The depth of his pleasure in the things he saw was likewise a revelation to her.  She was by no means a bad guide to the Louvre and the Luxembourg, but the light in her which had come slowly flooded him with radiance at the sight of a statue or a picture.  He would stop with an exclamation and stand gazing, self-forgetful, for incredible periods, and she would watch him, filled with a curious sense of the limitations of an appreciation she had thought complete.  Where during his busy life had he got this thing which others had sought in many voyages in vain?

Other excursions they made, and sometimes these absorbed a day.  It was a wonderful month, that Parisian September, which Honora, when she allowed herself to think, felt that she had no right to.  A month filled to the brim with colour:  the stone facades of the houses, which in certain lights were what the French so aptly call bleuatre; the dense green foliage of the horse-chestnut trees, the fantastic iron grills, the Arc de Triomphe in the centre of its circle at sunset, the wide shaded avenues radiating from it, the bewildering Champs Elysees, the blue waters of the Seine and the graceful bridges spanning it, Notre Dame against the sky.  Their walks took them, too, into quainter, forgotten regions where history was grim and half-effaced, and they speculated on the France of other days.

They went farther afield; and it was given them to walk together down green vistas cut for kings, to linger on terraces with the river far below them, and the roofs of Paris in the hazy distance; that Paris, sullen so long, the mutterings of which the kings who had sat there must have heard with dread; that Paris which had finally risen in its wrath and taken the pleasure-houses and the parks for itself.

Once they went out to Chantilly, the cameo-like chateau that stands mirrored in its waters, and wandered through the alleys there.  Honora had left her parasol on the parapet, and as they returned Peter went to get it, while she awaited him at a little distance.  A group was chatting gayly on the lawn, and one of them, a middle-aged, well-dressed man hailed him with an air of fellowship, and Peter stopped for a moment’s talk.

“We were speaking of ambassadors the other day,” he said when he joined her; “that was our own, Minturn.”

“We were speaking of them nearly a month ago,” she said.

“A month ago!  I can’t believe it!” he exclaimed.

“What did he say to you?” Honora inquired presently.

“He was abusing me for not letting him know I was in Paris.”

“Peter, you ought to have let him know!”

“I didn’t come over here to see the ambassador,” answered Peter, gayly.

She talked less than usual on their drive homeward, but he did not seem to notice the fact.  Dusk was already lurking in the courtyards and byways of the quiet quarter when the porter let them in, and the stone stairway of the old hotel was almost in darkness.  The sitting-room, with its yellow, hangings snugly drawn and its pervading but soft light, was a grateful change.  And while she was gone to—­remove her veil and hat, Peter looked around it.