sitely fragrant. On the mountain-tops ever so slight a mist still
clinging, moment by moment fading against the blue.

"Yes, I shall be able to work here," said Elgar within himself.
"December, January, February; I can be ready with something for the
spring."

CHAPTER VII

THE MARTYR

Clifford Marsh left Pompeii on the same day as his two chance
acquaintances; he returned to his quarters on the Mergellina, much
perturbed in mind, beset with many doubts, with divers temptations.
"Shall I the spigot wield?" Must the ambitions of his glowing youth
come to naught, and he descend to rank among the Philistines? For, to
give him credit for a certain amount of good sense, he never gravely
contemplated facing the world in the sole strength of his genius. He
knew one or two who had done so before his mind's eye was a certain
little garret in Chelsea, where an acquaintance of his, a man of real
and various powers, was year after year taxing his brain and heart in a
bitter struggle with penury; and these glimpses of Bohemia were far
from inspiring Clifford with zeal for naturalization. Elated with wine
and companionship, he liked to pose as one who was sacrificing
"prospects" to artistic conscientiousness; but, even though he had
"fallen back" on landscape, he was very widely awake to the fact that
his impressionist studies would not supply him with bread, to say
nothing of butter--and Clifford must needs have both.

That step-father of his was a well-to-do manufacturer of shoddy in
Leeds, one Hibbert, a good-natured man on the whole, but of limited
horizon. He had married a widow above his own social standing, and for
a long time was content to supply her idolized son with the means of
pursuing artistic studies in London and abroad. But Mr. Hibbert had a
strong opinion that this money should by now have begun to make some
show of productiveness. Domestic grounds of dissatisfaction ripened his
resolve to be firm with young Mr. Marsh. Mrs. Hibbert was extravagant;
doubtless her son was playing the fool in the same direction. After
all, one could pay too much for the privilege of being snubbed by one's
superior wife and step-son. If Clifford were willing to "buckle to" at
sober business (it was now too late for him to learn a profession),
well and good; he should have an opening at which many a young fellow
would jump. Otherwise, let the fastidious gentleman pay his own
tailor's bills.

Clifford's difficulties were co