When Hautefeuille and the three women were once again in the landau that was taking them toward the port after the fantastic marriage and the more fantastic visit, they looked at each other with astonishment. It was about three o'clock in the afternoon and it seemed so strange to be again in the streets full of people, to see the houses with the little shops on the ground-floor, to read the bills that covered the walls, and to form part of the swarming, contemporary life. They felt the same impression that seizes one after a theatrical performance in the daytime when one is again on the boulevard flooded with sunshine. The deception of the theatre, which has held you for a couple of hours, makes the reawakening to life almost painful. Andryana was the first to speak of this uncomfortable sensation. "If I had not Don Fortunato's epithalamium in my hand," she said, showing a little book she held, "I should think I had been dreaming.--He has just given it to me with great ceremony, telling me at the same time that only four copies of it had been printed at the workshop where the proclamations of Manin, our last doge, used to be, printed. There is one for Corancez, one for Fregoso, one for the abbé himself, and this one!--Yes, I should think I had been dreaming." "And I also," said Florence, "if this head were not so heavy." She weighed the strange gift which the archæologist had honored her with in her little hands. "Heavens, how I should like to visit the museum without the Prince!--I have an idea that he hypnotized us, and that if he were not there we should see nothing.--For example, we saw the smile on this face when Fregoso showed it to us.--I cannot find the least trace of it now. Can you?" "No!--Nor I!--Nor I!--" cried Ely de Carlsberg, Andryana, and Hautefeuille in chorus. "I am certain, however," the latter added, laughingly, "that I saw Niobe, who had neither eyes nor cheeks, weeping." "And I saw Apollo run, although he had no legs," said Madame de Carlsberg. "And I saw Juno breathe, though she had no bosom," said Andryana. "Corancez warned me of it," said Hautefeuille. "When Fregoso is absent, his collection is a simple heap of stones; when he is there, it is Olympus." "That is because he is a believer and impassioned about art," replied the Baroness. "The few hours we spent with him have taught me more about Greece than all my promenades in the Vatican, the capital, and the Offices. I do not even regret being unable to show you the Red Palace," she said, addressing Hautefeuille, "notwithstanding the fact that its Van Dycks are wonderful." "You will have plenty of time to-morrow," said Miss Marsh. "My uncle will sail to-night, I know; but he will leave us here, for the _Jenny_ is going to have a rough time, and he will not allow any one to be sick on his boat. Look how the sea is already rolling in to the port.--There is a tempest raging out at sea."