Dupleisis, in his seat over the sea, stared absently at the
jocose revelers, for he was a stranger in a strange land. He leaned back
on the granite railings with the easy indolence of an invalid, though
his frame was robust and sinewy as a mountaineer's. The hidden power of
his bronzed and Moresque features, if developed, might inspire a certain
amount of wonder; but _then_ you would as readily have sought
expression in the statues below. His gaze was almost indifferent; yet
the unmoving eyes took a mental inventory of everything. Had their owner
been provided with a memorandum-book and a stubby pencil, the catalogue
could not have been more complete.

Among the hundreds present, those eyes picked out one man and one woman.
They followed them in their rambles through the dome-roofed shelters;
they scrutinized them as they lingered near the band; they searched them
out when mingled with the throngs on the promenade. They did not seem to
be watching, but they were; and their owner did not look interested, but
he was.

The man, physically speaking, was a marvel; but there was an air of
foppish elegance in his movements, and a silky kind of beauty, like that
of a leopard. His head was small, but finely formed, and covered with
flossy hair black as ebony. His features, though clearly cut, wore, from
their extreme delicacy, an almost feminine expression. His hands were
small and exquisitely shaped; his mustache curled gracefully from his
lip; and, when speaking, he bit the ends of it in a nervous, almost
embarrassed way.

The woman was a proud, passionate daughter of the sun. The brown blood
of the sun burned in her veins, and the soul of the sun streamed shaded
from her eyes. A sumptuous splendor mingled, moist and languid, with
their light. She was clothed in the sunlight. It glistened in the soft
darkness of her hair; it glowed in the rubies that clung to her swelling
throat; it flashed on her robe tremulous with radiance. From a
coquettish little hat a long white plume fluttered over her curls, and a
floating cloud of fleecy under-sleeve half concealed an arm of snowy
purity. Her life, though in its spring, seemed goldened with the flush
of summer; her morning flashed with the meridian luster of perfect day;
and yet the eyes that scanned so closely remained undazzled. Their owner
had heard of her, and of her conversation, sparkling with wit and humor
and mocking irony; but he was not fascinated. He saw but a woman for