gardens and hills were bathed in the colour of ripe apricot; an evening
crispness had stolen on the air; the blood, released from the sun's
numbing, ran gladly in the veins. On the right hand of the road was
a Frenchman playing bowls. Enormous, busy, pleased, and upright as a
soldier, pathetically trotting his vast carcass from end to end, he
delighted Shelton. But Antonia threw a single look at the huge creature,
and her face expressed disgust. She began running up towards the ruined
tower.

Shelton let her keep in front, watching her leap from stone to stone and
throw back defiant glances when he pressed behind. She stood at the top,
and he looked up at her. Over the world, gloriously spread below, she,
like a statue, seemed to rule. The colour was brilliant in her cheeks,
her young bosom heaved, her eyes shone, and the flowing droop of her
long, full sleeves gave to her poised figure the look of one who flies.
He pulled himself up and stood beside her; his heart choked him, all the
colour had left his cheeks.

"Antonia," he said, "I love you."

She started, as if his whisper had intruded on her thoughts; but his
face must have expressed his hunger, for the resentment in her eyes
vanished.

They stood for several minutes without speaking, and then went home.
Shelton painfully revolved the riddle of the colour in her face. Had he
a chance then? Was it possible? That evening the instinct vouchsafed at
times to lovers in place of reason caused him to pack his bag and go to
Cannes. On returning, two days later, and approaching the group in the
centre of the Winter Garden, the voice of the maiden aunt reading aloud