“You please me very much. I had no idea you were like this before. We live in a world of mystery.”
Harold smiled complacently at the praise, and being sure that he could not say anything sensible, held his tongue. Mildred at once began to turn his newly-found powers to the appreciation of Girgenti.
“Think,” she said, “of the famous men who visited her in her prime. Pindar, Aeschylus, Plato—and as for Empedocles, of course he was born there.”
“Oh!”
“The disciple, you know, of Pythagoras, who believed in the transmigration of souls.”
“Oh!”
“It’s a beautiful idea, isn’t it, that the soul should have several lives.”
“But, Mildred darling,” said the gentle voice of Lady Peaslake, “we know that it is not so.”
“Oh, I didn’t mean that, mamma. I only said it was a beautiful idea.”
“But not a true one, darling.”
“No.”
Their voices had sunk into that respectful monotone which is always considered suitable when the soul is under discussion. They all looked awkward and ill at ease. Sir Edwin played tunes on his waistcoat buttons, and Harold blew into the bowl of his pipe. Mildred, a little confused at her temerity, passed on to the terrible sack of Acragas by the Romans. Whereat their faces relaxed, and they regained their accustomed spirits.
“But what are dates?” said Mildred. “What are facts, or even names of persons? They carry one a very little way. In a place like this one must simply feel.”
“Rather,” said Harold, trying to fix his attention.
“You must throw yourself into a past age if you want to appreciate it thoroughly. Today you must imagine you are a Greek.”
“Really, Mildred,” said Sir Edwin, “you’re almost too fanciful.”
“No, father, I’m not. Harold understands. He must forget all these modern horrors of railways and Cook’s tours, and think that he’s living over two thousand years ago, among palaces and temples. He must think and feel and act like a Greek. It’s the only way. He must—well, he must be a Greek.”
“The sea! the sea!” interrupted Harold. “How absolutely ripping! I swear I’ll put in a bathe!”
“Oh, you incorrigible boy!” said Mildred, joining in the laugh at the failure of her own scheme. “Show me the sea, then.”
They were still far away from it, for they had hardly crossed the watershed of the island. It was the country of the mines, barren and immense, absolutely destitute of grass or trees, producing nothing but cakes of sallow sulphur, which were stacked on the platform of every wayside station. Human beings were scanty, and they were stunted and dry, mere withered vestiges of men. And far below at the bottom of the yellow waste was the moving living sea, which embraced Sicily when she was green and delicate and young, and embraces her now, when she is brown and withered and dying.
“I see something more interesting than the sea,” said Mildred. “I see Girgenti.”
She pointed to a little ridge of brown hill far beneath them, on the summit of which a few grey buildings were huddled together.
“Oh, what a dreadful place!” cried poor Lady Peaslake. “How uncomfortable we are going to be.”
“Oh dearest mother, it’s only for one night. What are a few drawbacks, when we are going to see temples! Temples, Greek temples! Doesn’t the word make you thrill?”
“Well, no dear, it doesn’t. I should have thought the Pesto ones would have been enough. These can’t be very different.”
“I consider you are a recreant party,” said Mildred in a sprightly voice. “First it’s Harold, now it’s you. I’m the only worthy one among you. Today I mean to be a Greek. What hotel do we go to?”
Lady Peaslake produced her notebook and said “Grand Hôtel des Temples. Recommended by Mr. Dimbleby. Ask for a back room, as those have the view.”
But at the Girgenti railway station, the man from the Temples told them that his hotel was full, and Mildred, catching sight of the modest omnibus of the “Albergo Empedocle,” suggested that they should go there, because it sounded so typical.
“You remember what the doctrine of Empedocles was, Harold?”
The wretched Harold had forgotten.
Sir Edwin was meanwhile being gently urged into the omnibus by the man from the “Empedocle.”
“We know nothing about it, absolutely nothing. Are you—have you clean beds?”
The man from the “Empedocle” raised his eyes and hands to Heaven, so ecstatic was his remembrance of the purity of the blankets, the spotlessness of the sheets. At last words came, and he said, “The beds of the Empedocle! They are celestial. One spends one night there, and one remembers it forever!”
II
Sir Edwin and Lady Peaslake were sitting in the temple of Juno Lacinia and leaning back on a Doric column—which is a form of architecture neither comfortable as a cushion nor adequate as a parasol. They were as cross as it was possible for good-tempered people to be. Their lunch at the dirty hotel had disagreed with them, and the wine that was included with it had made them heavy. The drive to the temples had joggled them up and one of the horses had fallen down. They had been worried to buy flowers, figs, shells, sulphur crystals, and new-laid antiquities, they had been pestered by the beggars and bitten by the fleas. Had they been Sicilian born they would have known what was the matter, and lying down on the grass, on the flowers, on the road, on the temple steps—on anything, would have sunk at once into that marvellous midday sleep which is fed by light and warmth and air. But being northern born they did not know—nor could they have slept if they had.
“Where on earth are Harold and Mildred?” asked Lady Peaslake. She did not want to know, but she was restless with fatigue.
“I can’t think why we couldn’t all keep together,” said Sir Edwin.
“You see, papa,” said Lilian, “Mildred wants to
