sts of Hercules, going
to pay him a visit," she said to herself now, as passengers began to
push their way along the corridor, in order to be the first ones down.
The girl's heart began suddenly to beat very fast, she did not know why.

"What is there to be excited about?" she asked herself. No answer came.
Yet the fact remained. She was intensely excited.

"If I were getting out, like all these other people," she thought,
"there'd be an excuse. But as it is----"

Then, far down within herself, a tiny voice said: "Why shouldn't you get
out--now, quickly, while there's time?"

It was a voice which seemed quite separate from herself, and she could
feel it as if her body were a cage in which a tiny bird sang a small
song in a sweet voice that must be listened to intently.

There was no strong reason, when she came to think of it, why she should
not listen, although to listen gave her a sensation of childish guilt.
She was her own mistress. She had never promised Peter, nor any one
else, not to come to Monte Carlo. Peter had advised her against coming,
that was all. And Peter, though dear and kind, had no right----

Why not obey the bird voice, and get out quickly while there was time?

It was beautiful here, and this was the best season. Florence could be
very cold, people said, and so could Rome. But on the Riviera, in
December, roses and a thousand flowers were in bloom.

To dash out of the train unexpectedly, as a surprise to herself, would
be a great adventure. To come another time, according to a plan, would
not be an adventure at all.

Never in her whole past life had she had an adventure. What fun to land
at Monte Carlo with only hand-luggage! The rest would go on to Florence,
but somehow she could retrieve it sooner or later, and meanwhile how
amusing to spend a little part of her legacy in fitting herself out with
new things, clothes which would give her a place in the picture! And she
needn't stay long. What were a few days more or less?

There was only a minute to make up her mind. The train was slowing into
the station, a large attractive station, adorned with posters of
dream-places painted in rich dream-colours, like those of stained glass.
On the platform, to the left of the station building, stood a boy twelve
or fourteen years old, dressed in livery. He had a bullet head, with
hair so black as to seem more like a thick, shining coat of varnish than
hair. His eyes were very large and expressed a b