Richard Richard

SOME RECENT NOVELS

SALT. By Charles Norris.

BEAUTY AND BANDS. By Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler.

RAINBOW VALLEY. By L. M. Montgomery.

THE BRANDING IRON. By Katharine Burt.

THE NORTH DOOR. By Greville Macdonald.

CONSTABLE & CO., LTD.
Sydney: Australasian
Publishing Company Ltd.

Richard Richard
By Hughes Mearns

Constable & Co.
Ltd. London

Published 1921

TO
LELIA CORA
OF
PETERSBURG, VIRGINIA

CONTENTS

RICHARD RICHARD

CHAPTER I
STONY BROKE

Ever since the “first breakfast,” groups of passengers had been trooping down the gang-plank, hurrying with guide-book and satchel to “do” Naples, Vesuvius, Pompeii, etc., before the steamer should sail again in the evening. An angular chap in proper steamer négligé lounged contentedly on the starboard rail and watched them go. By eight o’clock he seemed to have the starboard rail to himself.

At that hour he was leaning heavily forward, presumably watching the ant-like stevedores loading and unloading the steamer, but he was quite aware of another lone passenger, slowly moving towards him. He had seen her come on at Genoa—anyone would have noticed the clean-cut, tailor-made figure—and on the journey from Genoa to Naples he had noted her once or twice striding the deck alone; but he did not know even so much as her name. He did not know her, but, as she came up to him and lingered at the starboard rail, he knew instinctively that he would borrow money from her.

She stopped beside him for a moment and observed the Italian workers. He did not once look up.

“Do you know how long we stay in Naples?” she asked.

Shipboard etiquette ignores introductions.

“We sail at nine to-night, the Captain says.” He turned his head slightly and smiled as if he had really known her. She lounged over the rail and helped him watch the workers. From the dock below this pair looked like familiar companions.

“Gracious!” she exclaimed suddenly. “What time is it now?”

“Eight A.M.” He seem amused in a superior way.

“All day in this hot dirty place!” she exclaimed again.

“It is warm,” he admitted, “but not unpleasantly so. Dirty? Ye-es, on the wharf; but look back of you.” He hardly moved from his lounging posture. “Behold! The Bay of Naples. ‘See Naples and die’; that phrase is sure to be in your guide-book. There’s a lot of other poetry about it, too: ‘The blue Bay of Naples, cerulean blue——’”

“But it isn’t blue,” she objected. “It’s dirty grey and,”—she looked directly below for an instant—“and it’s oily—greasy, too.”

“Oh, yes, it is blue,” he contradicted firmly; “deep cerulean blue, the blue of sapphire shading off to mother-of-pearl.” As he talked he half turned towards her. He was tall—she was not; his face was bronzed, and furrowed with lines—hers was not; so without offence he could assume a schoolmasterly air of genial superiority.

“Quite blue—from the top of that hill.”

He pointed above the tiers of grey-tiled roofs to a pleasant prospect of trees. “The blue is there, but you must climb for it. You can’t expect the most glorious panorama in the world to present itself to you without some effort on your part.”

“What’s the name of that hill?” she asked aimlessly.

“I don’t know. There’s a charming inn there, I suspect.”

“You suspect? Don’t you know?”

“No.”

“Haven’t you been there yourself?”

“No.”

“Then how do you know about the ‘glorious panorama’?”

“You get a similar sensation from the hill over there,” he flourished a hand; “a much smaller hill. So I drew the proper inference.”

“Have you ever been on that hill?” she flourished a hand in imitation of the man.

“No.”

“Well!”

“Well,” he smiled. “The view is there just the same—and the blue, too. If you don’t believe me, go up and see. I’m willing to stake my judgment to the extent of——”

He stopped so abruptly and smiled so mysteriously that she was attracted to say:

“To the extent of how much? You wouldn’t risk a dollar on your ‘glorious view’! Now, would you?”

He speculated for a moment. “No,” he admitted finally. “I wouldn’t risk a dollar on any of my views.”

“Ah!” she triumphed.

“A fog might come up,” he explained lamely.

“There!” said she. “Naples is over-advertised by sick poets. Look about you. It’s incredibly ugly—and smelly.”

“What’s wrong about the smells?” he inquired mildly.

She laughed. “Garlic, mostly,” she took a delicate sniff, “and paint.”

“Garlic, I admit,” he sniffed in turn, “and paint, and even tar; but they are merely the dominant notes. The overtones give this spot distinction. I’m a connoisseur on smells. It’s a lost art.”

“Thank goodness!”

“Not at all. We have lost the knowledge of odours; therefore a great part of life is lost. Do you notice now the smell of resin?”

“No.”

“They’re unloading resin in sacks from that schooner with the black sails. Think hard for a moment and you’ll get it. It is a delicious scent quite unlike anything else.”

“No,” she tried, “I don’t get it. But I smell oil, horribly.”

“That’s from the tanker,” he pointed. “It should strike your national pride. It’s U.S.A.—Standard Oil.”

“Standard Oil?” she inquired eagerly and shaded her eyes to spell out the name on the side. “So it is! U-m-m!” she sniffed, “that smells good. I own Standard Oil Stock. U-m! Not much, of course—but—u-m!—enough.”

Yes, he would borrow; but now he knew he would not pay back; perhaps not. He let her chatter on while he listened gravely or added a word or question to set her going again. In a short while he knew the main points of her life and some of the details; and she believed—so perfect is the illusion of a one-sided conversation—that he had given as much in exchange. To the woman they seemed infinitely acquainted after the first half-hour. She was very young, one could be sure; she had the frankness, the unsuspicious frankness of twenty-five; which, nevertheless, is very artful and quite conscious of itself. The man did not misjudge her; he knew he was not dealing with a child, but with a thoroughly independent and responsible young person.

And he knew also that he was stony broke.

The half-hours sped as they talked. Two bells followed closely by a single stroke clanged suddenly from the fore part of the ship.

She made a brisk attempt to look at a watch.

“No use,” she put the watch back. “I have Paris time. Three bells is, let me see—‘eight’ is eight and ‘one’ is half-past eight——”

“It is half-past nine,” he helped, as if it did not matter how the day sped.

“Gracious!” she exclaimed. “Have we wasted an hour and a half just talking?”

“So it seems.”

“I won’t stay here all day. I’ve just got to get on land. Why, man, I’ve never seen Naples or Pompeii or—any of those places,” waving a hand about. “If I had my dog here I’d go it alone. I’ve been in worse places. Why, I believe there’s nobody on the ship but us!”

She looked around. It seemed so.

Smudgy-faced members of the crew appeared here and there, the sort that the passengers ordinarily never see on voyage; cooks, vegetable carriers and knife boys called across barriers to one another; and off in the distance an officer could be observed coatless and heavily suspendered.

“Why aren’t you going on shore?” she asked suddenly.

“I?” he parried. “Not interested.”

“Not interested in Naples and Pompeii?” she inquired incredulously. “Oh, you’ve been there before, I see.”

“No; I’ve never been there. I—uh—just prefer to—uh—stay here.... I like to be alone.”

“Thank you!” cheerily.

She looked at him expectantly.

He took some time before he said serenely, “I can’t say it.”

“What?” But she knew what.

“The obvious complimentary thing. A woman does that with amazing skill,” he mused. “She directs a conversation into a position where the man must make her a pretty speech. Oh, it’s all right; but it interferes shockingly.”

“Interferes with what?” This time she did not know what.

“With any rational conversation,” he explained calmly. “I don’t mind your company. In fact, I have enjoyed it. But I do like to be alone. I’ve spent most of my life alone. On this trip abroad I’ve fought my right to be my own travelling-companion. These are just facts, like the boat’s sailing to-night at nine; but a man can’t tell them to a pretty woman (“Thank you,” she slipped in) without her pretending to take them personally. So she says ‘thank you!’—only in jest, I know—and then I must say some foolish flattery, but the conversation is—well, it cannot go on with the same directness with which a man talks to a man.... You see I’m not complaining. This is just another fact. I’m really interested in it.... Men are forced to treat women like pretty children. Why do women stand it?”

“They don’t always like it,” she wrinkled her forehead and puzzled over the matter, “but men are such ‘jolliers,’ you know.”

“Fancy a man flattering another man!” he went on. The idea interested him. He seemed to be forgetting the woman beside him; certainly he had completely forgotten the thought born of her first approach, that she was just the sort of person to have plenty of money—somebody else’s, a father’s or a husband’s—and to offer it, too. Of course he had not intended to ask for anything. He knew enough to know that she would lend. He had been in that precise predicament before. Money had always come to him. You see, if he had looked the part of poor-man, beggar-man, thief, the world would have turned coldly away; but he was built on mighty prosperous lines. One felt, at the first glance, that here was an athletic aristocrat. He was just that in reality; but he was mortgaged to the last hedge-row.

So the thought of taking her predestined offer of money slipped from him. He was not a scheming mind. The gods took care of such things. Let them! The important matter just now was the consideration of the droll picture of two males saying sweet things apropos of each other’s eyes and noses.

He chuckled. “Fancy trying to have a discussion with a man on the subject, say, of a possible life after death, and have him lean over, stare at the top of your head, and with a tremendous assumption of interest exclaim, ‘Jove, man, I do like the way you brushed your hair this morning! With the sun striking the brown edges it is absolutely stunning!’”

They discussed flattery and women. The man slowly forgot his reserve, while the woman, with subtle native flattery, listened. Four bells rang out sharply from forward, repeated far off in the engine-room below. Ten o’clock.

“Well!” the lady exclaimed. “Perhaps I should prefer to see Naples and Pompeii alone, but I haven’t the nerve. I’m willing to knock around in Paris or London, but when it comes to Italy I’m scared. The men look at me, especially the toughs, in a way that makes my flesh creep. Goodness knows I wish men would forget I’m a woman, but they don’t seem to want to.... See here ... why can’t we take the trip together? Oh, I’d let you be practically alone,” she answered his quick uplook. “You’d just be there as a protection.... Will you?”

He turned his head and regarded her quizzically, like an amused elder brother. He was older. His clean-shaven face had a medley of lines in it which showed superior years.

“I should be delighted,” he remarked. His intonation carried precisely the information that his phrase was absolutely polite and absolutely non-committal.

“Oh, rot!” she laughed, but she showed impatience. “Don’t be so foolish and conventional. You do want to see the place. You said you did. And I want to go, too. It’s nothing extraordinary. It’s just the same as if I asked you to play shuffle-board. Honest, you do want to go; don’t you?”

“Yes,” he half-drawled, but made no effort to move from a convenient sprawl over the rail.

“Then let’s,” she begged. “This place is making me ill.... Oh, very well,” she took his silence for obstinacy. “I’ll stay.... No, I won’t. I’ll be hanged if I do. The heat is too much and the smells are worse. I’ll risk it. I’ll go it alone.... Why won’t you go with me?”

He searched in his pockets carefully and finally presented a flat leather wallet.

“You force me to admit my very embarrassing position.” As he fumbled with the strap on the wallet she understood. The word “embarrassing” was in itself illuminating.

“Oh!” she gasped, shocked at her own stupidity. What an idiot! She had been gabbling to this man when all the while he had been warning her to keep off!

By this time he had opened the wallet and had drawn from its case a single five-dollar bill.

“That is why,” he remarked. “I am down to five dollars, which I must not touch until I land in New York. That five dollars is my sole anchor to windward. Fortunately meals and sleeping-apartment are paid for on board; but my ticket says nothing about side-trips. Therefore I should not dare step on that gang-plank. I consider myself lucky—mighty lucky—to arrive on board so safe financially as this. Forgive me for the confession; but you must admit that you forced it. Awfully sorry, too; for, now that you understand, I don’t mind telling you that this is the hottest, dirtiest, ill-smellingest spot imaginable. Would I like to go to the top of that hill and look my fill and breathe!” He straightened up suddenly. “Lord!”

“Then let’s go!” she cried. “Let’s! I’ve got money; heaps of it.” She dived into a bag she carried with her. “Look here!” she flashed a packet of various coloured bank-notes. In an inner compartment she showed him a mixture of sovereigns and gold louis. “The purser will give me Italian money. He said he would this morning. Wait! I’ll get a hat.”

She sped across the deck and around the corner before he could protest. To her stateroom she went first and added a veil about her hat, selected a parasol and donned long thin gloves. Then to the purser’s.

“What time do we sail to-night?” she asked as the official made the change of money.

“To-night?” he echoed. “We stay here until to-morrow morning. We sail at six to-morrow. There is a notice posted.”

“Thank you,” she said, and sped to the bulletin-board. In three languages the purser was verified. In a moment more she was back on the promenade-deck.

“Here!” she gave him a small purse. “You’ll have to do the spending. Come on! It’ll be a great lark. We still have time. There’s a voiture or whatever they call it. He’s looking up. He’ll take us somewhere. Come on! Oh, it’s all right! It’s on me. My treat. Come on! Don’t be foolish.... Now, what’s the matter?”

He had accepted the purse; but otherwise he had not moved.

“Wait a bit,” he spoke with quiet authority. “I can’t do this as your treat.”

“Let me hire you as a guide, then,” she ventured.

“No,” he laughed; “I——”

“Well, let’s Dutch it, then. We’ll divide expenses—you pay me in New York.”

“I won’t have anything in New York but five dollars.”

“Pay it back whenever you get it.”

“All right,” he agreed quietly. “But——”

“But what?”

“That may be a long while.”

“I don’t care. I want to see Naples.”

“I’m not over-careful about paying debts. I’m likely to repudiate,” he warned. “My memory is almost useless.”

“Well, leave it to me in your will and—hurry!”

Five bells tolled off smartly. The lady strode forward and tugged at his arm. He laughed quietly and followed.

“Really,” he told her as they slid down the steep plank, “I’m awfully keen for this trip.”

“Oh, yes, you are—not,” she looked him over with a meaning glance. “But I don’t care. I couldn’t stay on that boat all day. There’s that cocher. Quick, get him before he drives away. I love those old dinky carriages, don’t you? Hey!” she called and waved a parasol. “Ici! Come over here! We want to get in!”

The Italian understood perfectly. And where would madame and m’sieu wish to go? To the Italian all well-dressed foreigners are French.

“To the top of that hill first,” the madame commanded. M’sieu remarked, “We must not get too far away. We sail at nine to-night; and clocks are not very dependable in these parts.”

“Yes, we must be careful about the time,” she agreed, but offered no word of the more recent information she had received from the purser. “We can have one good glorious dinner somewhere and be back easily by half-past eight,” she told him.

They had turned a corner of the creaking winding road which gave suddenly a little glimpse of the Bay.

“Look!” she exclaimed. They turned their heads. “It is beginning to be blue already! U-m!” she sniffed. “Did you get that delicious scent? What is it? Lilac?... And look over there! Still bluer.”

“Cerulean blue, every yard of it guaranteed,” he remarked lazily; but there was no doubt he was taking it in as eagerly as she. To the lady this was one of many possible trips abroad. To the man it was a sight of Italy, almost withheld like the Promised Land from Moses of old, now made a reality; the promise fulfilled of seven years’ mean living.

“By Jove!” he exclaimed on one rise of ground; the assumption of indifference was hard to keep up. “By Jove!” he stared and breathed in the perfumed air. “This is paradise! And Italians come to America to clean the streets and sell fruit! How can they leave it? How ever can they leave it?”

The “dinky” carriage plodded slowly up the hill. The grey tile-topped roofs began to huddle together below them. Old Vesuvius grew to look less like a flat ash-heap. Far off in the background ranges of higher hills began to push solemnly skyward. And the Bay of Naples slowly expanded, and softened, and yielded up its velvet blue.

“Isn’t it great?” the lady said, gazing afar.

“Great!” the man replied. “Wonderful!”

So absorbed were they in their personal sensations of delight that it was not until they had arrived at the top and were moving on the level towards a “hotel with a view,” that the thoughts of luncheon coupled themselves somehow with the thought of names.

From a dangling bag the lady had produced a “steamer-list.”

“Don’t tell me yet,” she warned. “This is tremendously exciting. I am wondering if you could be, let me see—‘Abbott’—no,” she looked him over carefully—“you never would be an ‘Abbott.’ ‘Bacon,’ ‘Baker,’ ‘Boileau,’ ‘Crespi’—you might be that, especially when you spoke Italian to the driver. ‘Dr.’—you’re not a doctor, are you?” She showed some dismay.

“Guess on!” he played the game firmly.

“Well, there’s one thing you’re not,” she pointed to the “list.”

He leaned forward to read the name. The wagonette was stopping with a lurch at the spacious beflowered front of a hotel.

“‘Sir Richard Helvyn,’” she laughed.

“Why not?” he inquired mildly.

“Don’t scare me,” she laughed inquiringly. “Are you?”

The happy driver was waiting at the open door, whip in hand, smiling knowingly. A bride and groom, perhaps. The tip would betray them. Beside him a flunkey or two were ready to escort the pair into the hotel. A wizened beggar-woman raised silent-speaking eyes and extended a hand. The m’sieu opened a thin deep purse, obviously a lady’s—and extracted therefrom a gold coin and a smaller one of silver.

“That will be exactly right,” he nodded to the driver, who, after one glance, was now certain—they were veritable bride and groom.

Deftly, almost without looking, he dropped the silver coin into the palm of the beggar. It was done with skill; and it said, “Begone, my good woman; the sight of you arouses my pity, but do not, pray, take it to mean a soft heart; and whatever you do, breathe not my generosity to your pestilential fellows.”

The woman understood, smiled gratefully, and slipped away.

The smoothness of the two transactions was not lost on the “bride.” There had been no noisy, staccato expostulations from the driver, nor any sickening whines from the beggar; the business was handled with the dispatch of accustomed skill. Could he be Sir What’s-his-name, after all? What a lark!

CHAPTER II
EVEN

The antiquated horse had taken all the time until noon to reach the summit, so the inn-keeper had rushed instantly to provide the lady and gentleman with a private dining-room. It had a trellised portico overlooking the Bay. Here they sat and gazed. They forgot, for the moment, the interrupted conversation over “names”; even the broad suggestion of “bride and groom” that beamed from the faces of the driver, the hotel porters, mine host himself in the doorway and, afar off, mine hostess. The panorama of Naples took rank above everything else.

“No wonder the poets tried so hard to tell us about this,” she spoke finally.

“But I do wonder,” he returned. “How could they be such egotists? No writing can do justice to that,” he pointed towards the deeper blue; “one might as well try to score it for kettle-drums. It can’t be translated. All landscape poetry is a failure, a failure from the start. It can’t be conveyed to others.”

“Perhaps,” she mused, “the poet was not interested in others. Perhaps he wished merely to celebrate himself.”

He turned towards her suddenly.

“You touch me hard there,” he said. “Do you know whom you’re quoting?”

“Yes. Whitman.”

“Do you know Whitman—really know him?”

“How blunt you are,” but she showed no resentment. “Yes, I really know Whitman. Also, I hereby give notice that I am much less frivolous than I look.”

“I’m a little daft on Whitman,” he apologized.

“So am I.”

“You don’t think he is immoral?” he asked incredulously.

“I think he is super-moral.”

“You do know him, then,” he admitted, half-aloud.

“Any more cross-examination?”

“How did you come to take to Whitman?” This was the first time he had seemed to suggest any interest in her personally. She noted the change in him, but gave no sign.

“The Woman’s Club,” she answered.

“Where?”

“Penn Yan.”

“What?”

“Penn Yan.”

“China?”

“No, Penn Yan, a town of 4,000 inhabitants in New York. I live there.”

“Ah!” he exclaimed mysteriously.

“Dear me! Haven’t you heard of Penn Yan?”

“No.”

“Not heard of the Walker Bin Company?”

“No.”

“Nor the Birkett Mills?”

“No.”

“Nor the ‘Benham House’?”

“No.”

“Nor Quackenbush’s chain of two drug stores?”

“No.”

“Oh, dear!” she affected delightful concern.

“Surely you have heard of Lake Keuka, and the Keuka grape vineyards?” She leaned forward with mischief in her eyes.

“No.”

“Have you ever eaten a grape, my dear Sir Knight?”

“Possibly.”

“A good, great, luscious blue grape?”

“Possibly.”

“Only possibly?”

“Well,” he hesitated, “y-es. Yes; I am sure to have eaten one. Now that I put my mind to it, I recall that it was especially large and sweet and——”

She leaned back, contented.

“Well, that was a Keuka Lake grape.”

He was studying her, as one would a specimen of the thing you collect.

“Is Penn—Penn Ying——”

“Penn Yan, please.”

“Is Penn Yan your summer home or——”

“It is my all-the-year home. I was born there. This is my first adventure from the family hearth.”

Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm might have made that speech.

“Ah!” he remarked. “Ah! That explains much.”

“Go on,” she smiled. “Spring it. What’s the answer? What is the ‘much’ my living in Penn Yan explains?”

“You are charmingly of the village; for which I am grateful. Otherwise, we should not have been on this delightfully unconventional trip.”

“Oh, you must see Penn Yan,” she chirped, “especially on Saturday night. Our Main Street is paved,” she added archly, “and we have an electric line and sweetly subdued arc-lights. But of course I don’t live in the throbbing town—that would be too exciting. We live far off down the Lake, in Jerusalem township. You see, Sir—Sir——” she hesitated, plucked out her steamer-list and went on, “—Sir Richard, we are really not even villagers; we are, I fear, hopelessly rural.”

Her satiric tone was not lost on “Sir Richard.” He would have been stupid else.

“Rural? Not a doubt of it!” he admitted. “You lend me money on sight and take me for a title and no questions asked. What makes you think I am Sir Richard?”

“I don’t think so now; and I’m awfully sorry. Your enunciation is sort of English—you know—clear, broad vowels, lots of sharp ‘t’s,’ no ‘r’s’ to speak of; but you haven’t once said, ‘Quite so,’ or ‘Really!’ or ‘Silly ass!’”

“I am half English. I went to school in England.”

“Ah!” she mimicked. “That explains much—ah!—much! And was it a school in the country?”

“Yes!” he explained eagerly. “Quite in the country. It was an omnibus and two trains away from London.”

“Ah!” She “ah-ed” very significantly, and added, “Much! Ah, much—much.”

“We’re even,” he owned.

“Only even?” she opened her eyes very wide.

He was about to surrender completely when the host in the doorway announced luncheon.

It was a cosy, intimate dining-room; small table set for two; uniformed butler standing rigid off to the side; maid, also in uniform, moving swiftly in and out a door and serving deftly—exactly the suggestion of a dinner en famille.

“That is the head of the table, dear,” said the lady.

The man was so startled, especially when he glanced back to the placid, innocent face of the lady, that he neglected to take any place at all.

“Can’t you see that this is a domestic scene?” she explained; “regular man-and-wife stage-set. They expect it of us.... Beautiful, expensive scenery,” she murmured, “spoiled by a wretched actor.”

Then she nodded her head towards the uniformed attendant, and began again.

“That is the head of the table, I think, dear.”

He grinned and made for the seat.

“That is the head; is it not, my dear?” she persisted.

“It is,” he agreed.

She declined to sit.

“It is—what, my dear?”

“It is the head of the table.”

“The head of the table, my——”

She cocked her head and waited to catch the completed phrase.

“Dear!” he finished, not without embarrassment.

“You miss your cues dreadfully,” she went on briskly. “Tell the gendarme to pass the rolls, Richard dear.”

“Madame will have the rolls,” “Richard” managed in Italian. “I don’t think the gendarme comprehends English, so your little domestic playette is wasted, my—uh—darling.”

“Thenk you, m’lud,” the gendarme remarked in good cockney as he deftly removed the rolls and started towards madame.

“You’re English?” m’lud ejaculated.

“Me, m’lud? Yes, thenk you, m’lud.”

“The devil!”

“Yes, thenk you, m’lud. And would m’lady prefer the toasted muffins?”

M’lady preferred nothing so much as the open enjoyment of m’lud’s discomfiture. There was a certain boldness and a certain shyness about m’lud, typical of England. At present the awkward self-consciousness was to the fore. It was consuming him, although he was intelligent enough to know exactly his trouble and its remedy. Therefore he laughed, owned up to the embarrassment and summoned his will to fight it down.

“Even Half-English is still very English,” she told him, after she had explained carefully that his face had flushed and that the tips of his ears were quite red—all more or less comforting. In the give and take of raillery that followed he almost recovered.

“The worst thing I have to contend with is this engulfing shyness of mine,” he explained finally. “And the worst symptom of shyness, perhaps you know, is anger and sullenness. It knocks the speech out of me. That makes me hot and angry. Then I’m apt to insult my neighbour, and then it’s all off.... But I’m all right now.”

“Yes,” she helped herself to a hot muffin; “you’ve gone through all the phases, except that you began by insulting your neighbour.”

“How, pray?”

He was quite unconscious of any guilt. She saw that, so she preferred not to give her hand away by explaining; yet, somehow, his half-joking reference to her “charming village qualities” rankled. Her forebears had been York State farmers, then vineyard workers and finally prosperous share-holders in the industry of raising and marketing of grapes and grape products. Although the present generation of children had gone to boarding-school and to college, had travelled and were accustomed to shop in New York city, yet the fine touch of the open country had never left them. That was their abiding charm, if they only knew it; it gave them a heartiness and a frankness and an independence of bearing and speech that marked them with distinction. Occasionally, however, in some social grouping of metropolitan dwellers they had been brought to feel a lack and were on the alert to turn even gentle compliment into ironic criticism. The young man with his patronizing air should be punished.

“Never mind,” she turned away his sincere questionings. “If you aren’t aware of the insult, we’ll forget it and call it bad manners. Bad manners are nobody’s fault.” The English servant was approaching with the meat course, so she added a gracious and distinct “dearie.”

“Ugh!” he grunted. “I detest that word. I’d rather be called ‘birdie.’”

The luncheon was a ceremonious affair. “It is part of the scenery,” the lady had remarked, “so why hurry it just to gaze on other scenery?” Coffee was served in the tiny balcony, by which time the Bay had put on other and gayer apparel; so the view had to be examined afresh. All of which took time. It was three o’clock before the bills were called for.

Several times during the delicious loafing on the balcony m’lady had examined her steamer-list and had stared at the man as if to find his name written on his forehead. He noted her interest, but claimed none for his own. “Look, my dear,” she would say, “at lazy old Vesuvius; isn’t he a villainous old giant, dirty, evil and full of cunning. I bet he is planning another blow-off.” And he would reply without any “dear” at all, not seeming to need that handle of a name to lift his comments.

“Why do you wish to go to America?” she asked, this being the nearest she ever came to breaking into the mystery of their personal lives.

“It is my home,” he answered in some surprise.

“I thought you were English?”

“Oh!” he remembered. “I am an American, even if I am half English. My mother was English, but father was so colossally American that it swamped the English strain.”

“That’s rather unusual, isn’t it?” she inquired. “It is more often that American women marry Englishmen.”

“Not at all; they’re more heavily advertised, that’s all. English women are very often attracted by men of the type of my father. There are many marriages of that sort. And the English father is mighty happy over it, I can tell you, for he gets off without the hint of a dowry. No decent American would listen to the suggestion of a dot, you know.”

There the subject dropped, and for a time all subjects. In lazy silence they looked on the view and thought their own thoughts.

Once he remarked, “I’m curious to know what that English butler is doing in an Italian inn. He can’t be happy outside of the West End. I wager he is hiding from the police. He looks it.”

And she replied, “Have you no curiosity about me?”

“Much,” he smiled. The word “much” had come to have local significance.

“You don’t ask whether I am a baroness or a saleslady, or Miss or Mrs.”

“I don’t want to know.”

“Growing shy again?”

“Eh?”

“Or is it just urban rudeness?”

“Oh!” he laughed as he comprehended. “No. No. Not at all. I don’t want to know until I have to. I prefer the mystery, that is all. If you wish I’ll tell you who I am, but I hope you won’t wish, at least just at present. We’ll be together two weeks on that boat. They say ten days, but I know them. It’ll be a fortnight. It’ll all come out there. Let’s enjoy this thoroughly unusual companionship. It really is ideal——” he went on enthusiastically.

“Thank you,” she interrupted, though he hardly noticed.

“—The sort of thing that ought to happen on this earth every day. Human beings are utter strangers to one another. It takes a shipwreck or a national calamity to force them to acknowledge the existence of the neighbour they prate so much about loving. Let’s continue our primitive relationship. Call me Richard if you wish. It’s a good name. And I’ll call you,” he picked up the steamer-list and read a name, as he thought at random, but a light underscoring had unconsciously caught his eye.

The owner of that name had done what everyone naturally does with a steamer-list or a programme or a column of “those present,” glanced quickly at her own name to discover if it had been printed correctly. It is most annoying to have a “Mrs.” where a “Miss” should be. Then her nervous finger-nail had underscored aimlessly, until the name fairly popped out of the list.

“‘Miss Geraldine Wells,’” he read. “There! I’ll call you ‘Jerry.’ Is it a go?”

Miss Geraldine Wells almost leaped in astonishment. But his innocent face assured her. She looked aloft critically, as if to judge if the name were worthy. The butler arrived with a tray of change.

“Is it a go?” he asked again.

“Yes, dear.”

“Please! Please!” he shook his head firmly. “Please don’t do that.”

The butler was handed his tip and was waved away.

“Your ear-tips are beginning again,” she told him in the tone she might have used to announce a spoon in his coffee cup.

Meanwhile the butler was bowing and muttering half-coherent “Thenk-you-m’lud’s.” His eye had taken on a fine frenzy.

“That funny remark has cost you——” Richard calculated aloud, “twenty lire is $3.86, and your share is $1.93. It cost you just $1.93 in American money. You got my mind so upset that I gave that idiot a 20-lira gold-piece too much. He’ll probably murder us now for our money, or what is worse, scream the news to the neighbourhood. We’ll have to pay high to get out of this. By rights you ought to take the whole cost.”

He rang the bell. The butler appeared.

“I made a mistake just now in giving you that 20-lira coin. Oh, it’s all right! I’m not going to take it back. I’ll be a good sport and pay for my blunder; but I was careless, that’s all. The point is——”

The English serving man was rigid with fright. Fees of any sort had been rare that season, and his wages were negligible.

“The point is,” the half-Englishman spoke confidentially, “I don’t want the whole establishment to think I am a millionaire and stand in line to blackmail me when I go out. Do you understand?”

The butler began to show signs of life.

“Puffectly, m’lud. I will take you hout myself, by the rear terraces, m’lud, and nobuddy shall presume, m’lud.”

And by the rear terraces they escaped, where the old coachman and the “dinky” carriage were duly waiting. A gold coin had done the work for him, too. He had considered himself hired by the day. Rich brides and grooms rarely came into his power.

“And where will M’sieu and Madame go now? Pompeii, Vesuvius?” He named a list that would have been the death of his cadaverous animal.

“Pompeii, of course,” agreed Miss Geraldine Wells.

“Do you think we have time?”

“Plenty.” She was stepping into the lurching vehiculum. The driver was rattling forth soothing and enticing Italian, which no one heeded.

“But I don’t know anything about trains,” he persisted.

“Neither do I.”

“We don’t want to miss our steamer.”

“Don’t we?” She was comfortably seated.

“I don’t.”

“Why not?”

“Great Scott, woman——”

“Jerry,” she corrected.

“—I was lucky to make that boat at Genoa. Had to ride fourth class from Munich. I can’t afford to miss it now.”

“I can,” she tempted. He stared at her.

“Let’s,” she begged softly.

He appeared to be reflecting. In reality his mind was standing still. The driver was in his box looking at them with an ineffable sentimental smile. The rich honeymooners would decide. He would wait. A month’s salary in a bad season was his already.

“Get in, Richard,” she moved her skirts to make room on the diminutive seat. “Be a good boy and come along. I have money enough. We’ll take the next steamer. They sail every Wednesday, don’t they?”

He got in and the equipage swung off. On the way down the hill they debated and forgot the view.

Pompeii was so many miles off there, he made it clear. The present vehicle would get there some time, if the horse and the wagon and the driver held together, but not in time for the sailing of steamers. He would not listen to her suggestion to hang the sailings of steamers and be a good sporting Sir Richard and stay over for the next boat, but drove doggedly on to convince her that in the few hours that were left, their only resource was a drive through the streets of Naples, an hour or two at the Museo Borbonico, and an early dinner at some hotel within hail of the ship.

Upon the subject of the Museo he grew suddenly eloquent. It contained one of the most significant collections of Roman remains in the world. The best of Pompeii and Herculaneum was in reality in Naples in the Museo. He seemed to know all about it, indeed, as if he were himself a collector.

“Help! Help!” she called softly, and held his arm. She had interrupted a list of the things that made the Museo unique as an omnium gatherum of Roman curios. “You talk like a personally conducted tour. We’ll go to that Museo right off. Tell the curio up front to drive there when we get to the town. But, really, my dear Richard, your interest in things stirs me. It is the first flash of life you have displayed; and you saved that up for a museum! I’d be afraid to see you get really worked up over an Egyptian mummy or something really dead-for-keeps. We’ll just have to stay over and let you loose in that dear old Museo of yours.”

He remained silent for a jolting minute or two.

“One of my reasons for coming to Naples,” he said quite simply, “was to see the Museo Borbonico.”