“Say, rather, you troubled your head little whether they were or not,” replied Glencore, whose voice was now thick from passion and drink together. “You and Upton, and two or three others, presume to lecture me—who, because gifted, if you call it gifted—I'd say cursed—ay, sir, cursed with coarser natures—temperaments where higher sentiments have no place—fellows that can make what they feel subordinate to what they want—you appreciate that, I hope—that stings you, does it? Well, sir, you'll find me as ready to act as to speak. There's not a word I utter here I mean to retract to-morrow.”
“My dear Glencore, we have both taken too much wine.”
“Speak for yourself, sir. If you desire to make the claret the excuse for your language, I can only say it's like everything else in your conduct,—always a subterfuge, always a scapegoat. Oh, George, George, I never suspected this in you;” and burying his head between his hands, he burst into tears.
He never spoke a word as Harcourt assisted him to the carriage, nor did he open his lips on the road homewards.
CHAPTER XXXVII. THE VILLA AT SORRENTO
In one of the most sequestered nooks of Sorrento, almost escarped out of the rocky cliff, and half hid in the foliage of orange and oleander trees, stood the little villa of the Princess Sabloukoff. The blue sea washed the white marble terrace before the windows, and the arbutus, whose odor scented the drawing-room, dipped its red berries in the glassy water. The wildest and richest vegetation abounded on every side. Plants and shrubs of tropical climes mingled with the hardier races of Northern lands; and the cedar and the plantain blended their leaves with the sycamore and the ilex; while, as if to complete the admixture, birds and beasts of remote countries were gathered together; and the bustard, the ape, and the antelope mixed with the peacock, the chamois, and the golden pheasant. The whole represented one of those capricious exhibitions by which wealth so often associates itself with the beautiful, and, despite all errors in taste, succeeds in making a spot eminently lovely. So was it. There was often light where a painter would have wished shadow. There were gorgeous flowers where a poet would have desired nothing beyond the blue heather-bell. There were startling effects of view, managed where chance glimpses through the trees had been infinitely more picturesque. There was, in fact, the obtrusive sense of riches in a thousand ways and places where mere unadorned nature had been far preferable; and yet, with all these faults, sea and sky, rock and foliage, the scented air, the silence, only broken by the tuneful birds, the rich profusion of color upon a sward strewn with flowers, made of the spot a perfect paradise.
In a richly decorated room, whose three windows opened on a marble terrace, sat the Princess. It was December; but the sky was cloudless, the sea a perfect mirror, and the light air that stirred the leaves soft and balmy as the breath of May. Her dress was in keeping with the splendor around her: a rich robe of yellow silk fastened up the front with large carbuncle buttons; sleeves of deep Valenciennes lace fell far over her jewelled fingers; and a scarf of golden embroidery, negligently thrown over an arm of her chair, gave what a painter would call the warm color to a very striking picture. Farther from the window, and carefully protected from the air by a screen, sat a gentleman whose fur-lined pelisse and velvet skull-cap showed that he placed more faith in the almanac than in the atmosphere. From his cork-soled boots to his shawl muffled about the throat, all proclaimed that distrust of the weather that characterizes the invalid. No treachery of a hot sun, no seductions of that inveterate cheat, a fine day in winter, could inveigle Sir Horace Upton into any forgetfulness of his precautions. He would have regarded such as a palpable weakness on his part,—a piece of folly perfectly unbecoming in a man of his diplomatic standing and ability.
He was writing, and smoking, and talking by turns, the table before him being littered with papers, and even the carpet at his feet strewn with the loose sheets of his composition. There was not in his air any of the concentration, or even seriousness, of a man engaged in an important labor; and yet the work before him employed all his faculties, and he gave to it the deepest attention of abilities of which very few possessed the equal. To great powers of reasoning and a very strong judgment he united a most acute knowledge of men; not exactly of mankind in the mass, but of that especial order with whom he had habitually to deal. Stolid, commonplace stupidity might puzzle or embarrass him; while for any amount of craft, for any degree of subtlety, he was an over-match. The plain matter-of-fact intelligence occasionally gained a slight advantage over him at first; the trained and polished mind of the most astute negotiator was a book he could read at sight. It was his especial tact to catch up all this knowledge at once,—very often in a first interview,—and thus, while others were interchanging the customary platitudes of every-day courtesy, he was gleaning and recording within himself the traits and characteristics of all around him.
“A clever fellow, very clever fellow, Cineselli,” said he, as he continued to write. “His proposition is—certain commercial advantages, and that we, on our side, leave him alone to deal his own way with his own rabble. I see nothing against it, so long as they continue to be rabble; but grubs grow into butterflies, and very vulgar populace have now and then emerged into what are called liberal politicians.”