with cars marked Tripoli, Roma, Firenze and Milano. You had a sense, from merely looking at the stations, that the idleness and the luxury of all the world was pouring in here at will. In ten minutes we were off again--Barfleur expatiating solemnly on the fact that in England a homely girl was left to her own devices with no one to make anything of her, she being plain and that being the end of it; while here in France something was done with the poorest specimens. “Now those two young ladies,” he said, waving his hand dramatically in the direction of two departing travelers,--“they are not much--but look at them. See how smartly they are gotten up. Somebody will marry them. They have been encouraged to buck up,--to believe that there is always hope.” And he adjusted his monocle cheerfully. Our train was pulling into the station at Monte Carlo. I had the usual vague idea of a much-talked-of but never-seen place. “I can hear the boys calling ‘Ascenseur,’” exclaimed Barfleur to Scorp prophetically, when we were still a little way out. He was as keen for the adventure as a child--much more so than I was. I could see how he set store by the pleasure-providing details of the life here; and Scorp, for all his lofty superiority, was equally keen. They indicated to me the great masses of baggage which occupied the platforms--all bright and new and mostly of good leather. I was interested to see the crowds of people--for there was a train departing in another direction--and to hear the cries of “Ascenseur” as predicted--the elevators lifting to the terrace in front of the Casino, where the tracks enter along a shelf of a declivity considerably above the level of the sea. It is a tight little place--all that I had expected in point of showiness--gay rococo houses, white and cream, with red roofs climbing up the sides of the bare brown hill which rises to La Turbie above. We did not stop, but went on to Mentone where we were to lunch. It was charming to see striped awnings--pink and white and blue and green--gay sunshades of various colors and ladies in fresh linens and silks and men in white flannels and an atmosphere of outing generally. I think a sort of summer madness seizes on people under such circumstances and dull care is thrown to the winds, and you plan gay adventures and dream dreams and take yourself to be a singularly important person. And to think that this atmosphere should always be here, and that it can always be reached out of the snows of Russia and the bitter storms of New York and the dreary gray fogs of London, and the biting winds of Berlin and Paris! We lunched at the Admiralty--one of those _restaurants celebrés_ where the _haute cuisine_ of France was to be found in its perfection, where balconies of flowers commanded the _côte d’azure_. CHAPTER XXVI THE LURE OF GOLD!