letter X, and without backs, gave the air of a museum to the salon. The

three women could not restrain their admiration.

"How beautiful it is! What treasures!" they cried.

"Look at the Prince," said Corancez, in a whisper to Pierre. "Do you see how disgusted he is? You have got a front seat for a comedy that I can guarantee as amusing. I am going to pay a little attention to my _fiancée_. Don't lose a word; you will find it worth attention."

"You think this is beautiful?" said the Prince to the Baroness and Miss Marsh, who stood beside him, while Corancez and Madame Bonnacorsi chatted in a corner. "Well, the ceiling is not too bad in its way. Giovanni da Udine painted it. The Fregoso of that time was jealous of the Perino del Vagas of the Doria Palace. That particular head of the house was my namesake, Cardinal Paolo, the one you know who was a pirate--before he was a cardinal. He summoned another of Raphael's pupils, the one who had aided the master at the Vatican.--Each of those gods has a history. That Bacchus is the cardinal himself, and that Apollo, whose only garment is his lute, was the cardinal's coadjutor!--Don't be shocked, Don Fortunato.--Ah, I see, he has gone off to prepare for the marriage sacrament; _mene malo_.--The Van Dycks, also, are not bad as Van Dycks.--They too have their history. Look at that beautiful woman, with her impenetrable, mysterious smile.--The one holding a scarlet carnation against her green robe.--And then look at that young man, with the same smile, his pourpoint made of the same green material, with the same carnation.--They were lovers, and had their portraits painted in the same costume. The young man was a Fregoso, the lady an Alfani, Donna Maria Alfani.--All this was going on during the absence of the husband, who was a prisoner among the Algerians. They both thought he would never return.--'Chi non muore, si revede,' the cardinal used to like to say, 'He who is not dead always returns.'--The husband came back and slew them both.--These portraits were hidden by the family. But I found them and hung them there."

The two immense pictures, preserved in all their brilliancy by a long exile from the light, smiled down upon the visitors with that enigmatical smile of which the old collector had spoken. A voluptuous, culpable grace shone out of the eyes of Donna Maria Alfani, lingered upon her crimson lips, her pale cheeks, and her dark hair. The delicate visage, so mobile, so subtle, preserved a dangerous, fascinating attraction even up there in the stiff outlines of the lofty green frieze. The passionate pride of a daring lover sparkled in the black eyes of the young man. The perfect similarity in the colors of their costumes, in the hue of the carnations they held in their hands, in the pose of the figures, and in the style of the paintings seemed to prolong their criminal liaison even after death. It seemed like a challenge to the avenger. He had killed them, but not separated them, for they were there, upon the same panel of the same wall, proclaiming aloud their undying devotion, glorified by art's magic, looking at each other, speaking to each other, loving each other.

Ely and Pierre could not resist the temptation to exchange a glance, to look at each other with the tenderness evoked by the meeting of two lovers with the relics of a passion long since passed away. In it could be read how keenly they felt the evanescent nature of their present happiness in the face of this vanished past. Ely was moved more deeply still. The cardinal-pirate's threatening adage, "Chi non muore, si revede," had made her shudder again, had thrilled her with the same terror she had felt upon the boat at the sweetest moment of that heavenly hour. But this terror and melancholy were quickly dissipated like an evil dream when Miss Marsh replied to the commentaries of the Genoese prince:--

"My uncle would pay a big price for those two portraits. You know how fond he is of returning from his visits to the Old World laden with knick-knacks of this kind! He calls them his scalps.--But Your Highness values them very highly, I suppose? They are such beautiful works of art!"

"I value them because they descend to me as heirlooms from my family," replied Fregoso. "But don't profane in that way the great name of Art," he added solemnly. "This and that," he continued, pointing to the vaulted dome and to the picture, "can be called anything you like, brilliant decoration, interesting history, curious illustrated legend, the reproduction of customs of a past age, instructive psychology.--But it is not Art.--There has never been any art except in Greece, and once in modern times, in the works of Dante Alighieri. Never forget that, Miss Marsh."

"Then you prefer these statues to the pictures?" asked Madame de Carlsberg, amused by the tone of his sally.

"These statues?" he replied. He looked around at the white figures ranged along the walls, and the grand lines of his visage took on an expression of extreme contempt. "Those who bought these things did not even know what Greek art was. They knew about as little as the ignoramuses who collected the mediocrities of the Tribune or of the Vatican."

"What?" interrupted Madame de Carlsberg. "The Venus de' Medici is at the Tribune and the Apollo and the Ariadne at the Vatican!"

"The Venus de' Medici!" cried Fregoso, angrily, "don't speak to me about the Venus de' Medici!--Look," he went on, pointing to one of the statues with his gouty fingers, "do you recognize it? That is your Venus!--It has the same slender, affected body, the same pose of the arms, the same little cupid at her feet, astride a playful dolphin, and, like the other, it is a base copy made from Praxiteles's masterpiece in the taste of the Roman epoch which brought it into existence.--Would you have in your house one of those reproductions of 'Night' which encumber the shops of the Tuscan statuary dealers?'--Copies, I tell you; they are all copies, and made in such a way!--That is the sort of art you admire in Florence, Rome, Naples.--All those emperors and Roman patricians who stocked their villas with the reproductions of Greek _chefs d'œuvre_ were barbarians, and they have left to us the shadow of a shadow, a parody of the real Greece, the true, the original, the Greece that Pausanias visited!--Why, that Venus is a pretty woman bathing, who takes flight to arouse desire! She is a coquette, she is lascivious!--What has she in common with the Anadyomene, with the Aphrodite who was the incarnation of all the world's passionate energies, and whose temple was forbidden to men, with the goddess that was also called the Apostrophia, the Preserver?--Think of asking this one to resist desire, to tear Love from the dominion of the senses!--And look at this Dromio of your Apollo.--Does it not resemble in a confusing way the Belvedere that Winckelmann admired so much?--It is another Roman copy of a statue by Scopas. But what connection is there between this academic gladiator and the terrible god of the Iliad, such as he is still figured on the pediment at Olympia?--The original was the personification of terrible, mutilating, tragical light. You feel the influence of the East and of Egypt, the irresistible power of the Sun, the torrid breath of the desert.--But here?--It is simply a handsome young man destined to lighten the time of a depraved woman in a secluded chamber, a _venereo_, such as you can find by the hundred in the houses at Pompeii.--There is not an original touch about these statues; nothing that reveals the hand of the artist, that discloses the eye guiding the hand, the soul guiding the eye, and guiding the soul, the city, the race, all those virtues that make Art a sacred, magisterial thing, that make it the divine blossom of human life!"

The old man spoke with singular exaltation of spirit. His faded visage was transfigured by a noble, intellectual passion. Suddenly the comical and familiar side of the man came uppermost again. His long lips protruded in a ludicrous pout and, threateningly shaking his knotted finger at one of the statues, a Diana with a quiver, whose countenance, white in some parts and yellow in others, disclosed the fact that it had been restored, he added:--

"And the hussies are not even intact!--They are only patched-up copies.--Just look at this one.--Ah, you baggage, you should not keep that nose if it were not too much trouble to knock it off!--Ah!" he continued, as a servant opened the double door at the end of the gallery, "a thoroughbred needs no spur--Don Fortunato is ready."

Approaching Andryana Bonnacorsi, he said:--

"Will Madame la marchesa do me the honor of accepting my arm to lead her to the altar? My age gives me the right to play the rôle of father. And if I cannot walk quickly enough you must excuse me; the weight of years is the heaviest man ever has to carry.--And don't be alarmed," added the good old man in a whisper, as he felt the arm of his companion tremble. "I have studied your Corancez very deeply for several days. He is an excellent and good fellow."

"Well," said Corancez to Madame de Carlsberg, offering her his arm, while Florence Marsh took Hautefeuille's, "are you still as sceptical as you were about chiromancy and the line of fate? Is it simply a chance that I should have the Baroness Ely leaning on my arm in my wedding procession? And is it merely hazard that has provided me with an original like our host to amuse you during the wearisome affair?"

"It is not wearisome," replied the Baroness, laughing. "All the same, you are lucky in marrying Andryana; she is looking so beautiful to-day, and she loves you so much!--As to the Prince, you are right; he is unique. It is pleasant to find such enthusiasm in a man of his age.--When Italians are taken up with an idea they are infatuated with it passionately, devotedly, as they are with a woman.--They have rebuilt their country with the help of that very quality."

During these few minutes Miss Marsh was talking to Hautefeuille.

"You cannot understand that feeling," she was saying, "for you belong to an old country. But I come from a town that is very little older than myself, and it is an ecstasy to visit a palace like this where everything is eloquent of a long past."

"Alas, Miss Marsh," replied Hautefeuille, "if there is anything more painful than living in a new country, it is living in one that wants to become new at any price when it is filled to overflowing with relics of the past, of a glorious past,--a country where every one is making desperate efforts to destroy everything.--France has had that mania for about a hundred years."

"Yes, and Italy has had it for twenty-five years," said the American girl. "But we are here," she added gayly, "to buy everything and to preserve it.--Oh! what an exquisite chapel.--Just look at it!--Now I'll bet you that those frescoes will finish their existence in Chicago or Marionville."

As she spoke she pointed out to Pierre the mural paintings that decorated the chapel they entered at the moment. The little place where the cardinal-pirate had doubtless often officiated was embellished with a vast symbolical composition from floor to ceiling. It was the work of one of those unknown masters whose creations confront one at every step in Italy and which anywhere else would be celebrated. But there, as the soldiers in the famous charge say, they are too numerous! This particular painter, influenced by the marvellous frescoes with which Lorenzo Lotto had beautified the Suardi Chapel at Bergamo, had represented, above the altar, Christ standing up and holding out His hands. From the Saviour's finger-tips a vine shoot spread out, climbing up and up to the dome, covered with grapes. The tendrils wound round, making frames for the figures of five saints on one side, and on the other five female figures. Above the head of Christ the inscription, "Ego sum vitis, vos palmites," gave an evangelical significance to the fantastic decoration.

The principal episodes in the legend of St. Laurence, the patron saint of the cathedral at Genoa, were painted on the walls and in the panels made by the pillars. These were: Decius slaying the Emperor Philip in his tent; the young sou of the dead Emperor confiding his father's treasures to Sixtus to be distributed among the poor; Sixtus being led to the scene of his martyrdom, followed by Laurence, crying, "Where art thou going, O father, without thy son? Where art thou going, O priest, without thy deacon?" Laurence receiving the treasures in his turn and confiding them to the poor widow; Laurence in prison converting the officer of the guard; Laurence in Sallust's gardens collecting together the poor, the halt, and the blind, saying at the same time to Decius, "Behold the treasures of the Church!" Laurence surrounded by flames upon a bed of fire!--The picturesqueness of the costumes, the fancy displayed in the architecture, the fruitful nature of the landscape, the breadth of the drawing, and the warmth of the coloring revealed the influence of the Venetian school, although attenuated and softened by the usury of time, which had effaced the too glaring brilliancy and toned down the too vivid warmth of the painting. It had taken on something of the faded tone of old tapestry.

The whole gave to the marriage that was being celebrated in the old oratory of the ancient palace of an aged prince by a Gallophobe priest a fantastic character that was both delightful and droll. The ultra-modern Corancez kneeling with the descendants of the doges with Don Fortunato to bless them, in a setting of the sixteenth century, was one of those paradoxes that only nature dare present, so pronounced are they as to be almost incredible! And equally incredible was the simple-mindedness of the abbé, the impassioned worshipper of Count Camillo. He rolled out a little oration to the young _fiancés_ before uniting them. This oration was in French, a condescension he had determined upon making, in spite of his political hatreds, for the sake of the foreigner to whom he was to marry his dear marchesa.

"Noble lady! Honored sir! I do not intend to say much.--Tongueless birds furnish no auguries.--Sir, you are going to marry this dear lady in the presence of God. In thus consecrating the union of a great Venetian name with that of a noble French family, it seems as though I were asking once more for the blessing of Him Who can do all things, that I were appealing to Him to consecrate the friendship between two countries which ought to be only one in heart; I mean, my lady, our dear Italy, and your beautiful France, my lord!--Italy resembles that figure painted by a master, a genius, upon the wall of this chapel. It is from her that proud Spain and brilliant France, two young branches of the Latin race, have sprung as from a fruitful vine. The same vigorous sap courses through the veins of the three nations. May they be reunited some day! May the mother once more have her two daughters by her side! May they be united some day as they are already by the relationship of their languages, by the communion of their religion! May they be bound together by a bond of love that nothing can break, such as is going to unite you, my dear lord and lady! Amen!"

"Did you hear him?" Corancez asked Hautefeuille an hour later.

The _Ita missa est_ had been spoken; the solemn "I will" had been exchanged, and the luncheon--including the mullet that surpassed those of Leghorn--had been brought to an end amid toasts, laughter, and the reading of the epithalamium upon which Don Fortunato had worked so long and so patiently. The entire company had adjourned to the gallery for coffee, and the two young men were chatting in the angle of a window close to the repaired Artemis.

"Did you hear him? The good old abbé simply worships me.--He worships me even too much, for I am not as noble as he has made me out.--He has given Andryana a proof of inalienable affection in consenting to our secret marriage. He is as intelligent as it is possible to be. He knows Navagero to the very marrow and dreaded an unhappy future for Andryana if she did not escape from her brother's clutches. He is also a clever diplomatist, for he persuaded his old companion in _carcere duro_ to lend us his little chapel.--Well, intelligence, diplomacy, friendship, and all the rest are swept on one side in the Italian soul by the law of primogeniture. Did you not hear how, in his quality of Cavour's friend, he made us feel that France was only the youngest scion of the great Latin family?--In this case the youngest has fared better than the eldest! But I pardoned all Don Fortunato's presumption when I thought of the face my brother-in-law will pull, Italian though he is, when he is shown the piece of paper which bears your name beside that of the Prince.--Would you like another proof of Corancez's luck? Look over yonder."

He pointed through the window to the sky covered with black clouds and to the street below, at the foot of the palace, where the north wind, sweeping along, made the promenaders huddle up in their cloaks.

"You don't understand?" he went on. "Don't you see you cannot sail again while such a sea is on? The ladies will stay at the hotel all night." As he spoke the Provençal smiled with an easy-going, semi-complicity. Happily the newly made vicomtesse drew near and brought the _tête-à-tête_ to an end. She was leaning on Madame de Carlsberg's arm. The two young women, so beautiful, so graceful, so delicate, so enamoured, formed a living commentary as they thus approached the two young men. And the pagan air that one seems to breathe in Italy was so keen, so penetrating, that Pierre's uneasy scruples were soothed by the love he could read in his mistress's brown eyes that were lit up by the same tender fire that shone in the blue eyes of the Venetian when she regarded her husband.

"You have come to us from the Prince, I suppose?" asked Corancez. "I know him! You will have no peace until he has shown you his treasures."

"Yes, he has been asking for you," said Andryana. "But I came on my own account.--A husband who abandons his wife an hour after marriage is rather hurried."

"Yes, it is a little too soon," repeated Ely. And the hidden meaning of the words, addressed as it was in reality to Hautefeuille, was as sweet as a kiss to the young man.

"Let us obey the Prince--and the Princess," he said, bearing his mistress's hand to his lips as though in playful gallantry, "and go to the treasure-house. You know all about it, I suppose?" he added, turning to his friend.

"Do I know it?" replied Corancez. "I had not been here an hour before I had gone through the whole place. He is a little bit--" and he tapped his forehead significantly, pointing to the old Prince and Don Fortunato, who were going out of the gallery with Miss Marsh. "He is a little bit crazy.--But you will judge for yourself."

All the procession--to use the term employed by the "representative of a great French family," as the Abbé Lagumina styled the Provençal--followed in Fregoso's wake and descended a narrow staircase leading to the private apartments of the collector. He was now leading, eager to show the way. As is often the case in big Italian mansions, the living rooms were as little as the reception halls were big. The Prince, when alone, lived in four cramped rooms, of which the scanty furniture indicated very plainly the stoicism of the old man, wrapped up in a dream-world and as indifferent to comfort as he was impervious to vanity. The twenty or twenty-five pieces that formed his museum were hung on the walls. At the first glance the Fregoso collection, celebrated all over the two hemispheres, was made up of shapeless fragments, rudely carved, that could not fail to produce the same impression upon the ignorant in such matters that Corancez had felt. Fregoso had studied antique art so closely that he now cared for nothing but statuary dating from an epoch anterior to Phidias. He worshipped these relics of the sixth century which afford glimpses of primitive and heroic Greece--the Greece that repulsed the Asiatic invasion by the simple virtue of a superior, elevated race placed face to face with the countless hordes of an inferior people.

The Genoese nobleman had become the most devoted of archæologists after being one of the most active conspirators. And now he lived among the gods and heroes of that little known and distant Hellas as though he had been a contemporary of the famous soldier carved upon the stele of Aristion.

The gouty old man seemed to be miraculously rejuvenated the moment the last of his guests crossed the threshold of the first chamber, which usually served him as a smoking-room. He stood erect. His feet no longer dragged upon the floor as though too heavy for his strength. His dæmon, as his beloved Athenians would have said, had entered into him and he began to talk of his collection with a fire that arrested any inclination to smile. Under the influence of his glowing language the mutilated marble seemed to become animated and to live again. He could see the figures of two thousand four hundred years ago in all their freshness. And by a species of irresistible hypnotism his imagination imposed itself upon the most sceptical among his auditors.

"There," he said, "are the oldest carvings known.--Three statues of Hera, three Junos in their primitive form: that is, wooden idols copied in stone by a hand that still hesitates as though unfamiliar with the work."

"The xoanon!" said Florence Marsh.

"What! You have heard of the xoanon?" cried Fregoso. And from this point on he addressed only the American girl. "In that case, Miss Marsh, you are capable of understanding the beauty of these three examples of art. They are unique.--Neither that of Delos, that of Samos, or that of the Acropolis is worthy to be compared with them.--You can see the creation of life in them.--Here you see the body in its sheath, and what a sheath!--One as shapeless and rough as the harshest of wools. And yet it breathes, the bosom is there, the hips, the legs are indicated.--Then the material grows supple, becoming a delicate fabric of fine wool, a long divided garment that lends itself to every movement. The statue awakes. It walks.--Just look at the grandeur of the torso under the peplum, the closely fitting cloak gathered in closely fitting folds on one side and spread fanlike on the other. Don't you admire the pose of the goddess as she stands, the weight of her body thrown upon the right foot, with the left advanced?--Now she moves, she lives!--Oh! Beauty! Heavenly Beauty!--And look at the Apollos!"

He was so excited by his feverish enthusiasm that he could no longer speak. He pointed in speechless admiration to three trunks carved in stone that had been turned red by a long sojourn in a ferruginous soil. They were headless and armless, with legs of which only the stumps remained.

"Are they not the models of those at Orchomenos, Thera, and Tenea?" asked Miss Marsh.

"Certainly," replied the Prince, who could no longer contain his happiness. "They are funeral images, statues of some dead hero deified in the form of Apollo.--And to think that there are barbarians in the world who pretend that the Greeks went to Egypt and to Mesopotamia in search of their art!--Do you think an Egyptian or an Asiatic could ever have imagined that proud carriage, that curved chest, that strong back?--They never made anything but sitting idols glued to the wall.--Just look at the thighs! Homer says that Achilles could leap fifty feet. I have studied the subject deeply, and I find that the tiger's leap at its maximum is exactly that distance. It appears incredible to us that a man could do that. But look at those muscles--that makes such a leap a possibility. Art is seen at its perfection there; magnificent limbs capable of magnificent efforts. 'I moti divini,' as Leonardo said. If you put that energy at the service of the city and represent that city by gods, by its gods, you have Greece before you."

"And you have Venice, you have Florence, you have Sienna, you have Genoa, all Italy, in fact!" interrupted Don Fortunato.

"Italy is the humble pupil of Greece," replied Fregoso, solemnly. "She has received touches of grand beauty, but she is not the grand beauty."

Looking around, he added mysteriously:--

"Ah! we must close the shutters and lower the curtains. Will you help me, Don Fortunato?"

When the room had thus been darkened, the old man handed a lighted taper to the abbé and made a sign for them all to follow him. Approaching a head carved in marble placed upon a pedestal, he said, in a voice broken with emotion:--

"The Niobe of Phidias!"

The three women and the two young men then saw by the light of the tiny flame a shapeless fragment of marble. The nose had been broken and shattered. The place where the eyes ought to have been was hardly recognizable. Almost all the hair was missing. By chance, in all the dreadful destruction through which the head had passed, the lower lip and the chin had been spared. Accustomed as he was to the almost infantile _mise-en-scène_ of the archæologist, Don Fortunato let the light shine full on the mutilated mouth and chin.

"What admirable life and suffering is displayed in that mouth!" cried Fregoso, "and what power there is in the chin!--Does it not express all the will and pride and energy of the queen who defied Latona?--You can hear the cry that issues from the lips.--Follow the line of the cheek. From what remains you can figure the rest.--And what a noble form the artist has given the nose!--Look at this."

He took up the head, placed it at a certain angle, drew out his handkerchief, and taking a portion of it in his hands, he stretched it across the base of the forehead at the place where there was nothing but a gaping fracture in the stone.

"There you have the line of the nose!--I can see it.--I can see the tears that flow from her eyes," and he placed the head at another angle. "I can see them!--Come!" he said, sighing, after a silence, "we must return to everyday life. Draw up the curtains and open the shutters."

When daylight once more lit up the shapeless mass Fregoso sighed again. Then, taking up a head, rather less battered than the Niobe, he bowed to Miss Marsh, whose technical knowledge and attentive attitude had appealed in a flattering way to his mania.

"Miss Marsh," he said, "you are worthy of possessing a fragment of a statue that once graced the Acropolis.--Will you allow me to offer you this head, one only recently discovered? Look how it smiles."

The head really seemed to smile in the old man's hands, with a curious, disquieting smile, mysterious and sensual at the same time.

"It is the Eginetan smile, is it not?" asked the American girl.

"Archæologists have given it that name on account of the statues upon the famous pediment. But I call it the Elysian smile, the ecstasy that ought to wreathe forever the lips of those tasting the eternal happiness, revealed in advance to the faithful by the gods and goddesses.--Remember the line Æschylus wrote about Helen: 'Soul serene as the calm of the seas.' That smile expresses the line completely."

When Hautefeuille and the three women were once again in the landau that was taking them toward the port after the fantastic marriage and the more fantastic visit, they looked at each other with astonishment. It was about three o'clock in the afternoon and it seemed so strange to be again in the streets full of people, to see the houses with the little shops on the ground-floor, to read the bills that covered the walls, and to form part of the swarming, contemporary life. They felt the same impression that seizes one after a theatrical performance in the daytime when one is again on the boulevard flooded with sunshine. The deception of the theatre, which has held you for a couple of hours, makes the reawakening to life almost painful. Andryana was the first to speak of this uncomfortable sensation.

"If I had not Don Fortunato's epithalamium in my hand," she said, showing a little book she held, "I should think I had been dreaming.--He has just given it to me with great ceremony, telling me at the same time that only four copies of it had been printed at the workshop where the proclamations of Manin, our last doge, used to be, printed. There is one for Corancez, one for Fregoso, one for the abbé himself, and this one!--Yes, I should think I had been dreaming."

"And I also," said Florence, "if this head were not so heavy." She weighed the strange gift which the archæologist had honored her with in her little hands. "Heavens, how I should like to visit the museum without the Prince!--I have an idea that he hypnotized us, and that if he were not there we should see nothing.--For example, we saw the smile on this face when Fregoso showed it to us.--I cannot find the least trace of it now. Can you?"

"No!--Nor I!--Nor I!--" cried Ely de Carlsberg, Andryana, and Hautefeuille in chorus.

"I am certain, however," the latter added, laughingly, "that I saw Niobe, who had neither eyes nor cheeks, weeping."

"And I saw Apollo run, although he had no legs," said Madame de Carlsberg.

"And I saw Juno breathe, though she had no bosom," said Andryana.

"Corancez warned me of it," said Hautefeuille. "When Fregoso is absent, his collection is a simple heap of stones; when he is there, it is Olympus."

"That is because he is a believer and impassioned about art," replied the Baroness. "The few hours we spent with him have taught me more about Greece than all my promenades in the Vatican, the capital, and the Offices. I do not even regret being unable to show you the Red Palace," she said, addressing Hautefeuille, "notwithstanding the fact that its Van Dycks are wonderful."

"You will have plenty of time to-morrow," said Miss Marsh. "My uncle will sail to-night, I know; but he will leave us here, for the _Jenny_ is going to have a rough time, and he will not allow any one to be sick on his boat. Look how the sea is already rolling in to the port.--There is a tempest raging out at sea."

The landau arrived at the quay where the yacht's dingy was awaiting the travellers. Little waves were breaking against the walls. All the roadstead was agitated by the rising north wind and was a mass of tiny ripples, too small to affect the big steamers riding at anchor, but strong enough to pitch about the pleasure boats and fishing smacks. What a difference there was between this threatening gray swell that was felt even in the port, in spite of its protecting piers, and the wide mirror-like expanse of motionless sapphire which had spread before them the day before at the same hour in the open sea off Cannes! What a contrast between this cloudy sky and the azure dome that smiled down upon their departure, between this keen north wind and the perfumed sighing of the breeze yesterday!--But who thought of this? Certainly not Florence Marsh, completely happy in the possession of the archaic scalp she was taking on board. Certainly not Andryana, to whom the prospect of a night spent on shore was full of such happy promise; she was to meet her husband, and the idea of this clandestine and at the same time legitimate rendezvous after her romantic marriage had filled the loving woman with happiness. It was the first time for many years that she had forgotten her dreaded brother. Nor did Hautefeuille or his mistress notice the contrast, for the long hours of the night were to be spent together. The young man, who had fallen behind with Ely de Carlsberg, said gayly and yet tenderly, as they walked down toward the dingy of the Jenny, whose red, white, and black flag crackled in the breeze:--

"I am beginning to believe that Corancez is right about his lucky line!--And it appears to be contagious."

At the very moment he spoke, and as Ely answered him with a smile full of languor and voluptuousness, one of the sailors standing on the quay near the boat handed a large portfolio to Miss Marsh. It was the vessel's postman, who had just returned with the passengers' mail. The young girl rapidly ran through the fifteen or twenty letters.

"Here is a telegram for you, Hautefeuille," she said.

"You will see," he said to Ely, continuing his badinage, "it is good news."

He tore open the yellow slip. His visage lit up with a happy smile, and he handed the telegram to Madame de Carlsberg, saying:--

"What did I tell you?"

The despatch said simply:--

"Am leaving Cairo to-day. Shall be at Cannes Sunday or Monday at latest. Will send another telegram. So happy to see you again.

OLIVIER DU PRAT."