, whither he had been sent on some learned enterprise
by the Minister of Education, and had carried an imagination already
prepossessed and dazzled with Homeric visions. He told his story well
and with detail, combining the recollections of the scholar with the
impressions of an artist. The pediment of the Parthenon, the oleanders
of the Ilissus, the stream "that runs in rain-time," the naked peak of
Parnassus, the green slopes of Helicon, the blue gulf of Argus, the
pine forest beside Alpheus, where the ancients worshipped "Death the
Gentle"--all of them passed in recount upon his learned lips.

I must acknowledge, to my shame, that I did not listen to all he said,
but, in a favorite way I have, reserved some of my own freedom of
thought, while I gave him complete freedom of speech. And I am bound
to say he did not abuse it, but consented to pause at the frontiers
of Thessaly. Then followed silence. I gave him room to stretch. Soon,
lulled by the motion of the carriage, the stream of reminiscence ran
more slowly--then ran dry. M. Charnot slept.

We bowled at a good pace, without jolting, over the white road. A warm
mist rose around us laden with the smell of vegetation, ripe corn, and
clover from the overheated earth and the neighboring fields, which had
drunk their full of sunlight. Now and again a breath of fresh air was
blown to us from the mountains. As the darkness deepened the country
grew to look like a vast chessboard, with dark and light squares of
grass and corn land, melting at no great distance into a colorless and
unbroken horizon. But as night blotted out the earth, the heaven lighted
up its stars. Never have I seen them so lustrous nor in such number.
Jeanne reclined with her eyes upturned toward those limitless fields of
prayer and vision; and their radiance, benignly gentle, rested on her
face. Was she tired or downcast, or merely dreaming? I knew not. But
there was something so singularly poetic in her look and attitude that
she seemed to me to epitomize in herself all the beauty of the night.

I was afraid to speak. Her father's sleep, and our consequent isolation,
made me ill at ease. She, too, seemed so careless of my presence, so far
away in dreamland, that I had to await opportunity, or rather her leave,
to recall her from it.

Finally she broke the silence herself. A little beyond Monza she drew
closer her shawl, that the night wind had ruffled, and bent over toward
me:

"You must excuse my