"But I was--er--afraid to intrude."
"I stayed on board with Jimmy," she explained. "Did you have a good
time?"
"One cannot have a good time in the tomb of past splendours," he said
slowly. "Imperial Cesar dead and turned to clay stopping a hole to keep
the wind away is indeed a tragedy to a sensitive mind. But to see
Imperial Pompeii desecrated by ginger-beer bottles, cigarette packets
and spent matches--it was more than tragic. It was--it was--but I pause
for a word! All the time I was murmuring sadly to myself '_Sic transit
gloria mundi_.'"
"I'm quite glad I didn't go if it was so bad as that," she said.
"I had been at great, very great, trouble to trace the path of the
fugitives in Lytton's immortal work. But I have an idea that at certain
points Lytton was rather nebulous. I met your young friend and asked him
what he thought. He only laughed, however. He is fond of laughing."
Marcella's dullness disappeared; the clouds from her mind packed like
wolves and vanished. Her heart suddenly stood still.
"He was at Pompeii?" she whispered.
"Only for a little time this morning. Then he and his party went away
again in their car."
"He was with the doctor," said Marcella, hating to talk about him, but
unable not to.
"Not when I saw him. He was with those exceedingly noisy fellows--the
man who is severely pitted with small-pox and the man with the missing
fingers.
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