The Rising Storm

your home during your stay in Naples.'

The very last thing that Roger wanted was to tie himself up as a K/RS guest in a private house; so as he stammered his thanks he sought desperately for some way to excuse himself, and went on to murmur that, while he would be most happy to dine one evening, he could not dream of imposing further on Sir William's kindness.

Catching the note of perturbation in his voice the diplomat replied with a twinkle in his eye: 'Please have no fear that I will seek to keep you from your other friends, Mr. Brook. Besides, at your age you will naturally wish to see something of the gaieties of the town. I have long nicknamed my home 'The Royal Arms', as I encourage my guests to treat it as an hotel. There is a night porter on the gate who will let you in at any hour you wish, and I will only add that when you have no other engagements we shall be delighted to have you with us.'

To such true hospitality there could be only one answer. Having thanked Sir William again Roger returned to Crocielles, settled his bill and had his valise sent along to the Palazzo Sessa.

At Crocielles he found a note awaiting him from the Princess Francavilla. It requested his company at her town house at one o'clock, to join a party for a drive out to her villa at PosiKpo, where they would spend the afternoon. As it was still only a little after twelve he had ample leeway to get there at the time for which he was asked, so decided to walk and see something more of the city.

Naples, he found, could not approach Florence for the grandeur of its buildings; neither had it the cleanliness that the reforming Grand Duke had imposed upon the Tuscan capital. Its beauty lay in its marvellous setting, and a distant view was needed to savour its full enchantment. The streets were narrow, their smells noisome and the swarms of people in them, for the most part, indescribably ill-clad and dirty. Yet they seemed far from unhappy, and the beneficent climate they enjoyed for so many months of the year was clearly a great offset to their poverty.

They were going about their work as though it did not matter in the least if it got done that day or next week, and half of them were gossiping idly or playing games of chance in the gutters. The rags they wore were the only visible sign of hardship, for their bronzed faces were healthy, their black hair lustrous and curly and their dark eyes sparkling with vitality. In the better part of the town there were many black-coated abbe's, brown-robed friars, and nuns wearing various types of headdress. Every street had its quota of mendicants, who often displayed repulsive deformities while calling on the passers-by for alms; and Roger noted with interest that, poor as the crowd appeared, they gave freely of little copper coins.

At the Francavilla mansion, on the Chiaia, he was shown up to a salon on the first floor, where he found both the Princess and Isabella awaiting him. Dorina Francavilla was a Spaniard, her grandfather having been one of Don Carlos' captains at the time of the conquest of Naples; but she had fair hair and grey eyes. She spoke French fluently and told Roger that having heard so much about him she was enchanted to meet him. As Isabella's confidante her pleasure was unbounded at this unforeseen resumption of her friend's broken romance. She said that he was lucky indeed to love such a pearl among women, as all her efforts to persuade Isabella to console herself for his loss by taking a lover had proved in vain; so that after five months in Naples she was near acquiring the horrid reputation of a prude; and that now they were together again she meant to see to it that they made up for lost time, by not losing an hour of one another's company.

Roger thanked her with a grace that came naturally to him, and she gaily declared that she liked him so well that if Isabella did not look to her laurels she would snatch him for herself. Soon afterwards her husband came in, a portly middle-aged man of jovial countenance, who gave Roger an equally pleasant welcome. While they were taking a glass of wine the other guests arrived: two cavaliers, a handsome young abb6, and three ladies. When they were all assembled they went down­stairs to a line of waiting carriages, and were driven for three miles west, along the waterfront, to Posilipo.

The Francavillas' country-house was situated on the point looking due south across twenty miles of water to the isthmus of Sorrento. Below the great cone of Vesuvius it looked as if Naples stretched as far as the eye could see, but actually the distant clusters of buildings fringing the shore were those of towns and villages linked by country villas in an almost continuous chain. In the gardens of the villa there were palm-trees, cypresses, magnolias, camellias and oleanders, making shady walks, each terminating in arbours, stone seats, or fine pieces of ancient statuary.

It was, as Roger soon found after an excellent repast, a paradise for lovers. Without the least suggestion of indecorum the five couples paired off and strolled at their leisure through the green alleyways, to settle themselves for the rest of the afternoon in some of the many re­treats where there was no likelihood whatever of their being disturbed.

At five o'clock they reassembled on the terrace, and shortly after­wards drove back to Naples. Before they separated the Marchesa di Santa Marco asked Roger to join a party for a visit to her villa at Resina the following afternoon, and at a flutter of the eyelid from Isabella he readily accepted.

Soon after six he was back at the Palazzo Sessa. There, a middle-aged lady with a quiet, self-effacing manner introduced herself to him as Mrs. Cadogan, Sir William's housekeeper. She showed him up to his room, summoned a footman to act as his valet and told him that Sir William had a small company coming that evening for whom supper would be served at nine. As Roger was now having difficulty in suppressing his yawns, he asked that the footman should call him at eight-thirty; then, after one of the happiest twenty hours he had spent in his life, he enjoyed two hours' refreshing sleep.

At a little before nine he presented himself in his host's fine range of reception-rooms, where he was introduced to some three dozen guests, among them the beautiful Emma. His first impression was that she was a little overwhelming, as the robust health she enjoyed mani­fested itself in her almost unnaturally brilliant colouring and extra­ordinary vivacity, added to which her magnificently proportioned figure was so large that Sir William, although a man of medium height, looked quite small beside her. But Roger quickly fell under her spell, and later he realized that it was her genuine interest in everyone she met and her inexhaustible kindness, far more than her decorative effect, which made her so universally popular.

Mainly for the benefit of Roger as a newcomer to Naples, after they had partaken of a buffet supper, Emma was persuaded to give an exhibition of her 'attitudes'; and for this unusual entertainment the whole company adjourned to one of the smaller salons at one end of which there was a little curtained stage. Emma went behind the scenes while Sir William busied himself arranging the lighting effects; after which the curtains were withdrawn every few moments to display the ex-artist's model posing to represent various Emotions or Mythological characters. Had Roger been forced to sit through a similar performance by a hostess less well-endowed with charms, he might have found it distinctly wearisome; but as Emma was then twenty-four, and at the height of her Junoesque beauty, he derived genuine artistic enjoyment from it.

When she had exhausted her repertoire some tables for cards were made up and such guests as did not wish to play settled themselves for a conversazione; so at half-past eleven it was easy for Roger to excuse himself on the plea of having had a long day, and by midnight he was again climbing over the wall of Isabella's villa.

He got home only a little before dawn, then slept late; but on getting up he found he had an hour to kill before he was due to wait upon the Marchesa di Santa Marco, so he set about exploring the ground floor of the Palazzo Sessa. To his surprise the whole of the south frontage and both wings consisted of one great suite of lofty chambers housing Sir William's collection of antiquities. The place was a veritable Aladdin's cave, and he determined that he must ask his host if he could spare the time to tell him about some of the treasures it contained.

The Santa Marco villa, where he spent the afternoon, was on the slope immediately below the western side of Vesuvius, and within a stone's throw of Herculaneum. Forty years earlier the systematic excavation of the buried Roman town had been begun by Don Carlos, and Roger would greatly have liked to see the remains; but his hostess, a large, lazy sloe-eyed woman in her early thirties, was evidently looking forward to spending the next couple of hours with her cavalier in the garden, as she quickly turned the conversation, and, even in this tolerant society, it would have looked too pointed had Roger and Isabella left her grounds on their own.

Nevertheless he saw Herculaneum, and also as much as had been excavated of Pompeii, later in the week under the most favourable circumstances. Sir William had willingly agreed to show him what he called 'his lumber' and they spent the following morning together admiring bronze statuettes, graceful painted vases, curious amulets, mosaics, cameos and fragments of frescoes depicting life as it had been lived under the sway of Imperial Rome. It was while they were in the room that the Brothers Adam had specially designed to contain some of Sir William's