"And then we shall all be little bits of lava, shan't we?" Cicely asked, her blue eyes wide and innocent, her lips parted in an engaging smile.
"You are sadly flippant, Cicely. I had hoped that walking through the vale of misery, your flippancy would have fallen from you. But I fear you are determined to turn this vale of tears, this troublesome world, as you so justly call it, into a mere playground."
"A very delightful vale—sometimes," Rupert said, in his slow, charming voice; "the troublesome world can be beautiful, as well as troublesome, you will allow, especially if you live in the country."
"Beautiful?" Sir Arthur glared at the speaker. "But all to be burnt some day—all to be burnt. When I am asked to admire the mountains near my home—the woods, the river—I say the same thing always; I say, 'It is all being prepared for the burning.'"
"Perhaps we may enjoy its beauties during the time of preparation," Rupert said smiling; "until—the conflagration, the beauty is ours."
"I did not call to-day to engage in flippant small talk," Sir Arthur answered sternly. "Like Babylon of old, London is rushing on its doom, and I have no doubt that the fashionable throng which numbers you amongst its members, has long ago resigned every serious thought and effort. Conversation is as loose as manners and morals, and——"
"My manners and morals are not conspicuously loose, Cousin Arthur," Cicely said demurely; "but I don't belong to the smart set, and I don't even want to belong to it, and I expect that is what you meant by the fashionable throng. We live very quietly, Baba and I."
"Quietly? In all this luxury, this pomp?" Sir Arthur glanced round the exquisite room with a shudder. "One of my designs in coming here to-day, was to ask whether you would ever care to come and pay us a visit at Burnbrooke, but we could offer you no such luxury as this. If, however, you would care to come, we have peace there."
"It is very kind of you, and of Cousin Ellen to have thought of it," Cicely faltered with a recollection of a depressing fortnight spent in Sir Arthur's home, during her husband's lifetime; "perhaps in the spring or summer you would let us come and see you."
"We have been away so frequently during the last three years that we have seen few people. My poor wife being a martyr to rheumatism, has had to visit foreign watering places; we have, as you know, been little at home, and we have invited few guests to Burnbrooke. If you will come, we shall be happy to see you; or if at any time you would care to send Veronica with her nurse, to breathe some other air than the pernicious air of this dark town, pray send them."