round, or the poetic heroine of a
classic legend. They were extraordinarily handsome eyes, dark and
mysterious as only Italian eyes can be, though Mary Grant did not know
this, having gazed into few men's eyes, and none that were Italian.

"Looking up so, his face is like what Romeo's must have been," she said
to herself with an answering romantic impulse. "Surely he is Italian!"

And he, looking up at her, said, "What a picture of Giulietta on the
balcony! Is she French, Italian, Russian?"

The man was a Roman, whose American mother had not robbed him of an
ardent temperament that leaned toward romance; and he had just come back
to the west across the sea, from a romantic mission in the east. He had
not exchanged words with a woman for months, in the desert where he had
been living. For this reason, perhaps, he was the readier to find
romance in any lovely pair of eyes; but it seemed to him that there
never had been such eyes as these. For always, in a man's life, there
must be one pair of eyes which are transcendent stars, even if they are
seen but once, then lost forever.

This was not his train, for the _luxe_ does not take local passengers,
in the season when every place is filled between Paris and Nice; but
because of Mary's face, he wished to travel with her, and look into her
eyes again, in order to make sure if they really held the magic of that
first glance.

He found a train-attendant and spoke with him rapidly, in a low voice,
making at the same time a suggestive chinking of gold and silver with
one hand in his pocket.

IV

Under the golden sunshine, the _luxe_ steamed on: after Toulon no longer
tearing through the country with few pauses, but stopping at many
stations. For the first time Mary saw olive trees, spouting silver like
great fountains, and palms stretching out dark green hands of Fatma
against blue sky and bluer sea. For the first time she saw the
Mediterranean that she had dreamed of in her cold, dim room at the
convent. This was like the dreams and the stories told by Peter, only
better; for nothing could give a true idea of the glimmering olive
groves. Under the silvery branches delicate as smoke-wreaths, and among
the gnarled gray trunks, it seemed that at any moment a band of nymphs
or dryads might pass, streaming away in fear from the noises of
civilization.

At St. Raphael and Frejus colossal legs of masonry strode across the
green meadows, and Mary knew that they had bee