“Quite right, my child—­what a memory you have!  That wretched woman who stopped to look back at the city where careless friends and relatives were enjoying themselves, indifferent to their coming fate, in direct disobedience to the command.  Of course, she turned to salt, and these people to ashes, but she must have looked very much like them when the process was completed.”

That was Dicky’s opportunity for restraint and submission, but he seemed to have been physically unable to take it.  He rushed, instead, blindly to perdition.  “I don’t believe that yarn,” he said.

There was a moment’s awful silence, during which Dicky said he counted his heart-beats and felt as if he had announced himself an atheist or a Jew, and then his sentence fell.

“In that case, Mr. Dod, I must infer that you are opposed to the doctrine of the complete inspiration of Holy Writ.  If you do not believe in that, I shudder to think of what you may not believe in.  I will say no more now, but after dinner I will be obliged to speak to you for a few minutes, privately.  Thank you, I can get out without assistance.”

And after dinner, privately, Dicky learned that Mrs. Portheris had for some time been seriously considering the effect of his, to her, painfully flippant views, upon the opening mind of her daughter—­the child had only been out six months—­and that his distressing announcement of this morning left her in no further doubt as to her path of duty.  She would always endeavour to have as kindly a recollection of him as possible, he had really been very obliging, but for the present she must ask him to make some other travelling arrangements.  Cook, she believed, would always change one’s tickets less ten per cent., but she would leave that to Dicky.  And she hoped, she sincerely hoped, that time would improve his views.  When that was accomplished she trusted he would write and tell her, but not before.

“And while I’m getting good and ready to pass an examination in Noah, Jonah, and Methuselah,” remarked Dicky bitterly, as we discussed the situation on the Lungarno for the seventh time that day, “Mafferton sails in.”

“Why didn’t you tell her plainly that you wanted to marry Isabel, and would brook no opposition?” I demanded, for my stock of sympathy was getting low.

“Now that’s a valuable suggestion, isn’t it?” returned Mr. Dod with sarcasm.  “Good old psychological moment that was, wasn’t it?  Talk about girls having tact!  Besides, I’ve never told Isabel herself yet, and I’m not the American to give in to the effete and decaying custom of asking a girl’s poppa, or momma if it’s a case of widow, first.  Not Richard Dod.”

“What on earth,” I exclaimed, “have you been doing all this time?”

“Now go slow, Mamie, and don’t look at me like that.  I’ve been trying to make her acquainted with me—­explaining the kind of fellow I am—­getting solid with her.  See?”