e, there would be a
mysterious silky whisper and rustle, something like that you hear in the
woods, in the spring, when the leaves are crisp with their pale green
youth, and you shut your eyes, listening to the breeze telling them the
secrets of life.

There would be a fragrance about the white dress and the laces, and
ermine, and the silk things that you could not see,--a fragrance as
mysterious as the rustling, for it would seem to belong to the girl, and
not to have come from any bottle, or bag of sachet powder. A sweet,
fresh, indefinable fragrance, like the smell of a tea rose after rain.

They would have walked together, they two, and he would have been so
proud of her, that every time a passer-by cast a glance of admiration at
her face, he would feel that he could hardly keep in a laugh of joy, or
a shout, "She is mine--she is mine."

But he had been poor in the old days, when from far away he had thought
of this terrace, and the moon of honey and roses, and love. It had all
been a dream, then, as it was now; too sweet ever to come true.

He thought of the dream, and of the boy who had dreamed it, half
bitterly, half sadly, on this his first day in the place of the dream.

He was rich--as rich as he had seen himself in the impossible picture,
and it would have been almost too easy to buy the white dress, and the
ermine, and the pearls. But there was no one for whom he would have been
happy to buy them. The most beautiful girl in the world was not in his
world now; and none other had had the password to open the door of his
heart since she had gone out, locking it behind her.

"She would have liked the auto," he said to himself. And then, a moment
later, "I wonder why I came?"

It was a perfect Riviera day. Everybody in Monte Carlo who was not in
the Casino was sauntering on the terrace in the sun; for it was that
hour before luncheon when people like to say, "How do you do?--How nice
to meet you here!" to their friends.

The young man from far away had not, so far as he knew, either enemies
or friends at Monte Carlo. He was not conscious of the slightest desire
to say "How do you do?" to any of the pretty people he met, although
there is a superstition that every soul longs for kindred souls at
Christmas time.

He had not been actively unhappy before he left the Hotel de Paris and
strolled out on the terrace, to have his first sight of Monte Carlo by
daylight. Always, there was the sore spot in his hear