"A thousand pardons, my dear Martin," he begged. "I meant only to be sympathetic."
CHAPTER XX
THE DEATH Of ROMANCE IS DEPLORED
"And yet," declared young Harcourt, "if there still survives, anywhere in the world, a vestige of Romance, this should be her refuge; her last stand against the encroachments of the commonplace."
He spoke animatedly, with the double eagerness of a boy and an artist, sweeping one hand outward in an argumentative gesture. It was a gesture which seemed to submit in evidence all the palpitating colors of Capri sunning herself among her rocks: all the sparkle and glitter of the Bay of Naples spreading away to the nebulous line where Ischia bulked herself in mist against the horizon: all the majesty of the cone where the fires of Vesuvius lay sleeping.
Across the table Sir Manuel Blanco shrugged his broad shoulders.
Benton lighted a cigarette, and a smile, scarcely indicative of frank amusement, flickered in his eyes.
"Do you hold that Romance is on the run?" he queried.