e Italian blood of his father, the Irish-American blood of his
beautiful mother. But his adventures had not been love adventures, since
that first agony had driven him for comfort to the silence of the
desert. Since then he had gone back to the desert for desire of great
empty spaces, and the fire of eastern stars, needing comfort no longer
for a lost love. That had passed out of his heart years ago, leaving no
scar of which he was conscious.

He had just come back from the desert now, and an Arab astrologer who
was a friend of his had told him that December of this year would be
for him a month of good luck and great happenings, the star of his birth
being in the ascendant. Almost it began to look as if there might be
something in the prophecy; and Prince Vanno, laughing at himself (with
the dry sense of humour that came from the Irish-American side of his
parentage), was half inclined to be superstitious. Astronomy was his
love at present, not astrology, and last year he had discovered a small
blue planet which had been named after him and whose sapphire beauty had
been much admired. Still, because he had always had a passion for the
stars, and went to the east to see them at their brightest, he was
tolerant of those who believed in their influence upon earth-dwellers;
therefore he was ready to yield with confident ardour to sudden impulses
in this the month of his star. Mary Grant's eyes had looked to him like
stars, and he had followed them. Already he had had one stroke of luck
in the adventure, for he had been bound to Monte Carlo from Marseilles,
before he saw her, not to try his fortune at the tables, but to meet his
elder brother and sister-in-law who were to finish their honeymoon close
by, at Cap Martin, and to stay for an aviation week at Nice, when an
invention of his would be tried for the first time. But if Mary had gone
on beyond Monte Carlo, he too would have gone on. Having plunged into
the adventure, for a pair of eyes, he was prepared to pursue it to the
end wherever the end might be, even if he missed the flying week and
broke an engagement with the bride and bridegroom. But it was luck that
she should be getting out at the place where he had meant to stop for
his own reasons.

He supposed, of course, that she was travelling with relatives or
friends. Although he had seen her mounting the steps of a _wagon lit_
apparently alone, this did not argue that some one who belonged to her
was not inside. A