The flapping awning took up the matter at length. Routledge relit his pipe dexterously, sensing the very core of the harbor-breeze with his nostrils, and shutting it off.... He would cross France to-night; and dine in Paris to-morrow, breathe the ruffian winds of the Channel to-morrow night, and breakfast again in London.... His brain had put off the lethargy of Asia, indeed--quickened already to the tense stroke of Europe. He was vehemently animate. The rapid French talk on the pier below stirred him with the great import of massed life--as it might have stirred a boy from the fields entering the city of his visions. A few hours and then London!... “She has never forgotten you, Routledge.”... Once he had seen the mother of Noreen--the woman who, for a little while, was the embodied heaven to Jerry Cardinegh; heaven in spirit to the old man now. A face of living pearl; the gilding and bronzing of autumnal wood-lands in her hair; great still eyes of mystery and mercy.... In a way not to be analyzed, the sight of her made Routledge love more Jerry Cardinegh’s Ireland. Tyrone was hallowed a little in conception--because it had been _her_ home. In Paris, at the Seville, the next afternoon, a servant informed Routledge that a lady was waiting for him in the Orange Room. There was a lifting in his breast, a thrilling temperamental response. Some fragrant essence of home-coming which he had not thought to find in Paris swept over his senses.... She was sitting in the mellowed glows and shadows of the Seville’s famous parlor. The faintest scent of myrrh and sandal; Zuni potteries like globes of desert sunlight; golden tapestries from the house of Gobelin; fleeces of gold from Persian looms; the sheen of an orange full moon through rifted clouds of satin; spars of gilded daylight through the billowing laces at the casement; the stillness of Palestine; sunlight of centuries woven into every textile fabric--and the woman, Noreen, rising to meet him, a vivid classic of light and warmth. “Routledge-san!” “To-morrow, I expected to see you--in London,” he faltered. “I have been living in Paris. I return to Cheer Street to-night--to make ready for father to-morrow afternoon.” He was burning with excitement at the sight of her, and the red was deep in her cheeks. It was as if there had been wonderful psychic communions between them; and, meeting in the flesh at last, they were abashed, startled by the phenomenon. “Mr. Bingley told me that you were to be in Paris to-day. He left for London last night. I was impatient to see you. Possibly I did not wait long enough for you to rest after your journey.” Routledge did not answer. He was smiling in a strange, shy way, as few men smile after thirty. Moreover, he was holding fast to the hand so eagerly offered. “Do forgive my staring at you,” he said at last. “I’ve been away a very long time. In India----” “You may stare, Routledge-san. Men coming home from the wars may do as they will,” she laughed.