“I can,” she tempted. He stared at her.
“Let’s,” she begged softly.
He appeared to be reflecting. In reality his mind was standing still. The driver was in his box looking at them with an ineffable sentimental smile. The rich honeymooners would decide. He would wait. A month’s salary in a bad season was his already.
“Get in, Richard,” she moved her skirts to make room on the diminutive seat. “Be a good boy and come along. I have money enough. We’ll take the next steamer. They sail every Wednesday, don’t they?”
He got in and the equipage swung off. On the way down the hill they debated and forgot the view.
Pompeii was so many miles off there, he made it clear. The present vehicle would get there some time, if the horse and the wagon and the driver held together, but not in time for the sailing of steamers. He would not listen to her suggestion to hang the sailings of steamers and be a good sporting Sir Richard and stay over for the next boat, but drove doggedly on to convince her that in the few hours that were left, their only resource was a drive through the streets of Naples, an hour or two at the Museo Borbonico, and an early dinner at some hotel within hail of the ship.
Upon the subject of the Museo he grew suddenly eloquent. It contained one of the most significant collections of Roman remains in the world. The best of Pompeii and Herculaneum was in reality in Naples in the Museo. He seemed to know all about it, indeed, as if he were himself a collector.
“Help! Help!” she called softly, and held his arm. She had interrupted a list of the things that made the Museo unique as an omnium gatherum of Roman curios. “You talk like a personally conducted tour. We’ll go to that Museo right off. Tell the curio up front to drive there when we get to the town. But, really, my dear Richard, your interest in things stirs me. It is the first flash of life you have displayed; and you saved that up for a museum! I’d be afraid to see you get really worked up over an Egyptian mummy or something really dead-for-keeps. We’ll just have to stay over and let you loose in that dear old Museo of yours.”
He remained silent for a jolting minute or two.
“One of my reasons for coming to Naples,” he said quite simply, “was to see the Museo Borbonico.”