It was, of course, poor dear Florence who wanted to go to Las
Tours. You are to imagine that, however much her bright
personality came from Stamford, Connecticut, she was yet a
graduate of Poughkeepsie. I never could imagine how she did
it--the queer, chattery person that she was. With the far-away look
in her eyes--which wasn't, however, in the least romantic--I mean
that she didn't look as if she were seeing poetic dreams, or looking
through you, for she hardly ever did look at you!--holding up one
hand as if she wished to silence any objection--or any comment
for the matter of that--she would talk. She would talk about
William the Silent, about Gustave the Loquacious, about Paris
frocks, about how the poor dressed in 1337, about Fantin-Latour,
about the Paris-Lyons-Mediterranée train-deluxe, about whether it
would be worth while to get off at Tarascon and go across the
windswept suspension-bridge, over the Rhone to take another look
at Beaucaire.

We never did take another look at Beaucaire, of course--beautiful
Beaucaire, with the high, triangular white tower, that looked as
thin as a needle and as tall as the Flatiron, between Fifth and
Broadway--Beaucaire with the grey walls on the top of the
pinnacle surrounding an acre and a half of blue irises, beneath the
tallness of the stone pines, What a beautiful thing the stone pine
is! . . .

No, we never did go back anywhere. Not to Heidelberg, not to
Hamelin, not to Verona, not to Mont Majour--not so much as to
Carcassonne itself. We talked of it, of course, but I guess Florence
got all she wanted out of one look at a place. She had the seeing
eye.