Part 5 (1/2)
Mrs. Willoughby was silent for some time.
”Oh, Minnie,” said she at last, ”what a trouble all this is! How I wish you had been with me all this time!”
”Well, what made you go and get married?” said Minnie.
”Hush,” said Mrs. Willoughby, sadly, ”never mind. I've made up my mind to one thing, and that is, I will never leave you alone with a gentleman, unless--”
[Ill.u.s.tration: ”HE BENT HIS HEAD DOWN, AND RAN HIS HAND THROUGH HIS BUSHY HAIR.”]
”Well, I'm sure I don't want the horrid creatures,” said Minnie. ”And you needn't be so unkind. I'm sure I don't see why people will come always and save my life wherever I go. I don't want them to. I don't want to have my life saved any more. I think it's dreadful to have men chasing me all over the world. I'm afraid to stop in Italy, and I'm afraid to go back to England. Then I'm always afraid of that dreadful American. I suppose it's no use for me to go to the Holy Land, or Egypt, or Australia; for then my life would be saved by an Arab, or a New Zealander. And oh, Kitty, wouldn't it be dreadful to have some Arab proposing to me, or a Hindu! Oh, what _am_ I to do?”
”Trust to me, darling. I'll get rid of Girasole. We will go to Naples.
He has to stop at Rome; I know that. We will thus pa.s.s quietly away from him, without giving him any pain, and he'll soon forget all about it. As for the others, I'll stop this correspondence first, and then deal with them as they come.”
”You'll never do it, never!” cried Minnie; ”I know you won't. You don't know them.”
CHAPTER IV.
IN THE CRATER OF VESUVIUS.
Lord Harry Hawbury had been wandering for three months on the Continent, and had finally found himself in Naples. It was always a favorite place of his, and he had established himself in comfortable quarters on the Strada Nuova, from the windows of which there was a magnificent view of the whole bay, with Vesuvius, Capri, Baiae, and all the regions round about. Here an old friend had unexpectedly turned up in the person of Scone Dacres. Their friends.h.i.+p had been formed some five or six years before in South America, where they had made a hazardous journey in company across the continent, and had thus acquired a familiarity with one another which years of ordinary a.s.sociation would have failed to give. Scone Dacres was several years older than Lord Hawbury.
One evening Lord Hawbury had just finished his dinner, and was dawdling about in a listless way, when Dacres entered, quite unceremoniously, and flung himself into a chair by one of the windows.
”Any Ba.s.s, Hawbury?” was his only greeting, as he bent his head down, and ran his hand through his bushy hair.
”Lachryma Christi?” asked Hawbury, in an interrogative tone.
”No, thanks. That wine is a humbug. I'm beastly thirsty, and as dry as a cinder.”
Hawbury ordered the Ba.s.s, and Dacres soon was refres.h.i.+ng himself with copious draughts.
The two friends presented a singular contrast. Lord Hawbury was tall and slim, with straight flaxen hair and flaxen whiskers, whose long, pendent points hung down to his shoulders. His thin face, somewhat pale, had an air of high refinement; and an ineradicable habit of lounging, together with a drawling intonation, gave him the appearance of being the laziest mortal alive. Dacres, on the other hand, was the very opposite of all this. He was as tall as Lord Hawbury, but was broad-shouldered and ma.s.sive. He had a big head, a big mustache, and a thick beard. His hair was dark, and covered his head in dense, bushy curls. His voice was loud, his manner abrupt, and he always sat bolt upright.
”Any thing up, Sconey?” asked Lord Hawbury, after a pause, during which he had been languidly gazing at his friend.
”Well, no, nothing, except that I've been up Vesuvius.”
Lord Hawbury gave a long whistle.
”And how did you find the mountain?” he asked; ”lively?”
”Rather so. In fact, infernally so,” added Dacres, thoughtfully. ”Look here, Hawbury, do you detect any smell of sulphur about me?”
”Sulphur! What in the name of--sulphur! Why, now that you mention it, I _do_ notice something of a brimstone smell. Sulphur! Why, man, you're as strong as a lighted match. What have you been doing with yourself? Down inside, eh?”
Dacres made no answer for some time, but sat stroking his beard with his left hand, while his right held a cigar which he had just taken out of a box at his elbow. His eyes were fixed upon a point in the sky exactly half-way between Capri and Baiae, and about ten degrees above the horizon.