the quays to a little restaurant looking out on the Seine,
and there, over the plat du jour, consider the next step
to be taken. The long walk had given her cheeks a glow
indicative of wholesome hunger, and she made no difficulty
about satisfying it in Darrow's company. Regaining the
river they walked on in the direction of Notre Dame, delayed
now and again by the young man's irresistible tendency to
linger over the bookstalls, and by his ever-fresh response
to the shifting beauties of the scene. For two years his
eyes had been subdued to the atmospheric effects of London,
to the mysterious fusion of darkly-piled city and low-lying
bituminous sky; and the transparency of the French air,
which left the green gardens and silvery stones so
classically clear yet so softly harmonized, struck him as
having a kind of conscious intelligence. Every line of the
architecture, every arch of the bridges, the very sweep of
the strong bright river between them, while contributing to
this effect, sent forth each a separate appeal to some
sensitive memory; so that, for Darrow, a walk through the
Paris streets was always like the unrolling of a vast
tapestry from which countless stored fragrances were shaken
out.

It was a proof of the richness and multiplicity of the
spectacle that it served, without incongruity, for so
different a purpose as the background of Miss Viner's
enjoyment. As a mere drop-scene for her personal adventure
it was just as much in its place as in the evocation of
great perspectives of feeling. For her, as he again
perceived when they were seated at their table in a low