eamed an incessant parade of more costly ears, more
carriages, shining, caparisoned horses, every outfit sumptuous to its
last detail, every one different from all the others, and hundreds and
hundreds and hundreds of them, till in the distance they dwindled to
a black stream dominated by the upward sweep of the Arc de Triomphe,
magnified to fabulous proportions by the filmy haze of the spring day.
To their left flowed the Seine, blue and flashing. A little breeze
stirred the new leaves on the innumerable trees.
Sylvia stopped for an instant to take in the marvel of this pageant,
enacted every day of every season against that magnificent background.
She made a gesture to call her companions' attention to it--"Isn't it
in the key of Rubens--bloom, radiance, life expansive!"
"And Chabrier should set it to music," said Morrison.
"What does it make you think of?" she asked. "It makes me think of a
beautiful young Greek, in a purple chiton, with a wreath of roses in
his hair."
"It makes me think of a beautiful young woman, all fire and spirit,
and fineness, who drinks life like a perfumed wine," said Morrison,
his eyes on hers. She felt a little shiver of frightened pleasure, and
turned to Page to carry it off, "What does it make you think of?" she
asked.
"It makes me think," he answered her at once, his eyes on the haze
caught like a dream in the tender green of the budding trees,--"it
makes me think of a half-naked, sweating man, far underground in black
night, striking at a rock with a pick."
If he had burst into loud profanity, the effect could not have been
more shocking. "_Oh!_" said Sylvia, vexed and put out. She began to
walk forward. Morrison in his turn gave an exclamation which seemed
the vent of long-stored exasperation, and said with heat: "Look here,
Page, you're getting to be a perfect monomaniac on the subject! What
earthly good does it do your man with a pick to ruin a fine moment by
lugging him in!"
They were all advancing up the avenue now, Sylvia between the two men.
They talked at each other across her. She listened intently, with the
feeling that Morrison was voicing for her the question she had
been all her life wishing once for all to let fly at her parents'
standards: "What good _did_ it do anybody to go without things you
might have? Conditions were too vast for one person to influence."
"No earthly good," said Page peaceably; "I didn't say it did him any
good. Miss Marshall asked
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