“There is a medium.”

“Why, yes.  A neither this nor that, an insipid refinement, a taste for culture moderated by reverence for Mrs. Grundy.”

“Perhaps you are right.  It’s only occasionally that I am troubled in this way.  But I heartily wish the three years remaining were over.”

“And the ‘definite good-bye’ spoken.  A good phrase, that of yours.  What possessed you to come here just now, if it disturbs you to be kept in mind of these responsibilities?”

“I should find it hard to tell you.  The very sense of responsibility, I suppose.  But, as I said, I am not going to stay in Naples.”

“You’ll come and give us a ‘definite good-bye’ before you leave?”

Mallard said nothing, but turned and began to move on.  They passed one of the sentry-boxes which here along the ridge mark the limits of Neapolitan excise; a boy-soldier, musket in hand, cast curious glances at them.  After walking in silence for a few minutes, they began to descend the eastern face of the hill, and before them lay that portion of the great gulf which pictures have made so familiar.  The landscape was still visible in all its main details, still softly suffused with warm colours from the west.  About the cone of Vesuvius a darkly purple cloud was gathering; the twin height of Somma stood clear and of a rich brown.  Naples, the many-coloured, was seen in profile, climbing from the Castel dell’ Ovo, around which the sea slept, to the rock of Sant’ Elmo; along the curve of the Chiaia lights had begun to glimmer.  Far withdrawn, the craggy promontory of Sorrento darkened to profoundest blue; and Capri veiled itself in mist.

CHAPTER II

CECILY DORAN

Villa Sannazaro had no architectural beauty; it was a building of considerable size, irregular, in need of external repair.  Through the middle of it ran a great archway, guarded by copies of the two Molossian hounds which stand before the Hall of Animals in the Vatican; beneath the arch, on the right-hand side, was the main entrance to the house.  If you passed straight through, you came out upon a terrace, where grew a magnificent stone-pine and some robust agaves.  The view hence was uninterrupted, embracing the line of the bay from Posillipo to Cape Minerva.  From the parapet bordering the platform you looked over a descent of twenty feet, into a downward sloping vineyard.  Formerly the residence of an old Neapolitan family, the villa had gone the way of many such ancestral abodes, and was now let out among several tenants.