Above it ran a frieze of white
and gold. It was interspersed with flat Corinthian columns. The
gilding of the capitals was very fresh, and glittered gaily under the
summer sunbeams.
And hardly a day of the next autumn and winter passed but I was drawn
back to the ruin by a kind of lugubrious magnetism. The strangest
thing was that the ruin seemed to remain in practically the same state
as when first I had come upon it: the fa‡ade still stood high. This
might have been due to the proverbial laziness of British workmen, but
I did not think it could be. The workmen were always plying their
pick-axes, with apparent gusto and assiduity, along the top of the
building; bricks and plaster were always crashing down into the depths
and sending up clouds of dust. I preferred to think the building
renewed itself, by some magical process, every night. I preferred to
think it was prepared thus to resist its aggressors for so long a time
that in the end there would be an intervention from other powers.
Perhaps from this site no `residential' affair was destined to scrape
the sky? Perhaps that saint to whom the club had dedicated itself
would reappear, at length, glorious equestrian, to slay the dragons
who had infested and desecrated his premises? I wondered whether he
would then restore the ruins, reinstating the club, and setting it for
ever on a sound commercial basis, or would leave them just as they
were, a fixed signal to sensibility.
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