“Why, we’ve been to Rome, and we’re going to Arles,” she exclaimed.  “We can tell people we’ve been over the whole of the Via Aurelia, can’t we?  We needn’t mention that the automobile didn’t arrive till after we got to Cannes.  And anyway, you say there were once theatres there, and at Antibes, like the one at Frejus, so we’ve been making a kind of Roman pilgrimage all along, if we’d only known it.”

“It is considered quite the thing to do, in Roman amphitheatres, to make a tour of the prisoners’ cells and gladiators’ dressing-rooms, the guide says,” insinuated the chauffeur.  And then, when the bride and bridegroom, reluctant but conscientious, were swimming round the vast bowl of masonry, like tea-leaves floating in a great cup, he turned to me.

“Why don’t you thank me?” he inquired.  “I was doing it for you.  I knew you hated to miss all this, and I saw she meant to go on, so I intervened, in the only way I could think of, to touch her.”

“If you’re always as clever as that, I don’t see why this shouldn’t be our trip,” I said.  “That will be a consolation.”

“I’m afraid you’ll often need more consolation than that,” he answered.  “Lady Turnour is—­as the Americans say—­a pretty ‘stiff proposition.’”

“Still, if you can hypnotize her into going to all the places, and stopping to look at all the nicest things, this will at least be a cheap automobile tour for us both.”

I laughed, but he didn’t; and I was sorry, for I thought I deserved a smile.  And he has a nice one, with even white teeth in it, and a wistful sort of look in his eyes at the same time:  a really interesting smile.

I wondered what he was thinking about that made him look so grave; but I conceitedly felt that it was something concerning me—­or the situation of us both.

CHAPTER VIII

The tidal wave of pines followed us as, having had one glance at the Porte Doree, we left Frejus, old and new, behind.  It followed us out of gay little St. Raphael, lying in its alluvial plain of flowers, and on along the coast past which the ships of Augustus Caesar used to sail.

Not in my most starry dreams could I have fancied a road as beautiful as that which opened to us soon, winding above the dancing water.

Graceful dryad pines knelt by the wayside, stretching out their arms to the sea, where charming little bays shone behind enlacing branches, blue as the eyes of a wood-nymph gleaming shyly through the brown tangle of her hair.  Pine balsam mingled with the bitter-sweet perfume of almond blossom, and caught a pungent tang of salt from the wind.

What romance—­what beauty!  It made me in love with life, just to pass this way, and know that so much hidden loveliness existed.  I glanced furtively over my shoulder at the couple whose honeymoon it is—­our master and mistress.  Lady Turnour sat nodding in the conservatory atmosphere of her glass cage, and Sir Samuel was earnestly choosing a cigar.