a little walk by myself in the
Street of Abundance, where the little empty houses waited patiently on
either side for those to return who had gone out, and the sun lay full
on their floors of dusty mosaic, and their gardens where nothing grew.
It seemed to me, as it seems to everybody, that Pompeii was not dead,
but asleep, and her tints were so clear and gay that her dreams might be
those of a ballet-girl. A solitary yellow dog chased a lizard in the
sun, and the pebbles he knocked about made an absurdly disturbing noise.
Beyond the vague tinted roofless walls that stretched over the pleasant
little peninsula, the blue sea rippled tenderly, remembering much
delight, and the place seemed to smile in its sleep. It was easy to
understand why Cicero chose to have his villa in the midst of such
light-heartedness, and why the gods, perhaps, decided that they had lent
too much laughter to Pompeii. I made free of the hospitality of
Cornelius Rufus and sat for a while in his _exedra_, where he himself,
in marble on a little pillar in the middle of the room, made me as
welcome as if I had been a client or a neighbour. We considered each
other across the centuries, making mutual allowances, and spent the most
sociable half-hour. I take a personal interest in the city's disaster
now--it overwhelmed one of my friends.

CHAPTER XVII.

On the Lungarno in Florence, in the cool of the evening, we walked
together, the Senator, momma, Dicky, and I. Dicky radiated depression,
if such a thing is atmospherically possible; we all moved in it. Mr. Dod
had been banished from the Portheris party, and he groaned over the
reflection that it was his own fault. At Pompeii I had exerted myself in
his interest to such an extent that Mr. Mafferton detached himself from
Mrs. Portheris and attached himself to momma for the drive home. Little
did I realise that one could be too agreeable in a good cause. Dicky
insinuated himself with difficulty into Mr. Mafferton's vacant place
opposite Mrs. Portheris, and even before the carriages started I saw
that he was going to have a bad time. His own version of the experience
was painful in the extreme, and he represented the climax as having
occurred just as they arrived at the hotel. The unfortunate youth must
have been goaded to his fate, for his general attitude toward matters of
orthodoxy was most discreet.

"There is something _Biblical_," said Mrs. Portheris (so Dicky related),
"that those Pompei