They
never saw a stone pine or a eucalyptus but they named and admired it;
they never glimpsed Soracte but they exclaimed. Their common ways
were made wonderful by imaginative play. "Here Caesar may have
walked," they would say. "Raphael may have seen Soracte from this
very point." They happened on the tomb of Bibulus. "Old Bibulus,"
said the young man. "The oldest monument of Republican Rome!"
said Miss Winchelsea.
"I'm dreadfully stupid," said Fanny, "but who WAS Bibulus?"
There was a curious little pause.
"Wasn't he the person who built the wall?" said Helen.
The young man glanced quickly at her and laughed. "That was Balbus,"
he said. Helen reddened, but neither he nor Miss Winchelsea threw
any light upon Fanny's ignorance about Bibulus.
Helen was more taciturn than the other three, but then she was
always taciturn, and usually she took care of the tram tickets
and things like that, or kept her eye on them if the young man took
them, and told him where they were when he wanted them. Glorious times
they had, these young people, in that pale brown cleanly city of
memories that was once the world. Their only sorrow was the shortness
of the time.
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