Those Barren Leaves

rom the heights of the Pincio Mr. Falx denounced the city that lay spread out below him.

“Marvellous, isn’t it?” Mrs. Aldwinkle had said. Rome was one of her private properties.

“But every stone of it,” said Mr. Falx, “raised by slave labour. Every stone! Millions of wretches have sweated and toiled and died”—Mr. Falx’s voice rose, his language became richer and richer, he gesticulated as though he were addressing a public meeting—”in order that these palaces, these stately churches, these forums, amphitheatres, cloaca maximas and what-nots might be here to-day to gratify your idle eyes. Is it worth it, I ask you? Is the momentary gratification of a few idlers a sufficient reason for the secular oppression of millions of human beings, their brothers, their equals in the eyes of God? Is it, I ask again? No, a thousand times no.” With his right fist Mr. Falx thumped the open palm of his left hand. “No!”

“But you forget,” said Mr. Cardan, “there’s such a thing as a natural hierarchy.” The words seemed to remind him of something. He looked round. At one of the little tea-tables grouped round the band-stand at the other side of the road, Miss Elver, dressed in her sack of flowered upholstery, was eating chocolate éclairs and meringues, messily, with an expression of rapture on her cream-smeared face. Mr. Cardan turned back and continued: “There are a few choice Britons who never never will be slaves, and a great many who not only will be slaves, but would be utterly lost if they were made free. Isn’t it so?”

“Specious,” said Mr. Falx severely. “But does the argument justify you in grinding the life out of a million human beings for the sake of a few works of art? How many thousand workmen and their wives and children lived degraded lives in order that St. Peter’s might be what it is?”

“Well, as a matter of fact, St. Peter’s isn’t much of a work of art,” said Mrs. Aldwinkle scornfully, feeling that she had scored a decided point in the argument.