natures--temperaments where higher sentiments
have no place--fellows that can make what they feel subordinate to what
they want--you appreciate _that_, I hope--_that_ stings you, does it?
Well, sir, you'll find me as ready to act as to speak. There's not a
word I utter here I mean to retract to-morrow."

"My dear Glencore, we have both taken too much wine."

"Speak for yourself, sir. If you desire to make the claret the excuse
for your language, I can only say it's like everything else in your
conduct,--always a subterfuge, always a scapegoat. Oh, George, George, I
never suspected this in you;" and burying his head between his hands, he
burst into tears.

He never spoke a word as Harcourt assisted him to the carriage, nor did
he open his lips on the road homewards.

CHAPTER XXXVII. THE VILLA AT SORRENTO

In one of the most sequestered nooks of Sorrento, almost escarped out
of the rocky cliff, and half hid in the foliage of orange and oleander
trees, stood the little villa of the Princess Sabloukoff. The blue sea
washed the white marble terrace before the windows, and the arbutus,
whose odor scented the drawing-room, dipped its red berries in the
glassy water. The wildest and richest vegetation abounded on every side.
Plants and shrubs of tropical climes mingled with the hardier races of
Northern lands; and the cedar and the plantain blended their leaves with
the sycamore and the ilex; while, as if to complete the admixture, birds
and beasts of remote countries were gathered together; and the bustard,
the ape, and the antelope mixed with the peacock, the chamois, and
the golden pheasant. The whole represented one of those capricious
exhibitions by which wealth so often associates itself with the
beautiful, and, despite all errors in taste, succeeds in making a spot
eminently lovely. So was it. There was often light where a painter would
have wished shadow. There were gorgeous flowers where a poet would
have desired nothing beyond the blue heather-bell. There were startling
effects of view, managed where chance glimpses through the trees had
been infinitely more picturesque. There was, in fact, the obtrusive
sense of riches in a thousand ways and places where mere unadorned
nature had been far preferable; and yet, with all these faults, sea and
sky, rock and foliage, the scented air, the silence, only broken by
the tuneful birds, the rich profusion of color upon a sward strewn with
flowers, made of the spot a per