“It is pumice-stone—­one of the old industries of the place.  They excavate it on the hill-side yonder.  Volcanic stuff.  There are several suchlike indications of subterranean fires; a hot spring, for instance, which the people regard with a kind of superstitious awe.  It is dedicated to Saint Elias and believed to stand in mysterious sympathy with the volcano on the mainland.  You will observe too, sooner or later, something fiery and incalculable in the temperament of the natives.  Perhaps it is due to the wine grown on these scorching slopes.  If geologists are right, we are sitting at this moment on the crater of a volcano—­”

“Dear me!  That might be rather awkward.  I suppose this pumice is very light?”

“Light as foam.  But who can believe it?  The bearers move within a few feet of us, and yet it resembles the most ponderous limestone or granite.  Then you ask yourself:  How is it possible?  If their burden were what it seems to be, they would be crushed to earth instead of striding proudly along.  Admirable figures!  As you say, the spectacle takes one back into mythological times.  Would you not call it a procession of Titans, children of the Gods, storing up mountain-blocks for some earth-convulsing battle?  Your eyes deceive you.  Like Thomas, the doubting apostle, you must touch with your hands.  And even then you are not wholly convinced.  To me, who knows the capacity of human bone and muscle, these men are a daily miracle.  They mock my notions of what is permissible.  How hard it is, sometimes, to trust the evidence of one’s senses!  How reluctantly the mind consents to reality!  The industry is decaying,” he added, “but I hope it will outlive my time.”

“Everything seems to decay up here in sober and gracious fashion.  I am delighted, Count, with your Old Town.  There is an autumnal flavour about the place.  It is a poet’s dream.  Some philosopher might dwell here—­some sage who has grown weary of disentangling life’s threads.”

Rarely did Mr. Heard use florid and sentimental language like this.  The soft light, the reposeful surroundings, the homelike influence of the Villa Mon Repos—­all had conspired to put him into an uncommonly idyllic mood of mind.  He felt disposed to linger with the kindly stranger who seemed so much more communicative and affable than on the occasion of those theatricals.  He lit a cigarette and watched, for a while, the flow of life through that gateway.  Its passage was pierced, like the eye of a needle, with a slender shaft of light from the westering sun.  Fine particles of dust, suspended overhead, enveloped the homeward moving peasantry in a tender mist of gold.

“Yes,” replied the Count.  “This citadel is a microcosm of what the world might be, if men were reasonable.  Not all men!  A great proportion must be good enough to remain what they are.  We could not live without those whose business it is to bring the reasonableness of the few into its proper relief.  Were it otherwise, there would be no more reasonableness on earth, would there?”