Smithson.
'I was beginning to hope you would take me there some day,' said Lesbia.
'Never again, no, not even for your sake. No man should ever leave
Europe after he is five-and-thirty; indeed, I doubt if after that age he
should venture beyond the Mediterranean. That is the sea of
civilisation. Anything outside it means barbarism.'
'I hope we are going to travel by-and-by,' said Lesbia; 'I have been
mewed up in Grasmere half my life, and if you are going to confine me to
the shores of the Mediterranean, which is, after all, only a larger
lake, for the other half of my life, my existence will be a dull piece
of work after all. I agree with what Don Gomez said the other night:
"Not to travel is not to live."'
They went on deck presently and sat in the summer darkness, lighted only
by the stars, and by the lights of the yachts, and the faintly gleaming
windows of the lighted town, sat long and late, in a state of ineffable
repose. Lady Kirkbank. fortified by the produce of Mr. Smithson's
particular _clos_, and by a couple of glasses of green Chartreuse, slept
profoundly.
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