"Stars are better," said her companion.

She turned on him swiftly.

"How did you know I was making comparisons?"

"I felt it," he murmured.

They walked slowly down the steps. At the bottom a carriage and pair
seemed to rise mysteriously out of the earth.

"'Ave a drive? Ver' good carriage," said a voice out of the dimness. Monte
Carlo cabmen are unerring in their divination of the Anglo-Saxon.

Why not? The suggestion awoke in her an instant craving for the true beauty
of the land. It was unconventional, audacious, crazy. But, again, why not?
Zora Middlemist was answerable for her actions to no man or woman alive.
Why not drink a great draught of the freedom that was hers? What did it
matter that the man was a stranger? All the more daring the adventure. Her
heart beat gladly. But chaste women, like children, know instinctively the
man they can trust.

"Shall we?"

"Drive?"

"Yes--unless--" a thought suddenly striking her--"unless you want to go
back to your friends."