“Please to command your tongue,” growled Mallard, with a look that was not to be mistaken.

“I beg your pardon.  It shall be to the health of that superb girl we saw in the Mercato.  But, as far as I can judge yet, the Neapolitan type doesn’t appeal to me very strongly.  It is finely animal, and of course that has its value; but I prefer the suggestion of a soul, don’t you?  I remember a model old Langton had in Rome, a girl fresh from the mountains; by Juno! a glorious creature!  I dare say you have seen her portrait in his studio; he likes to show it.  But it does her nothing like justice; she might have sat for the genius of the Republic.  Utterly untaught, and intensely stupid; but there were marvellous things to be read in her face.  Ah, but give me the girls of Venice!  You know them, how they walk about the piazza; their tall, lithe forms, the counterpart of the gondolier; their splendid black hair, elaborately braided and pierced with large ornaments; their noble, aristocratic, grave features; their long shawls!  What natural dignity!  What eloquent eyes!  I like to imagine them profoundly intellectual, which they are unhappily not.”

Marsh had withdrawn from colloquy with the Germans, and kept glancing across the table at his compatriots, obviously wishing that he might join them.  Mallard, upon whom Elgar’s excited talk jarred more and more, noticed the stranger’s looks, and at length leaned forward to speak to him.

“As usual, we are in a minority among the sun-worshippers.”

“Sun-worshippers!  Good!” laughed the other.  “Yes, I have never met more than one or two chance Englishmen at the ‘Sole.’”

“But you are at your case with our friends there.—­I think you know as little German as I do, Elgar?”

“Devilish bad at languages!  To tell you the truth, I can’t endure the sense of inferiority one has in beginning to smatter with foreigners.  I read four or five, but avoid speaking as much as possible.”

Marsh took an early opportunity of alluding to the argument in which he had recently taken part.  The subject was resumed.  At Elgar’s bidding the waiter had brought cigars, and things looked comfortable; the Germans talked with more animation than ever.

“One of the worst evils of democracy in England,” said Reuben, forcibly, “is its alliance with Puritan morality.”

“Oh, that is being quickly outgrown,” cried Marsh.  “Look at the spread of rationalism.”

“You take it for granted that Puritanism doesn’t survive religious dogma?  Believe me, you are greatly mistaken.  I am sorry to say I have a large experience in this question.  The mass of the English people have no genuine religious belief, but none the less they are Puritans in morality.  The same applies to the vastly greater part of those who even repudiate Christianity.”

“One must take account of the national hypocrisy,” remarked the younger man, with an air of superiority, shaking his head as his habit was.