly, I should 
 say, because she doesn't care much about the 
 butter." 
 
 " She positively told me that she didn't care 
 
OUR OWN POMPEII. 49 
 
 about society, and that she preferred their place 
 in Scotland to London in the season," said Flash- 
 ington. " She is the sort of girl who suddenly 
 asks you awkward questions. She once turned 
 round to me at one of Lady Marlowe's evenings 
 and said, ' Don't you think there is something a 
 little contemptible about this ? Here we are all 
 priding ourselves on being superior people, because 
 we have all been asked to meet one another.' De- 
 pend on it, she will marry an opera singer or a 
 district visitor — some one whom she thinks is 
 neglected by the world, but has a great soul." 
 
 " And what did you say ? " asked Claud, a little 
 impatiently. 
 
 " Oh, of course I took up the strain, and said 
 what a good thing it would be if more people went 
 as missionaries to feed the heathen." 
 
 Before Flashington had time to exjjlain in wliat 
 manner the heathen were to be fed by or with the 
 missionaries, Darlington broke into the conversa- 
 tion, informing the others that she was a charming 
 girl, could sing and dance capitally, and had all the 
 right accomplishments for a young lady ; but that, 
 in addition to these, she could pull a boat, and fill 
 
 VOL. I. D 
 
50 OUR OWN POMPEII. 
 
 cartridges, and make herself generally useful to a 
 fellow, as he expressed it. 
 
 " And I suppose she can bait a hook," said De 
 Barry. 
 
 " I don't know ; I never asked her," said Dar- 
 lington, innocently. " I daresay she fishes in the 
 sea." 
 
 " When one goes sea-fishing with ladies," re- 
 marked Claud, " I generally find that one has to 
 bait the hook, and pay out the line, and feel it to 
 see if there is really a fish on, and pull it up again 
 if there is, and then take the fish off the hook, and 
 finally persuade the lady not to throw it back again 
 into the sea, because she thinks it is so cruel to 
 keep the fish out of the water, and its death- 
 struggles are so dreadful. Then she looks round 
 triumphantly and says, ' Oh, look what a fish I've 
 caught ! ' " 
 
 " When ladies fish metaphorically, I don't find 
 that they require an equal amount of aid," De 
 Barry suggested. 
 
 " I have never seen a lady fishing metaphorically," 
 Darlington said, by way of conclusion ; " but I am 
 going to speak to the Denbighs. Come, Claud," he 
 
OUR OWN POMPEII. 51 
 
 added, getting up slowly and throwing away the 
 end of his cigar ; " if you like I will introduce 
 
 you." 
 
 Mrs Denbigh was charmed to see Darlington, and 
 asked him and Claud to sit down at her table. 
 Tottie, taking no notice of the interruption, con- 
 tinued an account of his exploits in a country 
 house that he had been lately staying at, — how, 
 when every one was in the drawing-room after 
 dinner, he had stolen a curled front from Mrs 
 Fitz Peter's bedroom, a " dress-improver " from 
 the room of another lady, as well as a dressing- 
 gown from Mr Fitz Peter's dressing-room ; how, 
 arrayed in these, he had descended to the smoking- 
 room, and had been received with shouts of laugh- 
 ter. But he forgot to add that he had only just 
 escaped having his ears boxed by Mr Fitz Peter, 
 and that his host had poUtely informed him next 
 morning that there was a train to town at ten. 
 
 Claud was seated by Miss Denbigh, and only 
 gave a languid attention to these details; for he 
 was watching her face. Perhaps it was not round 
 and plump enough to be perfectly beautiful. It 
 seemed as though deep interests and high enthu- 
 
52 OUK OWN POMPEII. 
 
 siasms, a burning intellect and a restless spiritual 
 energy, had refined the features and thinned the 
 cheeks of everything that was superfluous to ex- 
 pression, and had left her soul free to shine forth 
 through the almost transparent veil that it lit with 
 its spirit. But if her face is not beautiful, he 
 thought to himself, it is very interesting. It is 
 better than beautiful ; it is wonderful. It reminds 
 one a little of some of Burne- Jones's paintings, only 
 without the look they always have of dreary 
 weariness. 
 
 At this moment the footlights on the stage at 
 the end of the Forum were turned up. The Hun- 
 garian band in front of them began to tune up. 
 There was a general rising from the tables, and 
 every one began to take up the best positions they 
 could find. 
 
 Mrs Denbigh rose. " They are going to play an 
 opera bouffe — a company they have got over from 
 Monte Carlo," she said. 
 
 Darlington, who loved comic opera, jumped up 
 with alacrity, and the whole party moved off in the 
 direction of the stage. 
 
 The piece was called ' La Princesse de Eavalenta 
 
OUR OWN POMPEII. 53 
 
 Arabica.' It was one of the latest examples of 
 French comic opera, with the same conventional 
 story that appears so often and in such very thm 
 disguises — that begins in a village during the first 
 act, meanders through the second act in a palace, 
 only to vanish altogether in the third, before tlie 
 arms (and legs) of young lady soldiers dressed in 
 armour, and the limelight. 
 
 In the first act there was a rustic «naiden (the 
 programme called her " rustic " ; but if the audience 
 had depended on their eyes alone, it would not have 
 been the adjective that suggested itself). She was 
 betrothed to a young farmer ; and, judging by the 
 strains of the villagers, the curtain had had the 
 felicity of rising on the very day when he was about 
 to make her his bride. 
 
 Xo sooner, however, has the bride described her 
 blushes in a waltz-song, than, in the midst of the 
 " nuptial vows," horns are heard, pages enter, the 
 centre of the stage is cleared, and the king of the 
 country (played, of course, by the leading low 
 comedian) enters, with a court of young ladies, who 
 are attempting to play courtiers in hunting costume. 
 He breaks into a long song, and describes how he 
 
54 OUR OWX POMPEII. 
 
 has been driven forth from his throne by his usurp- 
 ing brother. 
 
 He at once enlists the sympathy of the simple 
 maiden, and both he and his court are thereupon 
 disguised as farm-labourers. Of course there is now 
 a grand soprano chorus of farm-labourers, repre- 
 sented by young ladies in the ordinary farmyard 
 costume of tights and spangles. The usurping 
 brother (a fat man, with a deep voice and a rolling 
 eye) having opportunely arrived at the fortunate 
 moment when the chorus are beginning, is natur- 
 ally charmed. He drinks with the virtuous maiden ; 
 he still drinks ; he does not recognise his brother, 
 who is standing by in the thinnest of disguises, and 
 who is making the broadest of jokes at his expense. 
 Soon he not only drinks, but is drunk. Then the 
 simple maiden locks him up in a hay-loft. The 
 king throws off his disguise and proclaims himself, 
 the people cheer, the chorus shout, the principal 
 characters shuffle up and down the stage in a line, 
 the limelight is turned on, the country is saved, 
 and the curtain falls on the first act. 
 
 Every one spent the interval between the acts in 
 asking their neighbours what they thought of it. 
 
OUR OWN POMPEII. 55 
 
 Mrs Leo, who had condescended to be present, said 
 she did not like it as well as ' Lohengrin,' and that, 
 if people must play second-rate operas, she won- 
 dered that they did not choose something a little 
 better — ' Don Giovanni,' for instance. For it must 
 be remarked that Mrs Leo's detractors accused her, 
 not only of having no tact, but added (which is 
 almost worse) that she was totally devoid of any 
 sense of humour. Not that this in itself would 
 necessarily prevent her from enjoying an opera 
 bouffe — quite the contrary — but it often saved her 
 from understanding jokes which other and less for- 
 tunate people are forced to laugh at, and it enabled 
 her to take certain things seriously that the rest of 
 the world can only see the comic side of. 
 
 On the other side of the Forum a group of men 
 were standing round an extremely pretty girl, who 
 was amusing them all with an account of a " mixed 
 school" to which she had been sent in her youth. 
 She was noticeably vivacious; her eyes sparkled, 
 and little smiles chased one another across her face 
 as she spoke. At this moment she was telling them 
 how she and the boys used to " toboggan " down- 
 stairs on tea-trays. 
 
56 OUR OWN POMPEII. 
 
 " You're so stiff in England," she went on, in her 
 unconventional and yet not unladylike way. " You 
 don't get any fun. At least you do, but we don't 
 — I mean the girls don't. Fancy having to be at 
 school with one's own sex only. Why, I've never 
 been alone with my own sex for a day, except when 
 I went into retreat once for two days." 
 
 " Into retreat ? " one of the gentlemen murmured. 
 
 " Yes. You mightn't guess it, but I'm very High 
 Church, you know. It's more select, my mother 
 says. But I didn't stay in that retreat long ; it was 
 just like a convent. Some of us sat all day and 
 thought of our sins ; but most of us sat and wished 
 we had any sins to think of." Then with a sudden 
 change in her voice — " Is that the second act be- 
 ginning ? I don't think I shall stay." 
 
 " Not stay ! " cried several voices. 
 
 " Xo. I think it horrid," she said, with a grave 
 look in her face for a moment. And then as though 
 she feared its attributes might be discussed, she 
 suddenly smiled again, and said, " I want to go a 
 little walk instead, down by the sea. I want you, 
 Mr Smythe, to be kind enough to take me, because 
 I want to ask you all about the aristocracy. And 
 
OUR OWN POMPEII. 67 
 
 they say you are a great authority on their manners 
 and customs." 
 
 A slight smile went round the circle. Mr Smythe 
 was not certain whether this remark was prompted 
 by extreme ingenuousness, or whether its aim was 
 satirical ; but he promptly offered the fair Amer- 
 ican his arm. And as she moved away from the 
 circle, her beautifully fitting Parisian dress making 
 the faintest rustle, and her little head standing out 
 in piquant shadow against her fluttering spangled 
 fan, she was heard to murmur to her companion, 
 " You really must teach me how to behave in the 
 English manner. I'm sure I say the most dreadful 
 things. And I may be a countess myself some day, 
 you know." 
 
 The second act of the opera (which was now 
 beginning) opens in the king's palace. The vir- 
 tuous maiden is now a " court lady." Her lover is 
 depressed and discontented, as he has not risen 
 above being the shoeblack of the establishment. 
 The grand chamberlain is discontented — everybody 
 is discontented. There is a grand chorus of discon- 
 tented pages, who suddenly cloak themselves, and 
 so become conspirators at once. The usurping 
 
58 OUR OWN POMPEII. 
 
 brother (having, it is presumed, slept ofif the effect 
 of the cider) most fortunately turns up at this very 
 moment. Of course a grand conspiring chorus 
 must follow — when, in the midst of it, the simple 
 maiden rushes in. She threatens to denounce 
 them ; but the usurping hass tells her that he loves 
 her madly, and will marry her if she will only join 
 them. This is too much for the light tenor person. 
 He rushes off and informs the king of the plot. 
 The conspirators are surprised, surrounded, and 
 every one suddenly, at the same moment, and 
 apparently from the same motive, bursts into a 
 wild dance of defiance, which continues till the 
 descent of the curtain obliterates it. 
 
 The third act, which appears to be weaker in plot 
 than in spectacle, opens in a camp. The chorus of 
 young ladies reappear, dressed (perhaps if anything 
 a little less, rather than more) like soldiers. The 
 virtuous maiden appears dressed as a soldier — so 
 does the weak tenor ; and they break into a duet, 
 which is not interrupted by the evolutions of the 
 army behind them. There is nothing to show who 
 is fighting against whom, or to whom the camp 
 belongs. The plot has apparently come to an 
 
OUR OWN POMPEII. 59 
 
 untimely end (as is often the case in the last act 
 of comic operas) ; and in compensation, everybody 
 comes on in military dress, perhaps to finish up 
 the piece with military honours. Then there is a 
 chorus about nothing in particular; and all of a 
 sudden the simple maiden throws herself into the 
 arms of the light tenor, the usurping duke into 
 the arms of the simple maiden's mother, the king 
 into the arms of his wife, the soldiers into the 
 arms of the rustic maidens when there are any — 
 when there are none, into one another's — and (pro- 
 bably because the authors now think they have 
 fooled long enough) the curtain comes down, and 
 all is over. 
 
 At the end of the second act Miss Denbigh 
 had looked longingly out across the broad smooth 
 distances of water, here and there touched by a 
 sparkle as the foam which edged the little waves 
 was caught for a moment in the moonlight. 
 
 Her thoughts had wandered far across the sea, 
 to other climes and distant ages, vaguely mingling 
 with imagined pictures of the long-forgotten past. 
 For across these very seas the glad young Greeks 
 had sailed from their dear country — their sanguine 
 
60 OUR OWN POMPEII. 
 
 faces and ardent hearts overflowing with hope and 
 joy, and love and friendship, in the boyhood of the 
 world. Then the stern Roman came, with steadfast 
 eye and iron will. The dark and subtle Cartha- 
 ginian passed — and passed — and was no more. 
 Tall barbarians from the far grey North — fair 
 Normans with violet eyes and golden curls — swept 
 over the seas, conquering. But time went on ; 
 and the ships which sailed to the golden East 
 carried gay Crusaders, fired by religion and filled 
 with adventurous delight, their dainty armour 
 glittering in the sunshine, and each with the 
 
 DO ' 
 
 crimson cross of Christ upon his breast. And 
 then the waves bore northward the fiery Moor, 
 who brought from the sad desert his burning 
 crescent and his canvas home, nightly moving, 
 and yet none the less his loved abode. So passed 
 the centuries. Greek pirates, merchants, then noble 
 ships, and flying steamers came and went — still 
 come and go ; while the waves and the sky change 
 ever, and yet alone are eternally the same. 
 
 Thus Miss Denbigh let her thoughts play lightly 
 among the centuries, until she suddenly recalled 
 Thackeray's ballad, " In the Bay of Biscay." And 
 
OUR OWN POMPEII. 61 
 
 at the remembrance of that most realistic epic of 
 the sea, she awoke from her dream with a little 
 laugh, and suggested that they should go out for 
 a row upon the 'sea. 
 
 Claud jumped up in a moment. "Would they 
 come ? he asked them. He did not think that Mrs 
 Denbigh would feel cold on the water, and he 
 should be delighted to give them a pull. Mrs 
 Denbigh felt inclined to go, but suggested that they 
 would want a cox ; and Tottie being worse than use- 
 less in a boat, she evidently expected Darlington to 
 proffer his aid. But before either that young 
 gentleman could speak, or Claud had time to per- 
 suade them that no cox was necessary. Miss Den- 
 bigh assured them that she could and would cooi. 
 A boat was soon found. Darlington and Tottie 
 strolled down to see them off, and to carry the 
 usual number of wraps. Tottie blew kisses after 
 them, and screamed out, " Take me in your boat, 
 love," as they gently floated away from the lighted 
 steps ; and then lie and Darlington went back to 
 see the third act of the opera. 
 
62 OUR OWN POMPEII. 
 
 CHAPTEE IV. 
 
 After the opera was over, Darlington looked 
 vaguely round with the intention of finding some 
 one to play pyramids with. But before he had 
 succeeded in doing this, he was suddenly ad- 
 dressed from behind by a rather more than middle- 
 aged young lady, with that peculiarly brisk manner 
 and determined air which proclaim that their pos- 
 sessor has outlived her illusions. This lady never- 
 theless still had one left ; for in her early youth 
 she had heard some mistaken person call her very 
 pretty, and she had ever since naturally laboured 
 under the delusion that she was extremely beautiful. 
 It was not a beauty to which she made any conces- 
 sions, however, — she was too strong-minded for that. 
 Her mechanically smooth dark hair was parted in 
 the exact centre, and brushed with mathematical 
 
OUR OWN POMPEII. 63 
 
 neatness on either side, away from what she would 
 probably call her temples. Her dress, though neat, 
 was constructed on strictly business-like prin- 
 ciples, and her whole appearance was painfully 
 neat and slightly forbidding. So that Darlington, 
 as he looked at her, thought, " Here's a go ! " 
 
 "Excuse me," she said in a firm high voice; 
 " Lord Darlington, I think. I really must intro- 
 duce myself to you, I am such an old friend of your 
 father's. My name is Miss Eattletubs. Perhaps 
 your father has mentioned my name to you. He 
 was kind enough to speak very highly of some little 
 essays of mine on social subjects, called ' Jinglings 
 of a Chatelaine.' " 
 
 Now she was one of those people who are called 
 " strong-minded," not because their minds are par- 
 ticularly strong, but because they form an aggres- 
 sive and unalterable opinion, immediately and for 
 ever, upon every subject, small and great, entirely 
 irrespective of their own knowledge or other people's 
 feelings. And Darlington, who had no curiosity 
 about eccentric human types and interesting varie- 
 ties of personality, and who merely knew that he 
 had never met such a person before, and hoped 
 
64 OUR OWN POMPEII. 
 
 never to meet such a person again, was simply filled 
 with a desire to get rid of her. He therefore mur- 
 mured something that was intended as an ac- 
 quiescence, and giggled a little to himself as he 
 wondered what his " governor's " opinion of the 
 lady must be. 
 
 But to Miss Eattletubs the conversation was only 
 just beginning. " I saw in one of those horrid So- 
 ciety papers that your father was suffering from an 
 attack of gout. I'm sure I don't know which of 
 them it was. I hardly ever read them myself, and 
 I'm told they contain the most dreadful scandals." 
 
 " One sees where one's friends are staying, you 
 know." 
 
 " My friends are chiefly among the workers — 
 the people who are trying to regenerate Society. 
 They say that this sort of thing can't last much 
 longer." Miss Eattletubs, like most of the people 
 who are great at generalities, adopted the plan of 
 frequently putting a " they say " at the beginning 
 of her statements. " I am myself writing a series 
 of letters to a brother about all this sort of 
 thing from a worker's point of view. I hope 
 to collect them and publish them under the title 
 
OUR OWN POMPEII. 65 
 
 of ' Letters to a Brother, from a Sufferer in the 
 South.' " 
 
 Now Darlington, who had been brought up among 
 the upper classes, and who had never met a leading 
 " intellectual worker," much less a live authoress, 
 before in his life (if we except Mrs Leo), naturally 
 felt somewhat awed and impressed. He thought, 
 as we probably all do the first time we meet an 
 authoress — " Dear me, I wonder if she'll put me in 
 her next book. And if she does, whatever will 
 she say about me ? " 
 
 "I'm so busy with one scheme and another," 
 ]\Iiss Eattletubs breathlessly continued ; she was 
 extremely " in earnest " about everything. She 
 hated above all things what she called "luke- 
 warmers," and was always taking up new schemes, 
 (which ranged from " whole-meal bread " to " ribbon 
 movements,") in order to regenerate mankind. " I've 
 just started the pink and green ribbon movement. 
 You wear the pink ribbon if you don't smoke be- 
 tween meals, the green if you don't smoke during 
 meals, and both if you don't smoke at all. Xow I 
 think I can persuade you to try the green, at any 
 rate." 
 
 VOL. I. E 
 
66 OUR OWN POMPEII. 
 
 " It's awfully kind of you. But, you know, I'm 
 afraid I should look such a fool with it. Besides, 
 you know " (and this was a happy thought), " it 
 wouldn't be quite true, because I do sometimes 
 smoke at meals." And then Darlington, looking 
 round in a helpless way for a subject with which to 
 make a conversational diversion, suddenly saw the 
 young lady who had taken Mr Smythe for a walk. 
 She was standing a little apart, talking with great 
 vivacity to an elderly gentleman, and shading her 
 face from the light with a big red fan covered with 
 little twinkling spangles. She looked — standing 
 there in a French dress, which, although extremely 
 fashionably made, was a little bizarre — like a pic- 
 ture by one of the newest school of French painters ; 
 for she almost always represented " an effect," and 
 formed the very beau ideal of an impressioji. 
 
 " Who is that girl — over there ? " asked Darling- 
 ton, bluntly. 
 
 "That Frenchy - looking girl? Oh, she's Miss 
 van Knut, an American. And that's her father. 
 He's immensely rich, they say. He got the con- 
 tract for an overhead sewer in New York. It didn't 
 somehow give general satisfaction, they say " 
 
OUR OWN POMPEII. 67 
 
 "Perhaps it leaked on people's heads," put m 
 Darlington. 
 
 " And, I believe, has since been abandoned. 
 
 But he made his ' pile ' out of it. She's good-natured, 
 but frivolous. I should think she has had no ' brino;- 
 ing-up ' worth speaking of. And then she spoils her 
 forehead with one of those ' idiot fringes.' " 
 
 " I thought everybody — most girls, I mean — had 
 them." 
 
 " Not really nice girls — really simple nice girls. 
 They used to be considered quite fast, and now 
 they are so common and vulgar. The 'coming 
 woman ' won't have anything of that sort." 
 
 "Well, you see, the 'coming woman' — if she's 
 coming — can't have come, so we needn't trouble 
 about her," said Darlington, who was almost being 
 irritated into epigram. 
 
 "There will soon be a very different sort of 
 people. There won't be room for many stragglers 
 in the fight of life much longer. I daresay you 
 haven't ever thought about it, because you've prob- 
 ably been brought up at Eton and Oxford, or some- 
 where like that. They don't realise the tendency 
 of the age, because they're almost played out them- 
 
68 OUR OWN POMPEII. 
 
 selves. They say that the Victoria University is 
 quite taking the place of Oxford. And there's a 
 school up in Yorkshire somewhere — I quite forget 
 where — which, they say, will be better than Eton 
 in a year or two, — the highest tone, and all the 
 masters advanced thinkers." 
 
 "What a beastly hole, and what a brute of a 
 woman ! " thought Darlington. 
 
 His thoughts must be forgiven, as he did not 
 give them utterance ; and it must also be remem- 
 bered that his vocabulary of abusive adjectives was 
 not chosen with critical nicety, but was both limited 
 and formed by careless usage. His contribution to 
 a conversation was at all times more or less of a 
 monosyllabic character, although atoned for by a 
 charmingly responsive smile. Now, as he mur- 
 mured something about Harrow being good enough 
 for him, even the smile was wanting. Then he 
 suddenly added, " I'm very sorry, — I must be off; 
 some fellows are waiting for me ; " and betook 
 himself off accordingly. 
 
 Meanwhile the little boat was slowly floating 
 seawards. Claud pulled as gently as he could ; and 
 finally, when they had got out about a quarter of a 
 
OUR OWN POMPEII. 69 
 
 mile, lie rested on his oars altogether. The conver- 
 sation was taken up in fits and starts, and then 
 dropped again, as though it were hardly worth 
 while to talk when there was so much around to 
 silently enjoy. At last, after a longer pause than 
 usual, Claud pointed out to them Pompeii in the 
 distance. It looked more lovely than usual this 
 evening. The magic touch of the moonlight had 
 removed every trace of newness and garishness. 
 Lines of little twinkling stars marked the streets, 
 and threw a hot faint light upon the pillars and 
 porticoes of the classical houses and tiny temples 
 among which they crept along. 
 
 "How much more beautiful it is now than by 
 daylight ! " said Miss Denbigh. " By daylight I 
 think it all looks a little sham and tawdry, but 
 now — why, even Venice can't be more lovely." 
 
 " Yes, it is a little like Venice — at least as 
 Venice looks sometimes," said Claud. " Last time 
 I was there, however, it was foggy, and raining the 
 whole time. I had nothing to do but to stay in 
 my hotel and read ' The Stones of Venice ' and 
 write sonnets to the weather." 
 
 " Do you write poetry much ? " asked Mrs Den- 
 
70 OUR OWN POMPEII. 
 
 bigh, quickly. She thought to herself that it was 
 a pity when young men took to spending a great 
 deal of time in that way. If they were real poets, 
 perhaps it could not be helped, many things hav- 
 ing to be excused and put up with in one of these 
 uncomfortable people. But, as a general rule, she 
 considered it should be discouraged. It had an 
 enervating effect on the character, and tended to 
 confuse the real issues of life with false standards 
 and misleading ideals. 
 
 Claud did not know what was passing through 
 her mind, and he answered, innocently enough, 
 " Oh no ; never anything to be called poetry. 
 Sometimes, when I have nothing better to do, I try 
 to pump out some verses, just for practice ; but you 
 may be sure I never bore my friends with them." 
 
 " We are quite sure of that," put in Mrs Denbigh, 
 with her ready tact. " But that need not prevent 
 you repeating some of them to us." 
 
 " Yes ; please do," added Miss Denbigh. 
 
 Claud, of course, protested that he really 
 couldn't — that he would if he could, but that he 
 had really forgotten everything. He retreated 
 from one outpost of excuse to another, as a young 
 
OUE OWN POMPEII. 71 
 
 man generally does when he is pressed to do any- 
 thing which makes him feel shy. And he sur- 
 rendered at last (as they generally do) with a 
 feeling of half-conscious pleasure after all. 
 
 " Well," he said, " the only thing I know is a 
 sonnet on the weather at Venice I told you about. 
 I sent it to the ' Spectator,' but they wouldn't put 
 it in. So I daresay it is very bad : — 
 
 " Across the grey sea drifts the cold grey rain ; 
 The palaces are veiled in grey ; and all 
 The city seems as though a second fall 
 Had driven forth mankind with sword of flame. 
 St Mark's is masked in scaffolds, which proclaim 
 Its downfall and its doom ; while Nature's pall, 
 Deepening, descends. The campanile tall 
 Towers in the mist. A wavering shadowy stain, 
 Deserted, is the Grand Canal's wide stream : 
 No boats among the bridges glide between : 
 Even as of the dead, these waters seem. 
 Ah no ! man is not dead. His latest scheme 
 For joy in Venice comes. As in a dream, 
 We see the passing steamboat's lurid gleam." 
 
 " Oh, I like it ! I think it charming," said Mrs 
 Denbigh, when Claud had finished and had asked 
 her whether she did not think it a little pessimistic. 
 " But," she added, " why do you put in the word 
 ' grey ' three times in the first two lines ? " 
 
OUR OWN POMPEII. 
 
 "Because the whole thing is a sort of arrange- 
 ment in grey. The aspect of Venice changes daily. 
 There is no place in the world which loses all colour 
 so quickly when the weather is dull or wet. And, 
 you know, there is no place which glows with such 
 exquisite tints in certain hours of sunshine." 
 
 " Please don't tell me you paint as well as write 
 poetry," Mrs Denbigh said, in playful alarm, " or 
 we matter-of-fact people shall be quite afraid to 
 know you." 
 
 " Oh no, I don't paint at all. Indeed I hardly 
 ever write any poetry either. I'm fond of litera- 
 ture and everything else that is nice. But now- 
 adays I am mostly taken up with my profession," 
 
 "And that is?" 
 
 " The Bar." 
 
 " But you are not at the Bar noiv ? " suggested 
 Mrs Denbigh, with the slightest touch of playful 
 S£(,tire in her voice. 
 
 " Not at the present moment. I'm taking a little 
 holiday." Then Mrs Denbigh gave him her views 
 on the Bar as a profession. She was a clever 
 woman, and her views on most subjects were not 
 to be despised. She told him that she had often 
 
OUR OWN POMPEII, 73 
 
 met eminent lawyers in society during the course 
 of her life, and had also known many young men 
 in society who had adopted the Bar as a profession, 
 but they were never the same. And she suspected 
 that the eminent lawyers, when they were young 
 men, might have been found working ten or twelve 
 hours a-day in back chambers, up four or five 
 flights of stairs, somewhere in Lincoln's Inn. 
 
 Slie gave him her views with a certain insist- 
 ance, which made Claud wonder whether she 
 wished him to tell her his motives in choosing a 
 profession. He could not, however, state that he 
 was regarded as his uncle's heir, as far as a large 
 part of his personality went, so he contented him- 
 self by saying, " I went to the Bar chiefly to please 
 my uncle, Lord St Kevan. I think he considers it 
 a good step towards a political career." 
 
 Mrs Denbigh turned the conversation, — she 
 began to talk about Darlington, and filled Claud 
 with delight by praising him so generously. He 
 was such a satisfactory young man, so good to his 
 mother, and so popular in his county. He would 
 probably stand at the next election. 
 
 " Yes, I believe it is fixed," burst in Claud, " and 
 
74 OUK OWN POMPEII. 
 
 I am to go down and help hiin to kiss the babies, 
 and all that sort of thing." 
 
 During this conversation Miss Denbigh had been 
 very silent. Her thoughts had been far away — 
 rambling over Scotch moors, wet with the falling 
 mist and covered with watery bloom. Suddenly 
 she said — 
 
 " I don't like ' smart people.' " 
 
 " Claudia ! " said her mother. 
 
 " Well, perhaps it's the phrase I dislike. As far 
 as I can tell, you may be well-born, good-looking, 
 and well-bred ; yet if you happen not to be in the 
 ' smart set,' you are called second-rate. Wliereas, 
 on the other hand, you may be ugly, ill-bred, and 
 rude ; your father may have been a drunken 
 money-lender or worse : but if you happen to have 
 succeeded in wriggling yourself into the ' smart 
 set,' you become a privileged person, and can look 
 down on and snub every one else." 
 
 " But we are in the ' smart set,' " said Mrs Den- 
 bigh. 
 
 "I was only speaking about the general prin- 
 ciple. It made me so indignant at dinner to hear 
 Tottie Fobbes say, ' A fellow had the cheek to in- 
 
OUE OWN POMPEII. 75 
 
 troduce me to Lord Mawnan. How can I possibly 
 know him ! He must be very second-rate, for I 
 never meet him at any of the hcst houses.' " 
 
 " Yes, Tottie takes himself a little too seriously 
 sometimes," said Mrs Denbigh. " You would never 
 find a real man of the world — like Mr de Barry, 
 for instance — talk like that." 
 
 "The idea," put in Claud, indignantly, "of a 
 little insignificant creature like that presuming to 
 patronise a man in Lord Mawnan's position, be- 
 cause he happens not to care to go to a few houses 
 in which Tottie has managed to show himself ! 
 Why, Lord Mawnan is twice his age, has ten times 
 his position, fifty times his experience, probably 
 five hundred times his brains, and could kick him 
 out of anywhere in no time." 
 
 Miss Denbigh flashed over Claud a smile of 
 approval, and then said — 
 
 " You must admit that in society people consider 
 that they belong to a privileged class. They may 
 not use their privilege, but they consider that they 
 have the right to do many things that they would 
 not venture on if they were not in society — the 
 right, for instance, of being extremely eccentric, or 
 
76 OUR OWN POMPEII. 
 
 overbearing, or capricious, or unbearably rude, to 
 people who are not in their set." 
 
 "Come, Claudia," said Mrs Denbigh, with the 
 slightest touch of warning in her voice, "you 
 must not be uncharitable ; and you must also re- 
 member that all the best people are in society, 
 even if a few ill-bred people manage to clamber 
 into it, and misbehave themselves there," 
 
 She remembered the day — of course Claudia was 
 too young to do so — when she herself was not 
 quite, quite in the smartest set. And though she 
 had always been a woman of too much dignity, 
 and with too broad a view of the relative value 
 of things, ever positively to struggle or intrigue, 
 she had brought her diplomacy (of which she had 
 a large store) to bear upon any doubtful or anti- 
 pathetic forces, until she had perfectly gained her 
 end. Social position had never presented itself in 
 so crude a form as a ladder, but to her it had been 
 a gently inclined plane, up which she had enjoyed 
 moving. 
 
 After this accomplishment, she did not cherish 
 her conquest in proportion to the pains she had 
 spent in bringing it about (as most women — and, 
 
OUR OWX POMPEII. 77 
 
 indeed, many men — are found to do). In fact, she 
 despised it a little in her heart. She quite sym- 
 pathised with her daughter in her outburst ; but 
 she thought that lately her daughter had acquired 
 strange socialistic ideas, and that they had better 
 be checked as soon as possible. One of her hopes 
 had long been that perhaps Darlington might 
 propose for her hand. Mrs Denbigh not only 
 liked him for liis position, but also for himself; 
 his charming face and frank boyish manner had 
 a way of unconsciously insinuating themselves into 
 most ladies' hearts. And now she wondered if 
 Claud could be kept at a safe distance. All this, 
 put down, perhaps a little crudely, in black and 
 white, would lead one to suppose that Mrs Den- 
 bigh was merely an intriguing woman of the 
 world. It was not really so, however. She had 
 the kindest heart ; and if she had her plans, what 
 clever woman with few illusions, broad decided 
 views, and a considerable natural power of getting 
 them accepted, has not ? She now, for instance, 
 determined that they had been out long enough, 
 and so the boat was turned towards the shore. As 
 Claud was pulling them in, she asked him one or 
 
78 OUR OWN POMPEII. 
 
 two more "leading questions" about his future 
 career. Claud answered them, and then suddenly 
 gave a little laugh. 
 
 " I am only laughing at my thoughts," he said, 
 when Mrs Denbis;h asked him if she were not 
 horribly inquisitive. 
 
 The thought that had suddenly struck him as so 
 ludicrous was the idea that Mrs Denbigh had 
 absolutely taken alarm, and feared that he might 
 fall in love with her daughter. 
 
 "How absurd women are," he said to himself, 
 " to imagine such preposterous things ! " And then 
 he gave another little laugh, for at that moment 
 the veil was lifted. He felt Love's golden arrow 
 in his heart, as a blinding wave of seemingly 
 mingling colour, music, incense, light, and bliss, 
 swept over him. And he murmured to himself, 
 " By Jove, I think she is right ! " with a little 
 rapturous flutter of perfect happiness. 
 
OUK OWN POMPEII. 79 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 The rain was pouring down. Dark clouds came 
 sweeping over the tormented sea, scudding from 
 the south, where their advent was lost in one ob- 
 literating sheet of grey pallor. The Eorum was 
 deserted ; it was slowly transforming itself into a 
 pool. Little streams of rain raced off the houses 
 into the streets, and helped to swell the rivulet 
 which each one had started on its own account. 
 
 The lashing wind blew in gusts, hurling the rain 
 into the face of any one who was bold enough to 
 venture, even with hurrying feet, from one build- 
 ing to another. 
 
 Most of the people were huddled together in one 
 or other of the public rooms ; but they were cold, 
 and bored, and extremely cross. Many of the rooms 
 themselves were not only damp, but were positively 
 
80 OUR OWN POMPEII. 
 
 sloppy ; and draughts, which in this case were 
 violent gusts of wind, abounded. 
 
 Miss van Knut, after undergoing, as she herself 
 said, the slow water-torture for some time — a drop 
 of rain having fallen on her head every two minutes 
 — proposed a w^arming game. Some one suggested 
 a " tug of war," and the party were soon in the 
 midst of England against the world. 
 
 " Have you heard that Cade is coming in a day 
 or two ? " said Mr Giles to Mr Leo, as they were 
 standing watching the fun. 
 
 "Eeally, I shouldn't have thought this sort of 
 thing was at all in his line. Is he interested in 
 classical rev'ivals ? " 
 
 " No ; but he likes enjoying himself as well as any 
 one else. He is very fond of the good things of this 
 life — very. He doesn't himself really hate the rich. 
 He is only, rightly, envious of their privileges." 
 
 " Then his professing to do so is merely a policy ? " 
 
 " Yes — part of his policy as a popular leader. 
 You must do that sort of thing nowadays." 
 
 " But I always thought that as the Government 
 became increasingly democratic, its leaders would 
 also become more disinterested." 
 
OUR OWN POMPEII. 81 
 
 " It's no good being theoretical nowadays. You 
 have to be practical if you want to succeed ; and 
 if you want to succeed in politics, you mustn't be 
 too squeamish about the means. That's how Cade 
 got on. You don't suppose he has risen to the 
 Cabinet, from being a temperance lecturer, merely 
 by patriotism and disinterested statesmanship ! I 
 believe that the chief reason he is coming here is 
 to meet Courier, the great French Eadical. I don't 
 know much about him. I fancy he's not a bit 
 stronger than Cade in his views. But the French 
 have never let him get into their Government. 
 They're so retrograde, after all. They are really 
 much more reactionary than we are." 
 
 " Courier," said ]\Ir Leo, in his gently authori- 
 tative manner, " is, I think, a very dangerous man. 
 He is an unpractical dreamer — a Girondist. Like 
 Eousseau, he believes that the ideal state is a state 
 of nature, with apparently few laws, either civil or 
 even moral. He thinks that if we obtained this 
 state we should all be innocent and happy and beauti- 
 ful — indeed ideally Hellenic. But here I, like most 
 of the thinkers of the present day, differ from him. 
 We must progress ; we cannot retrace our steps." 
 
 VOL. I. F 
 
82 OUR OWN POxAIPEII. 
 
 " I'm afraid I must be off," said Mr Giles. " I 
 do the practical parts, you know, and I've a lot of 
 ' wires ' to send off to our Hundreds about auto- 
 nomy for India. We're getting up public opinion 
 on that subject now. Cade's full of it, and I have 
 to work the machine for him." 
 
 " And I must be off, to read some of the ' Vita 
 Nuova ' to my wife ; so good-bye for the present." 
 
 " He's a rum chap," said Giles to himself, as Leo 
 walked away — " with his idealisms, and patriot- 
 isms, and laws of nature, and all that sort of un- 
 practical wind- talk. Well, well, I suppose it all 
 helps the party ; and it gives it a kind of pleasant 
 face, at any rate." 
 
 Lady Marlowe had provided a charming sitting- 
 room for herself. She had insisted on the archi- 
 tects giving her a good stove ; and now she was, as 
 one might say, hugging herself over it with a cer- 
 tain satisfaction. The room was filled with photo- 
 graph-stands, Japanese screens, old bits of brocade, 
 and various other knick-knacks, which contrasted 
 strangely with the classically frescoed walls. 
 
 " Yes," she used to say, whenever Mr Leo sighed 
 over the anachronisms, " it is a jumble, I know ; but 
 
OUR OWN POMPEII. 83 
 
 all modern art is. I'm going to have Sargent's 
 portrait of me put on an easel in that corner, and 
 then I'm sure the broadest eclecticism can't go 
 further than that." 
 
 Lady Marlowe was not, however, at the present 
 moment entertaining Mr Leo, for Mrs Denbigh 
 was seated on the other side of the stove, and had 
 come in to enjoy an " intimate " talk, as the French 
 say, about her daughter. Although well-born and 
 with an adequate income, Mrs Denbigh had always 
 found that a certain amount of enterprise was 
 necessary in order to maintain the very satisfac- 
 tory position in which she found herself. But 
 Claudia did not realise this. To her the position, 
 with all the delights with which it was accom- 
 panied, came as a matter of course — as a dispen- 
 sation of nature; and she frankly accepted it as such. 
 Mrs Denbigh was really pleased at this. Nothing, 
 she would have considered, was a greater sign of 
 bad breeding than that her daughter should have 
 imagined that they were in any way privileged, or 
 that there was anything to be particularly gratified 
 at in their social position. And yet, although she 
 hated a worldly girl, she began to fear that perhaps 
 
84 OUR OWN POxMPEII. 
 
 Claudia was getting a little too unworldly. Claudia 
 thoroughly enjoyed and appreciated the good things 
 of this life ; but she preferred others still more. 
 She would rather be hunting in Wiltshire during 
 the winter than spending it on the Riviera, for in- 
 stance ; and she often bemoaned having to go up to 
 London for the season, instead of enjoying herself, 
 as she called it, in Scotland. 
 
 " If we could only miss a season or two, mother, 
 no one would miss us, and we should have so much 
 more fun in the country." Now Mrs Denbigh, 
 though sure of the first statement, was not so sure 
 of the second ; and the whole idea filled her with a 
 certain vague alarm. She thought that for a care- 
 fully brought-up girl — for her own daughter, in 
 fact — the whole speech had a strange unnatural 
 ring about it. Claudia had also taken to expend- 
 ing a great deal of time over " improving books." 
 She not only puzzled out her Dante with the help 
 of an Italian dictionary, but she had even begun to 
 dip into Darwin and Herbert Spencer. Mrs Den- 
 bigh had the greatest belief in a woman being 
 clever, intelligent, and well-read ; but she drew 
 the line at Herbert Spencer. So now she had 
 
OUR OWN POMPEII. 85 
 
 come to have a little talk with Lady Marlowe, in 
 order to discuss the great question of the idiosyn- 
 crasies and peculiarities of young girls in general, 
 and those of her own daughter in particular. 
 
 " Claudia," she was saying, " is too much wrapped 
 up in her own ideas. She sits and dreams all day 
 over a book — not a novel, or even poetry, but social 
 philosophy, or something of that sort. The other 
 day I found her reading that awful ' Progress and 
 Poverty ' ; but at any rate, I put a stop to that." 
 
 " Let her have more society and gaiety. Girls 
 in the midst of pleasant action never retain theo- 
 retical ideas long. It is, after all, a form of enthu- 
 siasm ; and when she is happily settled in life, her 
 husband will take care that she isn't too tran- 
 scendental. I'm sure Sir George never gives me 
 a moment's peace to try and improve my mind. 
 He seems to expect me to spend the wdiole day 
 over the household accounts. If I am to do 
 nothing else but look after the house, as I often 
 say to him, what time is there to study esoteric 
 Buddhism ? " 
 
 " Oh, please don't talk to her about that ! " said 
 Mrs Denbigh, in alarm. " You can study such 
 
86 OUR OWN POMPEII. 
 
 things and keep your head, because people like 
 us, who have been in the world a little longer, 
 know that it is all very pretty, but that it is only 
 a passing fashion. But Claudia is carried away by 
 what she reads and believes in ; and I am now in 
 daily terror of her suddenly announcing that she 
 is a Buddhist, or a Theosophist, or a Socialist, or 
 something dreadful." 
 
 Lady Marlowe, for her own part, thought that it 
 would be both original and charming to have a 
 daughter with " dreadful " views. ]\Irs Denbigh 
 had a narrower ideal for a young lady. " Good 
 form " (she did not call it by that name) was her 
 criterion, and anything in the least original or 
 outr4 she considered was most unladylike. 
 
 " If your daughter cares for politicians, I have 
 got two coming in a day or two. Courier, the 
 French Eadical, and Cade — they want to meet 
 one another, and so I asked them both here," said 
 Lady Marlowe, taking a tack in the conversation. 
 
 " Cade coming Aerc to stay with you ! I always 
 thought you were a Conservative ; and even if you 
 are a Liberal, how can you have anything to do 
 with that dreadful man ? " 
 
OUR OWN POMPEII. 
 
 " I'm a great Conservative ; I'm on the Council 
 of the Primrose League. But for that very reason 
 I think it is politic to be friendly with the foe. 
 One can fight them so much better if one has 
 personally studied their weak jDoints." (The real 
 reason that Lady Marlowe encouraged Mr Cade 
 was that he was very successful ; and she wor- 
 shipped success, as a general rule, irrespective of 
 its merits or results.) " Besides, he is personally 
 quite a nice person ; and one must always separate 
 the man from the politician." 
 
 " I have always considered him one of the worst 
 and wickedest people going," said Mrs Denbigh, in 
 her firmest accents — " not so much on account of 
 the nature of his acts, as on account of their wide- 
 spread influence. As far as this goes — and it goes 
 very far — it is tending to ruin the country ; indeed 
 I daresay he will succeed in partly ruining it." 
 
 " Oh, come ! " said Lady Marlowe, in her light 
 staccato way ; " he isn't nearly so bad as you make 
 out. He is very good company, and I assure you 
 doesn't mean half that he says. We must try not 
 to be narrow-minded, you know, in this cosmo- 
 politan age." 
 
88 OUR OWN POMPEII. 
 
 Before Mrs Denbigh had had time to reply, a knock 
 was heard at the door, and Flashington burst in. 
 He had come, he said, to try and find Miss Den- 
 bigh. They were going to get np a four at lav/n- 
 tennis, as the weather had cleared up a little. 
 Claudia was soon found in Mrs Denbigh's rooms. 
 She and Flashington walked down to the courts 
 together, which were already filling up, as ragged 
 gleams of sunshine (with the sudden warmth tliat 
 sunshine always seems to bring with it in the 
 South) began to break through the clouds in glar- 
 ing jagged rents, edging them, by contrast, with 
 lines of crumpled darkness. The wind had dropped, 
 the rain had ceased. " In half an hour," said Flash- 
 ington, " it will have turned out quite a beautiful 
 day. The court will be disengaged in a few 
 minutes." And then he told her that the other 
 two players he had asked were Darlington and 
 Miss van Knut. 
 
 Darlington was already on the ground, looking 
 more boyish than ever in his flannels. In a minute 
 or two Miss van Knut was seen walking slowly 
 towards them, swinging her racket, and dressed in 
 a costume which here and there gave out a little 
 
OUK OWN POMPEII. 89 
 
 sparkle, as though the light in her eyes had over- 
 flowed and been deftly caught among its folds and 
 trimmings. Flashington introduced Darlington to 
 her. She flushed for a moment with pleasure, 
 and then said eagerly, but with the most absolute 
 simplicity — 
 
 " I'm so glad to meet you, Lord Darlington, be- 
 cause, do you know, I've never spoken to a real 
 peer before." 
 
 " But I'm not a peer," said Darlington, beginning 
 to get a little embarrassed — at the same time giving 
 her the winning smile with which he always carried 
 off his embarrassments so successfully. 
 
 " Then at any rate you're a legislator, and sit in 
 the House of Lords. I've been so carefully brought 
 up, that I've never been allowed to speak to a 
 legislator before. In America the high-toned 
 families don't generally associate with them." 
 
 " But I don't sit in the House of Lords ; and I 
 hope it will be a long time before I do. They say 
 it's awfully dull there. I'm going to try and get 
 into the Commons next election." 
 
 " And of course you're a great Tory ? " 
 
 "No, I'm a Liberal. All our family are, you know." 
 
90 OUR OWN POMPEII. 
 
 " You don't look as though you'd studied politics 
 much. You look too young and too fresh, too " 
 
 " Innocent," suggested Flashington. 
 
 " Y'"es, that sort of thing — too nice, in fact. Though 
 I'm sure I oughtn't to say so. You should just see 
 our politicians. They aren't too innocent or too 
 nice. But how shall you know what to vote for ? " 
 
 " The ' gov.' will tell me. Sometimes one's con- 
 stituents have ideas on the subject. And tlien," 
 added Darlington, in his most ingenuous and charm- 
 ingly boyish way, " I've got some ideas of my own, 
 you know." 
 
 At this moment IMr Smythe was seen deliberately 
 approaching. He was a little short-sighted, and did 
 not recognise any one as yet. 
 
 " I don't like that man," said Miss van Knut in 
 a quick whisper. " I'm sure he's an awful snob. 
 We have snobs in America, but we couldn't produce 
 anything so perfect as that." 
 
 " That's why he's got on so well. They say he 
 began life in a cheesemonger's. But our courts are 
 ready now," added Flashington in a louder voice. 
 
 Mr Smythe now came up and gave the party a 
 smile. 
 
OUR OWN POMPEII. 91 
 
 " We are going to play together," said Darling- 
 ton to Miss van Knut. 
 
 " I think so ; but I play so badly, you will have 
 to take all the balls," she said. And then turning 
 to Mr Smythe with a wicked twinkle in her eyes, 
 she added, " I shan't have to trouble you to give 
 me any more lessons in the deportment of the aris- 
 tocracy, Mr Smythe, because Lord Darlington has 
 kindly promised to give them to me himself for the 
 future. Haven't you. Lord Darlington ? " 
 
 " Eather," said Darlington with a delighted giggle, 
 as they took up their places for the game. 
 
 Mr Smythe, for once in his life, was staggered. 
 He was accustomed to put up with snubs and re- 
 buffs — at least from the right people. But he con- 
 sidered that he had never in his whole life met 
 with such a mixture of impudence and effrontery — 
 such a barefaced and shameless attempt to secure 
 a desirable young man, combined with such an 
 impudent snub for himself. He would have been 
 the last person to understand that such an idea as 
 " securing " Darlington had never entered Miss 
 van Knut's head ; that the amount of amusement 
 she derived from a person was generally the test of 
 
92 OUK OWN POMPEII. 
 
 whether she wanted to know them well or not ; and 
 that, with her frank simplicity of character, when 
 she liked any one she showed that she liked them 
 — indeed she was capable of even telling them so. 
 If she had thought that people would be inclined 
 to suspect her motives, she would at first have been 
 incredulous, and then indignant. 
 
 " I never heard anything so uncharitable and 
 horrid," she would have probably said, and at once 
 have gone and told Darlington that she could never 
 speak to him again. 
 
 " I must really go and warn some of the ladies, 
 and write to Darlington's mother at once," said Mr 
 Smythe to himself. " Dear Lady Downstreamdown 
 would never forgive me if anything fatal happened 
 to her sou." 
 
 And Claud, where was Claud all this time ? If 
 he were in love, why — even if he were left out 
 of the tennis set — was he not lingering round 
 the courts; or at least combining business with 
 pleasure, by giving Mrs Denbigh a little of his 
 company ? 
 
 Claud at this moment was taking a long walk 
 by himself, up among the hills. He walked on 
 
OUR OWN POMPEII. 93 
 
 quickly. He told himself that he wanted to have 
 a quiet time to thiuk things over ; but in reality 
 he tried, by such mild violence as the exercise 
 of walking gives, to escape from thought. 
 
 He was in love, and he knew it. 
 
 During the last few days he had moved, as it 
 were, in an atmosphere lightened and rarefied by a 
 new joy. He seemed to have been led away from 
 the sordid world by the dreaming and passionate 
 Love-god himself — the brows of the amorous boy 
 crowned with myrtle, his grey eyes filled with a 
 wistful exultation. Upwards and onwards they 
 seemed to pass, till they almost floated among the 
 peaks of virgin whiteness — in a world which we 
 know not, fashioned as it is by lovers' hopes and 
 dreams and whispers. And then, amid the rosy 
 dawn-clouds, the young god spread his shimmering 
 wings. And the air was filled with her presence — 
 the presence of the one whom he loved. And her 
 face smiled on him, while his blood danced through 
 his veins, and he counted unconsciously the beat- 
 ing of his own exultant heart. 
 
 Everything around him was touched by change, 
 was glorified and vivified, and, in a subtle way. 
 
94 OUR OWN POMPEII. 
 
 almost transformed for him — the small things of 
 life as well as the greater ones. 
 
 The flowers, for instance, that came with so fresh 
 a glow in the early morning — the distant strains of 
 music from the shore, almost too honey-like in their 
 sweet, long-drawn-out Italian melody — the faint 
 smell of orange-blossom that always pervaded the 
 place — the hills, the waves, the very people them- 
 selves, and the full-toned life around, — were partly 
 effaced, partly lit up by the luminous glow of his 
 love. 
 
 And yet he tried to evade the belief, and per- 
 suade himself that he was only possessed by a pass- 
 ing fancy. 
 
 During the last few days he had often waited 
 feverishly for hours with the hope of exchanging 
 a few words with her, or even getting a passing 
 smile ; and then when the supreme moment came, 
 he found that he had nothing to say, or worse than 
 nothing. For words that did not rise to the occa- 
 sion, he felt, simply mocked and insulted it. 
 
 They had had several small talks. He believed 
 they talked chiefly about the weather. And when 
 they had finished, he had cried to himself, " I am 
 
OUR OWN POMPEII. 95 
 
 not in love — I cannot be in love ! " till the old 
 irresistible, haunting, irrevocable feeling gathered 
 over him once more. 
 
 Claud had a considerable amount of common- 
 sense ; and sometimes, when he was prepared to 
 admit to himself that he was in love, his sense of 
 humour even came to the surface, and helped to 
 present a new series of pictures to his bram. He 
 saw his uncle's look of wonder ; he heard the 
 sarcastic question as to how he proposed to support 
 a wife. He heard Mrs Denbigh askino; the same 
 question with surprising clearness. But he did not 
 hear himself giving an equally satisfactory reply. 
 
 " I can't marry, and that is the long and the 
 short of it," he said to himself. He did not of 
 course convince himself (does a lover ever do so ?), 
 but he continued, " I must cure myself. I'm in the 
 most absurd state. I feel just like Dante when he 
 wrote the ' Vita Nuova ' ; and, as Darlington would 
 say, I never thought I should make such a beastly 
 fool of myself as that." 
 
 He threw himself down on some grass which 
 had been partly sheltered by overhanging trees 
 from the storm of the morning ; and then, slowly 
 
96 OUR OWN POMPEII. 
 
 stretching out his legs, he gazed across the distance, 
 beneath an arch of trellised vine, to the expanses 
 of the sweeping sea. He lit his pipe. The after- 
 noon was warm and very calm — liis body was a 
 little weary with its climb. 
 
 " I am in love," he said. And as he did so, he 
 gave a tiny smile — and was asleep. 
 
OUR OWN POMPEII. 97 
 
 CHAPTER YL 
 
 The Government, at the time of which we are 
 writing, although tliey might have lost a little of 
 their originally overwhelming prestige, were still 
 as firmly fixed in office as ever ; and the Opposition 
 saw no chance of either defeating them by a vote 
 of censure, or of securing a majority if there were 
 to be a dissolution. 
 
 It is true that there were ex-members of the 
 Cabinet itself who said that it had committed 
 robbery, condoned treason, and commanded mur- 
 der. 
 
 The Ministry had forfeited one of these members 
 by bringing in a bill which was simply a form of 
 legalised theft ; had forced another to retire, rather 
 than encourage disloyalty and form compacts with 
 traitors ; and a third to resign when they began to 
 
 VOL. I. G 
 
98 OUR OWN rOMPEII. 
 
 bombard the port of a friendly Power without any 
 declaration of war. 
 
 But so strange are the English people at times, 
 that these little incidents hardly affected the popu- 
 larity of the Cabinet — or what remained of it. 
 
 " Not until the whole Cabinet have resigned " (it 
 is presumed through their distaste for assisting any 
 longer in a Government of failure and disgrace) 
 " shall we really know or realise the unequalled 
 strenojth of the Prime Minister," some of his more 
 devoted followers were wont to exclaim — and it 
 really seemed as though the country agreed with 
 them. 
 
 (The reader must remember, in justice to the 
 novelist, that it is his business not only to describe, 
 but also to create ; and that therefore, if he men- 
 tion, as though they were facts, things not merely 
 contrary to all experience, but almost incredible in 
 themselves, it should be ascribed to inexperience, 
 and not be condemned as a childish attempt at 
 deception. Indeed, is it wonderful that, when he 
 has so often been told that " fact is stranger than 
 fiction," he should have, for once, exceeded the 
 credible, and made fiction stranger than fact ?) 
 
OUR OWN POMPEII. 99 
 
 After this, it will probably be impossible to 
 astonish the reader — even when he is told that our 
 (fictitious) Prime Minister was a Liberal, and is 
 assured that Mr Cade was a member of our (sup- 
 posititious) Cabinet. 
 
 At the present moment, Parliament had ad- 
 journed for the Easter recess, and thus Mr Cade 
 was enabled to become a guest of Lady Marlowe's. 
 Lord St Kevan had also arrived, and had shown by 
 his manner to Claud that he had not yet forgiven 
 his desertion. He was too magnanimous, too much 
 the grand seigneur, to harbour any petty spite or to 
 cease for a moment to be as exquisitely courteous as 
 ever. But, on the other hand, he was accustomed 
 to be obeyed, and now showed in his intercourse 
 with Claud the very slightest shade of stiffness. 
 His manners were very elaborate, and included 
 many delicate shades among them — and he seemed 
 to be waiting, with well-bred patience, for his 
 nephew to rearrange his views, until they coincided 
 with his own. 
 
 For a day or two neither of them touched on the 
 dangerous topic. But one morning, when they 
 were walking along the seashore, away from Pom-- 
 
100 OUR OWN POMPEII. 
 
 peii, Lord St Kevan suddenly began, in his slow, 
 deliberate, senatorial voice — 
 
 "I have been thinking over what you told me 
 about your desire to change your principles " (he 
 would not for a moment admit that his nephew 
 could already have permitted the change to take 
 place). " Do you not see that although there is 
 much that is accomplished by a Liberal Govern- 
 ment nowadays of which we cannot approve, yet 
 if we, as an order, were to go over to the other side, 
 things would probably become much worse ? We 
 should lose our controlling — our restraining — influ- 
 ence " 
 
 " But you don't control — ^you can't restrain ; that 
 is just my point," broke in Claud — forgetting in 
 his eagerness that his uncle had been born in days 
 when peers were not accustomed to be interrupted, 
 whatever they might say. " You allow the Eadicals 
 to outweigh the whole party, and then you throw 
 your weight into their scale. Now, if you want to 
 balance them, I think it would be more logical to 
 throw it into the other one." 
 
 The old man seemed to take no notice of the 
 interruption ; and he continued, with his air of 
 
OUR OWN POMPEII. 101 
 
 gentle dignity, as though Claud were still a child, 
 and he were trying to con\dnee him of an error, in- 
 stead of punishing him for it — 
 
 " I think you underestimate the Whig influence. 
 It would be impossible to form a Government with- 
 out a large, I may say a preponderating, Whig ele- 
 ment in it." 
 
 "At the present moment, possibly, but not for 
 long," replied Claud, still unconvinced — still almost 
 unabashed. "The Eadicals openly scoff at the 
 Whigs. You know they do. They say, if the 
 Whigs choose to help them, well and good, but 
 that they could do quite well without them — 
 perhaps better; and that they will only accept 
 their aid on condition that they — the Eadicals — en- 
 tirely control the policy of the Liberal party. The 
 truth is, my dear uncle, that the Whigs like to 
 think they drive the party. But they have let the 
 reins slip through their fingers ; and while a few 
 have been left in the road altogether (to be picked 
 up by the rival coach), the remainder are either 
 being dragged or are pulling behind, in the vain 
 hope that they may not be observed to be there. 
 Mr Cade is really the coachman, with people under 
 
102 OUR OWN PO^IPEII. 
 
 him, like Mr Giles, as ostlers, to do the dirty 
 work." 
 
 " Metaphors are proverbially misleading. You 
 probably know very little about the internal work- 
 ings of the Government. We do, to a large extent, 
 form the Government and control its actions. 
 Without the Whig peers, with their influential and 
 independent position, their business - like ability, 
 their traditions of statesmanship, and inherited 
 aptitude for government, the Liberal party could 
 hardly exist, and could never come into power." 
 
 " I have noticed that although you so dislike my 
 having become a Conservative, you yourself seem, 
 to judge by your long and frequent letters to the 
 ' Times,' to disapprove of the Liberal policy in detail, 
 and to distrust almost all the Liberal measures." 
 
 " To a large extent I do, at the present moment. 
 But I hold them to be an abnormal growth, due in 
 a great measure to Mr Cade, who is, I think, a very 
 dangerous person." 
 
 " Cade," broke in Claud, " I simply regard as an 
 unscrupulous demagogue, who, for his own private 
 advancement, is wilfully trying to break up his 
 party ; is violating every high tradition and un- 
 
OUR OWN POMPEII. 103 
 
 written law, not only of political morality, but even 
 of gentlemanly conduct itself; and is quite prepared, 
 if necessary, to assist in the ruin of his country, 
 which I, for my part, think will probably be one of 
 the most successful of his exploits — as party pas- 
 sion runs so high, that his party would probably 
 assist him to ruin his country rather than permit 
 him to destroy itself. They hate him, but they 
 obey him — because he knows his own mind, and 
 they don't know theirs. He takes a logical posi- 
 tion, and they haven't one to take. He has petri- 
 fied them by his Jacobin machinery. And I think 
 that finally, by destroying the British Constitution, 
 he will succeed in becoming himself Prime Minister." 
 
 " We must be careful about our language, Claud. 
 But I agree with you that Mr Cade has too much 
 power. It is, however, I assure you, quite impos- 
 sible that he could ever be Prime Minister." 
 
 " I don't see how you can prevent it ; but we 
 shall see. Now what do you think of people like 
 Giles, for instance ? " 
 
 " Such people are useful tools. I know that the 
 Conservative organisation is defective ; but I sup- 
 pose that even you have election agents ? " 
 
104 OUR OWN POMPEII. 
 
 " Not like Giles. You will find that he is ceas- 
 ing to be a tool, and is gradually turning, with Cade's 
 help, into a dictator. And what about Ireland ? " 
 
 " The misgovernment of Ireland has been deplor- 
 able — deplorable. But you must admit that both 
 parties are to blame for their lamentable and fatal 
 weakness. Mark this, Claud : whichever party you 
 may eventually belong to," said Lord St Kevan 
 solemnly, " it is generally fatal to a country when 
 it begins to persistently break the moral laws ; but 
 it is always fatal to a country when it begins to per- 
 sistently break the economic ones. I agree with 
 you entirely as to the Eadicals having too much — 
 much too much — power at present. This seems to 
 me to be the very reason why we should not leave 
 our party — why, on the other hand, we should 
 bring all the power and influence and talent which 
 we may possess to bear upon our party for its true 
 good, and in so doing, support its constitutional 
 wing, by counteracting the socialistic part of it. 
 Why, for instance, at the present time, some of 
 the more moderate men of the Conservative 
 party might join us, and help to form a Coali- 
 tion Ministry." 
 
OUR OWN POMPEII. 105 
 
 Lord St Kevan was a shrewd man ; but he never 
 realised that the days of Coalition Ministries are 
 over, and that Cabinets are no longer formed, re- 
 arranged, and dissolved by a few privileged gentle- 
 men, in order to suit the will and pleasure of a 
 dozen great families. 
 
 " Possibly, from the point of view of a great Whig 
 peer, you may be right. But I, you see, am nobody. 
 I don't affect any party by my change. And there- 
 fore I think it right, as far as I have any influence, 
 to give it to the party which I consider at the present 
 moment is the most constitutional and patriotic." 
 
 " I suppose you already take part in the tom- 
 foolery of the Primrose League ? " 
 
 " Yes, I am a member. I think myself that in 
 some ways it may be a little foolish ; but you have 
 enfranchised so many very foolish people, tliat it is 
 necessary sometimes to stoop a little towards their 
 level," replied Claud, with a momentary air of 
 triumph. " At any rate, it is harmless. We only 
 promise to uphold the Throne and Constitution — in 
 this way differing, I admit, from the many mischiev- 
 ous, dishonest, and ruinous promises which your 
 party hold out as a bribe to attract their followers." 
 
106 OUR OWN POMPEII. 
 
 " I think we have discussed the subject enough," 
 said Lord St Kevan, a little stiffly. They were en- 
 tering Pompeii on their return. "I am luncliing 
 with Prince Chioggia, so I must say good-bye ; " 
 and he turned up a side street, leaving Claud to 
 make his way alone to the central part of the town. 
 
 And so uncle and nephew separated. Pteally 
 holding almost identical views on all fundamental 
 questions, they only differed in their manner of ap- 
 proaching and their mode of expressing them. 
 
 Lord St Kevan in his heart admired Claud's 
 quickness in divining the growing powerlessness 
 of the Whigs, and was pleased at his generous 
 indignation against the petty meanness, the un- 
 patriotic partisanship, which were shown by so 
 many members of his party, who violated their 
 principles in order to retain their offices. He 
 knew, with a sorrowful certainty, that no one had. 
 the pluck to say to Cade, or even to a greater than 
 Cade, " "We draw the line here. We know that this 
 policy is illiberal and unconstitutional; it is op- 
 posed to both moral and economic laws, and if 
 persisted in, will be fatal to the country." 
 
 Claud on his part respected his uncle. He ad- 
 
OUR OWN POMPEII. 107 
 
 mired his steadfastness to all the inherited prin- 
 ciples of his family. And he knew that, to his 
 uncle, the difference between the two parties was 
 as the difference between light and darkness. 
 
 "It is possible to do wrong in the light," his 
 uncle would probably say — " it is even possible to 
 do wrong in consequence of the light ; but is that 
 any reason why we should leave the light for the 
 darkness ? " 
 
 And yet between these two, both generous, and 
 each one trying to do justice to the other's point 
 of view, the great wall of party had grown up. To 
 a man in Lord St Kevan's position, with his train- 
 ing and principles, Claud's desertion was more than 
 an error — was only less than a crime. In his heart 
 of hearts he feared that the old order was passing 
 away ; and he held that this was the very reason 
 why its children should stand by it till the last. 
 It was this that made desertion the more ignoble, 
 the more cowardly. There need be no decline if 
 all were faithful ; but every desertion tended to 
 hasten the end, if the end were coming. So in the 
 midst of all his love for his nephew, he felt a 
 cold spot in his heart, and a sense of bitter dis- 
 
108 OUR OWN POMPEII. 
 
 appointment, almost of shame, took possession of 
 him. 
 
 It is feared that a slightly erroneous impression 
 may have been given of the place that politics oc- 
 cupied in Claud's thoughts and words ; and that, 
 judging from the specimens of his conversation 
 which we have come across, it might he inferred 
 that he was at all times a very serious and 
 solemnly earnest person. No idea could be fur- 
 ther from the truth. On a few subjects he 
 thought deeply, felt strongly, and expressed him- 
 self decidedly, even eloquently, when they were 
 touched upon. He nursed enthusiasms — almost 
 romantic in their intensity — far down in his na- 
 ture. But on the surface, no one could take light 
 things more lightly or everyday affairs more easily. 
 He combined, with a great deal of common-sense, 
 a decided vein of humour. And these would have 
 been sufficient to save him from ever tending 
 to become priggish, even if his natural high spirits 
 had enveloped less frivolity than they happily did. 
 Besides, was he not in love ? And who that is in 
 love can give himself up to anything else ? 
 
 At the present moment he was seated in the gig 
 
OUR OWN POMPEII. 109 
 
 of Lord Mawnan's yacht, with Mrs Denbigh and 
 Claudia, Lady Marlowe, Mr Sniythe, and the Leos. 
 For Lord Mawnan, though not in what Tottie con- 
 sidered the smart set, and therefore not honoured 
 by his acquaintanceship, had suddenly turned up 
 in a charming hundred-ton schooner, The Shirt- 
 front, which it appeared he possessed. He had 
 asked some of his friends to come out to the yacht 
 for lunch. He had a fancy for literary people, and 
 had long known the Leos slightly. They, on the 
 other hand, had long known him intimately ; for to 
 them a peer was still a peer, and they had not yet 
 acquired Tottie's delicate perception of social differ- 
 ences. Besides having a fondness for literary 
 people. Lord Mawnan had a special interest in Mrs 
 Leo. He admired her beauty, and he delighted in 
 plying her with playful banter. 
 
 Mr Smytlie had managed to get himself invited 
 by the same method that he employed to insert 
 himself everywhere. Ha\'ing in middle life emerged 
 from comparative obscurity among the middle 
 classes, he still proclaimed both the nature and 
 place of his origin by indulging the world with his 
 words slightly flavoured by a Somerset accent. 
 
llO OUR owx poMPEir;- 
 
 He had gradually managed, by perseverance, to 
 make himself at first tolerated, and then even 
 more or less necessary, to a large number of people. 
 He was found to be very useful, and was used ac- 
 cordingly. The j'eunesse dor^e of the London clubs, 
 indeed, made jokes and invented playful libels (in 
 their heartless aristocratic way) at his expense. 
 That he had begun life in a cheesemonger's shop 
 was of course one of these ; just as his having been a 
 Mormon, and his having beaten a drum in the Sal- 
 vation Army, were others. He good-naturedly for- 
 gave the youth (if they were very gilded), and they 
 in return tolerated him ; for he made up lists of 
 young men, and supplied them to ladies who wanted 
 a wholesale contingent ordered in for their dances. 
 
 There was a slight air of constraint over the 
 whole party in the boat. Mr Smythe, for instance, 
 was wondering why the Leos were asked, and 
 whether he had made a mistake in not " taking 
 them up," Were they going to be " coming 
 people " ? he asked himself, A keen instinct for 
 coming people was part of the equipment of his 
 profession. And could people be going to be so 
 foolish as to make her a " beauty " ?. For in liis 
 
OUR OAVN POMPEII. Ill 
 
 time he had sometimes seen fashion create beauty 
 out of much more unpropitious material than Mrs 
 Leo was composed of. Mrs Leo, on her part, did 
 not care to talk. She heartily despised fashionable 
 people. She believed that there was no one in the 
 boat who could appreciate anything she might care 
 to say ; and she was quite sure that nothing they 
 could say would have any interest for her. For 
 some days she had been getting tired of Pompeii 
 itself. She tried to persuade her husband to take 
 her on to Sienna, " where they could be quiet." Mr 
 Leo, although fond of culture, and professing to 
 despise the world in general, was really rather 
 worldly at the bottom of his heart. He had no 
 desire to remove himself from a place " palpitating 
 with actuality and scintillating with fashion." Even 
 now he was trying to interest Mrs Denbigh by a 
 paradoxical conversation, half playful, half in earn- 
 est, and was assuring her that wisdom is extermin- 
 ated by education. She was, however, giving him 
 but half of her attention ; for something — perhaps 
 the exquisitely acute maternal instinct wiiicli de- 
 velops itself in the mothers of Society whenever 
 dano'er threatens their dau "liters — seemed to warn 
 
112 OUR OWN POMPEII. 
 
 her to be on her guard. There were certain glances 
 in Claud's eyes, tones in his voice, that she did not 
 like. Claudia, she was sure, had noticed nothing as 
 yet. But it must be put a stop to at once and for 
 ever. Claudia was just the girl to take up a roman- 
 tic idea and throw herself away — for she had a 
 certain gentle serious tenacity of purpose which 
 her mother dreaded. At the present moment her 
 mother knew she was simply enjoying the air which 
 blew in their faces so freshly, and the bounding 
 motion of the boat as it danced over the little 
 glancing waves. 
 
 By this time they were nearing the yacht. Lord 
 Mawnan's figure stood out darkly at the gangway, 
 waiting to welcome them. He was a sturdy well- 
 made man, about five-and-thirty, with a dark bright 
 face, and a closely cut black beard. He was 
 dressed in a loose yachting-suit of blue serge. He 
 was smiling and waving his hat. His whole man- 
 ner and bearing seemed to radiate a breezy air of 
 health and wholesome prosperity. And as he stood 
 there, he was a picture of what a well-preserved 
 Englishman should be. 
 
 " Here you all are ! " he said, in his deep voice, 
 
OUR OWN POMPEII. 113 
 
 as the boat came up alongside. " Let me help you 
 up, Mrs Denbigh, It's awfully good of you to 
 come, Mrs Leo; we've no 'BoUiceUis' for you on 
 board, only bottled stout. How are you, Smythe ? 
 I hope I haven't torn you away from the 
 Princess Cliioggia ; or perhaps you've brought her 
 with you in your pocket — the last captured speci- 
 men, you know." All this was said in a cheery 
 voice, and with a good-humoured smile wiiich 
 ought in itself to have disarmed offence, no matter 
 with what words it was accompanied. 
 
 The party were soon on the deck ; and then, as 
 lunch was ready, they descended into the cabin. 
 
 " Mrs Denbigh must sit on one side of me, and 
 ]\Irs Leo on the other. Then, with Miss Denbigh 
 opposite, my cup of happiness will be overflowing," 
 said Mawnan, as he arranged the company round 
 the table. " Smythe, where will you sit ? I must 
 keep you in a good temper, or you will omit my name, 
 I know, from your next season's list of young men." 
 
 Smythe was touched in a tender point, but he 
 kept the smile on his countenance fixed, and said, 
 " I — I shall be delighted to put it down. I didn't 
 know you cared to go out." 
 
 VOL. I. H 
 
114 OUR OWN POMPEII. 
 
 " Well, 'pon my life, I don't think I do ! " said 
 Mawnan, cheerily. " One party's so like another." 
 
 " There are differences," suggested Smythe. 
 
 " Oh, I know there are — especially in the quality 
 of the champagne," laughed Mawnan. Then he 
 turned to Mrs Leo with a mischievous twinkle in 
 his eyes — 
 
 " You know, Smythe gets up lists of all the suit- 
 able young men — I don't know if they pay him 
 for the honour, I'm sure ; and then a duchess 
 sends for his lists, and orders in the men at the 
 same time that she orders the supper." 
 
 " I can believe anything of young men nowadays," 
 said Mrs Leo, in her cold deep voice. " Being brain- 
 less, they naturally take it as a matter of course that 
 they should be ordered in like the plants." 
 
 "But they show their independence, I can tell 
 you, by the coolness — some people would call it 
 rudeness — of their behaviour after the invitation 
 has arrived. For generally they either accept and 
 then don't go, or they don't answer and then do 
 go. And when they get to the party they only 
 stay as long as it suits them, and refuse to dance 
 if it's obvious that they're wanted to." 
 
OUR OWN POMPEII. 115 
 
 " I think that the only position more humiliat- 
 ing than theirs is tliat of the man who sends the 
 invitations," said Mrs Leo, quite calmly. 
 
 Lord Mawnan felt she was going a little too 
 far ; so he said, " Oh, come now, you mustn't take 
 it too seriously. I was only chaffing Smythe, you 
 know ; the lists are really very useful, and save a 
 lot of trouble, I daresay." 
 
 Xow Mrs Leo's strong point was not the recep- 
 tion of banter ; and when she fancied that any one 
 was trying to " draw her " — she was easily drawn — 
 she at first became monosyllabic, and then ex- 
 tremely rude. She now turned on Mawnan. 
 
 " I dislike chaff," she said ; " it is so frivolous." 
 
 "Aren't you ever tempted to be frivolous yourself?" 
 
 " I have few temptations, and that is certainly 
 not one of them. If it were, I trust that I should 
 have sufficient self-respect to overcome it." 
 
 " Dear, dear, how dull to have no temptations ! 
 I should think that a little chaff sometimes would 
 act as a tome, — would brace the system," said 
 Mawnan, pleasantly. 
 
 Mr Smythe had been sitting in silent fury since 
 ]\Irs Leo had snubbed him. He had made up his 
 
116 OUR OWN POMPEII. 
 
 mind that now, at any rate, she should not be a 
 beauty. At the present moment he could think of 
 nothing more crushing than the inquiry if she did 
 not find the people at Pompeii very uncongenial 
 to her. 
 
 " Yes," she answered, quite simply, " I was very 
 disappointed. The people are merely a crowd of 
 fashionable idlers ; there are no really intellectual 
 people there at all. They talk about nothing but 
 society, politics, and sport — all three topics that I 
 loathe." 
 
 " My dear, we must try and take an interest in 
 the life around us," put in Mr Leo. He felt, as a 
 man of the world, that his wife was a little wanting 
 in finesse. 
 
 " Well, you couldn't have expected to find all 
 that is most illustrious in literature and art on this 
 yacht, for instance ? " said Mawnan, still smiling. 
 
 "That would liave been quite the last thing I 
 should have expected to find," answered Mrs Leo, 
 in her most composed and superior voice. 
 
 " All that is most illustrious in literature and 
 art ! Oh, I hope I haven't fallen quite so low as 
 that," said Mawnan, bursting out laughing. 
 
OUR OWN POMPEII. 117 
 
 But Mrs Leo said nothing. She had long 
 discovered that silence is the golden road for 
 scorn. 
 
 The rest of the party had listened to the con- 
 versation with varying degrees of amusement. 
 Claud, who had in his heart long alternated be- 
 tween thinking Mrs Leo insufferably perfect and 
 perfectly insufferable, was secretly delighted when 
 any one ventured to offer chaff at the shrine of 
 that divinity. Claudia, on the other hand, admired 
 Mrs Leo's scorn of all the pettiness and littleness 
 around her, and she felt inclined to take her part. 
 Mrs Denbigh simply regarded the Leos as harm- 
 lessly eccentric literary or artistic people ; and she 
 spent her time in wondering how they came to 
 Pompeii, and why they had been asked on to the 
 yacht. She only wished that ]\Irs Leo would not so 
 entirely monopolise the conversation, and that if 
 she so disliked " merely fashionable idlers " — a dis- 
 like that was heartily reciprocated — she would keep 
 away from them. 
 
 After lunch every one wandered up on deck. 
 Mawnan got a deliciously comfortable deck-chair 
 for ]\Irs Denbigh, and then seated himself beside 
 
lis OUE OWN POMPEII. 
 
 her. He smoked, and laughed, and chatted on in 
 the most entertaining way. He told her that he 
 had known Mrs Leo for many years — ever since 
 she was a tall solemn-eyed girl, and he had been a 
 youth coaching with her father, when he had an 
 idea of going into the army. "We used to go it 
 cat and dog — just as we do now; and yet I 
 really Lelieve we respect one another at bottom. 
 I know I used to be in love with her. I believe I 
 once offered to her — yes, I know I did ; because 
 she said, ' Lord Mawnan, I would rather be a 
 butcher's wife than be a soldier's,' — rather rough 
 on me, wasn't it ? So I said, ' A butcher ! I bet 
 you a fiver you marry some one worse than that.' 
 But, do you know, I've never ventured to remind 
 her of the bet since. It would be so confoundedly 
 awkward to decide who had won it." 
 
 Claudia wandered to the forecastle. She found 
 a chair for herself and a book, but she did not read 
 much. She was wondering why Mrs Leo, with her 
 high ideal and her intellectual aim, was after all so 
 repellent. " Is it," she said to herself, " simply be- 
 cause she has no manners ; or is it not, after all, 
 something that goes deeper than that — a want of 
 
OUR OWN POMPEII. 119 
 
 genuine sympathy for all, even for the poor fashion- 
 able idlers around her ? " 
 
 Claud had been hovering near, restrained for a 
 moment by a strange feeling of bashful uncertainty. 
 He now came forward, and took another chair that 
 was standing near her. 
 
 Claudia looked up and smiled. " I was wonder- 
 ing," she said, " whether one cannot live a good and 
 noble life without making people dislike one, on 
 account of what they fancy are one's airs of superi- 
 ority." 
 
 " Of course," answered Claud, warmly. " I hold 
 that the best- loved people are the really best, 
 through all the history of the world. If you are 
 thinking of Mrs Leo, it is not her superiority we 
 dislike — though I fancy a good deal of that is not 
 quite genuine — it is her want of tact and manners ; 
 and then she is absolutely devoid of either sym- 
 pathy or humour." 
 
 " You must not abuse her to me, for I am a great 
 admirer of hers. I regard her with a vague awe, 
 as though she were a visitant from another world. 
 It is the very absence of sympathy and humour, 
 and all the little everyday attributes of humanity, 
 
120 OUR OWN POMPEII. 
 
 that makes her like some majestic heroine in an 
 ancient tragedy. She isn't accidental, she is an- 
 tique. I never understood, before I saw her, how 
 Helen of Troy could have existed ; but now I can 
 fancy her led on, smiling, from one husband to an- 
 other, still acquiescing in the purpose of the gods." 
 
 Claud moved a little nearer. " Don't you think," 
 he said, " that people who have a high ideal, and 
 make a great profession of goodness, should try to 
 be more charming, more loved, than they otherwise 
 would be ; and not try less, as so many good people 
 seem to do ? For if they are repellent, they act as 
 a warning instead of an example." 
 
 " How true that is ! " Claudia answered, softly. 
 " Good people seem so often to mean by their man- 
 ner, ' I may be good, but I am not nice.' " 
 
 And so they chatted on. We need not follow 
 their casual talk any longer. The conversation of 
 two young people, when one of them is in love with 
 the other, is much the same as other young people's 
 talk. If there is any difference, it is that the lover's 
 words are generally slower in coming, and present 
 themselves in more disjointed sentences than usual. 
 It was delightfully warm ; floods of sunshine filled 
 
OUR OWN POMPEII. 121 
 
 the air, and danced back in reflected brightness 
 from the tips of the waves. Tlie two formed a 
 pretty picture as they sat there together : Claudia, 
 lying back in her chair, sheltered by a red parasol 
 from the glare of the deck and the glitter of the 
 sea ; Claud leaning a little forward and talking 
 eagerly, his vivid face dyed with a brighter flush 
 by the same sunshine that lit up her smile and 
 turned her hair to gold. And behind them, as a 
 far-away background, was the endless, the match- 
 less blue of blending sky and billow. 
 
122 OUR OWN POMPEII. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 The morning bathe was a great institution at Pom- 
 peii. The beautiful marble swimming-bath was 
 generally crowded with men from ten to twelve, 
 who, after they had taken their dip, often lounged 
 about talking, and even stayed to breakfast, be- 
 neath the striped awnin'g which sheltered the 
 little caffe at one end of it. The other end opened 
 directly on to the sea ; and the spreading view 
 it gave was only broken here and there by a slim 
 bronze statue that glowed with a burning green or 
 brownish lustre in the hot air, and rested at the 
 marble rim, to be reflected, Narcissus-like, in the 
 ruffled waters at its feet. The classical air of the 
 whole scene was certainly not assisted by a scarlet 
 silk bathing-dress, edged with Pioman lace, in which 
 Tottie daily disported himself, jumping up and down 
 
OUR OWN POMPEII. "123 
 
 in the shallow water at one end of the bath (he could 
 not swim), and generally singing little snatches of 
 comic song as he did so. But while he amused 
 himself thus, other people went on with their bathe 
 as though he were not in existence. Claud and 
 Darlington, for instance, were now sitting on the 
 edge of the bath drying themselves in the sun- 
 shine ; sparkling drops trickled down them, and 
 dripped off their dangling legs into the water 
 below. Claud was smoking a cigarette, and half 
 lying back against one of the dark bronze statues. 
 Darlington, also smoking, found liimself being lulled, 
 by the warmth and the gentle reaction after the cool 
 of the water, into the pathways that lead to sleep. 
 Claud stretched out his arm and recalled him from 
 this delicious loiter by touching him on the slioulder. 
 
 " I have something to tell you," he said, in ex- 
 planation. "The truth is, old boy — don't laugh at 
 me — but I'm really in love at last ! " 
 
 " In love ! " said Darlington, raising his eyebrows. 
 
 " Yes. Who do you think it is with ? " 
 
 " Xot the American girl, I hope," replied Darling- 
 ton, quickly ; " for I really believe I'm in love with 
 her myself." 
 
124 OUR OWN POMPEII. 
 
 "Xo — with Miss Denbigh." And then Claud 
 went on to explain how hopeless his love was. 
 He mentioned his own position — his stramed re- 
 lationship with his uncle ; and he asked Darling- 
 ton to picture to himself Mrs Denbigh's maternal 
 horror when such a detrimental candidate pre- 
 sented himself. 
 
 Darlington, who was sanguine both from experi- 
 ence and disposition, assured him that relations 
 could always be got over. "And at the worst," 
 he added, lightly, " you know, she may not really 
 care for you although you arc in love with her. 
 But it's quite time we dressed." And dress they 
 accordingly did. 
 
 As they were strolling down the Forum they met 
 Lady Marlowe. She told Claud that Mr Cade was 
 in one of the billiard-rooms, and asked if he would 
 be kind enough to find him for her. She added that 
 Courier had arrived, and therefore she was anxious 
 that Mr Cade should, join them at lunch. "Tell 
 him I am having lunch in my own rooms to-day ; 
 and if you care to join us, I shall be delighted." 
 
 Darlington, in the meantime, had been pounced 
 upon and carried off by Mr Smythe, so that Claud 
 
OUK OWN POMPEII. 125 
 
 had to make his search alone. He soon, however, 
 found Mr Cade in close confabulation with Mr 
 Giles, and gave him Lady Marlowe's message. 
 " That will do now, Giles ; the Lords are to be 
 tolerated for the present," said Mr Cade, in his 
 loud, strident voice — a voice among whose tones 
 the ominous idea of "Yield, or you are doomed," 
 always seemed to lurk. Then he suggested to 
 Claud that they should walk up to Lady Marlowe's 
 together. 
 
 Mr Cade was a large, thick-set man, whose bull- 
 dog neck and slightly sinister expression denoted 
 determination and hinted at possible mischief. If 
 he was not satisfied with the world (as it was at 
 present), he was obviously satisfied with himself, 
 which was much more important. He had begun 
 life, as has before been mentioned, with the j)ro- 
 fession of a temperance lecturer. But finding it 
 more philanthropic than lucrative, he soon aban- 
 doned it — for his love of his fellow-creatures was 
 not so exceptionally keen as one might have judged 
 from the tone of his speeches — and entered the tail- 
 oring business, with large shops in the City and 
 West End. Indeed, so successful was he both in 
 
126 OUR OWN POMPEII. 
 
 pushing his trade and in forcing his employees to 
 work for still longer hours and for still smaller 
 wages than the rival houses gave, that at last he 
 succeeded in ruining most of these, and finally 
 almost monopolised the wholesale tailoring busi- 
 ness. And this will not be wondered at when the 
 reader is assured that the young gentlemen in the 
 city offices thought his " eleven and ninepenny 
 pants " were equal to the thirteen and sixpenny 
 pairs of other firms. Finding that his half-starved 
 workmen could only afford to live crowded together 
 like animals rather than men, he was naturally 
 anxious that they should be better housed (at some- 
 body else's expense). The first thing to be done 
 was to engraft upon the Liberal party a series of 
 Jacobin clubs (somewhat after the pattern of those 
 established during the French Eevolution), and then 
 to delude the party with the impression that they 
 were merely an improved form of organised repre- 
 sentation. But when once established, he quietly 
 proved to them that he had matured his machinery 
 in order to organise representation out of existence. 
 Members were turned into delegates ; and, goaded 
 on by a hinted reign of terror they began to ac- 
 
OUR OWX POMPEII. 127 
 
 quiesce in his plans of plunder, his plots for robbery. 
 He showed them how, by the fortunate conditions 
 inherent in a democratic form of government, they 
 could rob (from the very nature of the case) with 
 absolute impunity ; that whatever they might do, 
 they would be perfectly safe. For could they not 
 escape from Justice by wrapping the sacred aegis 
 of the State around them, while at the same mo- 
 ment they were strangling Liberty among its folds ? 
 
 Mr Cade was, however, quite clever enough to 
 have a social side, and it was this side which was 
 presented to the company during lunch. He was 
 a well-informed man, and the general conversation 
 touched on the various topics of the day, steering 
 clear of politics, as though to avoid " the shop." 
 M. Courier chatted on about all that was newest 
 in Paris. The fresh piece at the Palais Eoyal, " Le 
 Baton," was discussed. It was so successful, they 
 were told, that Paris rang with a new song' which 
 had been made out of it — 
 
 " J'ai iin baton, un petit baton." 
 
 Then the conversation passed over to London. 
 Lady Marlowe explained to M. Courier that the 
 structgle for existence had at last even invaded 
 
128 OUR OWN POMPEII. 
 
 Society ; that the smartest young men in town 
 had taken to the Stock Exchange, had taken to the 
 stage. And she poured into his astonished ear 
 the fact that one of her friends — a charming boy — 
 had just joined the music-hall profession, and had 
 already appeared at the Pavilion with immense 
 success. All M. Courier could do was to murmur 
 " Vraiment ! " with an air of incredulous politeness. 
 
 "And the delightful thing is," went on Lady 
 Marlowe, " that none of these young men in the 
 least forfeit their social position, if they have once 
 been taken up by Society. For if you are once 
 in Society, you are privileged to do almost exactly 
 what you like." 
 
 " Strange people, you English," murmured M. 
 Courier. " Your country is supposed to be aristo- 
 cratic, but with us such a thing would be im- 
 possible." 
 
 " Oh," put in Cade, " all Society wants is excite- 
 ment. In England nothing stops them, if one or two 
 of the right people set the example. It's a sign 
 that the whole thing is at its last gasp, and will 
 very soon come to an end entirely." 
 
 " Oh, please don't destroy us quite yet ! " re- 
 
OUR OWN POMPEII. 129 
 
 sponded Lady Marlowe. " It is very pleasant at 
 present ; and I know you really enjoy it yourself " 
 (which was quite true). "Although this is only 
 lunch, I am going to leave you, gentlemen," she 
 added, rising ; " and then you can conspire in peace 
 together." 
 
 She passed out of the room. The two politicians 
 drew their chairs together, leaving Claud at the 
 table slowly demolishing strawberries. 
 
 At first the conversation, although it had taken 
 a political tone, confined itself more or less to 
 generalities. Mr Cade described the machinery 
 of the Caucus, and M. Courier regretted that 
 they could not manage something of the sort in 
 France. 
 
 " You Eadicals," he went on, in his broken accent, 
 " can advance in England so much faster than we 
 can in France. For why ? You have still the 
 aristocracy and the great landlords to hold up for 
 attack. We have no ruling aristocracy, and the land 
 is held by so many that we should have no chance 
 with that. Our great enemy is the middle class — 
 the bourgeoisie. But they are so numerous, so stupid, 
 so conservative, that they prevent everytliing." M. 
 
 VOL. I. I 
 
130 OUR OWN POMPEII. 
 
 Courier threw up his hands and eyebrows at this 
 unaccountable effort of self-preservation. 
 
 " We have the same trouble, to a certain extent. 
 All our small shopkeepers and that class are ratting 
 — turning Conservative, you know. Why, I can't 
 think ; for their pockets won't be touched. At 
 least," said Mr Cade, with his most magnanimous 
 air, " I for my part have always intended that 
 they shall be left alone." 
 
 " Ah, you happy man ! you are in the Cabinet, 
 you can control. I am a power, but somehow I 
 am unaccountably omitted from every Government 
 that is formed." 
 
 " Yes ; your Governments are, after all, very re- 
 actionary. You see, we are blessed in England 
 with an unwritten constitution ; and so we can 
 stretch it, and stretch it, to fit anything that we 
 want, until " 
 
 " Until it breaks up and has ceased to exist," put 
 in M. Courier, with a laugh. " Yet somehow, out 
 of your country, all over the world, your Con- 
 servatives are better liked." 
 
 "That is because of their flashy, unscrupulous, 
 aggressive foreign policy," said Cade, with a little 
 
OUE OWN POMPEII. 131 
 
 more warmth than he had yet shown — " that absurd 
 sentiment which they cultivate, and call patriotism. 
 Some of them want imperial federation with the 
 colonies. As though we were likely to stand that ! 
 Now our plan is to lessen in every way the 
 country's responsibilities — to try and avoid having 
 any foreign policy, and to attend to our own affairs 
 at home. We want slowly to dismember the 
 empire (the very word 'empire' makes me sick), 
 if it can be done without friction. And I assure 
 you we are getting on. Ireland, I think, we can 
 leave safely in the Prime Minister's hands ; for I 
 have no doubt, in a year or two, he will have con- 
 trived her arrival at such a pass that Englishmen 
 will be only too anxious to grant her ' Home Eule.' 
 The detachment of the Colonies, I think, may be 
 also safely left to our present Colonial Minister. 
 But the difficulty to me is India. I cannot see how 
 we are to get rid of it, unless Eussia is kind enough 
 to take it." 
 
 Mr Cade, in his earnestness for the reconstruc- 
 tion of the empire, had entirely forgotten Claud's 
 presence, and so he continued, " My private plan is 
 to give her autonomy. You know what I mean, — 
 
132 OUK OWN POMPEII. 
 
 make her independent, and set up a representative 
 Government there — in the same way that we are 
 going to give Ireland a representative Government. 
 The Liberal party, led on by those d aristo- 
 cratic Whigs, have crushed down and trampled on 
 the people of Ireland and India quite long enough. 
 And look what a saving of expense it will be ! 
 I have drafted a bill for the purpose. I shall 
 show it to the Cabinet when I get back ; but I 
 don't somehow fancy they'll like it. If they don't, 
 we must turn on the screw," concluded Cade, with 
 a wink. 
 
 " How conscientious you are ! " cried M. Courier. 
 " You cannot bear to see any one oppressed — even 
 when you do it yourself." 
 
 " The Eadical party are the conscientious party," 
 replied Mr Cade, with dignity. 
 
 " And when you have got rid of all your re- 
 sponsibilities ? " 
 
 " Then we shall be a happy little island to our- 
 selves, with no foreign complications or entangle- 
 ments, no army and a very small fleet, with cer- 
 tainly no rich people, and I hope no poor ones. 
 Every man will have his two or three acres, his 
 
OUR OWN POMPEir. 133 
 
 pig or perhaps his cow. There will not be any 
 unwholesome amount of liberty, and the people 
 will be relieved from the government of the 
 country by the machinery which I am setting 
 up. The minority are no longer to trample on 
 the majority, but the majority are to be absolutely 
 autocratic. If that isn't Democracy, I don't know 
 what is." 
 
 " A paradise, a paradise ! " cried M. Courier. " Oh 
 that I could only look forward to such a future for 
 my poor France ! " 
 
 " And I forgot to add — which is the most im- 
 portant thing after all — that we shall be sufficiently 
 patriotic somehow to manage that we are always in 
 office and power, and the other party always in 
 Opposition." 
 
 " Ah, you are a real statesman ! " put in M. Cour- 
 ier, not satirically, but quite innocently. 
 
 Claud looked up, his eyes flashing. He felt 
 as though he had been participating in a trea- 
 sonable plot, assisting in some unholy incanta- 
 tion wrought by a dark conspirator. " We think 
 that Mr Cade is the greatest of his kind," he 
 said. Then there was a momentary pause before 
 
134 OUR OWN POMPEII. 
 
 he added, " But we cannot hope that he will be 
 the last." 
 
 Mr Cade sprang round as though he had been 
 struck. He had forgotten Claud's presence for the 
 moment ; and now that he was reminded of it, he 
 seemed inclined to express himself somewhat strong- 
 ly for a statesman. Perhaps this idea occurred to 
 him, for he instantly restrained himself, and said, 
 with an awkward laugh, " I really forgot you were 
 there, Mr Brownlow. But I am not sorry that one 
 of your order should have heard what a plain- 
 spoken leader of your party thinks, who knows his 
 own mind and isn't afraid of calling a spade a 
 spade. When I talk about your party, I presume 
 you call yourself a Liberal and really are an aristo- 
 cratic Whig." 
 
 " No ; I am a Conservative." 
 " Your uncle calls himself a Liberal." 
 " He is one." Claud's temper was rising at the 
 underlying insolence in the man's tone and man- 
 ner ; but Mr Cade, on the contrary, had so far re- 
 covered his, as to tender a little (statesmanlike) 
 counsel. 
 
 " Come," he said, " let me give you one piece of 
 
OUR O^VN POMPEII. 135 
 
 advice. You had better join us. We are the win- 
 ning party, yours is the losing. It is always better 
 to be on the winning side." 
 
 " No, thank you, I shall not change. I would 
 rather do what I thought was right, even if it 
 deprived me of the pleasure of helping you in your 
 schemes of plunder, than be on the winning side in 
 my country's ruin. Besides, I am not so sure that 
 we may not succeed after all." 
 
 " Succeed, succeed ! " said Mr Cade, testUy. 
 " Why, what the deuce can you succeed in ? " 
 
 Claud, as he rose from the table, flamed up. 
 " Succeed ! " he said, and he looked like an angry 
 young prince as he did so. " AYe may yet succeed 
 in saving our country — from you." And he strode 
 out of the room. 
 
 Out of the room he strode, and on until he 
 reached the sea-shore. He sat down among the 
 pebbles on the beach, still tingling with indigna- 
 tion. He himself was not sure why he felt so 
 angry. Was it, he asked himself, merely a burst 
 of temper at Cade's insufferable tone, or could it 
 really be the indignation of his outraged patriot- 
 ism ? He laughed a little at the phrase — at the 
 
136 OUR OWN POMPEII. 
 
 idea of his patriotism being of a quality to be 
 " outraged." He hated all forms of posing. He 
 disliked people who professed to have such ex- 
 quisitely sensitive natures that they could not help 
 feeling much more keenly than the rest of the 
 world about affairs which in no way concerned 
 them particularly. "VVliy should he be more indig- 
 nant at Cade's theories, he said to himself, than 
 any one else was ? He was not constituted a 
 guardian of his country's honour and greatness. 
 And if he were, he would probably be unable to 
 save her from Mr Cade and his schemes. 
 
 " A democratic form of government is inevitable, 
 it seems. Indeed, have we not got it now ? It is true 
 that no form of government could be more fatal to 
 the supremacy, or even existence, of such an empire 
 as ours. But that will not check its advent ; with 
 some," thought Claud, with a bitter smile, " it will 
 be an additional incentive to force it upon us." 
 And then he recalled all the numberless sons of 
 England who would cheerfully die to save their 
 dear country from ruin, if only they saw the 
 way — men, even now, who were fighting her 
 battles and steering her navies, aiding her suffer- 
 
OUR OWN POMPEII. 137 
 
 ing ones, guiding her sinful ones, raising her lost 
 ones. 
 
 Yet they were scattered, outnumbered, outwitted. 
 Some were blinded by faction, and some were re- 
 pressed by their party ties, and all were helpless — 
 a hopelessly small minority. " For are we not 
 ruled entirely by numbers now ? " 
 
 Claud really loved his country ; and the specious 
 pretexts by which her poor people were slowly but 
 surely being enticed to accomplish her doom and 
 their own, seemed to his generous soul an unscru- 
 pulous sign of the criminal plots they concealed. 
 If the reader now thinks him a very foolish young 
 man, I can only point to his youth as a plea 
 for forgiveness ; for one of the chief of youth's 
 numerous follies, we find, is intolerant hatred of 
 meanness, self-seeking, and treachery — a folly 
 which, while we deplore it, we are thankful to 
 know will be one of the first to be extinguished 
 by the growth of prudence and worldly experience. 
 
 And if the reader thinks that Claud had better 
 attend to his own business, instead of troubling 
 himself about patriotic affairs which in no way 
 concerned him, I can also hasten to comfort him 
 
138 OUR OWN POMPEII. 
 
 on this point also, by the assurance that Claud 
 was at this very moment engaged in some really 
 practical and important business of his own. A 
 dress which he had ordered for a grand fancy ball 
 that was going to be held the same evening had 
 just arrived, and he was now trying it on to see if 
 it fitted. 
 
OUR OWN POMPEII. 139 
 
 CHAPTER YIII. 
 
 The ball was to be the most exquisite thing of its 
 kind ever given on the Eiviera. A large part of 
 the Forum had been boarded over for the floor ; 
 and above, a vast awning had been stretched by 
 cords in the approved classical manner. At the 
 end farthest from the sea rose a glorious bank of 
 flowers ; but the sea end of the extemporised ball- 
 room was left free to secure a refreshing \'iew of 
 the darkening sky and the quiet waters as they 
 passed away to the drowsy outskirts of the 
 approaching night. 
 
 As the evening drew on, servants might have 
 been seen flitting here and there in their airy and 
 delicate classical dresses. Lights woke up one by 
 one ; and each little spark lightly powdered the 
 marbles around it with brightness. Glimpses of 
 
140 OUE OWN POMPEII. 
 
 fruit and of flowers heaped on tables laid out in 
 the temples, might have been caught by inquisi- 
 tive eyes. And then specials arrived from the 
 other towns on the coast, even coming as far as 
 from Cannes. Mr Smythe was for once in the 
 highest of spirits. Already dressed as the great 
 Mogul, he hastened here and ran hither. He 
 smoothed the way for this person (probably a 
 grand-duchess), and he skilfully avoided the way 
 of that one (who was probably nothing more than 
 an old and valueless friend). 
 
 Gradually the marble Forum filled with people, 
 then suddenly flashed into dazzling brilliance as 
 the electric light burst on the night from its 
 thousands of opalesque lamps. There was a sudden 
 revelation of high-bred princesses and lightsome 
 fairies ; noble lords and beautiful pages ; pretty 
 flower-girls and peasants; fisher-boys, matadors, 
 soldiers, and sailors : costumes of every age, and 
 from every country, clashing in a delicious confusion 
 of movement and colour. The very air seemed to 
 palpitate — charged with the dreamy music, the 
 tinted lights, the delicate perfumes, and the reson- 
 ant murmur of hundreds of happy voices. The 
 
OUR OWN POMPEII. 141 
 
 whole was immersed in a subtle glamour, alluring 
 the senses, and leading them captive, as though 
 seen with unearthly charm in some ancient magi- 
 cian's mirror. 
 
 Claud was there, dressed as a Florentine youth 
 of the chique cent(}. "With his long striped tights, 
 his short fanciful doublet all covered with puffs 
 and slashes, and his little red cap with its single 
 feather, which nestled so knowingly among his 
 curls, he looked as though he might have slipped 
 out of some old painting by Signorelli, or been a 
 boon companion to one of those gentlest of warriors 
 who fit on their dainty armour so gracefully in the 
 frescoed " arts of war " at South Kensington. He 
 called himself Tito ; for since the events of the 
 afternoon, he quite felt as though he had been 
 conspiring against the liberties of his country. 
 He was now leaning against a pillar, in order to 
 watch the various groups passing backwards and 
 forwards. Mrs Leo swept by, looking really most 
 beautiful as the Duchess of Malfi. She did not 
 dance ; but she stood in her queen-like pre-emin- 
 ence, crushing by contrast, she knew, the surround- 
 ing throng of mere butterflies — soulless, idealess 
 
142 OUR OWN POMPEII. 
 
 slaves of fashion. Then he thrilled for a moment 
 as he caught a glimpse in the distance of Mrs Den- 
 bigh and Claudia — Claudia looking, to him, more 
 lovely than ever, but dressed this evening in the 
 simple grey of a Sister of Charity. They passed out 
 of sight, and before he had time to move towards 
 them, Miss van Knut walked up to liim. She was 
 dressed in a Japanese costume — that is, as a French- 
 ified, fancified, idealised Japanese Folly, such as 
 one might fancy M. van Beers could design. Tiny 
 masks hung by silver chains to her waist, their 
 eyes twinkling with unholy mockery. As she 
 walked, there were glimpses of impish mouths that 
 grinned out from the folds of her skirt. A quaint 
 little Japanese devil sat up on her hair, happily 
 posing himself with an air of serenity so diabolic 
 that one could not help laughing. 
 
 " "What do you think of my dress ? " she said in 
 a moment. " It was designed for me by a friend of 
 mine — a young artist — in Paris." 
 
 " It is so wonderful," said Claud, " that it has the 
 disadvantage of even taking some of one's attention 
 from the wearer." 
 
 " My ! that's very pretty ! I haven't heard any- 
 
OUR OWN POMPEII. 143 
 
 thing so pretty since I came to Europe, A young 
 girl feels the change when she comes to Europe, 
 I can tell you." 
 
 " The change ! " 
 
 " Oh yes ; we are much more appreciated in New 
 York, you bet. There we are at a premium ; here 
 poor women seem to be a drug in the market. And 
 it's the young men who are at a premium, and have 
 to be petted and coaxed and made much of — I'm 
 sure I don't know why." 
 
 " Because a really complete and charming young 
 man is such a wonderfully perfect production of 
 nature and training. To possess a son nowadays 
 is to possess a great but expensive luxury. It's 
 almost like having a steam-yacht. You shouldn't 
 have these luxuries if you can't afford them. But 
 what so many parents fail to grasp is that, if you 
 do indulge in these things, you must keep them up 
 properly." 
 
 " Men in Europe seem to think themselves very 
 precious and indispensable, I'm sure. Now in 
 America we don't ' keep up ' young men ; they 
 have to work for their bread, in order to keep up 
 the ladies and give them a lovely time. Do you 
 
144 OUR OWX POMPEII. 
 
 know anything about America ? do you ever read 
 any of our books ? " 
 
 " Oh yes ; a great many," 
 
 " Who is your favourite novelist ? " 
 
 " I think Henry James. Many of his short 
 stories are simply exquisite. He is so wonderfully 
 subtle." 
 
 " Yes ; we're told that the way in which a lady 
 lifts her arm from a table in carrying a teacup to 
 her lips may contain all the elements of a modern 
 tragedy — which certainly shows subtlety, if not 
 sense. We don't like him much in America. We 
 don't think he does us justice." 
 
 " Not do you justice, my dear Miss van Knut ! " 
 cried Claud. " Wliy, he describes the most delight- 
 ful Americans." 
 
 " We think his nice Americans are too English, 
 and his nasty Americans are too — too " 
 
 " American ? " suggested Claud. 
 
 " Your manners are worse than mine," replied 
 the young lady, and the masks round her waist 
 gave a jangle of assent. " You've not only insulted 
 my nation, but, what is worse, you've neglected me, 
 and haven't asked me to dance yet." 
 
OUR OWN POMPEII. 145 
 
 " You must forgive me, and ask me to dance 
 instead. As for American novelists and their 
 characters, I think, do you know, in their heart of 
 hearts the Americans are still a little envious of 
 our upper classes." 
 
 " Oh, you think so, do you ? We can get on very 
 well without them, I'm sure." Then she changed 
 her tone and continued, " Now we will dance, and 
 I will tell you a secret." She dropped her voice, 
 and half playfully whispered, " They are " 
 
 Mrs Denbigh, like a grande dame of the last 
 century, in her rich brocaded dress and her 
 powdered hair, was watching the gorgeous scene — 
 Claudia had left her to dance — and spending the 
 time in conversation with people around. She had 
 a very quick eye, and for some time it had been 
 "on" Miss van Knut. She turned to her neigh- 
 bour and said, " What an extraordinary nation the 
 Americans are ! " 
 
 " They are," said her neighbour. 
 
 " They are so irrepressible. An English girl in 
 a horrible dress like that, who behaved in that 
 simply disgusting way, wouldn't be tolerated for a 
 moment. She flirts," said Mrs Denbigh, " as though 
 
 VOL. I. K 
 
146 OUR OWN POMPEII. 
 
 she were a kitchen-maid. She hasn't even the 
 decency to conceal her flirtations. And yet she's 
 received, and seems actually popular." 
 
 " They say that a woman, to be popular nowa- 
 days, must be prepared to say almost anything 
 herself, and to permit quite anything to be said to 
 her," rejoined the other lady. 
 
 " Yes ; but that is the extraordinary thing about 
 those American girls. "With all their impropriety of 
 manner, they are really extremely particular about 
 that sort of thing. But that makes it all the more 
 dangerous. We must try and protect our young 
 men from their snares." Mrs Denbigh was really 
 rather relieved to see that the dangerous siren — 
 as she thought her — had commenced to spin her 
 charms round Claud ; for Darlington was the one 
 particular young man she was determined to 
 shelter, " whatever the cost to herself," as she would 
 have said. 
 
 "Perhaps, after all, it is only simplicity," said 
 the other lady. 
 
 "I call it barbarity," Mrs Denbigh remarked, 
 with a certain weight in her tone which was 
 calculated to carry conviction. " The other day I 
 
OUR OWN POMPEII. 147 
 
 asked lier what she thought of Lord Darlington — 
 I wanted to sound her, you know, and delicately 
 show her that people were noticing her conduct to 
 him — and she answered me with an exquisite calm- 
 ness of audacity, which I'm bound to say even a 
 duchess couldn't surpass : ' Lord Darlington — why, 
 I think he's just simply lovely, he's perfectly 
 sweet.' She called the eldest son of a peer 
 perfectly sweet — to me, a comparative stranger ! 
 Wliy, you know, it's unheard of ; it's almost beyond 
 the pale of ci\dlisation." 
 
 While Mrs Denbigh continued to express herself 
 on the deformation of character produced by a new 
 country, and the awfully demoralising effect that 
 that character had on those of the Old World 
 it happened to cross (a kind of inverted strong- 
 drink-and-gunpowder theory), Darlington, in the 
 garb of a jockey, was having a " fine time of it." 
 He danced with one young lady and another, 
 flirting with each, in his naive boyish way, as 
 desperately as the time allowed. And this, we 
 know, is painfully short (even when you are the 
 eldest son of a peer, and therefore assisted by 
 every properly brought up young lady with all 
 
148 OUR OWN POMPEII. 
 
 her might), if you have determined to dauce 
 every dance throughout the evening. 
 
 He was searching about for one of his partners, 
 when he espied Miss van Knut. He rushed up to 
 her ; and — dazed, let us hope, by the spell of the 
 dress on the sorceress — threw over his fair one, 
 and told Miss van Knut he was waiting for her 
 to dance with him. 
 
 She promptly surpassed him in unscrupulous- 
 ness, and threw over an old German baron that 
 Mr Smythe had planted on her. 
 
 Eound they floated to the magic of a Waldteufel 
 valse, played by the Monte Carlo band, which had 
 been brought over for the occasion. 
 
 " N'ow," said Darlington, when the music ceased, 
 " I will take you out for a little row on the 
 sea." 
 
 " Is it very naughty ? " 
 
 Darlington assured Miss van Knut that every 
 one was doing it. And she thought she would not 
 go. At last, after much persuasion, he got her into 
 the boat, and pulled her out a little way from the 
 land. The waning moon had just risen. It still 
 had that uneartlily luminous redness with which it 
 
OUR OWN POMPEII. U9 
 
 sometimes glows after rising, not giving Kght, but 
 hanging in the sky as though big with mysterious 
 portent. The sea was black and oily. And when 
 they had pulled out some way, the lights of 
 Pompeii made all around them seem darker by 
 contrast. 
 
 " Stop, Lord Darlington ; I want to go back," said 
 Miss van Knut from the darkness. 
 
 " I am going to pull you to Africa," replied 
 Darlington, in a bantering tone. 
 
 And he had to be sternly commanded before the 
 boat's head began to turn in a homeward direction. 
 
 " I suppose you don't have anything as gay as 
 this in New York," suggested Darlington. 
 
 "I assure you we do; we've the very nicest 
 society." 
 
 "The President, and all that sort of thing, of 
 course." 
 
 "No, not the President, at least not generally. 
 In America we are very select. And most of tlie 
 Presidents are not received by the really high- 
 toned families. I've been introduced to the present 
 one, though." 
 
 " VTliat was he like ? " inquired Darlington. 
 
150 OUR OWN POMPEII. 
 
 " I don't know ; I didn't see him. I was introduced 
 through the telephone." 
 
 " Dear me ! Did you ring him up ? " 
 
 " Papa did. He rang him up to know if he could 
 have the London legation ; and then he introduced 
 me — after he had heard that he couldn't. But 
 you mustn't think, from the people we know here, 
 that we're not exclusive. Because in America 
 we're very exclusive indeed. In Europe, you see, it 
 don't matter." 
 
 " I suppose you won't know me when I come to 
 New York," said Darlington. 
 
 " That depends on how you behave. But if 
 you're good, I'll take you round myself and give 
 you a really good time." 
 
 Thus the exquisite night passed on. 
 
 So charming was it to float seawards in a boat, 
 so cool and delightful to wander about at the star- 
 lit end of the Forum, that the ball-room was thinned 
 in its numbers, although there were plenty of happy 
 couples left to dance the hours away. 
 
 And even the laughter and talk of the crowds 
 thronging the snug little supper-rooms in the sur- 
 rounding temples were mellowed and blended with 
 
OUR O^VX POMPEII. 151 
 
 streams of delicious music that flowed from the 
 band. 
 
 Every one seemed happy. Miss Eattletubs, 
 dressed as a female Doctor of Divinity, looked Ijusy 
 and pleased. She was not dancing this evening, 
 she said — which was quite true, as she had not been 
 asked ; but she walked about, and made or renewed 
 acquaintances here and there among the crowd. 
 One of these renewed acquaintances was Mrs Den- 
 bigh. They had, strange to say, several opinions 
 in common. One of them, a dislike of " that little 
 American flirt," as they called her, was not touched 
 upon at the present time ; for poor Mr Smythe 
 happened to pass at that moment, and Miss Eattle- 
 tubs turned her attention on him. 
 
 " Look at that man," she said ; " can't you see him 
 in his young days serving behind the cheesemonger's 
 counter, when he was simply called Smith. They 
 say, you know, liis real name is Smith." 
 
 Now in Society it was the fashion to tolerate Mr 
 Smythe (on account of his philanthropic exertions 
 in its behalf), but to laugh at him all the same. 
 So Mrs Denbigh felt she might allow herself to 
 smile, as she answered — 
 
152 OUR OWN POMPEII. 
 
 " Oh, come now ! you know, I don't really believe 
 in the shop. It's only a joke that some of the boys 
 have invented. He's a good, useful creature, and is 
 kept by Society, because he gets their things up for 
 them. Besides, you know, we shouldn't be here to- 
 night if it wasn't for him. He invented Pompeii." 
 
 At this moment Lord Mawnan came up and 
 carried Mrs Denbigh off to supper. We need not 
 describe the meal. It was like any other luxurious 
 feast of the kind. But Mawnan, having taken Mrs 
 Denbigh back to her seat, returned, as men will, 
 to leisurely finish liis own supper, unhampered by 
 female attractions. He found Claud seated on one 
 side of him, and at once broke into conversation, in 
 his hearty enjoyable way. 
 
 " I've been dancing to-night," he said, " with the 
 most delightful Japanese girl — at least she's really 
 an American girl, don't you know. She makes all 
 the ladies quite wild. She's really so awfully un- 
 worldly and natural that, by Jove, they can't un- 
 derstand such simplicity ! She's quite like Gala- 
 tea in the play, and they'll finish her off if they 
 can. But she knows how to take care of herself, 
 which Galatea didn't; and she's got a spice of 
 
OUR OWN POMPEII. 153 
 
 mischief in her when she's roused. She's awful 
 fun, too. What do you think she told me she's 
 been doing to-night ? Why, she danced twice with 
 one of these Italian waiters. She pretended to 
 think he was an Italian prince in costume. But 
 she says that she found him much more amusing 
 than a real Italian prince, and much more polite 
 than an English one." 
 
 There was a good-looking young man in a uni- 
 form seated opposite to them. He had made one 
 or two remarks to Mawnan ; and Claud inquired 
 who he was. 
 
 " He's called Eedburn," answered Mawnan. "A 
 charming sort of fellow. He's rather a piquant 
 kind of mixture, too ; for you wouldn't think he 
 was an artist, would you ? " 
 
 " I thought he was in the army." 
 
 " That's a yeomanry uniform. He's a great riding 
 man — hunts, plays polo at Hurlingham, and so on. 
 Besides which, he paints little pictures in the most 
 advanced Franco-American style — W^iistler — that 
 sort of thing ; little things, all colour and tone, 
 that look equally beautiful whichever way you 
 turn them." 
 
154 OUR OWN POMPEII. 
 
 " He looks too close-cropped and well-groomed 
 for an artist." 
 
 " Yes ; he's not in the least artistic to look at, 
 but I'm told his paintings are nothing else. I'll 
 introduce you." And Mawnan proceeded to do so 
 across the table. " Let me introduce the great 
 coming E.A. and our future Lord Chancellor," he 
 said, in his humorous, good-natured way. 
 
 " E.A. ! " said Eedburn, coming round to their side 
 of the table. " Well, I never expected to be called 
 an E.A. ; but one never knows what one may 
 come to some day." And then he and Claud fell 
 to talking about Paris. He told him that the artist 
 life there was really very pleasant, if you didn't 
 mind roughing it and put all your English notions 
 in your pocket. " Besides," he added, " I used oc- 
 casionally to mitigate the Bohemianism of the life 
 by disguising myself as a gentleman, and going to 
 dine at the Caf^ Anglais." Then, having finished 
 their strawberries, they rose from the table; and 
 Eedburn went to look for M. Courier, whom he had 
 slightly known in Paris, in order to introduce him 
 to Mrs Denbigh, as that lady was anxious to make 
 his acquaintance. 
 
OUR OWN POMPEII. 155 
 
 Claudia all this while had been dancing, and 
 supping, and talking, doing all sorts of delight- 
 ful things, with her heart full of happiness. For 
 the one thing in society she really enjoyed was a 
 thoroughly good dance. Now Darlington's turn had 
 come. He walked up to her, and suggested that 
 they should sit out their dance. "And then, you 
 know, we can have a good talk about hunting," 
 he said. "Don't you wish we were hunting 
 now, instead of being stuck here with all these 
 people ? " 
 
 " Yes, yes ; let us talk about hunting," she an- 
 swered. And talk about hunting they did. They 
 discussed the hounds and the hunters, the runs 
 they had had in the winter, the adventures through 
 which they had passed. For a talk about hunting- 
 need never end for lack of material, when two 
 young and ardent riders combine to describe and 
 enjoy its delights together. 
 
 There is the " meet " in the early spring morning, 
 when the mist still lies lightly along the valleys. 
 The whole neighbourhood seems to be gathering at 
 the appointed place — often an open space in the 
 midst of a village street. On one side, the old 
 
156 OUR OWN POMPEII. 
 
 grey church, and its slumbering yew -guarded 
 churchyard ; and on the other, the sleepily digni- 
 fied inn that has known better days, — its quaint 
 little bar now awakened and bustling — its ancient 
 yard filled with grooms and their masters, with 
 mounting riders and unharnessed dog-carts. 
 
 The street is blocked with a happy crowd. There 
 are men in pink and in black, spotless and radiant 
 — their white breeches, with tiny bows tied at the 
 knee, shining above their polished " tops " and their 
 glittering spurs. There are young men in brown ; 
 boys (home for the holidays) mounted on ponies ; 
 sturdy young farmers on cobs ; and ladies and 
 girls, glowing and flushed by excitement and ex- 
 ercise, dressed in short, dainty, tight-fitting habits, 
 and patting their horses' necks, while they talk to 
 their friends around ; there are others in dog-carts, 
 who have driven over to " hunt upon wheels " if 
 they can — and if not, to see as much of the fun 
 as possible. On the pavements stand rows of 
 spectators. The villagers look on with stolid in- 
 terest, the children cluster around with broad 
 smiles of intellififence. 
 
 Every man feels that all are his neighbours for 
 
OUR OWN POMPEII. 157 
 
 once — all his companions — with one common in- 
 terest, one all-absorbing delight ; until at last the 
 master, the huntsmen, the whips, and the hounds 
 come up. Then the chatter redoubles, girths are 
 finally looked to, every one settles himself in his 
 saddle, all the horses' heads turn in the same direc- 
 tion, and the field trot away together behind the 
 hounds and the huntsmen. 
 
 We have neither the time nor the space to follow 
 the day any further : to picture the scattered field, 
 waiting down by the sheltering covert — the knowing 
 ones planted in likely places, and both horses and 
 men all alert with restrained expectation ; to fol- 
 low the glorious run — half a lifetime of happy 
 emotions, supreme excitements, and hair-breadth 
 escapes crowding into the flying minutes. 
 
 We cannot follow ; but Darlmgton and Claudia 
 did, in their talk. They rode their hunts over 
 again ; they took their hedges; they distanced com- 
 petitors; they were in at the death. They were 
 breatliless — with mere description; and glad re- 
 collections alone filled their eyes with responsive 
 sparkle. 
 
 " Have you ever noticed one difference between 
 
158 OUR OWN POMPEII. 
 
 horses and clogs ? " Claudia went on, when Darling- 
 ton had pulled up breathless. "A dog is aristo- 
 cratic in his ideas. He is essentially a courtier. 
 He discriminates in a moment between the kitchen 
 with its inhabitants, and the master of the house 
 with his friends. A horse, on the other hand, is 
 democratic. He makes no distinctions ; but he 
 (like many democrats) is fond of pageant, pomp, 
 and glitter." 
 
 " I never thought of that before," answered Dar- 
 lington. And by way of saying something, he 
 remarked — " I suppose you've had a lot of dances 
 with Claud ? " 
 
 " No. I have not seen him all evening." 
 
 " Not seen him ! " burst out Darlington. " I should 
 
 have thought " and he paused and blushed 
 
 with boyish awkwardness at his blunder. Then 
 with a change of tone he suddenly added, " But 
 here he comes at last." And Claud walked up to 
 them as he did so. 
 
 Claud's heart was beating. He had tortured 
 himself by postponing the moment for fear of 
 appearing too eager ; for fear of Mrs Denbigh ; for 
 the numerous reasons a young man assigns when 
 
OUR OWN POMPEII. 159 
 
 for once he is seized with a modest timidity. And 
 now, though the ball was nearly over, he had come 
 to claim one valse, and that valse was granted. 
 As they stood up to begin, he asked Claudia 
 if she had yet been out for a row ; and when 
 he found that she had not, proposed that, in- 
 stead of dancing, they should have a short pull 
 on the sea. 
 
 Claudia hesitated, for she doubted if Mrs Den- 
 bigh approved of dances being " sat out " in boats. 
 Claud still pressed her, and so she yielded at last. 
 " You ought," she said, " in that costume, to play a 
 mandolin. Haven't you got one that you could 
 bring with us ? " Claud asked if a banjo would 
 do as well; and being told that even that was 
 better than nothing, he fetched his from his 
 room, as they passed by on their way to the 
 landing-stage. 
 
 As soon as they reached the boat, Claudia said 
 that for once she was going to row, and Claud 
 must sit in the stern and sing to her. He had to 
 give in, after demurring a little, and the boat glided 
 out to the night under the steady stroke of Claudia's 
 sculls. Claud strummed in a gently vague way on 
 
160 OUR OWN POMPEII. 
 
 his banjo, until they had got out a little distance, 
 when he ventured to sing one or two nigger songs. 
 Claudia asked him for " Oh, dem Golden Slippers ! " 
 and his voice gave the sorrowful air all its wist- 
 ful sadness — an air vaguely suggesting the soft 
 crooning prayer of an alien race for the happier 
 days of long ago. 
 
 " Thank you," said Claudia slowly, and she 
 ceased for the present from rowing. " When shall 
 we have such a beautiful night again ? Everything 
 is so still and so calm. We might be in some land 
 of other days." 
 
 " Yes," said Claud, and his fingers still hinted an 
 air on the murmuring banjo-strings : — 
 
 " ' The moon shines bright. In such a night as this, 
 When the sweet wind did gently kiss the trees, 
 And they did make no noise, — in such a night ' 
 
 You know the rest." 
 
 " ' I would outnight you did nobody come,' " 
 answered Claudia, appropriately. 
 
 "But nobody does come." 
 
 " Yes, Mr Cade — I mean, he comes into our 
 conversation. I want to know why he is so 
 hated." 
 
OUR OWN POMPEII. 161 
 
 " On such a night why need we mention Cade ? " 
 asked Claud, with the look of a poet who is inter- 
 rupted in the midst of a recitation of one of his own 
 works. " But if he must come," Claud continued, 
 " he shall find his match. He is hated, then, 
 partly because he is feared, and partly because he 
 is unprincipled." 
 
 " But he is very clever," said Claudia, in an 
 unsatisfied tone. 
 
 " His unscrupulousness is his cleverness, I think. 
 Or if you like to put it the other way, he is clever 
 enough to know that he can succeed best by being 
 unscrupulous," 
 
 "Well, I think people are very hard on him. 
 But then, you know, I am a great Eadical." 
 
 "A Radical?" 
 
 " Yes. For when one sees all the poverty and 
 all the misery around one, how can one help — how 
 can any one help — wishing and trying to improve 
 their lot ? I long that I could do something to help 
 them." 
 
 " I feel the same for the poor that you do. But, 
 do you know, that is exactly the reason . why I'm 
 a Conservative. Must we still, for the thousandth 
 
 VOL. I, L 
 
162 OUR OWN POMPEII. 
 
 time, contradict the monstrous assertion that the 
 poor and their welfare are less to us than to the 
 Eadicals ? They mature them for tools. We wish 
 to teach them the self-reliance of men. They 
 would turn them into poor Socialists ; we into 
 patriotic Englishmen. But we can't talk any more 
 politics at present. The night is too beautiful for 
 
 anything but " then he caught himself up, 
 
 and said " poetry. As Shakespeare would say — 
 
 " ' On such a night all politics must pall.' 
 
 And as for Cade — well, to show you the kind of 
 man he is, I will tell you what I heard him say 
 to Courier only this afternoon ; only please don't tell 
 any one else, as I heard it in confidence." And 
 Claud repeated as much of their conversation as he 
 could remember. When he had finished, Claudia 
 proposed that they should return. She thought 
 their dance must be over now. Claud thought, 
 though he did not say so, that not only their dance, 
 but the two following ones, must be also passed. 
 He asked her to let him pull them back. They 
 changed places ; yet when Claud had possession of 
 the sculls, they did not seem to move with any 
 
OUR OWN POiMPEII. 163 
 
 undue briskness through the water. They rather 
 loitered caressingly, and scattered it back on itself 
 in bright drops of liquid fire. 
 
 " A drifting boat lulls one so gently ; it rocks all 
 one's nature to sleep, till it almost bears one away 
 from one's self." 
 
 " Yes, one floats on and on, and dreams one will 
 never wake," said Claud, in a tone of languid ac- 
 quiescence. 
 
 " And, therefore, I don't wish to drift any longer, 
 please," put in Claudia, with a light in her eye. 
 " Try and pull us a little faster." 
 
 Claud dipped his sculls in again, but again took 
 up the drifting talk. " Think of poor Maggie, in 
 ' The Mill on the Floss,' all that long warm day, 
 floating down to the sea, as passive as the victim 
 of an incantation — almost irresponsible and wholly 
 unresisting." 
 
 " Poor, poor Maggie. She, I think, is my fav- 
 ourite heroine. Sinned against, not sinning. The 
 victim of fate — of the hard, unrelenting, inexor- 
 able circumstances around her. And yet how she 
 struggled ! Are we all as powerless in the hands 
 of fate, do you think ? " 
 
164 OUR OWN POMPEII. 
 
 " Not powerless, if we determine to shape our 
 fate for ourselves. Otherwise, if we let ourselves 
 drift at the mercy of every circumstance, we may 
 make a wreck of our own life — and others." He 
 spoke softly, yet quickly. There seemed a swift 
 rush of sweet thoughts through his brain, keeping 
 time with his beating heart. He struggled against 
 it, dreading it, only half comprehending it. " But 
 floating here, as we are," he continued (for the 
 blades of the sculls had by this time ceased to dip, 
 and were now in motionless rest on the water) — 
 " it is all so lovely, that Shelley alone can express 
 what one feels : — 
 
 " * My soul is an enchanted boat, 
 
 Whicli like a sleeping swan clotli float 
 
 Upon the silver waves of thy sweet singing ; 
 
 And thine doth like an angel sit 
 
 Beside the helm conducting it, 
 
 Whilst all the winds with melody are singing. 
 
 It seems to float ever, for ever, 
 
 Upon the many-winding river, 
 
 Between mountains, woods, abysses, 
 
 A paradise of wildernesses ! ' " 
 
 He paused. 
 
 " Go on, please," said Claudia. 
 
OUR OWN POMPEII. 165 
 
 " * Till, like one in slumber bound, 
 
 Borne to the ocean, I float down, around, 
 
 Into a sea profound, of ever-spreading sound. 
 
 Meanwhile thy spirit lifts its pinions 
 
 In music's most serene dominions — 
 
 Catching the winds that fan that happy heaven. 
 
 And we sail on, away, afar, 
 
 Without a course, without a star, 
 
 But by the instinct of sweet music driven, — 
 
 Till through Elysian garden-islets 
 
 By thee, most beautiful of pilots, 
 
 Where never mortal pinnace glided, 
 
 The boat of my desire is guided — 
 
 Realms where the air we breathe is love, 
 
 Which in the winds and on the waves doth move, 
 
 Harmonising this earth with what we find above.' " 
 
 He ceased, and leant a little forward. Neither 
 spoke. The stillness was strangely impressive, 
 only broken now and again when little delicate 
 bursts of music came fluttering out to sea on the 
 wings of the wind. The moon, now pale and risen, 
 was veiled by a film of silver cloud. The sea was 
 dark, reflecting the oversliadowing night, but the 
 ripples were touched by a soft phosphorescent 
 glitter. Claud suddenly realised that he was in 
 the presence of one of the supreme moments of 
 his life. 
 
166 OUR OWX POMPEII. 
 
 A calm irresistible force seemed to master him. 
 It possessed itself of him ; it impelled him to 
 speak. And the words that he uttered flowed 
 from him — not consciously formed by his mind, 
 but in tones that were strange to his ear, so that 
 he listened to them as though to a stranger 
 speaking. 
 
 " I love you, Claudia ; will you be mine ? " he 
 heard them say. And his eyes, preternaturally 
 keen, saw her flush, and then turn very pale. His 
 arms stretched out as though they would press 
 her to his bosom. Then he heard her say, 
 " Take me back — this is cruel of you ; " and he 
 saw her head bend over her hands, as she burst 
 into tears. 
 
 " Forgive me," he cried. " I know I ought not 
 to have spoken to you here — now." 
 
 She looked up, and with a supreme effort 
 controlled her tears. " You had better speak to my 
 mother," she said. " We will try and forget our 
 mistakes." 
 
 " Forget — forget my mistake ! Forgive it, for I 
 could not help it ; but do not forget it. Now you 
 know that I love you — shall always love you. I 
 
OUR OWN POMPEII. 167 
 
 will speak to your mother. Till then, let us be as 
 though nothing had happened." 
 
 " I am the victim of fate," she said, trying to 
 smile. " I can't struggle ; I am too weak, I think." 
 
 And, until they reached the shore, not another 
 word was spoken. 
 
168 OUR OWN POMPEII. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 The whole of Pompeii had naturally gathered in 
 the Forum for the ball. All the servants even had 
 gone, either to help or to see as much of the fun 
 as they could. 
 
 And therefore the outlying streets lay deserted 
 and silent. The very breeze, which so wooingly 
 tended the brightly lit festival and the calm sea 
 beyond, seemed here to have turned somewhat 
 chilly. Only the thin waning moon looked down 
 with the same calm insistence. And by the pallid 
 light she gave, the black shadowed silent streets 
 might have been those of that other city she also 
 looked down on, now standing lifeless and deserted 
 beneath the awful shade of its lurid destroyer: a 
 ghostly corpse, reconquered from the tomb. 
 
 Yet in one of the smaller rooms near the entrance 
 
OUK OWN POMPEII. 169 
 
 a light was burning. And if a wandering couple 
 or an inquisitive passer-by had been injudicious 
 enough to intrude, they would have found Mr Giles 
 (who scorned balls, and indeed was unnecessary to 
 their success) entertaining an unpleasant-looking 
 individual with cold brandy-and-water. 
 
 "We will take a sample of their conversation in 
 order to show the reader its drift, and then pass on 
 to pleasanter people and subjects. (And we must 
 again remind him that this is not a history, but a 
 romance — a romance of to-morrow — with a very 
 different sort of Government ruling to any one we 
 may have at the present day.) 
 
 " We don't want any more outrages — indeed we 
 really can't do with any more, just at present," Mr 
 Giles was saying, with a certain incisive earnest- 
 ness. " The English people have short memories, 
 and are easily fooled. If you will only stop them 
 now, the Prime Minister will get you Home Rule. 
 He wants it himself, and only the doubts of his 
 Cabinet hold him back." 
 
 " The money from America is the troublesome 
 thing," said the unpleasant-looking man. "The 
 Americans, you see, naturally won't subscribe un- 
 
170 • OUK OWN POMPEII. 
 
 less they are sure of their money's worth. Now 
 a good outrage or murder, or even a dynamite 
 explosion with nobody killed, pleases them wonder- 
 fully, and quickens up the flow of money tremen- 
 dously ; because then they see we are earning it 
 fairly. A few weeks ago, for instance, when a lot 
 of old women held another old woman down for 
 dogs to bite and worry her legs, and that boycotted 
 man had his ears and his cheeks sliced off with 
 razors, the money began to come in tremendously 
 fast, and kept up for several weeks afterwards. 
 You know we must think of our livelihood, even 
 before the claims of Home Kule." 
 
 " Oh, I know, I know," replied Giles, in a sym- 
 pathising voice. " It's very hard on you, I allow. 
 But can't you tell them in America you're saving 
 up all your outrages till the Conservatives come 
 in next time ? — if they ever do. Then we can have 
 a double supply. You'll get the money, and we 
 shall get the advantage of their policy being a 
 failure." 
 
 " I will try ; I will do my best," said the un- 
 pleasant man. " You know we should starve if it 
 wasn't for the subsidies." He seemed still hanker- 
 
OUR OWN POMPEII. 171 
 
 ing after the forbidden delights of outrage, for he 
 continued, " If we could only now tie a landlord 
 to a stake, and roast him slowly to death with 
 green fagots in the midst of his native village. 
 You've no idea what a lot of money that show 
 would draw. Why, we should all make our for- 
 tunes, and be able to retire from business." 
 
 " Oh, you mustn't do that ; pray, don't do that," 
 cried Giles, in absolute alarm. " You've no idea how 
 anything definite of that sort upsets the English 
 people. You can't conceive what a row they'd 
 make, or how very unreasonable they would be. It 
 might put off" Home Eule for twelve months at 
 least. Besides which, you know, it really would 
 be rather cruel, and the Prime Minister would be 
 extremely annoyed — extremely annoyed ; although, 
 of course, he would understand that it was only a 
 regrettable incident natural to the present unsatis- 
 factory state of affairs. But even if he wished to 
 overlook it, his colleagues wouldn't permit him to 
 do so." 
 
 Then they fell to discussing details, which would 
 not be of general interest, and so we will drop the 
 curtain. 
 
172 OUR OWN POMPEII. 
 
 The next day arose (as each day eternally rises) 
 alike on the evil and on the good. On Claudia, 
 sleeping soundly after a restless night; and on 
 Claud, waking anxiously, wondering how he should 
 break the ice with Mrs Denbigh. He felt that the 
 cold plunge would have to be taken without any 
 mitigating preliminaries. And he doubted if she 
 would extend him a helping hand. She might even 
 retard his efforts by assisting to freeze him. 
 
 Can we not all imagine the horror of that first 
 interview with the stern parent, even though we 
 may never ourselves have experienced it ? The 
 pause at the door ; the particular make of the 
 carpet, which we examine so long and so earnestly ; 
 the haggard attempt at everyday conversation ; 
 the awful moment when the plunge is taken, and 
 we feel ourselves mentally toppling down like a 
 house of cards. Our eligibility, income, advantages, 
 and expectations (recalled and reviewed for the 
 occasion), now shrivel vip with a horrid persistence, 
 as we try to present each in turn in as favourable 
 a light as possible. The parent is on the alert; 
 all the parental instincts are aroused, and we are 
 exposed to a pitiless scrutiny. The whole is simply 
 
OUR OWN POMPEII. 173 
 
 a waking nightmare, and it is no wonder that 
 poor Claud mentally fingered it with a certain 
 amount of dread apprehension. 
 
 As he walked along the streets — he had only a 
 few yards to go — he did not notice the passers-by, 
 or even tlie sunshine. He noticed nothing, and 
 only knew that he was thinking, " What a fool I 
 am going to make of myself ! " 
 
 ]\Irs Denbigh was at home, and received him 
 kindly. He tried to talk of the ball, of the people 
 who were there — of anything he could think of. 
 And although she answered him with polite re- 
 sponsiveness, he felt she was wondering all the 
 while what had brought him there so early. At 
 last he said, in a voice that was strange to himself — 
 
 " I have come to ask you, Mrs Denbigh, for a 
 great — a great sacrifice. I have come to ask you 
 for your daughter." 
 
 He thought that the phrase was pedantic; he 
 wondered if it was also ludicrous. He looked at 
 her. She was quite calm; and he had expected 
 her to be surprised — even shocked. 
 
 "Perhaps," he said to himself, "she is accus- 
 tomed to receive such proposals ; " and he could 
 
174 OUR OWN POMPEII. 
 
 not help adding, "perhaps accustomed to refuse 
 them also." 
 
 " I admit you have taken me by surprise, Mr 
 Brownlow," she said in a sweet voice, but without 
 any tone to indicate the taking. " You have only 
 known one another for such a short time. I think 
 that before anything further occurs — I mean before 
 you say anything to Claudia — you ought to see a 
 great deal more of each other. Besides which, 
 before I can sanction your suit, there are many 
 other things to be considered." 
 
 Claud blushed. He glanced up with a pleading 
 look in his eyes — eyes which, at times, were as 
 eloquent as a dumb animal's — and said, " You will 
 forgive me, I know, but — but I forgot myself last 
 night — for a moment ; I told your daughter how 
 much I loved her." 
 
 Mrs Denbigh rose abruptly. 
 
 " What did she answer ? " she asked, with a firm 
 quickness. 
 
 " Only, ' Ask my mother,' I think." 
 
 " She is a good girl," said Mrs Denbigh, in a tone 
 of reassured authority. " And now, Mr Brownlow, 
 under the circumstances, I must tell you that I 
 
OUK OWN POMPEII. 175 
 
 consider you made a mistake ; not only a mistake, 
 but a dishonourable mistake as well." 
 
 " Dishonourable ! Oh, Mrs Denbigh, not dis- 
 honourable." 
 
 His eyes almost filled with tears as he also rose. 
 
 " My love is so great that it overflowed, and now 
 I have come to confess it all to you." 
 
 " If it is likely to overflow again, my daughter 
 had better not run the risk of causing it by seeing 
 you," said Mrs Denbigh, a little drily. 
 
 " But you don't — you won't tell me, I must not 
 hope ! " broke out Claud. 
 
 " You are very young. You have at present no 
 means of supporting a wife. I speak to you quite 
 frankly ; it is the kindest way in the end." 
 
 " I will get my uncle to write to you about — 
 about my income and prospects, and all that." 
 
 " I think that will be the best plan ; but, at the 
 same time, I must warn you that there are already 
 others in the field." 
 
 "Already," murmured Claud. He had nothing 
 else to say. He vaguely wondered who the others 
 were, and if this was the way that their offers were 
 received. But he tried to smile as he answered — 
 
176 OUR OWN POMPEII. 
 
 " Even yet I shall venture to hope, for she knows 
 that I love her." 
 
 " If you speak to her in the future, it must be as 
 a — as a slight acquaintance. It would be better 
 to do so, than for it to appear as though we had 
 quarrelled." 
 
 " It shall be as yovi wish," 
 
 "And I trust to your honour as a gentleman 
 not to say a word more to my daughter on the 
 subject of love till you have asked my consent." 
 
 "I promise," answered Claud. Then he looked 
 up, and said, " Have you forgiven my indiscre- 
 tion ? " 
 
 " I forgive you," she said, holding out her hand 
 (but she had not). And Claud walked out into the 
 blinding sunlight, and on to the sea-shore, feeling 
 as though he had been crushed and almost trampled 
 on, and yet not being able to find where the injustice 
 lay. 
 
 " It must be her manner," he said to himself. 
 " Not her words, but her manner of saying them." 
 
 On the sea-shore he found Darlington. He told 
 him all, and they wondered who the " others " could 
 be, Neither of them remembered that prudent 
 
OUR OWN POMPEII. 177 
 
 mothers sometimes not only keep " others " con- 
 veniently on hand, but have been known even to go 
 so far as to manufacture " another " out of a youth- 
 ful great personage without either his knowledge 
 or consent. 
 
 Darlington, for instance, never for a moment 
 thought that when Mrs Denbigh talked about 
 " others being in the field," she meant that she 
 hoped and expected that he would be caught there. 
 He comforted Claud, and promised to do all that he 
 could for him with Mrs Denbigh. They were very 
 old friends ; and Darlington said in his confident 
 way that he would use all his tact to talk Mrs 
 Denbigh over. 
 
 So the days passed on. There were lunches on 
 yachts, and picnics up among the vine -covered 
 hills, where donkeys were ridden, and wild flowers 
 picked, and oranges eaten fresh from their dark- 
 leaved trees. There were boating - parties and 
 driving-parties ; excursions to Nice and to Monte 
 Carlo. Whatever else there might be, there was 
 always lawn-tennis going eternally every day, from 
 early morning till sunset. Miss van Knut was the 
 life of every party she joined ; and she joined a 
 
 VOL. I. M 
 
178 OUR OWN POMPEII. 
 
 great many. She laughed and chattered (she was 
 even known in strict private to mimic her mentors). 
 She appeared in a great many lovely dresses, always 
 shaded by a large parasol, and cooled by a great 
 crimson fan. She was generally followed by Dar- 
 lington, who turned up with a kind of unexpected 
 irregular certainty. They were the best of friends, 
 but she was more than a match for him. She 
 chaffed him unmercifully ; and if he had ever had 
 any intention of being sentimental (which he 
 hadn't), she would have crumpled him up and sent 
 him home in an envelope, as she would herself have 
 subsequently expressed it. 
 
 He had no intention of being sentimental. He 
 was not in love ; and the whole fun of the flirtation 
 to Imn was its being conducted on the American 
 principle, of no love being involved, or even im- 
 plied. 
 
 As the young lady was an American young lady, 
 of course no one could say anything ; and Darling- 
 ton took advantage of his privilege accordingly. 
 
 Miss van Knut, on her side, liked Darlington 
 extremely, but it must be conceded that some of 
 the warmth of her friendship with him was caused 
 
OUR OWN POMPEII. 179 
 
 by her mischievous love of witnessing the obvious 
 alarm of all the other ladies. 
 
 We have not as yet seen anything of her father. 
 Mr van Knut was a thin shrewd man, with a kind, 
 worn, clever face, a black beard, now turning a 
 little grey, and a manner which was at once both 
 determined and unassuming. He was of course, to 
 a certain extent, apparently effaced by his daughter, 
 seeming at times to be rather a courier than a com- 
 panion, and rather a companion than a parent. 
 But this subordination was, after all, superficial, for 
 in every important matter, whenever he " put his 
 foot down," his word was law. At Pompeii he 
 chiefly amused himself by taking long walks, his 
 head always shaded by a big white umbrella ; and he 
 was often accompanied by one of the other gentlemen 
 of the place. He was extremely good company. 
 He was well-informed, and his natural shrewdness, 
 reinforced by a certain dry humour, gave to his 
 conversation a delightfully American flavour. Be- 
 sides which, he was supposed to be a great authority 
 on American railroads. When he and his com- 
 panion were far on in their walk, and their conver- 
 sation had tended towards confidence, he was often 
 
180 OUR OWN POMPEII. 
 
 cross-questioned upon the momentous subject of 
 securities ; the safety or danger of various " mort- 
 gage bonds " and " debenture bonds " was discussed ; 
 and not even the " ordinary stocks " were ignored, 
 although often condemned. 
 
 ]\Ir van Knut had struck up a great friendship 
 with Mr Leo. The latter, although, above all 
 things, transcendental and idealistic in his writings, 
 was not without a certain practical common-sense 
 in everyday affairs. Leaving entire artistic and 
 literary consistency to his wife, he edited his 
 Eeview, for instance, with decided success. He 
 knew the worth of " names," as well as the value 
 of ideas ; of the desirability of advertisements, as 
 well as the delight of spreading enlightened ideas 
 among those who were willing to give sixpence a- 
 week to receive them. 
 
 And even if his noblest and most disinterested 
 views for the future improvement of mankind had 
 spread with a conquering force through Society, he 
 would still have been wholly dissatisfied had the 
 balance between receipts and expenditure not been 
 generously in his own favour. He therefore found 
 Mr van Knut not only extremely useful as a kind of 
 
OUR OWN POMPEII. 181 
 
 exhaustless well out of which he could pump ideas 
 on America, but also a practical person who told 
 him where he could place in safety the earnings 
 from all his struggles on behalf of humanity. 
 
 Mr van Knut's admiration of Mr Leo was 
 caused by that gentleman's liberal knowledge and 
 wide attainments. Mr van Knut had a great ad- 
 miration for culture. And it was tempered by the 
 slightest suspicion that Mr Leo was just — ^just a 
 little bit of a humbug. For Mr van Knut had a 
 brutal contempt for a humbug. His feelings to- 
 wards Mrs Leo, however, were simple and entirely 
 unmixed. They began by regarding her as a dread 
 divinity in the world of thought, and they ended 
 by thinking her rather a foolish woman in the 
 world of men. 
 
 Miss Eattletubs all this time was not only 
 writing her " Letters to a Brother," with a view to 
 subsequent publication, but was also contributing 
 an occasional article to the 'Morning Gazette.' 
 She frequented Mrs Denbigh's society, partly in 
 order to be, as she expressed it, "in touch" with 
 the fashionable world, and partly because Mrs 
 Denbigh was "very nice" to her. For Mrs 
 
182 OUR OWX POMPEII. 
 
 Denbigh, with her accustomed acnteness, recog- 
 nised " a power " in Miss Eattletubs, and she 
 always propitiated " a power " when she found 
 one. 
 
 Claudia spent most of her time with her mother. 
 She knew instinctively that Claud had been dis- 
 couraged. She also knew that she did not love 
 him — or rather, she thought that she did not, and 
 told herself so, when she ventured to think of 
 him ; for what maiden knows her own heart at the 
 moment it flutters before the first rush of hot love 
 from another's ? She dare not let her mind dwell 
 on the tender events of that lovely evening. She 
 only felt that the memory of them was filled with a 
 wistful sweetness. Claud haunted the secret cham- 
 bers of her heart, and would not be put forth. And 
 if she, in truth, almost cherished him there, it was 
 wholly unconsciously, for she believed she expelled 
 him whenever his yearning face and his burning 
 words rose up in opposed recollection. She was a 
 little weary of all the gaiety. Pompeii was really 
 too gay. She was restless, and longed to return to 
 England ; so that when Mrs Denbigh told her one 
 day that they were invited to afternoon tea with 
 
OUR OWN POMPEII. 183 
 
 the Princess Chioggia, she accepted the news with 
 indifference, and even forgot to consider what dress 
 she should wear. 
 
 The Princess Chioggia was one of the handsomest 
 women in Europe. She was a Hungarian, who had 
 married a Eoman prince ; but her spliere of activ- 
 ity was not confined to the little round of scanty 
 duties, and scantier pleasures, which is usually 
 trodden so circumspectly by Italian ladies. For 
 not only was she one of the handsomest women in 
 Europe, but she also had one of the finest physiques 
 as well, with a carriage — a manidre — more regal 
 than that of most royal princesses themselves. 
 Yet, although in Society she was, above all things, 
 a princess, she climbed mountains in Switzerland, 
 hunted in England, swam splendidly, rode exqui- 
 sitely, and danced divinely. 
 
 Her beautiful rooms were now thronged with 
 people at afternoon tea. The inner room was built 
 in exact imitation of one of the courts at Pompeii. 
 In the centre, a marble basin of clear water, in 
 which gold-fish swam, reflected the sky above. The 
 marble floor was covered with Eastern rugs. The 
 red-tinted walls were sprinkled with rosy Cupids 
 
184 OUR OWN POMPEII. 
 
 and baby-loves archly playing amid a delightful 
 jumble of grinning masks, delicate flowers, and 
 antique arabesques. 
 
 Rich curtains hung over the doorways, at inter- 
 vals pushed aside when some nineteenth-century 
 worldling was ushered in by (what looked like) a 
 beautiful young Greek slave, dressed in a cream- 
 coloured tunic, and crowned with a wreath of white 
 lilac. 
 
 There were already a crowd of people assembled 
 before the curtain was once again pulled back and 
 Darlington entered. Wlien he had found the Prin- 
 cess, and said all that is usual on such an occasion, 
 he wandered on until he settled down by Miss van 
 Knut. She would not talk to him before he had 
 fetched her an ice. At last he came back with 
 two (having captured one for himself as well), and 
 then she resigned herself to a long conversation. 
 
 " What fools those fellows look dressed up like 
 that ! " Darlington began. " Why can't they have 
 the servants here dressed in a proper livery ? " 
 
 " That would spoil it all. I think they're just 
 lovely. I'm afraid you've no soul for art." 
 
 " No, I don't think I have much." 
 
OUR OWN POMPEII. 185 
 
 " Neither have I, between ourselves — at least I'm 
 not struck dumb with awe by Botticelli or Carpaccio." 
 
 " I don't know who they are." 
 
 " Ah ! you see, I'm more cultured than you. But 
 then I've travelled in Italy and improved my mind, 
 I shocked Mrs Leo the other day, when she said 
 that the angels in the round Botticelli at Florence 
 were bending their heads in adoring unison, by 
 saying that I was certain they'd just screwed them 
 down on one side simply to get in the frame. And 
 what do you think she said ? " Miss van Knut went 
 on, mimicking her manner in the most delightful 
 way. " She said, ' Yoic would naturally expect 
 angels to compress themselves into a frame.' So 
 I replied, ' Oh no, I'm quite content when ladies do 
 so.' You know what I mean," she said, looking at 
 Darlington. 
 
 And Darlington did, for he burst out laughing. 
 
 Miss van Knut having touched on her point, 
 glided off, and returned once more to the scene 
 around them. " This may be art ; but in spite of 
 that, it's awfully pretty (why I dislike most art is, 
 that it's so terribly ugly), and we might be dear old 
 Eomans again." 
 
186 OUR OWN POMPEII. 
 
 " That is what Claud is always saying — ' the 
 classical life revived,' and that sort of thing. But 
 I don't want the classical life revived, and I should 
 hate to be a dear old Eoman." 
 
 " Mr Brownlow hasn't looked so cheerful the last 
 day or two." 
 
 " Can you guess why ? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " I'm sure you can't." 
 
 " I can — because he is in love." 
 
 " How do you know ? " cried Darlington in 
 astonishment. 
 
 " Oh, I know, I know ; / have got a pair of eyes. 
 And I could tell you the lady too, if I wished to be 
 indiscreet." 
 
 " I can't think why the mother discourages it," 
 said Darlington. 
 
 " I can. She has another young gentleman in 
 view." 
 
 " Who ? " 
 
 " That would be telling still more than I ought. 
 The other day the young lady's mother asked me 
 what I thought of a certain young man. I told 
 her that I thought him just simply — well, I won't 
 
OUR OWN POMPEII. 1S7 
 
 say what I said. She asked me to excuse her 
 speaking plainly to me ; but as I had no mother, 
 and wasn't a European (I am sure she thinks I am 
 really a savage, and tattooed underneath my clothes), 
 she was sure — and so on, and so on. I ought to 
 know that it wasn't usual in England for young 
 ladies to call the sons of peers simply sweet : 
 besides, in this instance the young man was not 
 — was not quite free." 
 
 " You don't mean to say she had the impertinence 
 to talk about me like that. What does she mean 
 by saying I'm not free ? " cried Darlington, angrily. 
 
 " So I replied," continued Miss van Knut, not 
 taking any notice of the interruption, " ' You are 
 quite right, Mrs Denbigh. And next time he's free, 
 I'll let you know.' " 
 
 " But what can she mean about me ? " persisted 
 Darlington. 
 
 " She thinks you are in love with her daughter, 
 and therefore she has discouraged Claud. Now I 
 want you to be very serious for once, and talk 
 business with me. Lord Darlington," Miss van 
 Knut continued, with a confidential air. " We must 
 appear as though — well, as though we were nearly 
 
188 OUR OWN POMPEII. 
 
 engaged, and then she will give you up and en- 
 courage Claud." 
 
 " Oh, what fun ! " cried Darlington. 
 
 " But mind it is only acting — only pretence. I 
 put you, sir, on your honour, never to take advan- 
 tage of my generosity — I mean of my ingenuity." 
 
 " What a capital joke ! "What a score off Mrs 
 Denbigh ! And I can't help laughing when I think 
 of my mother's face." 
 
 " Your mother ! " 
 
 " Yes ; she reckons to superintend all my amours, 
 you know. She asks likely girls down to stay at 
 Fieldhurst — that's our place in the country — and 
 all that sort of thing." 
 
 " But your mother mustn't ever hear of this. It 
 is only for a few days, in order to conquer Mrs 
 Denbigh. See, she is sitting over there now." Miss 
 van Knut's eyes sparkled with fun. " Go over," 
 she said, " and just hint it to her, and see how she 
 looks." 
 
 Darlington sprang up. Miss van Knut tried to 
 stop him, but it was too late. Besides a mis- 
 chievous delight in shocking Mrs Denbigh, he 
 wished at the moment to pay her out for retain- 
 
OUR OWN POMPEII. 189 
 
 ing him, as it were. So he quietly walked up to 
 her and said, in a nonchalant tone, " I have come, 
 Mrs Denbigh, for your congratulations. I'm en- 
 gaged to Miss van Knut." 
 
 Mrs Denbigh caught her breath for a moment ; 
 and then, in the sweetest voice and with the kindest 
 smile, she said, " I wish you all happiness, Darling- 
 ton. Take me to Miss van Knut, that I may con- 
 gratulate her — on her success." 
 
 Darlington gravely led Mrs Denbigh across the 
 room. But before they had come to where Miss 
 van Knut had been sitting, she jumped up and 
 came forward to meet them. She blushed a little, 
 and said hurriedly, " I hope Lord Darlington hasn't 
 been saying anything silly." 
 
 " Nothing silly," replied Mrs Denbigh, in a clear 
 slow voice. " On the contrary, he has been telling 
 me of your engagement, and I have come to con- 
 gratulate you." 
 
 Miss van Knut turned on Darlington, and in a 
 tone in which amusement struggled unsuccessfully 
 with distress, she said, " Lord Darlington, I am 
 very angry at your being so silly." Then turning 
 to Mrs Denbigh, she went on — 
 
190 OUR OWN POMPEII. 
 
 " It is only one of his foolish jests. I am afraid 
 he has been playing a sort of childish practical 
 joke on both of us, Mrs Denbigh." 
 
 Mrs Denbigh was deeply shocked. She was 
 filled with a general impression of the extreme im- 
 propriety, the more than suggested vulgarity, of the 
 whole scene. She felt sure in her own mind that 
 somehow it was all due to Miss van Knut. Prob- 
 ably that young lady had first played a practical 
 joke on Darlington, by suggesting to him the suit- 
 ability of his making himself her husband. So 
 that it was with rising indignation she turned to 
 Miss van Knut and said — 
 
 " Whether it is a theoretical or a practical joke. 
 Miss van Knut, it is obviously one in which no 
 young lady should — I may say could — participate. 
 Although, Lord Darlington, you are too young to 
 appreciate either the value or the worthlessness of 
 young ladies, you can at least understand that your 
 joke has placed us all in a very unpleasant situation." 
 
 Darlington, blushing and filled with confusion, 
 looked from one to the other. He was not sure if 
 Miss van Knut was really pained, or if she was 
 simply controlling her sense of the ludicrous. He 
 
OUR OWN POMPEII. 191 
 
 knew that he wanted to get rid of Mrs Denbigh, 
 and he did not mend matters by telling her that if 
 she would only leave them, he would find out 
 whether he had been premature. Miss van Knut 
 had flamed up at Mrs Denbigh's words. She 
 thought that they skilfully covered an insult, and 
 her voice trembled slightly as she said — 
 
 " In America, Mrs Denbigh, it would be consid- 
 ered more considerate, kinder, even better bred, 
 for a lady to accept a scene like this in the spirit 
 in which it was offered — especially when the joke, 
 though a poor one, was at another lady's expense." 
 
 Mrs Denbigh turned round and retraced her 
 steps, with a firm determination to let Darlington's 
 mother, the Countess of Downstreamdown, know 
 everything with as little delay as possible. Indeed, 
 Miss van Knut was so charmingly original, so dar- 
 ingly unconventional, she wore such extraordinary 
 dresses with such a fascinating air, and was alto- 
 gether so unusual — unusually charming, most of 
 the men said — that Mrs Denbigh was not the only 
 lady who regarded her with an air of extreme dis- 
 approval. They said to each other, " These Ameri- 
 can girls will do anything, and say anything also." 
 
192 OUR OWN POMPEII. 
 
 By which they meant that Miss van Knut was cap- 
 able of saying anything — even something unpleas- 
 ant — about themselves. And they always seemed 
 to tacitly imply that she was really a savage, who 
 might at any moment be expected to burst through 
 the thin veneer that civilisation had covered her 
 with, and appear in her native war-paint and fea- 
 thers. The Duchess of Man, for instance — herself 
 a lady who, if she had been simply Mrs So-and-so, 
 would have probably been refused admission to any 
 respectable household — remarked to Mr Smythe 
 that Miss van Knut was not at all a nice girl, and 
 that she really ought to have been blackballed. Mr 
 Smythe in reply asked what he could do. He had 
 already done everything that he could to protect 
 Society from being invaded by a horde of Ameri- 
 cans, and he had failed. Besides which, the Van 
 Knuts had been elected in America, and in America 
 they were probably a kind of criterion of suitability. 
 When he himself had been in America, he had 
 found that conduct like Miss van Knut's was not 
 only accepted, but even encouraged. 
 
 " I shall certainly never allow such a person in 
 my house," said the Duchess of Man. 
 
OUR OWX POMPEII. 193 
 
 And the determination would have been more 
 than reciprocated if the knowledge of each other's 
 conduct had also been equally reciprocal. For Miss 
 van Knut was extremely unworldly, and was quite 
 unprepared to admit (even if she had known it) 
 that an exalted position has not only its duties but 
 its privileges as well, and that one of the most 
 valued of these is an understanding that its friends 
 will be suitably blind and deaf to, and ignorant of, 
 certain events on certain occasions. Mr Smythe 
 understood perfectly when to hide anything awk- 
 ward with the sheltering cloak of charity, and 
 when to exhibit it, magnified large through a tele- 
 scope, to all the curious crowds that were gathered 
 around. He knew exactly what Society would and 
 would not stand from whom. But Society's stan- 
 dard was not Miss van Knut's. Her views of both 
 conduct and opinion were formed quite independ- 
 ently of it. They not only did not vary in accord 
 with discovery, but they were sufficiently unsuit- 
 able not even to vary with the person concerned ; 
 and therefore it is no wonder if Society looked a 
 little askance at a young lady whose views defied 
 
 VOL. I. N 
 
19i OUR OWN POMPEII. 
 
 its control, and did not courteously vibrate in re- 
 sponse to its convenience. 
 
 At the present moment Miss van Knut was not 
 troubling her head about the frowns of Society (if 
 at any moment such frowns could ever have alarmed 
 her); for she was scolding Darlington for his gauche- 
 ness in placing them both in a false position. And 
 he was protesting that he had done it entirely at 
 her instigation. After a little dispute, they finally 
 settled that for the future they would be such 
 good friends as to keep Mrs Denbigh in constant 
 despair, and at the same time would be discreetly 
 vague about any declared engagement. 
 
 "For if we were definitely engaged, we should 
 have definitely to break it off after Claudia was all 
 right — we should have to assign reasons and pretexts 
 for having quarrelled, and all that kind of thing ; 
 and you know what a bore that would be," said 
 Miss van Knut. And Darlington acquiesced — as 
 indeed he always did ; for when he remarked that 
 he did not see the necessity for the conclusion, he 
 was told if he ever spoke like that again, he would 
 spoil the whole plot by forfeiting once for all the 
 friendship of Miss van Knut. 
 
OUR OWN POMPEII. 195 
 
 Tottie, fluttering about through the groups, was 
 busy collecting and depositing small drops of scan- 
 dal. He was now heard exclaiming that he wanted 
 a chaperon to take him to the refreshment-room, 
 as he didn't understand Italian, and was afraid to 
 face the waiters alone. The pantomimic actions 
 with which he accompanied these words showed 
 that they were intended for humour, and some 
 people put on a smile in consequence. 
 
 "That sweet child is crying out for his nurse 
 and his feeding-bottle," said Miss van Knut to Dar- 
 lington. 
 
 Mawnan, who was standing by Claud, remarked 
 that the youth made him sick, and added that he 
 was positively a little Clodius. 
 
 To which Claud replied that he must not forget 
 that Clodius had some brains, and that if any one 
 here was like Clodius, he thought it was Flash- 
 ington. 
 
 Claud then looked round ; and seeing Claudia 
 sitting alone, he walked towards her, and began to 
 make that bodiless, soulless conversation which 
 people seem doomed to construct together when 
 there is a feeling of restraint between them, and 
 
196 OUR OWN POMPEII. 
 
 they happen to meet in public as merely casual 
 acquaintances. 
 
 He had talked on for some time, he himself 
 hardly knew about what, when he heard a few 
 sentences near him which made him start and 
 listen. 
 
 One speaker said, " Is he furious ? " And the 
 other one answered, " Yes, furious. The Cabinet 
 have wired for explanations, and he is going back 
 to England to-night." " But what did the paper 
 say ? " asked the first. " Oh, the paper said that 
 he had determined to give Home Rule to India, 
 and that if the Cabinet did not approve, he would 
 force it on them by means of agitation. Then it 
 went on in the usual strain. Mr Cade explained 
 that until India was finally given up, England 
 would never really cease to be an aristocratic 
 country. But with India once again free, and 
 England absolved from the crime of holding down 
 in bondage more than 250 millions of our fellow- 
 men in worse than the chains of slavery — and 
 so on, and so on — we should be able, once for all, 
 to give up our so-called imperial policy (merely 
 a policy for providing the imbecile younger sons 
 
OUK OWN POMPEII, 197 
 
 of the upper classes with sinecures), reduce the 
 navy, ahnost abolish the army, and turn our at- 
 tention to those crying reforms at home which 
 are so often neglected in order to interfere 
 with our neighbours abroad. Cade is not only 
 furious, but he says that he knows who has be- 
 trayed him." 
 
 Claud felt his heart almost stop. He turned to 
 Claudia. " Have you heard what that man has 
 been saying ? " he asked, in a low voice. 
 
 " Yes ; very much the same as you told me the 
 other night." 
 
 " Then you did not repeat it, did you ? I am 
 sure that you did not," whispered Claud, in a voice 
 so distressed it was almost a soundless cry. 
 
 "No, not a word," answered Claudia, simply. 
 " You told me, you know, it was private." 
 
 Claud felt the clouds roll away, and his beating 
 heart warming him once again, as he said, " Then 
 he must have been betrayed by some one else. 
 The paper seems to have given a very exaggerated 
 account of what passed ; for he is quite clever 
 enough not to commit himself in that violent way, 
 at first." Claud looked round the room, and found 
 
198 OUR OWN POMPEII. 
 
 the ' Morning Gazette.' There, under the startling 
 heading of — 
 
 Mr cade and M. COURIER: 
 
 A HOME-RULE SCHEME FOR ES'DIA ; 
 FULL DETAILS — 
 
 he was astonished to see that not only everything 
 which he had heard was put down, but that there 
 was at least a column and a half devoted to the 
 interview. The report was exaggerated, and in 
 many parts very incorrect; and yet Claud felt 
 that it could not have been invented. One of the 
 three people present during the interview must 
 have repeated what passed there. Claud had told 
 no one but Claudia, and she had respected his con- 
 fidence. Cade would not betray himself; and 
 therefore Claud decided that M. Courier must be 
 the culprit. " Well, it is nothing to me," he said 
 to himself. " He and Cade must settle their busi- 
 ness between them ; " and he dismissed it hence- 
 forth from his thoughts. 
 
OUK OWN POMPEII. 199 
 
 CHAPTEE X. 
 
 Miss Eattletubs had not been idle since she came 
 to Pompeii. She knew that all this " effete Society," 
 as she called it, was soon to be doomed to destruc- 
 tion — indeed she candidly told it so. Her triumph- 
 ant prophecies of its approaching dissolution almost 
 raised her to the rank of a female Jonah. Mean- 
 while she found it very pleasant to participate in 
 everything (under protest and with due denuncia- 
 tion) that was going on around. She was a great 
 political as well as a great social reformer. Her 
 friends said that she was a thoroughly dependable 
 " platform woman " — which meant that when any one 
 was getting up anything, to protest against some- 
 thing which they happened to dislike, she might 
 be relied on to take a chair on the platform and a 
 prominent part in the proceedings. She was pre- 
 
200 OUR OWN POMPEII. * 
 
 pared to assist the Eadicals in suppressing all 
 liberty, and at the same time to protest against 
 the State being allowed to enforce vaccination. She 
 was anxious to convert every one to teetotalism, so 
 that they might shut up all the public-houses at 
 all times. She wished to see women with seats in 
 Parliament as well as with a vote, in order that 
 that body might be both more efficient and more 
 expeditious than it is at present. She followed Mr 
 Cade about, and tried to engage him in conversa- 
 tion ; but he, for his part, generally tried to be en- 
 gaged elsewhere. So she had to fall back on Mr 
 Giles. " We women want to help in the fray," she 
 used to say to him; "you might at least let us 
 get into the Caucus." 
 
 Mr Giles thought that their most useful work 
 would be influencing the people by agitation out- 
 side. 
 
 Miss Rattletubs agreed, and then proposed the 
 brilliant idea that they should establish a Daisy 
 League, to cut out that nasty ridiculous Primrose 
 rubbish. She had, as we have before seen, a great 
 belief in badges and ribbons, and other outward and 
 tangible signs of inward regeneration. She was 
 
OUR OWN POMPEII. 201 
 
 distressed that the whole delightful paraphernalia 
 — the habitations, the titles, the badges, and the 
 flowers — should be devoted to upholding such a 
 vague and antiquated thing as the Constitution. 
 
 " If the Constitution can be supported by a prim- 
 rose, it can surely be destroyed by a daisy," she 
 cried ; while she began vigorously to organise the 
 league — or rather to try and organise it, for Pom- 
 peii proved obdurate ; thus giving another sign of 
 the degenerate and reactionary tendency of its 
 patrons. 
 
 Even Mr Leo seemed to throw cold water on her 
 plan when she unrolled it to him. He told her 
 that he considered politics too serious and deli- 
 cate a science to be intrusted to a league. And 
 when she assured him that the Conservatives had 
 gained a great many votes by theirs, he was disin- 
 terested enough to reply that even in that case 
 there was no necessity to follow their example. 
 
 " The Constitution, as we have it at the present 
 time, is the natural development and the logical 
 sequence of the ' Constitutions of Clarendon.' 
 "VVe propose to abolish once for all the remnants of 
 the feudal system (the remains of which still clog 
 
202 OUR OWX POMPEII. 
 
 our every action), and in fact to neutralise the 
 Norman Conquest. Now do you think that a 
 Daisy League could accomplish this ? " he asked, 
 in an airy voice. 
 
 " Of course that is just what a thoroughly prac- 
 tical hard-working league like this could and would 
 do," put in Miss Eattletubs, with brisk determina- 
 tion. " We could throw ourselves into the cause, 
 and make it our very first business, as you 
 say, to agitate against, and to finally abolish, the 
 Norman Conquest." 
 
 But Mr Leo sadly shook his head. 
 
 Miss Eattletubs, however, found a warm sup- 
 porter in an unlooked-for quarter. The brilliant 
 riashington — who made it his business to be nice 
 to every one, including the most unpromising — had 
 taken Miss Eattletubs " up," as the phrase goes. 
 This effort was to him a more onerous one than 
 might have been expected ; for it included the 
 acceptance of her " sanitary soap " — soap guaran- 
 teed on the label to be as " cleansing as a Turkish 
 bath." He had even tried (once) her " non-alco- 
 holic, syrupy, temperance stimulants," and had 
 received, as a concession to male weakness, one of 
 
OUR OWN POMPEII. 203 
 
 her " anti-tobacco cigars (warranted to be entirely 
 free from the leaf of that poisonous plant)." 
 
 He swallowed these gifts (metaphorically) in 
 order to get the organisation of the Daisy 
 League under his control. He was just con- 
 verted to Liberalism (not having been won over, 
 we are sorry to say, by its obvious righteousness 
 and inherent truth, but by its present success and 
 the prospect of its future unconditional triumph). 
 He was determined always to be on the winning 
 side, no matter what that side might be ; and it is 
 possible that in the future — even the near future, 
 if we progress at the present rate — the elegant 
 Flashington will be seen crowned with a scarlet 
 cap and leading a riotous mob on the West End. 
 At the present moment, however, anything of the 
 sort is premature ; and therefore Flashington — who 
 loved above all things to be of importance — con- 
 tented himself with hurrying about as though the 
 fate of the empire (which he was doing his little 
 — his very little — to injure) depended on his 
 exertions. 
 
 He was anxious to begin a " political career," 
 and he foresaw that the Daisy League would be 
 
204 OUR OWN POMPEII. 
 
 the very thing to give him notoriety ; for we know 
 that nowadays notoriety is not only the first step 
 towards success, but has come to supersede all 
 other attributes, and is the one, and only one, 
 quality absolutely essential to gain that end. 
 
 riashington had seized an early opportunity for 
 consulting with Giles as to his future conduct. 
 
 He had taken him for a long walk ; and when 
 they had found a shady nook beneath some trees, 
 and Giles was provided with one of Flashington's 
 own cigars, he opened the subject by asking Giles 
 what was the best thing to do in order to get a 
 " seat." 
 
 " I used to be a Conservative at Eton and Ox- 
 ford ; but I see it won't do any longer," he added, 
 frankly. " The landed interest and that sort of 
 thing are played out ; and I mean to succeed." 
 
 " Capital — capital," answered Giles, giving him 
 a friendly slap on the back. " I think we can 
 manage to do something for you, if you go in for 
 being extreme." 
 
 " Yes ; I'll be as extreme as you like." 
 
 " It is better to begin as extreme as you can. 
 You must be docile to your Caucus ; but try, if any- 
 
OUE OWN POMPEII. 205 
 
 thing, to go a little beyond them. That is the first 
 rule for success. The second is, that you must be 
 a thorough party man. Always vote with your 
 leaders on all occasions, no matter what you've 
 said, or what they propose — that is, of course, 
 unless the Caucus tells you not to. Above all 
 things, try and manufacture a ' mandate ' ; for if 
 you can manufacture a ' mandate ' you will be 
 irresistible, and no Government will venture to 
 refuse you anything that you may want. And 
 there's another thing: I w^ouldu't, if I were you, 
 be too conscientious — too scrupulous, — you under- 
 stand me. For instance, if you've happened to 
 state in a speech, for party purposes, that the 
 Tories are in league with Irish traitors and mur- 
 derers, and you have denounced them for betraying 
 their country ; and then, if we happened to find it 
 convenient a short time afterwards really to do 
 what we had accused them of doing, — of course you 
 would vote with your party, and say that events 
 had changed, if it was necessary to say anything at 
 all, which it wouldn't be, because the Caucus would 
 quite understand that under the circumstances no 
 questions had better be asked." 
 
206 OUR OWN POMPEII. 
 
 " Oh, of course ! " said Flashington, cheerfully 
 (and we may do hnn the justice to believe that he 
 was already such a thorough " party man " that 
 what some old-fashioned people might consider the 
 dishonourableness of such conduct never for a mo- 
 ment struck him) ; " I know the great thing nowa- 
 days is to be practical. If one is too consistent, 
 one simply becomes doctrinaire, like the dear old 
 ' Spectator.' " 
 
 " I used to take in the ' Spectator ' ; but I never 
 found that it did me much good, and now it's gone 
 and made a fool of itself too. However, to return 
 to our subject. If you're very extreme and very 
 active, you've no idea how fast you'll get on. All 
 the moderate men are passed over now ; and they'll 
 push you on, partly through fear and partly through 
 love, till you may find yourself in the Cabinet." 
 Mr Giles warmed with the congenial nature of 
 his theme. " Look at me ! I'm to have the next safe 
 seat. Well, I'm certain to be in the next Liberal 
 Government (they daren't keep me out if they 
 wanted to) — probably in the Cabinet ; and though 
 I have risen from the ranks, I labour under the 
 disadvantage of not being a working man," added 
 
OUR OWN POMPEII. 207 
 
 Mr Giles, thoughtfully. " Well, you'll simply have 
 to be all the more extreme, in order to cancel the 
 disadvantage of your birth and training." 
 
 " Wliy shouldn't I go in for being a sort of 
 Alcibiades ? " Flashington asked. But Giles did 
 not catch the allusion, so he continued — 
 
 " Learning and all that sort of thing pays some- 
 times. Look at Buckle, for instance. He's been 
 popped straight into the Cabinet, not because he 
 knows anything about public affairs, but simply 
 because of his literary abilities." Giles was quite 
 right. Buckle was a man who had passed most of 
 his life immersed in study. He expressed, in an ex- 
 tremely brilliant style, his ideas on the philosophy 
 of last century and the politics of this. His chief 
 knowledge of life and affairs had been gathered out 
 of the best books of the past, and then given forth 
 in a few good books of the present. This (ficti- 
 tious) Minister had been called " an up-stairs politi- 
 cian " by a sneering Tory — a trite enough joke, but 
 perhaps as good as could be expected, when we re- 
 member that it is a commonplace of the other party 
 that tliey possess a monopoly of wit and humour. 
 He had probably already the drafts of two or three 
 
208 OUK OWN POMPEII. 
 
 amended constitutions for England written out in 
 pencil, and stowed away in his bureau. He gave 
 the very finest literary finish to a Cabinet much in 
 need of finish, and he displayed a dispensing policy, 
 for which there was also a vacancy, by declaring that 
 he should use his discretion as to when he should 
 permit the law to be enforced and when allow it to 
 be broken. " Lastly," said Giles, summing up, 
 " always remember who are really ' the governing 
 classes.' See what will tempt them, and promise 
 them that. At the same time, keep the upper and 
 middle classes amused with phrases ; for if they 
 once took fright and combined against the govern- 
 ing classes, where should we be ? " 
 
 They went on to discuss the line which it 
 would be best for Flashington immediately to 
 pursue. He was to join the National Liberal 
 Club at once, — Giles told him that Brooks's was 
 much worse than useless, — and then the Committee 
 would " run " him if they thought he seemed a 
 likely man. He went back radiant at the prospect 
 of being of so much use to his party and to himself ; 
 and the very next morning he started for England, 
 in order to put his plans into execution. 
 
OUR OWN POMPEII. 209 
 
 The same afternoon Claudia, strolling along the 
 beach, had fallen in with the children of the Prin- 
 cess Chioggia. They ran up to her, and implored 
 her to tell them fairy stories, with all the demon- 
 strative affection and unconscious grace of small 
 Italians. 
 
 " You will tell us some more pretty stories, will 
 you not ? " the boys cried, themselves looking like 
 little princes in a fairy story, with their long hair, 
 their lovely faces, and their high-bred yet perfectly 
 childhke bearing. 
 
 " And it must be quite true," added the tiny 
 Princess Marie, — a child so exquisitely beautiful 
 that she seemed to be of no distinctive type or 
 nationality, but simply a little vision of almost 
 angelic perfection, astray from some far-off world 
 of poet's dream and painter's fancy. 
 
 Claudia smilingly assented. She seated herself 
 on an old piece of timber, washed ashore from some 
 winter wreck. She took Marie on her knee, and 
 the boys clustered round ; while she began to 
 tell them the saddest and most poetical of all 
 fairy stories — Andersen's " Little Mermaid." 
 
 They listened breathlessly when they heard how 
 VOL. I. 
 
210 OUR OWN POMPEII. 
 
 the gentle little one rose up from her coral home 
 in the depths of the sea, to breathe the fresh air 
 and see the fair world above ; how she loved the 
 beautiful prince, and saved him, his dear head 
 unconsciously resting all night on her bosom. 
 They thrilled at the dread and gruesome visit to 
 the awful sorceress, through that weird jungle of 
 horrid ravenous sea-plants that stretched out their 
 hungry arms, thirsting to suck her blood ; and at 
 the burning potion that turned the poor little sea 
 maiden into a wistful, speechless, suffering woman. 
 And when the end came — when she sat on deck, 
 on through the long night hours, now hopeless, 
 still soulless, unloved, broken-hearted, and then 
 silently sank into the dark waters, to fade into 
 drifting foam — their eyes filled with tears. And 
 not till they learnt that the little heart of the 
 maiden had earned a soul at last, were they com- 
 forted. 
 
 The boys crept close to Claudia, and leant their 
 heads against her, with the pretty caressing ways 
 of Italian affection. " Tell us another — another 
 story," said the little Marie. 
 
 So Claudia told them the story of a little 
 
OUR OWN POMPEII. 211 
 
 princess who lived, once upon a time, in a vast 
 granite castle, far off in a distant country, where 
 endless woods sank away to unknown mountains. 
 A malignant, uninvited fairy arrived at her chris- 
 tening ; and after the fairy had asked to kiss the 
 child, and was refused, she slowly said: — 
 
 " The first kiss that she gives will seal her fate for aye, 
 For either they must wed, or one of them must die ;" 
 
 and then departed. 
 
 The king and queen dissembled their grief and 
 forebodings. They decreed that all kisses should 
 be henceforth punished with death, and the little 
 princess was brought up without knowing even a 
 parent's embrace. But she could not be wholly 
 reared as a virtual child-prisoner. So sometimes, 
 on the long summer days, they allowed her to 
 wander away into the woods, where everything 
 seemed to slumber through all the hot slow after- 
 noon, lulled by the heat into silence. 
 
 One day when she was resting, for tlie warmth 
 had made her feel a little languid, she saw a poor 
 farmer's boy trying to carry a load too heavy for 
 his strength. 
 
212 OUR OWN POMPEII. 
 
 She called him to her, and asked him if he 
 could not find some one to help him to carry his 
 burden. 
 
 And when he had told her that he was an 
 orphan, and bound to a cruel farmer, who treated 
 him badly, she felt her heart fill with pity — for 
 before this she had always believed that every 
 one in the world was happy, or at least had an 
 evening meal, and a soft white bed to sleep in — 
 and she offered him, with a sudden shyness of 
 shame, a little money (it was all that she had), 
 to get himself something, if he could, that would 
 comfort him, and perhaps remind him of her 
 sometimes. 
 
 He looked up with his eyes swimming over with 
 thanks, and told her that never before had he 
 known any kindness — not even a kiss. 
 
 And when she asked him to tell her what that 
 might be, he blushed, and answered shyly that 
 when people love one another they kiss. 
 
 " Then you must kiss me," said the little prin- 
 cess. He looked at her with his hungry eyes 
 filled with loving adoration, but he did not move 
 — only the blush on his cheeks still deepened. 
 
OUR OWN POMPEII. 213 
 
 "You do not love me," cried the little princess. 
 
 A light leapt to his eyes, and swept downwards 
 over his burning face, as he seized her hand and 
 kissed it. Then the little princess leant forward 
 quite simply, and gently kissed him on the fore- 
 head. 
 
 At that moment she felt herself snatched from 
 behind. She was seized by a frightened attendant, 
 and found she was being half led, half carried 
 back to the castle. Her natural questions were 
 answered by awful assertions — from which she 
 gathered that if the kiss she had given were ever 
 revealed, she would certainly die. 
 
 And so she concealed the remembrance, even 
 as though it were some stolen treasure, far away 
 in the lofts of memory, and guarded it there with 
 silence, through the years that skim by so swiftly 
 when winged with youth. 
 
 The years passed by ; but the princess slowly 
 faded, and her face was veiled with a delicate 
 pallor. She lay, uncomplaining, all day on her 
 little couch, like an ailing flower, shrinking by 
 slow degrees, and life almost seeming to shiver 
 away in her mute and drooping helplessness. 
 
214 OUR OWN POMPEII. 
 
 One night when the castle was hushed and 
 the hour was auspicious, the maHgnant fairy rose 
 up once more to affright the waking king and 
 queen with these muttered words : — 
 
 " The princess has been kissed ; and as I said, 
 She dies, or he dies, or the two must wed." 
 
 The king and queen, in terror and despair, 
 questioned and requestioned their daughter, until 
 at last she yielded up her secret, and they learnt 
 the dreadful truth. 
 
 They went forth, not trusting others with the 
 errand, and found the boy at work among the 
 hay — for it was early summer — mowing, and 
 singing to himself an old-world tale of love, as 
 the cool grass sank down before his scythe. 
 
 And standing there in the flowery meadow, 
 bright with the noonday warmth, they told him 
 that he must give up his life, or the little prin- 
 cess would die. 
 
 The poor boy looked on them awestruck, as he 
 might have looked upon avenging gods charged 
 with a Nemesis irrevocable and inevitable as the 
 tomb. 
 
OUR OWN POMPEII. ' 215 
 
 The memory of that golden day long ago had 
 always been to him like the love for some dear 
 companion, born in pondering day-dreams ; and 
 now that he learnt that his life must be sacri- 
 ficed to that one single kiss (for he was too 
 simple and faithful hearted to doubt or question 
 the king's assertion), he felt he could lay it down 
 as gladly as if it were given for friend or brother. 
 He only asked that some one might care for his 
 humble dog, giving it food every day and a shelter 
 at night. And when they had promised, he added 
 a whispered request that before he died they would 
 let him see the little princess once more. 
 
 The following day, as the sun was setting, they 
 led him beneath the oriel window in whose sha- 
 dow she lay so quietly, gazing with dreamy eyes 
 towards the rosy fires of the West. 
 
 The poor boy, with his dog at his heels, walked 
 very slowly, and gazed upwards with a wistful 
 adoration, as he would have looked had some 
 white-faced angel come down to him from the 
 bright skies above. 
 
 He felt, for perhaps the first time in his life, all the 
 sweetness of living — of simply being ; and clinging 
 
216 OUR OWN POMPEII. 
 
 to life as he had never clung before, he was filled 
 with a sudden yearning that she would give him 
 but one swift look before he passed on — for ever. 
 
 She turned round; she saw the boy, and gave 
 him a smile of recognition. Lit up by the sunset, 
 to him it seemed divine in its radiance ; and he 
 passed on to death, reconciled by the sweet thought 
 that she knew him, although she might never know 
 that her life was saved by his. 
 
 Ill a dank and tangled corner of the forest, he 
 found the cruel blood-red berries of a poisonous 
 plant. He carried them to the place where, on that 
 fair summer's afternoon, they once had met. There, 
 after he had eaten them, he stretched himself upon 
 the damp moss ; only the slightest shiver, now and 
 again, proclaimed that he was entering into the 
 shadowy pathways of his final sleep. And when 
 the thin blue mist of evening floated up around 
 him, his loving dog still licked his face with dumb 
 reiteration. 
 
 As soon as the princess saw the boy pass by, she 
 felt a sudden rush of glad surprise, of happy re- 
 collection, and told her parents that he must come 
 and see her. She added that if he were by, if she 
 
OUR OWN POMPEII. 217 
 
 might sometimes talk with him, she thought she 
 should get stronger soon. The king and queen, 
 to quiet her, murmured, " Perhaps to-morrow." 
 And when the morrow came, they still replied, 
 " To-morrow." 
 
 The princess gradually grew stronger, and her 
 parents knew that the spell was working and the 
 curse was departing. One day, when she had 
 wandered beyond her wont, she came across a 
 little graveyard, quiet and overgrown — almost 
 pathetically green with long desertion : only one 
 grave was new, and on it lay a dog, weak but 
 still faithful to his loving watch. She hastened 
 forward over the rank impeding grasses to where 
 the kind old dog was lying quite exhausted. 
 
 And then, suddenly recognising in him the one 
 companion of his little master, she threw herself 
 down upon the powdery earth beside him and 
 covered his head with her kisses, — a stray tear or 
 two, it may be, mingling in their fall. 
 
 She returned to the castle, the poor dog humbly 
 following her, perhaps knowing instinctively that 
 she was his only friend. But from that day she 
 slowly faded; and at last, on one calm morning very 
 
218 OUE OWN POMPEII. 
 
 early, she too entered into the dim land from which 
 no mortal ever passes hence, 
 
 " And thus we see," said Claudia, in conclusion, 
 " that if we shirk our duty and neglect our oppor- 
 tunities for doing kindnesses, in the hope of gain- 
 ing some advantage, w^e still are punished for our 
 selfishness." 
 
 "You tell us such sad stories," said the eldest 
 boy. His eyes had filled with tears, but now were 
 bright with returning expectation, 
 
 "Tell us something about giants and dwarfs," 
 suggested the little maiden. 
 
 But Claudia got up, and answered that perhaps 
 another day she would tell them funny stories. 
 Now they had had enough, and she suggested they 
 should walk with her back along the beach. 
 
 They had not gone far before they spied an 
 artist painting. Claudia warned them not to go 
 too near, as he was busy ; and then, after they, not 
 heeding her words, had run up to him, she saw 
 that it was Eedburn. 
 
 He looked up as though he had been caught in 
 the midst of some of the occult tricks of his pro- 
 fession, and said, a little apologetically — 
 
OUR OWN POMPEII. 219 
 
 " I have only just begun — a little study, you see, 
 of sea and shore." 
 
 " But we can't see any picture," cried the chil- 
 dren, in all the frank outspokenness of childhood. 
 
 He looked up at them. 
 
 "Ah, I see you want some people and boats in 
 the foreground," he said. 
 
 Claudia asked him quickly if he did not paint in 
 the most advanced French style. And he answered 
 that he supposed he was dans le mouvement, as the 
 French say. 
 
 " Some of the modern French painters say they 
 see no black in nature, and some cannot see any 
 shadow ; can they ? " asked Claudia. " Perhaps 
 soon," she added, " they will not be able to see any 
 form either." 
 
 " Well, you know, I can't see outlines in nature ; 
 at least, I can't see any when I nearly close my 
 eyes," said Eedburn, cheerfully. " It's very con- 
 venient when one's drawing is weak ; and one is 
 able to give up the whole of one's attention to 
 to7ie, to the values. Though, as Miss van Knut said 
 the other day, 'She could conceive that, even in 
 spite of that, my pictures might not have very 
 
220 OUR OWN POMPEII. 
 
 much value after all.' But then, you know," he 
 added, with a smile, " she laughs at Botticelli ; so 
 what can I expect ? " For Eedburn was a very rare 
 example of a painter who does not take his own 
 work too seriously, and who is quite prepared to 
 joke a little at the expense of his own painting. 
 When Claudia asked him if he had done much 
 since he had been at Pompeii, he replied that he, 
 had only done a few little studies for Dowdeswells 
 — " One must keep one's pot a-boiling, you know " 
 — and that he had to start in a day or two, as they 
 wanted him for polo at Hurlingham. 
 
 He turned back to his study — a grey -green sea 
 against a grey-blue sky, with a grey-white fore- 
 ground of sandy shore, upon which a few grey and 
 ragged thistles, subdued to a right tone and a 
 faultless value, stood out discreetly. 
 
 " Come," said Claudia to the children, " we must 
 not hinder Mr Eedburn any longer ; " and the little 
 party retraced their steps along the shore, with the 
 sunset glow behind them, and the welcoming lights 
 of Pompeii now beginning to appear as points of 
 fire across the intervening stretch of sandy beach, 
 to hasten their returning footsteps. 
 
OUR OWN POMPEII. 221 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 For several days after his interview with Mrs 
 Denbigh, Chaud had been unable to speak to his 
 uncle about his future prospects, because that 
 gentleman had been absent from Pompeii, having 
 gone to Genoa for a little change of air. 
 
 One morning he discovered that Lord St Kevan 
 had returned, by receiving a little note from him, 
 which contained a request that he would be kind 
 enough to visit him as soon as possible. 
 
 " Holloa ! " said Claud to himself — " he seems as 
 anxious to see me as I ani to see him;" and he 
 took up his hat and made his way quickly to his 
 uncle's rooms. 
 
 He found him standing in what his irreverent 
 nephews used to call " his senatorial attitude " — 
 his feet slightly apart, his back well to the wall, 
 
222 OUR OWN POMPEII. 
 
 and his hands stowed comfortably away beneath 
 his coat-tails, " Young men nowadays don't know 
 what to do with their hands," Lord St Kevan was 
 wont to remark, "so they put them into their 
 trouser-pockets. If trousers go out of fashion — 
 or I should rather say, if trouser-pockets go out 
 of fashion — where will their hands be then ? " 
 
 This was the way he sometimes gave expression 
 to his opinions, for it must not for a moment be 
 supposed that he indulged in any language of the 
 kind on this particular occasion. Claud thought 
 that his uncle looked at him coldly, almost sternly, 
 as he came in, and he began to wonder what his 
 offence could possibly be. 
 
 " I am very glad you sent for me," he said, " be- 
 cause I have been wanting to speak to you, for 
 several days." 
 
 " In that case, your affair shall have the pre- 
 cedence, as mine perhaps is both newer and less 
 pleasant." Lord St Kevan's manner was perfectly 
 courteous ; but Claud seemed to detect a certain 
 underground current of irritation, which he knew 
 boded ill for his enterprise, and which from the 
 outset had made him feel nervous. The old feel- 
 
OUR OWN POMPEII. 223 
 
 ing that he was going to make a fool of himself, 
 took possession of him. He always considered 
 that the sooner the plunge into anything disagree- 
 able is made, the sooner it will be over ; so he said 
 quite simply — 
 
 " I am in love." 
 
 " In love ! " echoed Lord St Kevan, with only 
 the very slightest emphasis of exclamation in his 
 voice. 
 
 " Yes, with Miss Denbigh. I think you know 
 her a little. Her mother, to whom I have spoken, 
 said that — well, that she must know more about 
 my prospects before she could allow it to go any 
 further." Claud began to feel very uncomfort- 
 able, he hardly knew why, as he continued, " And 
 so I told her that I would speak to you about 
 them." 
 
 "Then she considers that your prospect of suc- 
 cess at the Bar is problematical, and wants to 
 know if there is any securer basis for matrimony; 
 is that so ? " 
 
 " I suppose so." 
 
 "You yourself," continued Lord St Kevan, in 
 his measured tones, with the seemingly inevitable 
 
224 OUR OWN POMPEII. 
 
 sequence of sentences following each other with 
 quiet certainty — " you yourself, perhaps, also share 
 her views ? " 
 
 "I am m love," repeated Claud — that at the 
 moment was all he could think of saying ; and 
 then he added, " and of course I want to marry — 
 to marry as soon as possible." 
 
 He knew that the remark was inconsequent ; but 
 he could not remind his uncle that he had always 
 been treated and regarded by him, not indeed as 
 his legal heir, because he was a second son, but 
 as the heir to a large part of his private fortune. 
 Yet his uncle seemed to be trying to drive him to 
 this declaration, perhaps only to deny the asser- 
 tion when made. 
 
 "You have been brought up with certain ex- 
 pectations, I know ; but I also had reserved certain 
 expectations for myself as well. For instance, I had 
 always hoped that you would some day represent 
 the family — the family interest and principles — in 
 Parliament. I had hoped we might perhaps soon 
 have been able to obtain for you some minor post 
 in the Government ; I had even ventured to hope 
 that some day you might have formed an alliance 
 
OUK OWX POMPEII. 22o 
 
 with one of our own families ; " and the way Lord St 
 Kevan said " our own families " was an epitome, 
 as it were, of all the aristocratic traditions of his 
 race. "But you will find," he continued, "as I 
 have done, that in this life we are doomed to 
 disappointment." 
 
 He walked two or three times up and down the 
 room ; then he stopped in front of Claud, and said 
 in a changed voice, " I will write to Mrs Denbigh ; 
 but my answer to you will perhaps depend on your 
 answer to me." 
 
 He took out a letter from his pocket, and his 
 voice became drier and drier — so dry that it might 
 have been extended before some internal fire — as 
 he said, "I have received tliis letter this morning 
 from Mr Cade ; perhaps you can explain its con- 
 tents to me ; " and he handed it to Claud. It ran 
 as follows : 
 
 " Dear Lord St Kevax, — When I was at Pompeii 
 the other day, I had a private interview with ]\I. 
 Courier, at which your nephew ]\Ir Brownlow was 
 the only person present besides ourselves. In the 
 course of conversation I expressed to M, Courier 
 
 VOL. I. p 
 
226 OUR OWN POMPEII. 
 
 my hope that at some future date we might see our 
 way to giving India a certain amount of autonomy. 
 Four days after this, a long and exaggerated account 
 of the interview appeared in the ' Morning Gazette/ 
 although it had been perfectly understood that the 
 conversation was of a strictly private character. The 
 Cabinet were extremely annoyed ; and though the 
 ' Daily Letterpress ' inserted a paragraph, at my sug- 
 gestion, wholly denying the truth of what had been 
 stated, I was forced to return to England in order to 
 furnish them with explanations. I have long known 
 that malignant lies and unscrupulous dishonour 
 have been the determining factors of the Tory pol- 
 icy ; and I should not therefore have been surprised 
 at your nephew's betraying me, or, indeed, have 
 troubled you with this letter, had I not felt that it 
 was a duty to inform you, an old and valued member 
 of our party, that your nephew, in deserting the 
 principles of his family, has also abandoned their 
 practices. — I am, yours truly, William Cade." 
 
 "How dare he write such an impudent letter 
 — such an impudent letter — as that ! As though 
 I should condescend to publish his confidential 
 
OUE OWN POMPEII. 227 
 
 treason in the newspapers ! " Claud was trembling 
 with fury and excitement. He had sprung up long 
 before this. 
 
 He was now beginning to tear the hateful letter 
 into fragments. 
 
 " I wish to keep that letter," said Lord St Kevan 
 quietly. " I know that in asking you if it were true, 
 I was merely complying with a form. For I am 
 sure that you could have told nobody what had 
 passed." Then he added, " Of course I am right in 
 my supposition ; you have told nobody ? " 
 
 "Nobody — nobody except a young lady," said 
 Claud. 
 
 " Except a young lady ! " The tone again had 
 altered. The emphasis was ommous. 
 
 " And she has told no one. I will stake my life 
 on that." 
 
 " In telling that young lady such a secret, you 
 did a dishonourable act, I do not know if your 
 new Tory principles are such as Mr Cade has 
 stated — are part and parcel of that party — but this 
 I do know, that whether your young lady did or did 
 not respect your communication, I shall never be 
 able to reply to Cade that you have repeated his 
 
228 OUE OWN POMPEII. 
 
 conversation to no one." Lord St Kevan's voice was 
 becoming almost fragile — hard and thin, with the 
 stress of suppressed emotion — and seemingly brittle, 
 as it came forth cooling from the furnace of his in- 
 dignation. " I shall have to apologise to that man 
 for the ungentlemanly, the dishonourable conduct of 
 my own nephew." And then the clear thin voice 
 trembled and suddenly broke, as he added, " It is 
 the most humiliating moment of my life." 
 
 Claud felt both distressed and indignant ; furious 
 with Cade, and even a little angry with his uncle, 
 for he knew that the report in the newspaper had 
 not appeared, either directly or indirectly, through 
 his words to Claudia. To Lord St Kevan, with his 
 old traditions of statesmanship, and his exquisitely 
 delicate sense of what was honourable in public life 
 (probably a survival which had defied obliteration 
 by the recent actions of his party), any private in- 
 formation from a member of a Government was the 
 most sacred of communications. His professional 
 sense of what was fitting was outraged ; and he was 
 overwhelmed with shame at having a nephew who 
 could repeat to a lady a piece of confidential infor- 
 mation, even though both he and she were innocent 
 
OUR OWN POMPEII. 229 
 
 of the newspaper article which had followed in this 
 instance. He had known important secrets confid- 
 ed to ladies once or twice in his career before, and 
 he had always found th.em followed by profound 
 catastrophes. 
 
 Claud was the first to break the momentary 
 silence. " I think you are not fair to me," he said. 
 " I did not understand that the conversation was 
 particularly confidential. I have only repeated it 
 to one person — a lady — who assures me that she 
 has not said a word about it to any one. This 
 article has i)robably got into the paper through 
 something Cade himself has said ; and, instead of 
 apologising for your nephew, I hope you will reply 
 that you cannot permit him to be insulted." 
 
 Lord St Kevan could not help admiring Claud's 
 spirit. He himself was as furious as Claud — per- 
 haps, if possible, more furious — at the tone of Cade's 
 letter. But this was the very reason why he was 
 maddened by the knowledge that he could not give 
 it an indignant and absolute denial. 
 
 "For the first time in my life I shall have to 
 humiliate myself — to humiliate myself to that crea- 
 ture, to that impudent brazen cad ; " and Lord St 
 
230 OUR OWN POMPEII. 
 
 Kevan beu-an to lose control over himself — an oc- 
 currenee so rare with this stately and courteous 
 nobleman, that Claud might well be a little scared. 
 
 "Don't condescend to answer his letter at all," 
 said Claud. 
 
 " I shall write, and I shall apologise. I shall 
 apologise for my nephew's conduct in having fool- 
 ishly repeated some portion of the conversation to 
 a lady," said Lord St Kevan, with a certain air of 
 almost dogged deliberation ; for his strict sense of 
 duty and of rectitude would not for a moment per- 
 mit him to pass over these details in silence. " But 
 I shall add," he went on, " that I have reason to be- 
 lieve that the report of the conversation went no fur- 
 ther ; that the paper obtained its details from other 
 sources ; and that, although my nephew may have 
 deserted the principles of his family, Mr Cade 'is 
 the last person who could convince me that he had 
 also deserted its practices, even though he had 
 joined a party which Mr Cade honours with so 
 much abuse." He got up and again placed himself 
 in the senatorial attitude before he went on — "As for 
 your future, I shall of course continue the allowance 
 I have always made you ; what may happen at my 
 
OUE OWN POMPEII. 231 
 
 death remains to be seen — it will probably depend 
 on your future conduct. But you must not look to 
 me for encouragement, either pecuniary or other- 
 wise. Speaking of your marriage, I think you are 
 too young, and I think that a few more years' 
 work, before you settle down, would be invaluable 
 — invaluable to you. And therefore, as far as your 
 future prospects are concerned, we may conclude 
 that they mainly depend on yourself and your 
 future exertions." He sat down ; he had evidently 
 finished. Claud murmured something which he 
 believed sounded like some form of thanks, and in 
 a moment found himself once more in the blinding 
 sunshine and the busy street. 
 
 He felt crushed ; he felt that he had been un- 
 fairly, unkindly treated. And yet he hardly knew 
 why. His uncle had only proposed to tell the 
 literal truth to Mr Cade, before defending his 
 nephew from insults and insinuations. Lord St 
 Kevan believed in his innocence, as far as the 
 newspaper was concerned. It was only his own 
 momentary indiscretion that was so cruelly magni- 
 fied by his uncle's morbid sense of the honour of 
 confidence. "Then again," he said to himself. 
 
232 OUR OWN POMPEII. 
 
 "how can I complain of my uncle's intentions 
 about my future career ? I have not chosen to walk 
 in the path he had planned, and how can I expect 
 him to smooth my way ? " And Claud even added — 
 for he was extremely sensible, and was almost cap- 
 able of that rarest of tasks, the more or less impar- 
 tial judgment of one's own actions and interests — 
 that Lord St Kevan's views were on the whole very 
 sensible. Why should he not work ? why should 
 his whole future depend on the will, it might be 
 on the caprice, of another ? But all this time a knell 
 was ringing in his ears and tolling in his heart 
 — a knell foretelling with a dread and iron cer- 
 tainty the death of all his hopes, the silent funeral 
 of all his future happiness. " He has crushed me," 
 cried poor Claud ; " and now I know my love is 
 impossible." And the knell seemed to take up the 
 word " impossible," and jangle in with it " irrevoc- 
 able " and " implacable," with a dreadful and con- 
 tinuous reiteration. 
 
 Lady Marlowe had planned a picnic for the after- 
 noon of the day on which these events took place. 
 Claud had been asked ; but now he wondered with 
 a dull indecision whether he should go or not. As 
 
OUR OWN POMPEII. 233 
 
 the time which had been fixed for starting ap- 
 proached, he had not troubled to make up his 
 mind ; and he would probably have remained be- 
 hind, seated on a marble bench in the Forum, with 
 an unread book before him, and his eyes uncon- 
 scious of its proximity, had not the volatile Miss 
 van Knut and her father happened to pass him on 
 their way to the gate. 
 
 " Well, you do look glum," said that young lady. 
 " You seem to have been badly left this time, any- 
 how. Aren't you coming around to this picnic ? " 
 
 Claud shook his head. 
 
 " Oh, come on ; it will smarten you up to skip 
 round a bit." 
 
 "But you will have Darlington to skip round 
 you," answered Claud, it must be admitted a little 
 morosely. 
 
 " Hear him ! " cried the young lady to her father; 
 " hear him talk about the son of a great peer of the 
 realm " (she rolled out the words with a tinge of 
 comical gusto, as one might if one spoke about 
 a mighty mandarin of the Celestial Empire) " as 
 though he were a puppy dog ! " 
 
 " My, Eliza, the way you talk ! You are really 
 
234 OUR OWN POMPEII. 
 
 losing your high tone in Europe," remarked her 
 father. 
 
 But Eliza, not in the least abashed, remarked, 
 " Here comes his lordship," and made Darlington 
 a curtsey, such as ladies give to a royal prince 
 when he shakes hands with them, and which 
 she pretended to think it was " the thing " to 
 bestow on Darlington when he came forward to 
 greet her. 
 
 " Eeally ! " said Darlington. 
 
 " You needn't look so mad. Lord Darlington. I 
 learnt it from the greatest authority on high life 
 here, I assure you. Always curtsey so when 
 honoured by being shaken hands with by a prince 
 of the blood or a royal duke." And she imitated 
 Mr Smythe's manner and mode of speaking (with 
 just the slightest hint of his provincial accent) as 
 she gave a second little illustrative curtsey. 
 
 " Mr Brownlow is moping here by himself. You 
 must get him to come to the picnic. Lord Dar- 
 lington." 
 
 " Oh, come along," said Darlington, taking Claud 
 by the arm and preparing to pull him off the seat. 
 
 So Claud, seeing that resistance, if not useless. 
 
OUR OWN POMPEII. 235 
 
 would at any rate be more troublesome than ac- 
 quiescence, got up from the seat and sauntered on 
 beside Mr van Knut. Miss van Knut and Dar- 
 lington seemingly considered that their duty was 
 accomplished, and therefore indulged in the plea- 
 sure of walking on ahead together. 
 
 At the gate, they fell in with the rest of the 
 party. They all started for the hills, with most of 
 the ladies mounted on donkeys, and the men either 
 walking beside them, or else plodding on in friendly 
 couples. 
 
 The afternoon was lovely ; the air was warm ; 
 the grey olives in the midst of the sunshine filled 
 the ^dew with their delicate silver glitter, and as 
 the languid breeze passed over them they seemed 
 to throw off a soft green shimmer of pearly light. 
 
 The party passed vineyards and dark -leaved 
 orange -groves, delicate scanty grass — already a 
 little browned by the sunshine — amid which the 
 wild flowers glowed and sheltered. And ever be- 
 hind and below them, as they scrambled up the 
 little mountain-pathway, was the sapphire expanse 
 of whispering waters, that now so serenely reflected 
 the measureless blue of the sky above. 
 
236 OUR OWN POMPEII. 
 
 Lady Marlowe rode on with the Duchess of 
 INIan. Their conversation was fragmentary, and 
 was mostly compressed into more or less ex- 
 clamatory remarks on the beauty of the view, 
 the heat of the weather, and the stumbles of their 
 animals. 
 
 When the sophisticated reader has been informed 
 that Mr Smythe was among the company, it is 
 doubtless needless to tell him by whose side that 
 gentleman was progressing. 
 
 He was now engaged in ingratiating himself with 
 the Duchess, and in transforming the slightest of 
 acquaintanceships into a reliable friendship. Al- 
 though he was the "jack of all trades" of Society, 
 and was accepted, nay, even encouraged by it, in 
 that capacity, it still possessed individual members 
 who looked upon him coldly, and considered him a 
 stranger, or (to use his own word) an . " outsider." 
 The Duchess was one of these. She " did not know 
 Mr Smythe." She assured all her friends that she 
 did not intend to know Mr Smythe ; and in spite 
 of reciprocating his remarks with a certain (small) 
 share of her own conversation, she would probably 
 declare the very same thing to-morrow. For one 
 
OUR OWN POMPEII. 237 
 
 of the many advantages of being in Society is, that 
 you can have pleasant and even intimate talks 
 with a person, without being subsequently obliged 
 to know him or recognise him in any way, if you 
 fancy that you may be thought rather smarter for 
 not doing so. 
 
 Then came Mr van Kaut, chattering cheerfully 
 about "The Central of New Jersey Consolidated 
 bonds " to a perspiring gentleman, who mopped 
 his face and absorbed financial information with 
 equal gusto. 
 
 Claud walked on by himself, and tried to turn 
 over his future career in liis mind. The sunshine 
 and all the brightness around helped to focus it 
 into a dark contracted \dsta of sunless cham- 
 bers, mouldy books, and stifling courts, in which 
 he played the supernumerary part of a briefless 
 spectator : a helpless struggle through long years, 
 eternally dragged on amid the fogs of gloomy 
 London. This prospect, as he formed and pictured 
 it in his mind, was not of the most cheerful 
 character. But at the present moment, the pros- 
 pect of meeting Mrs Denbigh was even more dis- 
 piriting. He hardly knew whether the absence of 
 
238 OUR OWN POMPEII. 
 
 Claudia from the party was a relief or an additional 
 cause for depression. And so he walked on by 
 himself mostly, with his head filled with gloomy 
 forebodings, and only now and again exchanging a 
 few words with any one near. 
 
 The party found their lunch prepared for them 
 amid the shadows of some spreading trees — the 
 servants had preceded them — and everything 
 looked additionally tempting after the long scram- 
 ble in the fresh air. The gentlemen divided their 
 attention between indulging in the meal and assist- 
 ing the servants to wait on the ladies. Jack de 
 Barry was in "great form." He settled himself 
 on one side of Miss van Knut (we can guess who 
 was on the other), and was most assiduous in pro- 
 viding for all her wants. 
 
 " We want to make you feel at home," he said. 
 
 " Well, you are really both so attentive, that I 
 can almost fancy you are Americans," she replied. 
 
 " Think of that now," said Jack. He was a little 
 shocked ; but not being very quick at repartee, he 
 simply inquired if all the young men of New York 
 did not have to send bouquets to all their young 
 lady friends. 
 
OUR OWN POMPEII. 239 
 
 " Every toney young man who respects himself 
 does so. At least he sends them to all the belles 
 that are going to the same dance as he is. And 
 then they take us the loveliest drives. In Europe 
 the horses don't even seem to know how to trot." 
 
 " When I come over to the States, you'll take me 
 out drives behind a trotter, won't you ? " said Dar- 
 lington. 
 
 " Unless you are very good, you won't have the 
 privilege of being treated in the American way." 
 Then she looked round. " Pa ! " she cried out to 
 her father, "here's Lord Darlington asking me to 
 drive him about America behind a trotting horse." 
 
 Mr van Knut was quite undisturbed ; he merely 
 looked up — " You bet," he said, and went on with 
 his lunch. 
 
 Some of the ladies also looked up ; their eyes 
 met — startled flashes of shocked intelligence passed 
 from one to another. Mr van Knut did not see 
 them, and would not have cared if he had. But 
 his daughter intercepted and translated them with 
 instinctive accuracy. She swept the whole com- 
 pany with one defiantly inclusive glance, as she 
 said — 
 
240 OUR OWN POMPEII. 
 
 "In Europe, papa, you're suspected if you are 
 too confiding or too polite. I see I must teacli you 
 how to behave in the European manner. You 
 sliould have said, ' My dear, I will drive Lord Dar- 
 lington round, if he is good enough to honour our 
 cottage with his presence. You perhaps will be 
 allowed to speak to him at tlie dinner-table, when 
 your aunt is there as a chaperon.' " 
 
 Mr van Knut was somewhat puzzled by the tone 
 of his daughter's words. However, he contented 
 himself by saying, " Well, my dear, if Lord Dar- 
 lington is good enough to come and stay with us, 
 I guess he would rather that you drove him around 
 and amused him than that I did," which did not 
 exactly mend matters. 
 
 His daughter turned to Darlington with a shrug 
 of her shoulders, " You see how impossible it is to 
 educate one's parent up to European propriety. I 
 cannot get him to understand that I have to be 
 always guarded from you by a dragon in the form 
 of a chaperon." 
 
 " I am sure I should like America awfully," said 
 Darlington, simply. 
 
 Lady Marlowe was very much amused at this 
 
OUR OWN POMPEII. 241 
 
 bold defiance of all the conventionalities of Europe. 
 " She really is a most extraordinary girl," she whis- 
 pered to the Duchess. " And yet, you know, one 
 cannot call her vulgar." 
 
 " But I can, and I do call her \Tilgar — indecently 
 vulgar," said the Duchess, impressively. 
 
 " She is really the simplest and best-hearted girl 
 in the world," said Lady Marlowe. 
 
 "Too simple to hide her scandalous fastness," 
 said the Duchess. 
 
 " She is too simple to hide anything," said Lady 
 Marlowe. " But I assure you she is anything but 
 fast ; indeed you would be surprised how prudish 
 she is about many things." 
 
 " She is not at all a nice girl," said the Duchess, 
 in her most oracular tones, which, combined with 
 a superincumbent stratum of manner, simply fin- 
 ished any argument with a kind of blank cliff of 
 assured conclusiveness. 
 
 Tottie, who in his small way sufficiently valued 
 the friendship of duchesses, sat on her other side. 
 He now saw an opportunity of engaging her in con- 
 versation, and began to fire off a succession of foolish 
 phrases (which he managed to get accepted as jokes 
 
 VOL. I. Q 
 
242 OUK OWN POMPEII. 
 
 by some people). He jerked them out with his 
 head a little on one side and his arms crossed, each 
 hand nursing the others elbow— an attitude much 
 affected by certain young men in London. They 
 ran on somewhat like this : " The goose which this 
 ;pdU is made from was fed entirely on tallow can- 
 dles, I'm certain — not too much goose, but just 
 enough tallow." (" Isn't he fun ! " whispered Lady 
 Marlowe to the Duchess.) " I'm goin' to a fancy 
 ball at Xice next week. I shall go as a ballet- 
 girl, — I think it will be so chic. I daresay I shall 
 get lots of flowers and things given to me. I shall 
 want a wig ; I might borrow Lady Beechwood's. 
 I could whisk it — woof ! — off her head when she 
 wasn't looking " (and he imitated the action wliile 
 he spoke). " Then, when I came back, I could set 
 up a scarecrow with it and one of Mrs Leo's gowns. 
 They say she makes 'em herself. Just a piece of 
 stuff sewn up like a sack; though I s'pose it 
 doesn't matter, when all the figure she has is 
 wrong side before. The other day she said to me, 
 ' What do you think of Turner ? ' I said, ' Good 
 gracious ! what's that ? ' She said, ' Oh, he's a man 
 — an English painter.' So I said, ' Oh, I thought it 
 
OUR OWN POMPEII. 243 
 
 was French for a dress-improver.' She said ' I 
 really don't know what you mean.'- So I said, ' Ask 
 your grandmother.' — No, thank you ; I daren't eat 
 any more, or I shall bust one of my own stay-laces," 
 said Tottie, refusing another helping of pdU, with a 
 giggle as he spoke. 
 
 By this time the meal was over. Every one got 
 up ; the men had lit their cigars or cigarettes, and 
 people began to stroll about. Some started on a 
 further climb, to see the view from a height a little 
 above the spot where they had been lunching; 
 others went to pick wild flowers ; others again 
 preferred to stay and rest amid the cool shadows 
 that slanted across the grass from the sheltering 
 trees above. 
 
 M. Courier was one of the latter. His expansive 
 bosom (or, to be strictly truthful, perhaps the word 
 should be changed to figure) was embraced and 
 confined by a black frock-coat. He was smoking a 
 cigarette with all the national relish. He looked 
 the picture of solid and satisfied comfort as he 
 stood there with his face to the view and his back 
 to the climbers. He seemed suflused with a warm 
 geniality, all in accord with his general air of genial 
 
244 OUR OWN POMPEII. 
 
 warmth. No one could have guessed that he was 
 an advanced Radical, dissatisfied with the state of 
 society (not only Society with a big S, but the great 
 society all around us that only claims a small one), 
 and that even republican France looked on him, 
 more or less, as a dangerous demagogue. 
 
 M. Courier, then, was warming himself in the 
 sunshine, at the moment at peace with all men — 
 for even the man who persuades himself most that 
 he is a sacrificed martyr to civilisation, sometimes 
 enjoys himself in this most tyrant-ridden of worlds 
 — when he found himself touched on the shoulder 
 by Claud. He received him effusively, for his 
 French environment filtered his manner from 
 everything short of extreme politeness. He ex- 
 pressed himself charmed to renew an acquaint- 
 ance commenced so felicitously ; and when Claud 
 suggested that they should confirm its renewal 
 with a gentle stroll, he again was charmed at the 
 notion, and took Claud's arm with a certain impres- 
 sive urbanity. 
 
 He plunged at once into the midst of his favourite 
 topics. "Your statesmen," he said, "are wanting 
 in ideas." 
 
OUK OWX POMPEII. 245 
 
 " Mr Buckle has ideas," said Claud. 
 
 " And therefore you mistrust him," said M. 
 Courier. 
 
 " Yes ; we think him a dangerous man," replied 
 Claud. "The English people do not like being 
 governed by a man who has ideas. They prefer to 
 be governed by a man who has race-horses." 
 
 " Strange people, you English," said M. Courier. 
 " And yet you flourish — or perhaps I should say, 
 have done so, for I mistrust your future." 
 
 " There is danger ahead ; for ' the ideas,' I am 
 afraid, are gaining on ' the race-horses.' " 
 
 "Mr Cade assures me that, with the advent of 
 democracy, an entirely new social system is being 
 evolved." 
 
 " It is just about Mr Cade that I have been want- 
 ing to speak to you," said Claud, breaking some- 
 what roughly into the train of thought. " You 
 remember the conversation the other day about 
 Home Eule for India, It seems that Cade regarded 
 it as more or less confidential; so that wdien an 
 account of it appeared in a London paper he was 
 furious, and accused me, in the strongest, and I 
 must say the most unscrupulous terms, of having 
 
246 OUR OWN POMPEII. 
 
 betrayed him." Claud began to feel that perhaps 
 there was a certain want of judiciousness in the 
 way he was stating his case, considering that his 
 great hope was that M. Courier would be able to 
 acknowledge the indiscretion as his own. So he 
 changed his tack. " My uncle, Lord St Kevan," he 
 said, " was extremely annoyed about it ; and as 
 I am anxious to put myself right with him, I 
 thought I might venture to ask you if you had any 
 idea how — how the article came to be written ? " 
 
 " My young friend," said M. Courier, expansively, 
 " you will find that everything, cverytliing appears 
 in the papers nowadays. I know nothing about 
 the article." 
 
 " But did you tell no one ? " persisted Claud. 
 
 " I may have done so. I cannot remember." 
 
 " Perhaps some lady ? " suggested Claud, re- 
 membering that in his own case it was assumed 
 that to tell a lady such a piece of news was re- 
 garded as much the same thing as trumpeting it 
 one's self to the general public. 
 
 "I think I did tell Mrs Denbigh— at the ball. 
 Ah yes ; I recollect," said M. Courier, in his easy 
 comfortable way. Not in the least realising how 
 
OUR OWN POMPEII. 247 
 
 much he was adding to Claud's happiness, far less 
 conceiving that he was helping to remove a stain 
 from his honour, he went on with his cheerful talk. 
 They chatted about Paris. M. Courier described 
 the latest opera bouffe, and the new comedy at the 
 Frangais. But to Claud, though he listened and 
 answered occasionally, the whole stream of their 
 talk seemed to flow on and over him like a stream 
 of music. A weight had been lifted from off him ; 
 his whole nature had wildly rebounded, and had 
 soared up to find in the surrounding sunshine the 
 most perfect expression of its unspeakable relief. 
 He had obtained at the same moment a shield to 
 disarm attack, and a weapon for use if one should 
 be necessary. He almost skipped along by the 
 side of the portly Frenchman. He found himself 
 singing a little French song, and when his com- 
 panion said, " Please continue ; that is one of the 
 best of all Judic's chansonnettes," he permitted him- 
 self to sing it aloud, and even to mimic that clever 
 lady with an imitation so lifelike and ludicrous 
 that M. Courier burst out laughing. 
 
 " Ah ! you have spirits," he said. 
 
 And Claud's spirits indeed seemed to flash and 
 
2-48 OUR OWN POMPEII. 
 
 dance with the dancing sunbeams. He felt them 
 rising and bubbling over, in tune with the boilino; 
 kettle that purred a recall to the warm and re- 
 freshing tea it was promising. And tliey finally 
 winged his feet into running races with some of the 
 others over the tiowery grass on their homeward 
 scramble. 
 
 END OF THE FIRST VOLUME. 
 
 PRINIED BY WII.LIAJl BLACKWOOD AND SONS. 
 

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