When, a month later, Frederick Marston went to the hotel on the Promenade des Anglais at Nice, it was a much improved and rejuvenated man as compared with the wasted creature who had opened the closed door of the “academy” in the Quartier Latin, and had dropped the key on the floor. Although still a trifle gaunt, he was much the same person who, almost a year before, had clung to the pickets at Churchill Downs, and halted in his view of a two-year-old finish. Just as the raw air of the north had given place to the wooing softness of the Riviera, and the wet blankets of haze over the gardens of the Tuileries to the golden sunlight of the flower-decked south, so he had come again out of winter into spring, and the final result of his life’s equation was the man that had been Saxon, untouched by the old Marston.

Duska’s stay at Nice had been begun in apathy. About her were all the influences of beauty and roses and soft breezes, but it was not until she had read this first letter from Marston that these things meant anything to her. Then, suddenly, she had awakened to a sense of its delight. She knew that he would not come at once, and she felt that this was best. She wanted him to come back to her when he could come as the man who had been in her life, and, since she knew he was coming, she could wait. Her eyes had become as brightly blue as the Mediterranean mirroring the sky, and her cheeks had again taken on their kinship to the roses of the Riviera. Once more, she was one with the nature of this favored spot, a country that some magical realist seems to have torn bodily from the enchanted Isles of Imagination, and transplanted in the world of Fact.

Now, she became eager to see everything, and it so happened that, when Marston, who had not notified her of the day of his arrival, reached her hotel, it was to find that she and her aunt had motored over to Monte Carlo, by the upper Corniche Road, that show-drive of the world which climbs along the heights with the sea below and the sky, it would seem, not far above. The man turned out again to the Promenade des Anglais. The sun was shining on its whiteness, and it seemed that the city was a huge structure of solid marble, set between the sea and the color-spotted slopes of the villa-clad hills.

Marston was highly buoyant as he made his way to the garage where he could secure a car to give chase. He even paused with boyish and delighted interest to gaze into the glittering shop windows of the Promenade and the Avenue Felix Faure, where were temptingly displayed profound booklets guaranteeing the purchaser a sure system for conquering the chances of roulette “on a capital of £9, playing red or black, manque or passe, pair or impair, and compiled by one with four years of experience.”

He had soon negotiated for a car, and had gained the friendship of a chauffeur, who grinned happily and with contentment when he learned that monsieur’s object was speed. Ahead of him stretched nine miles of perfect macadam, with enough beauty to fill the eye and heart with joy for every mile, and at the end of the journey—unless he could happily overtake her sooner—was Duska.

The car sped up between the villas, up to the white ribbon of road where the ships, lying at anchor in the purpled water beneath, were white toys no longer than pencils, where towns were only patches of roof tiles, and mountainsides mere rumpled blankets of green and color; where the road-houses were delights of picturesque rusticity and flower-covered walls.

Thanks to a punctured tire, Marston found a large dust-coated car standing at the roadside when he had covered only half of the journey. It was drawn up near a road-house that sat back of a rough stone wall, and was abandoned save for the chauffeur, who labored over his task of repair. But Marston stopped and ran up the stone stairs to the small terrace, where, between rose bushes that crowded the time-stained faÇade of the modest caravansery, were set two or three small tables under a trellis; and, at one of the tables, he recognized Mrs. Horton.

Mrs. Horton rose with a little gasp of delight to welcome him, and recognized how his eyes were ranging in search for an even more important personage while he greeted her. Off beyond the road, with its low guarding wall of stone, the mountainside fell away precipitously to the sea, stretching out below in a limitless expanse of the bluest blue that our eyes can endure. The slopes were thickly wooded.

“We blew out a tire,” explained Mrs. Horton, “and Duska is exploring somewhere over the wall there. I was content to sit here and wait—but you are younger,” she added with a smile. “I won’t keep you here.”

From inside the tavern came the tinkle of guitars, from everywhere in the clear crystalline air hung the perfume of roses. Marston, with quick apologies, hastened across the road, vaulted the wall, and began his search. It was a brief one, for, turning into a clearing, he saw her below him on a ledge. She stood as straight and slim and gracefully erect as the lancelike young trees.

He made his way swiftly down the slope, and she had not turned nor heard his approach. He went straight to her, and took her in his arms.

The girl wheeled with a little cry of recognition and delight; then, after a moment, she held him off at arms’ length, and looked at him. Her eyes were deep, and needed no words. About them was all the world and all the beauty of it.

Finally, she laughed with the old, happy laugh.

“Once,” she said very slowly, “you quoted poetry to me—a verse about the young queen’s crowning. Do you remember?”

He nodded.

“But that doesn’t apply now,” he assured her. “You are going to crown me with an undeserved and unspeakable crown.”

“Quote it to me now,” she commanded, with reinstated autocracy.

For a moment, the man looked into her face as the sun struck down on its delicate color, under the softness of hat and filmy automobile veil; then, clasping her very close, he whispered the lines:

“Do you remember some other lines in the same verse?” she questioned, in a voice that made his throbbing pulses bound faster; but, before he could answer, she went on:

They turned together, and started up the slope.