Strange that at these charmingly named places of retired leisure, where the train paused, as if for meditation, radiant specimens of Parisian fashion should appear, in lemon-coloured hair and artistically applied complexions; what business had they in fairyland? And those children of Israel, of rubicund visage, expansive waistcoat, and patent-leather boots? And that gay and fresh-coloured youth, of simple but select toilet and lordly British bearing--not aggressively lordly, like that of so many Britons wandering in the land of the barbarous and ineffectual foreigner, not contemptuously, but unconsciously and cheerily so, like one to whom life offered all its best treasures as of royal right. Bright-eyed and lazily smiling, the youth strode slowly along the quiet platform, carelessly glancing at the windows, when a sudden thrill of sympathy made Ermengarde turn to see the woman of mystery, who was standing leaning against their door and looking across her at the people passing, start with a crimson face and eyes of flame, and crush herself suddenly far back in the corner of her seat, holding a paper of far-off yesterday before her eyes, with a quick, deep sigh. The youth passed on and came back again, stopping to speak to a Parisian costume in lemon hair and bistred eyes; left her, joyously laughing with his head thrown back, and cannoned against a brother Briton in an agony of misunderstanding with a porter, who was replying to impossible English-French in equally impossible French-English. "Riviera Palace, vite!" cried the English youth, cutting the Gordian knot and calming the troubled waters by those simple words in three different tongues; then, gripping the bewildered Briton by the arm, he steered him placidly out of sight. "So he didn't come for her," Ermengarde reflected. The mountains soared higher, and drew back from the land with ever greater majesty, and the headlands became more magically lovely as they stretched into the shining sea, the villas, the gardens, and groves ever richer; and, after having seemed to spend a brief but happy lifetime in traversing a beautiful dream, glorious with palm and olive and mimosa, the train again paused, and the woman of mystery suggested to Ermengarde that she had better get out. "You have arrived," she explained, finding her unwilling to stir. They had done nothing but arrive at intervals during the last twenty-four hours, and how should this mysterious creature know that this was her final destination? Still, the woman had been exceedingly kind, and Ermengarde thanked her graciously as she bowed her farewell, suddenly remembering that the dread ordeal of the Douane had once more to be faced, and her property, unseen since somebody had taken it to be registered at Victoria, had to be rescued from the barbarians--probably at high ransom. Chapter V On the Ridge