The spell of the archaic dusk came on him again; a dusk old as the world. About them brooded the welter of passion and romance that Marseilles is. Once it was a Phocaean village, and hook-nosed Afric folk had stepped through on long, thin feet. And then had come the Greeks, with their broad, clear brows, their gray eyes. And further back the hairy Gauls had crept, snarling like dogs. And Greece died. And came the clash of the Roman legions, ruthless fighting hundreds, who saw, did massive things. And Rome died. And over the sea came the Saracens, their high heads, their hard, bronzed bodies, their scarlet mouths. And they conquered and builded and lived.... And were hurled back.... Years hummed by, and passion died not, or romance, and it was from Marseilles that a battalion had come to Paris gates singing the song that Rouget de Lisle had written in Strasburg: _Allons, enfants de la Patrie, Le jour de gloire est arrive._ And passed that day, and came another, when a handful of grizzled veterans left the gates to join their brothers and meet the exiled emperor.... Passion and romance! Their colors were in Marseilles still.... Over in _Anse des Catalans_ weren't there the remains of the village of the sea-Gipsies, who had come none knew whence?... And along the gulf there were settlements of Saracen blood--_les Maures_, the Provencals called them ... and the shadow of Pontius Pilate wild-eyed in the dusk.... "It's strange"--her voice came gently to him,--"but I can hear you think." "And I can feel your silence," he said. "Just feel--you--being silent--" The wind whipped up, grew shrill, grew cold. She shivered in her thin frock. "You are becoming cold." "I am cold." "Then hadn't you better go home--to your house?" She rose silently. It seemed to him somehow that she had put herself under his care. She was like some gentle little craft that had anchored humbly under the lee of a great ship. He felt somehow that she was a thing to be protected. He hailed a carriage, and she made no protest--all the time under his lee, so needful of protection. It was a shock when they came into the lights of Marseilles to find a proud, grave woman there and not a shrinking, wide-eyed child.... Her face, poised for flight, like a bird's wing; the beautiful, half-opened mouth, the hands, the little feet in their shoes. She was like some beautiful shy deer. And somewhere hovered disaster, like a familiar spirit.... And yet she was smiling.... At the door he made to bid her good-by. "Would you--would you care to come in?" "Why--why, yes." He sent the carriage away.