et sky melting into deeper
violet sea. As she stood looking out, silver voices of bells chimed
melodiously across the water, from the great Byzantine cathedral on the
Rock. It was all beautiful and poetic. Mary would have taken the room if
it had been a hundred instead of a paltry thirty francs a day. But she
could not afford to stop and look at the violet sea, still haunted by
the red wreckage of sunset. She had her shopping to do, for she must
somehow find exactly the right hat and dress, ready to put on, or she
would have to dine in her room, and that would be imprisonment on the
first night at Monte Carlo.

She ran quickly downstairs again, not in the least tired after her
journey, and changed a thousand-franc note, which perhaps inspired
official confidence in the young English lady with only a hand-bag for
luggage. Also, she inquired where she could buy the prettiest things to
wear, and was directed to the Galerie Charles Trois, which turned out to
be that covered gallery with shops and restaurants that she had noticed
when driving up the hill.

By this time, though it was not yet dark, lights gleamed everywhere like
great diamonds scintillating among the palms, or stars shining on the
hills. The grass and trees and flowers in the _Place_ of the Casino
looked twice as unreal as before, all theatrically vivid in colour, and
extraordinarily flat, as if cut out of painted cardboard against a
background of gauze.

The ruined castle and old rock-town tumbling down the far-off hillside
still smouldered in after-sunset fire, windows glittering like the
rubies in some lost crown, dropped by a forgotten king in battle. But
the red of the sky was paling to hyacinth, a strange and lovely tint
that was neither rose nor blue. As Mary went to buy herself pretty
things, walking through a scene of beauty beyond her convent dreams, she
murmured a small prayer of thanksgiving that she had been guided to this
heavenly place.

She must write to Reverend Mother and Peter, she thought, explaining why
she was here, and how glad she was that she had happened to come. Then
it struck her suddenly, though more humorously than disagreeably, that
it would be rather difficult to explain, especially in a way to satisfy
Peter. Perhaps dear Reverend Mother would be anxious for her safety, if
Peter said any of those rather silly things of Monte Carlo which at the
last she had said to her--Mary. After all, maybe it would be better to
keep to t