ing to the Casino. It was time that Mary
should go to the Casino, too. She had brought down her new white cloak
with the swansdown collar, and asked a liveried man to put it aside for
her while she dined. Now she claimed it again, and having no fear of the
"night air," walked out into the azure flood which had overflowed the
fantastic fairyland like deep, blue water. The gardens lay drowned in
this translucent, magic sea, and the coolness of the sunset hour had
been mysteriously followed by a balmy warmth, like the temperature of a
summer night in England.

There were as many people in the _Place_ as there had been in the
afternoon, and all those who were not sitting on garden seats looking at
the Casino were walking toward the Casino, or just coming out of the
Casino. The eyes of the big, horned animal were blazing with light, and
glared in the blue dusk with the hard, bright stare of the gold eyes in
a peacock's tail. Windows of the Riviera Palace on the hill above were
like orange-coloured lanterns hung against an indigo curtain; and in the
_Place_ itself bunches of vivid yellow lights, in globes like
illuminated fruit set on tall lamp posts, lit the foreground of the
strange picture with unnatural brilliance. Grass and trees were a vivid,
arsenical green, almost vicious yet beautiful, and the flowers gleamed
like resting butterflies. The summer warmth of the air had a curiously
tonic and exciting quality. It seemed to have gathered into its breath
the sea's salt, the luscious sweetness of heavy white datura bells
dangling among dark leaves in the gardens, an aromatic tang of pepper
trees and eucalyptus, and a vague, haunting perfume of women's hair and
laces. These mingling odours, suggested to the senses rather than
apprehended by them, mounted to Mary's brain, and set her heartstrings
quivering with unknown emotions sweet as pleasure and keen as pain.

As she went slowly down the hotel steps to walk across the _Place_ her
eyes held a new expression. When she had first told herself that she
could not stay at the convent, they had asked, looking toward the world,
"What is life?" Now they said, "I have begun to live, and I will go on,
on, no matter where, because I must know what life means."

Her cheeks were burning still from the first champagne she had ever
tasted, and the sweet air cooled them pleasantly. Seeing a number of
people on benches opposite the Casino, she decided to sit down for a few
minutes before