The Emancipated | Page 9

I consented to Cecily's--to Miss Doran's passing from Mrs.
Elgar's care to that of Mrs. Lessingham, was I doing right?"
"Mallard, you are a curious instance of the Puritan conscience
surviving in a man whose intellect is liberated. The note of your
character, including your artistic character, is this conscientiousness.
Without it, you would have had worldly success long ago. Without it,
you wouldn't talk nonsense of Cecily Doran. Had you rather she were
co. operating with Mrs. Baske in a scheme to rebuild all the chapels in
Lancashire?"
"There is a medium."
"Why, yes. A neither this nor that, an insipid refinement, a taste for
culture moderated by reverence for Mrs. Grundy."
"Perhaps you are right. It's only occasionally that I am troubled in this
way. But I heartily wish the three years remaining were over."
"And the 'definite good-bye' spoken. A good phrase, that of yours.
What possessed you to come here just now, if it disturbs you to be kept
in mind of these responsibilities?"
"I should find it hard to tell you. The very sense of responsibility, I
suppose. But, as I said, I am not going to stay in Naples."
"You'll come and give us a 'definite good-bye' before you leave?"
Mallard said nothing, but turned and began to move on. They passed
one of the sentry-boxes which here along the ridge mark the limits of
Neapolitan excise; a boy-soldier, musket in hand, cast curious glances
at them. After walking in silence for a few minutes, they began to
descend the eastern face of the hill, and before them lay that portion of
the great gulf which pictures have made so familiar. The landscape was
still visible in all its main details, still softly suffused with warm
colours from the west. About the cone of Vesuvius a darkly purple
cloud was gathering; the twin height of Somma stood clear and of a
rich brown. Naples, the many-coloured, was seen in profile, climbing
from the Castel dell' Ovo, around which the sea slept, to the rock of

Sant' Elmo; along the curve of the Chiaia lights had begun to glimmer.
Far withdrawn, the craggy promontory of Sorrento darkened to
profoundest blue; and Capri veiled itself in mist.

CHAPTER II
CECILY DORAN

Villa Sannazaro had no architectural beauty; it was a building of
considerable size, irregular, in need of external repair. Through the
middle of it ran a great archway, guarded by copies of the two
Molossian hounds which stand before the Hall of Animals in the
Vatican; beneath the arch, on the right-hand side, was the main
entrance to the house. If you passed straight through, you came out
upon a terrace, where grew a magnificent stone-pine and some robust
agaves. The view hence was uninterrupted, embracing the line of the
bay from Posillipo to Cape Minerva. From the parapet bordering the
platform you looked over a descent of twenty feet, into a downward
sloping vineyard. Formerly the residence of an old Neapolitan family,
the villa had gone the way of many such ancestral abodes, and was now
let out among several tenants.
The Spences were established here for the winter. On the occasion of
his marriage, three years ago, Edward Spence relinquished his
connection with a shipping firm, which he represented in Manchester,
and went to live in London; a year and a half later he took his wife to
Italy, where they had since remained. He was not wealthy, but had
means sufficient to his demands and prospects. Thinking for himself in
most matters, he chose to abandon money-making at the juncture when
most men deem it incumbent upon them to press their efforts in that
direction; business was repugnant to him, and he saw no reason why he
should sacrifice his own existence to put a possible family in more than
easy circumstances, He had the inclinations of a student, but was
untroubled by any desire to distinguish himself, freedom from the
demands of the office meant to him the possibility of living where he
chose, and devoting to his books the best part of the day instead of its

fragmentary leisure. His choice in marriage was most happy. Eleanor
Spence had passed her maiden life in Manchester, but with parents of
healthy mind and of more literature than generally falls to the lot of a
commercial family. Pursuing a natural development, she allied herself
with her husband's freedom of intellect, and found her nature's
opportunities in the life which was to him most suitable. By a rare
chance, she was the broader-minded of the two, the more truly
impartial. Her emancipation from dogma had been so gradual, so
unconfused by external pressure, that from her present standpoint she
could look back with calmness and justice on all the stages she had left