political sphere, broke out in every variety of intellectual effort, carried into every branch of science and art.  In spite of the whole modern school of impressionists, aesthetes, and aphrodisiac poets, the most prominent features of Greek art are its intellectuality, its well-reasoned science, and its accurate conception of the ideal.  The resemblance between Americans of to-day and Greeks of the age of Pericles does not extend to matters of art as yet, though America bids fair to surpass all earlier and contemporary nations in the progressive departments of science.  But as talkers they are pre-eminent, these rapid business men with their quick tongues and their sharp eyes and their millions.

When Barker left Screw he had learned a great deal about the suit of which he inquired, but Screw had learned nothing whatever about Claudius.

As for the Doctor, as soon as he had despatched his letter he sent to secure a passage in Wednesday’s steamer, and set himself to prepare his effects for the voyage, as he only intended returning from Newport in time to go on board.  He was provided with money enough, for before leaving Germany he had realised the whole of his own little fortune, not wishing to draw upon his larger inheritance until he should feel some necessity for doing so.  He now felt no small satisfaction in the thought that he was independent of Mr. Screw and of every one else.  It would have been an easy matter, he knew, to clear up the whole difficulty in twenty-four hours, by simply asking the Duke to vouch for him; and before hearing of Margaret’s trouble he had had every intention of pursuing that course.  But now that he was determined to go to Russia in her behalf, his own difficulty, if he did not take steps for removing it, furnished him with an excellent excuse for the journey, without telling the Countess that he was going for the sole purpose of recovering her fortune, as he otherwise must have told her.  Had he known the full extent of Barker’s intentions he might have acted differently, but as yet his instinct against that ingenious young gentleman was undefined and vague.

CHAPTER XV.

The cliff at Newport—­the long winding path that follows it from the great beach to the point of the island, always just above the sea, hardly once descending to it, as the evenly-gravelled path, too narrow for three, though far too broad for two, winds by easy curves through the grounds, and skirts the lawns of the million-getters who have their tents and their houses therein—­it is a pretty place.  There the rich men come and seethe in their gold all summer; and Lazarus comes to see whether he cannot marry Dives’s daughter.  And the choleric architect, dissatisfied with the face of Nature, strikes her many a dread blow, and produces an unhealthy eruption wherever he strikes, and calls the things he makes houses.  Here also, on Sunday afternoon, young gentlemen and younger ladies patrol in pairs, and discourse of the most saccharine inanities, not knowing what they shall say, and taking no thought, for obvious reasons.  And gardeners sally forth in the morning and trim the paths with strange-looking instruments—­the earth-barbers, who lather and shave and clip Nature into patterns, and the world into a quincunx.