first--one must really pay one's respects to this sunset.'

And she stepped out through an open door upon a balcony beyond. Then
turning, with a face of delight, she beckoned to Manisty, who followed.

'Every night more marvellous than the last'--she said, hanging over the
balustrade--'and one seems to be here in the high box of a theatre, with
the sun playing pageants for our particular benefit.'

Before them, beneath them indeed, stretched a scene, majestic,
incomparable. The old villa in which they stood was built high on the ridge
of the Alban Hills. Below it, olive-grounds and vineyards, plough-lands and
pine plantations sank, slope after slope, fold after fold, to the Campagna.
And beyond the Campagna, along the whole shining line of the west, the sea
met the sunset; while to the north, a dim and scattered whiteness rising
from the plain--was Rome.

The sunset was rushing to its height through every possible phase of
violence and splendour. From the Mediterranean, storm-clouds were rising
fast to the assault and conquest of the upper sky, which still above the
hills shone blue and tranquil. But the north-west wind and the sea were
leagued against it. They sent out threatening fingers and long spinning
veils of cloud across it--skirmishers that foretold the black and serried
lines, the torn and monstrous masses behind. Below these wild tempest
shapes, again,--in long spaces resting on the sea--the heaven was at peace,
shining in delicate greens and yellows, infinitely translucent and serene,
above the dazzling lines of water. Over Rome itself there was a strange
massing and curving of the clouds. Between their blackness and the deep
purple of the Campagna, rose the city--pale phantom--upholding one great
dome, and one only, to the view of night and the world. Round and above