Valencia; he had seen it on the fans called "Roman Style" that his
father used to collect.

Freya felt as moved as her companion. The blue of the gulf was of an
extreme intensity in the parts not reflected by the sun; the coast
appeared of ochre; although the houses had tawdry facades, all these
discordant elements were now blended and interfused in subdued and
exquisite harmony. The shrubbery was trembling rhythmically under the
breeze. The very air was musical, as though in its waves were vibrating
the strings of invisible harps.

This was for Freya the true Greece imagined by the poets, not the
island of burned-out rocks denuded of vegetation that she had seen and
heard spoken of in her excursions through the Hellenic archipelago.

"To live here the rest of my life!" she murmured with misty eyes. "To
die here, forgotten, alone, happy!..."

Ferragut also would like to die in Naples ... but with her!... And his
quick and exuberant imagination described the delights of life for the
two,--a life of love and mystery in some one of the little villas, with
a garden peeping out over the sea on the slopes of Posilipo.

The dancers had passed down to the lower terrace where the crowd was
greater. New customers were entering, almost all in pairs, as the day
was fading. The waiter had ushered some highly-painted women with
enormous hats, followed by some young men, into the locked dining-room.
Through the half-open door came the noise of pursuit, collision and
rebound with brutal roars of laughter.

Freya turned her back, as if the memory of her passage through that den
offended her.

The old waiter now devoted himself to them, beginning to serve dinner.
To the bottle of Vesuvian wine had succeeded another kind, gradually
losing its contents.

The two ate little but felt a nervous thirst which made them frequently
reach out their hands toward the glass. The wine was depressing to
Freya. The sweetness of the twilight seemed to make it ferment, giving
it the acrid perfume of sad memories.

The sailor felt arising within him the aggressive fever of temperate
men when becoming intoxicated. Had he been with a man he would have
started a violent discussion on any pretext whatever. He did not relish
the oysters, the sailor's soup, the lobster, everything that another
time, eaten alone or with a passing friend in the same site, would have
appeared to him as delicacies.

He was looking at Freya with enigmatical eyes while, i