There was also a
drop-scene, representing a pink and purple landscape,
wherein sported many a lady lightly clad, and two more
ladies lay along the top of the proscenium to steady a large
and pallid clock. So rich and so appalling was the effect,
that Philip could scarcely suppress a cry. There is
something majestic in the bad taste of Italy; it is not the
bad taste of a country which knows no better; it has not the
nervous vulgarity of England, or the blinded vulgarity of
Germany. It observes beauty, and chooses to pass it by.
But it attains to beauty's confidence. This tiny theatre of
Monteriano spraddled and swaggered with the best of them,
and these ladies with their clock would have nodded to the
young men on the ceiling of the Sistine.
Philip had tried for a box, but all the best were taken:
it was rather a grand performance, and he had to be content
with stalls. Harriet was fretful and insular. Miss Abbott
was pleasant, and insisted on praising everything: her only
regret was that she had no pretty clothes with her.
"We do all right," said Philip, amused at her unwonted vanity.
"Yes, I know; but pretty things pack as easily as ugly
ones. We had no need to come to Italy like guys."
This time he did not reply, "But we're here to rescue a
baby." For he saw a charming picture, as charming a picture
as he had seen for years--the hot red theatre; outside the
theatre, towers and dark gates and mediaeval walls; beyond
the walls olive-trees in the starlight and white winding
roads and fireflies and untroubled dust; and here in the
middle of it all, Miss Abbott, wishing she had not come
looking like a guy.
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