“Say, M. Caracal, if we stop at every picture of the Quattro Cento we shall never reach Paradise. Where is your winding staircase?”
There were halls after halls, marbles and gilding, the Salon Carré, and galleries with resplendent jewels; marble for the pavement, and then parquetry shining like a smooth lake, and pictures, and pictures again. The copyists were up on their ladders in galleries, which heap together civilizations that have disappeared, statues of gods and the mummies of kings, decayed grandeur pell-mell with fragments of columns and open tombs and women’s jewels. And there was the crouching sphinx seeming to take them to witness that all things pass like a dream.
Miss Rowrer and the duke walked together. In front were grandma and Will and Caracal. The duke sought to understand Miss Rowrer’s ideas, which seemed contradictory to him. How was he to reconcile her admiration both for republic and royalty?
“Miss Rowrer,” the duke began, “your theories are contrary to progress. Your extreme loyalty implies a government which is unchangeable.”
“Not at all!” Ethel answered. “Greatness is in the constant effort toward progress; it is the pursuit of the best. A people’s loyalty toward its king is very beautiful.”
“Eh bien, then!” the duke replied.
“I told you my way of looking at things the day we visited St. Denis,” Ethel continued. “But you forget one thing—the king’s loyalty to his people!”
They were leaving the gallery and walking ever onward. They saw a monumental staircase under a vault as high as a cathedral apse, and then there were more halls, with marbles and gilding and galleries, never ending.
“But where is your Paradise?” Miss Rowrer asked.
“It is here,” answered Caracal.