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We were on our way to the Catacombs, momma, the Senator, and Mrs. Portheris in one carriage, R. Dod, Mr. Mafferton, Isabel, and I in the other. I approved of the arrangement, because the mutually distant understanding that existed between Mr. Mafferton and me had already been the subject of remark by my parents.
Portheris had prevented our noticing it before, but in the Hotel Mascigni, Via del Tritone, we seemed to have arrived at a point of arid solitude, which gave poppa a new and convincing sense of all he was going through in pursuit of Continental culture.
Isabel and I huddled together for comfort on the very hard wooden seat that ran round the deck, and the depth of our misery may be gathered from the fact that, when the wind caught Isabel's floral hat under the brim and cast it suddenly into that body of water, neither of us looked round! Mrs. Portheris was very much annoyed at our unhappy indifference.
Jarvis Portheris, gratefully satiate, assured us must be conducted on strict lines of etiquette, with formal preliminaries. He was so very young, and obviously knew so little about what he was doing, that we questioned him with some delicacy, but we discovered that the practice had no parallel, as Dicky put it, for lack of incident.
"Had you a pleasant journey up from Naples?" "It was rather dusty." I saw that something quite awful was going on and conversed volubly with Mrs. Portheris and Mr. Mafferton to give Dicky a chance, but in a moment I, too, felt a refrigerating influence proceeding from the floral hat and the bun for which I could not account. "Where have you been?" inquired Dicky, "if I may ask." "At Vallombrosa."
Then we stumbled on. Presently Mrs. Portheris yawned widely twice, thrice, and again. "I beg your pardon," said she, "I don't seem able to help it." "It's the example of these gaping sepulchres," Dicky replied. "Don't apologize." The passages grew narrower and more complex, the tombs more irregular.
I was extremely sorry. Mrs. Portheris was so triumphant, and poppa allowed his irritation to get so much the better of him. "Oh," he said, "you've got an understanding! Well, you've been too intelligent, darned if you haven't!" The Senator pulled his beard in his most uncompromising manner. "Now you can understand something more. I'm not going to have it.
He drove us all finally to see the tomb of Juliet in the Vicolo Franceschini, and it was before that uninspiring stone trough full of visiting cards, behind a bowling green of suburban patronage, that I heard him, on general grounds of expediency, make contrite advances to Mrs. Portheris. "I think I ought to tell you," he said, "that my views have undergone a change since I saw you." Mrs.
Portheris sat down on the lower end of it. "I really do not feel able to go any further," she said; "the ascent is so perpendicular." I was going to protest that the place was as level as a street, but Dicky forestalled me. "Eucalyptus," he said soothingly, "often has that effect." "We are lost," continued Mrs. Portheris lugubriously, "in the Catacombs. We may as well make up our minds to it.
"You'll excuse me, Aunt Caroline," remarked the Senator, "but your complexion isn't by any means right yet. It's a warm day and a long drive. Just as likely as not you'll be down sick after it." "Stuff!" said Mrs. Portheris. "I thank my stars I have got no enfeebled American constitution. I am perfectly equal to it, thank you." "It's most unwise," observed Mr. Mafferton.
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