“You leave the grey country at dusk, and travel through the night, and then the dawn comes up, all orange and gold, and the cypresses hold up their beckoning fingers. There the sea is blue, and there are flowers, roses, carnations, wallflowers, stocks, and mimosa; oranges and lemons hang on the trees, and the white villas shine among palms and olives.” His voice became insinuating, and took on its sing-song blank-verse cadence. “Have you ever seen Monte Carlo?” “No.” “It is a vulgar world to the vulgar. But that delectable little world has an esoteric meaning. The sun shines, and it is easier to make love under a blue sky. And then, all those little towns on the edge of the blue sea, and the grey rock villages, and the adventures up mule-paths. Think of a mule-path, and pine woods, and sunlight, and a bottle of red wine.” She laughed, but with a tremor of self-consciousness. “It is useful to think of such things, just to realise how very far away they are.” “Nothing is far away, when one has the magic carpet of gold. Have the courage to dream, and there you are.” He got up, wandered round the room with a wavering glance at her, and then came across to the fire. “Just think of ‘Monte’ and the sunlight, and the gay pagan life. It is worth experiencing. Dream of it for a week in London. Are you getting dry?” He went down suddenly on one knee and felt her skirt, and in another moment he had touched one of her feet. “The little white empress is warm. How would she like to walk the terraces at Monte Carlo?” Eve kept very still. She had an abrupt glimpse of the meaning of his suggestions, and of all that was moving towards her in this man’s mind. Intuition told her that she would rebuff him more thoroughly by treating him as a sentimental idiot than by flattening him with anger, as if he were a man. “Please don’t do that. It’s foolish, and makes me want to laugh. I think it’s time we were serious. I am ready for work.” For an instant his eyes looked sulky and dangerous. “What a practical person it is.” “And what a long time you have taken to find that out. I’m afraid I’m not in the least sentimental.” Hugh Massinger went back to the lounge like a cat that has been laughed at. * * * * * CHAPTER XXVIII CANTERTON’S COTTAGE AND MISS CHAMPION’S MORALITY Three days before Christmas, Eve spent a quarter of an hour in a big toyshop in quest of something that she could send Lynette, and her choice came to rest upon a miniature cooking-stove fitted with a three-trayed oven, pots and pans, and a delightful little copper kettle. The stove cost her a guinea, but it was a piece of extravagance that warmed her heart. She wrote on a card: “For cooking Fairy Food in the Wilderness. Miss Eve sends ever so much love.”