aster figures and
irrelevant towers, the whole ringed in by a semi-circle of high, gray
mountains. It was a fantastic fairyland, this place of palms and bosky
lawns, with grass far too green to seem real, and beds of incredibly
brilliant flowers.

One section of the garden ran straight and long, like a gayly patterned
carpet, toward a middle background of climbing houses with red roofs;
and it began to spread almost from the steps of the cream white building
with jewelled and gilded horns, which Mary had seen in Peter's Riviera
snapshots: the Casino. As the omnibus swung round a generous half
circle, slowly now to avoid loitering groups of people, Mary saw many
men and women arriving in motors or on foot, to go up the shallow flight
of carpeted marble steps which led into the horned building. She thought
again of an immense animal face under these erect, glittering horns; a
face with quantities of intelligent, bright glass eyes that watched, and
a wide-open, smiling mouth into which the figures walked confidently. It
looked a kind, friendly animal basking in the gardens, and the big clock
above its forehead, round which pigeons wheeled, added to its air of
comfortable good nature. Mary was suddenly smitten with a keen curiosity
to see exactly what all these people would see who allowed themselves
to be swallowed by the mouth which smiled in receiving them. Most of the
women were smartly dressed and had gold or embroidered bags in their
hands, like those she had seen at Nice station. They went in looking
straight ahead, and men ran up the steps quickly. Surely this was more
than a mere building. There was something alive and vital and
mysteriously attractive about it, though it was not beautiful at all
architecturally, only rich looking and extraordinary, with its bronze
youths sitting on the cornice and plaster figures starting out of the
walls, laughing and beckoning. It had a personality which subtly
contrived to dominate and make everything else in the little fairyland
of flowers subservient to it, almost as if the emotions and passions of
thousands and tens of thousands of souls from all over the world had
saturated the materials of its construction.

As this fancy came to Mary's mind, the sun in its last look over the
gray Tete de Chien struck her full in the eyes as with a flung golden
gauntlet, then dropped behind the mountain, setting the sky on fire. An
unreal light illumined the buildings in the fairy gardens