On the way back to Albany he met the spring everywhere; it was just before the Easter holidays. Overhead the clouds rolled across a stainless sky, and they took ship-like forms to him and he felt a strong wish to escape--to depart. Rainsford had set him free. It would be months before he could hear from his competition. There was nothing in this continent to keep him. He had come North full of living hope and vital purpose, and meekly, solemnly, his graves had laid themselves out around him, and he alone stood living. Was there nothing to keep him? Bella Carew. He had, of all people in the world, possibly the least right to her. She was his first cousin, nothing but a child; worth, the papers had said, a million in her own right. The heiress of a man who despised him. But her name was music still; music as yet too delicate, sweet as it was, not to be drowned by the deeper, graver notes that were sounding through Fairfax. There was a call to labour, there was the imperious demand of his art. In him, something sang Glory, and if the other tones meant struggle and battle, nevertheless his desire was all toward them. BOOK III THE VISIONS CHAPTER I The sea which he had just crossed lay gleaming behind him, every lovely ripple washing the shores of a new continent. The cliffs which he saw rising white in the sunlight were the Norman cliffs. Beyond them the fields waved in the summer air and the June sky spread blue over France. As he stepped down from the gang-plank and touched French soil, he gazed about him in delight. The air was salt and indescribably sweet. The breeze came to him over the ripening fields and mingled with the breath of the sea. They passed his luggage through the Customs quickly, and Antony was free to wonder and to explore. Not since he had left the oleanders and jasmines of New Orleans had he smelled such delicious odours as those of sea-girdled Havre. A few soldiers in red uniforms tramped down the streets singing the Marseillaise. A group of fish-wives offered him mussels and crabs. In his grey travelling clothes, his soft grey hat, his bag in his hand, he went away from the port toward the wide avenue. The bright colour of a red awning of a cafe caught his eye; he decided to breakfast before going on to Paris. Paris! The word thrilled him through and through. At a small table out of doors he ordered "boeuf a la mode" and "pommes de terre." It seemed agreeable to speak French again and his soft Creole accent charmed the ear of the waiter who bent smiling to take his order. Antony watched with interest the scene around him; those about him seemed to be good-humoured, contented travellers on the road of life. There was a neat alacrity about the waiters in their white aprons. A girl with a bouquet of roses came up to him. Antony gave her a sou and in exchange she gave him a white rose. "Thank you, Monsieur the Englishman."