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"The thing that struck me on our drive to the hotel," remarked momma, "was that Naples was almost entirely inhabited by the lower classes."
"That is very noticeable indeed," concurred Mr. Mafferton, who was also there for the first time. "The people of the place are no doubt in the country at this time of the year, but one would naturally expect to see more respectable persons about."
"Now you'll excuse me, Mafferton," said the Senator, "but that's just one of those places where I lose the trail of the English language as used by the original inventors. Where do you draw the line of distinction between people and persons?"
"It's a mere Briticism, poppa," I observed. Mr. Mafferton loathed being obliged to defend his native tongue at any point. That very morning the modus vivendi between us, that I had done so much for Dicky's sake to establish, had been imperilled by my foolish determination to know why all Englishmen pronounced "white" "wite."
"I daresay," said poppa gloomily, "but I am not on to it and I don't suppose I ever shall be. What struck me on the ride up through the city was the perambulating bath. Going round on wheels to be hired out, just the ordinary tin tub of commerce. The fellows were shouting something—'Who'll buy a wash!' I suppose. But that's the disadvantage of a foreign language; it leaves so much to the imagination."
"The goats were nice," I said, "so promiscuous. I saw one of them looking out of a window."
"And the dear little horses with bells round their necks," momma added, "and the tall yellow houses with the stucco dropping off, and especially the fruit shops and the flower stalls that make pictures down every narrow street. Such masses of colour!"
"We might have hit on a worse hotel," observed Mr. Mafferton. "Very tolerable soup, to-night."
"I can't say I noticed the soup," said the Senator. "Fact is, soup to me is just—soup. I presume there are different kinds, but beyond knowing most of them from gruel I don't pretend to be a connoisseur."
"What nonsense, Alexander!" said momma sternly.
"Some are saltier than others, Augusta, I admit. But what I was going on to say was that for clear monotony the dinner programmes ever since Paris have beaten the record. Bramley told me how it would be. Consommy, he said—that's soup—consommy, the whole enduring time. Fish frité or fried, roast beef à l'Italienne or mixed up with vegetables. Beans—well, just beans, and if you don't like 'em you can leave 'em, but that fourth course is never anything but beans. After that you get a chicken cut up with lettuce, because if it was put on the table whole some disappointed investigator might find out there was nothing inside and file a complaint. Anything to support that unstuffed chicken? Nope. Finishing up with a compote of canned fruit, mostly California pears that want more cooking, and after that cheese, if you like cheese, and coffee charged extra. Thanks to Bramley, I can't say I didn't know what to expect, but that doesn't increase the variety any. Now in America—I understand you have been to America, sir?"
"I have travelled in the States to some extent," responded Mr. Mafferton.
"Seen Brooklyn Bridge and the Hudson, I presume. Had a look at Niagara Falls and a run out to Chicago, maybe. That was before I had the pleasure of meeting you. Get as far as the Yosemite? No? Well, you were there long enough anyhow to realise that our hotels are run on the free will system."
"I remember," said Mr. Mafferton. "All the luxuries of the coming season, printed on a card usually about a foot long. A great variety, and very difficult to understand. When I had finished trying to translate the morning paper, I used to attack the card. I found that it threw quite a light upon early American civilisation from the aboriginal side. 'Hominy,' 'Grits,' 'Buckwheats,' 'Cantelopes,' are some of the dishes I remember. 'Succotash,' too, and 'creamed squash,' but I think they occurred at dinner generally. I used to summon the waiter, and when he came to take my orders I would ask him to derive those dishes. I had great difficulty after a time in summoning a waiter. But the plan gave me many interesting half hours. In the end I usually ordered a chop."
"I don't want to run down your politics," poppa said, "but that's what I call being too conservative. Augusta, if you have had enough of the Bay of Naples and the moon, I might remind you of the buried city of Pompeii, which is on for to-morrow. It's a good long way out, and you'll want all your powers of endurance. I'm going down to have a smoke, and a look at the humorous publications of Italy. There's no sort of sociability about these hotels, but the head portier knows a little English."
"I suppose I had better retire," momma admitted, "though I sometimes wish Mr. Wick wasn't so careful of my nervous system. Delicious scene, good-night." And she too left us.
We were sitting in a narrow balcony that seemed to jut out of a horn of the city's lovely crescent. Dicky and Isabel occupied chairs at a distance nicely calculated to necessitate a troublesome raising of the voice to communicate with them. Mrs. Portheris was still confined to her room with what was understood to be the constitutional shock of her experiences in the Catacombs. Dicky, in joyful privacy, assured me that nobody could recover from a combination of Roman tallow and French kid in less than a week, but I told him he did not know the British constitution.
The moon sailed high over Naples, and lighted the lapping curve of her perfect bay in the deepest, softest blue, and showed us some of the nearer houses of the city, sloping and shouldering and creeping down, that they were pink and yellow and parti-coloured, while the rest curved and glimmered round the water in all tender tones of white holding up a thousand lamps. And behind, curving too, the hills stood clear, with the grey phantom of Vesuvius in sharp familiar lines, sending up its stream of steady red, and now and then a leaping flame. It was a scene to wake the latent sentiment of even a British bosom. I thought I would stay a little longer.
"So you usually ordered a chop?" I said by way of resuming the conversation. "I hope the chops were tender."
(I have a vague recollection that my intonation was.)
"There are worse things in the States than the mutton," replied Mr. Mafferton, moving his chair to enable him, by twisting his neck not too ostentatiously, to glance occasionally at Dicky and Isabel, "but the steaks were distinctly better than the chops—distinctly."
"So all connoisseurs say," I replied respectfully. "Would you like to change seats with me? I don't mind sitting with my back to—Vesuvius."
Mr. Mafferton blushed—unless it was the glow from the volcano.
"Not on my account," he said. "By any means."
"You do not fear a demonstration," I suggested. "And yet the forces of nature are very uncertain. That is your English nerve. It deserves all that is said of it."
Mr. Mafferton looked at me suspiciously.
"I fancy you must be joking," he said.
He sometimes complained that the great bar to his observation of the American character was the American sense of humour. It was one of the things he had made a note of, as interfering with the intelligent stranger's enjoyment of the country.
"I suppose," I replied reproachfully, "you never pause to think how unkind a suspicion like that is? When one wishes to be taken seriously."
"I fear I do not," Mr. Mafferton confessed. "Perhaps I jump rather hastily to conclusions sometimes. It's a family trait. We get it through the Warwick-Howards on my mother's side."
"Then, of course, there can't be any objection to it. But when one knows a person's opinion of frivolity, always to be thought frivolous by the person is hard to bear. Awfully."
And if my expression, as I gazed past this Englishman at Vesuvius, was one of sad resignation, there was nothing in the situation to exhilarate anybody.
The impassive countenance of Mr. Mafferton was disturbed by a ray of concern. The moonlight enabled me to see it quite clearly. "Pray, Miss Wick," he said, "do not think that. Who was it that wrote—"
"A little humour now and then
Is relished by the wisest men."
"I don't know," I said, "but there's something about it that makes me think it is English in its origin. Do you really endorse it?"
"Certainly I do. And your liveliness, Miss Wick, if I may say so, is certainly one of your accomplishments. It is to some extent a racial characteristic. You share it with Mr. Dod."
I glanced in the direction of the other two. "They seem desperately bored with each other," I said. "They are not saying anything. Shall we join them?"
"Dod is probably sulking because I am monopolising you. Mrs. Portheris, you see, has let me into the secret"—Mr. Mafferton looked very arch—"By all means, if you think he ought to be humoured."
"No," I said firmly, "humouring is very bad for Dicky. But I don't think he should be allowed to wreak his ill-temper on Isabel."
"I have noticed a certain lack of power to take the initiative about Miss Portheris," said Mr. Mafferton coldly, "especially when her mother is not with her. She seems quite unable to extricate herself from situations like the present."
"She is so young," I said apologetically, "and besides, I don't think you could expect her to go quite away and leave us here together, you know. She would naturally have foolish ideas. She doesn't know anything about our irrevocable Past."
"Why should she care?" asked Mr. Mafferton hypocritically.
"Oh," I said. "I don't know, I'm sure. Only Mrs. Portheris——"
"She is certainly a charming girl," said Mr. Mafferton.
"And so well brought up," said I.
"Ye-es. Perhaps a little self-contained."
"She has no need to rely upon her conversation." I observed.
"I don't know. The fact is——"
"What is the fact?" I asked softly. "After all that has passed I think I may claim your confidence, Mr. Mafferton." I had some difficulty afterwards in justifying this, but it seemed entirely appropriate at the time.
"The fact is, that up to three weeks ago I believed Miss Portheris to be the incarnation of so many unassuming virtues and personal charms that I was almost ready to make a fresh bid for domestic happiness in her society. I have for some time wished to marry——"
"I know," I said sympathetically.
"But during the last three weeks I have become a little uncertain."
"There shouldn't be the slightest uncertainty," I observed.
"Marriage in England is such a permanent institution."
"I have known it to last for years even in the United States," I sighed.
"And it is a serious responsibility to undertake to reciprocate in full the devotion of an attached wife."
"I fancy Isabel is a person of strong affections," I said; "one notices it with her mother. And any one who could dote on Mrs. Portheris would certainly——"
"I fear so," said Mr. Mafferton.
"I understand," I continued, "why you hesitate. And really, feeling as you do, I wouldn't be precipitate."
"I won't," he said.
"Watch the state of your own heart," I counselled, "for some little time. You may be sure that hers will not alter;" and, as we said good-night, I further suggested that it would be a kindness if Mr. Mafferton would join my lonely parent in the smoking-room.
I don't know what happened on the balcony after that.