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Like looking into another world, he though; a poet's
world. Calmly it lay there, full of splendour. How well one could
understand, in such a place, the glamour, the romance, of night!
Romance. . . . What was left of life without romance? He remembered his
talk with Marten; he thought of the scientists crude notions of
romance. He pitied the materialism which denied him joys like these.
This moonlit landscape--how full of suggestion! That grotto down
below--what tales it could unfold!
The Cave of Mercury. . . .
How had Mercury, the arch-thief, come to be presiding genius here?
Denis knew; his friend Eames had explained everything to him. Mercury
had nothing whatever to do with the site. That name had been proved by
the bibliographer to be the invention of some pedantic monk who liked
to display his learning to a generation avid of antiquities, a
generation which insisted on attaching a Roman deity to every cavern.
It was a wilful fabrication, made in the infancy of archaeology when
historical criticism was non-existent.


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