ful weather--won't last
long--hein, hein, I've my suspicions! No news as to your parliament--be
dissolved soon! Bad opera in London this year!--hein, hein--I've my
suspicions."

This rapid monologue was delivered with appropriate gesture. Each
new sentence Mons. de Ventadour began with a sort of bow, and when
it dropped in the almost invariable conclusion affirmative of his
shrewdness and incredulity, he made a mystical sign with his forefinger
by passing it upward in a parallel line with his nose, which at the
same time performed its own part in the ceremony by three convulsive
twitches, that seemed to shake the bridge to its base.

Maltravers looked with mute surprise upon the connubial partner of the
graceful creature by his side, and Mons. de Ventadour, who had said as
much as he thought necessary, wound up his eloquence by expressing the
rapture it would give him to see Mons. Maltravers at his hotel. Then,
turning to his wife, he began assuring her of the lateness of the hour,
and the expediency of departure. Maltravers glided away, and as he
regained the door was seized by our old friend, Lumley Ferrers. "Come,
my dear fellow," said the latter; "I have been waiting for you this half
hour. _Allons_. But, perhaps, as I am dying to go to bed, you have
made up your mind to stay supper. Some people have no regard for other
people's feelings."

"No, Ferrers, I'm at your service;" and the young man descended the
stairs and passed along the Chiaja towards their hotel. As they gained
the broad and open space on which it stood, with the lovely sea before
them, sleeping in the arms of the curving shore, Maltravers, who had
hitherto listened in silence to the volubility of his companion, paused
abruptly.

"Look at that sea, Ferrers.... What a scene!--what delicious air! How
soft this moonlight! Can you not fancy the old Greek adventurers,
when they first colonised this divine Parthenope--the darling of the
ocean--gazing along those waves, and pining no more for Greece?"

"I cannot fancy anything of the sort," said Ferrers.... "And, depend
upon it, the said gentlemen, at this hour of the night, unless they were
on some piratical excursion--for they were cursed ruffians, those old
Greek colonists--were fast asleep in their beds."

"Did you ever write poetry, Ferrers?"

"To be sure; all clever men have written poetry once in their
lives--small-pox and poetry--they are our two juvenile diseases."

"And did you ever _fee