but slightly pungent,
and like the smell of iron filings: what Tolstoi called "the good smell
of peasants."

The fire which had enveloped all Monte Carlo at sunset had burnt out
long ago, but in the west a faint red-brown glow smouldered, as if a
smoky torch had been trailed along the horizon. Monte Carlo and the Rock
of Monaco rose out of the steel-bright sea like one immense jewel-box,
or a huge purple velvet pincushion, stuck full of diamond and topaz
headed pins, with here and there a ruby or an emerald. These lights,
reflected in the water, trailed down into mysterious depths, like
illuminated roots of magic flowers; and the bright shimmer spreading out
over the moving ripples lay on the surface like glittering chain-armour.

Although they had the blaze of these amazing jewels always before their
eyes, somehow in talking Mary and Vanno contrived to lose the way,
descending to the high road nearer Cap Martin than Monte Carlo. It was
six o'clock, and a long tramp home along the level, in the dust thrown
up by motors and the trotting hoofs of horses, but in the distance a
tram car coming from Mentone sent out a shower of electric sparks, like
fireflies crushed to death between iron wheels and iron track. As the
car advanced, Vanno stepped out into the road and hailed it. No _arret_
was near, but the driver stopped, with an obliging, French-Italian
smile, and the two young people almost hurled themselves into empty
seats at the first-class end of the tram.

Faces which had been inclined to frown at the illegal delay, even of six
seconds, smoothed into good nature at sight of the handsome couple.
Every one at once took it for granted that they were lovers. Mary's
hair, ruffled by the hasty putting on of her hat, without a mirror, told
the story of a stolen kiss to German eyes swimming with sentiment and
romance--eyes which to an unappreciative world appeared incapable of
either. Most of the eyes in this first-class compartment were German
eyes, and some of the faces out of which they looked were round and
uninteresting; but not all. German was the language being loudly talked
across the car, from one seat to another; and a German mandate had
caused all the windows and ventilators to be shut, in fear of that fatal
thing, "a draught." English people sitting stiffly in corners, boiling
with the desire to protest yet too reserved and proud to "risk a row,"
raged internally with the belief that their German neighbours were