y more conveyed in them. And he knew that, if they
had not been meant, they would not have been spoken. She did think his
friendship worth while, and she had given him hers. It was all his heart
dared ask at the moment, yet, deep within it, his secret hope stirred to
fuller life. And then, suddenly, prompted by some instinct, quite
unexplainable at the moment, he put a question.

"What is the foundation of friendship?" he asked.

"Trust," she responded quickly, her eyes meeting his for a moment. "And
here," she said, looking towards the hotel, "comes our lunch."

It was sunset before the _Fort Salisbury_ was once more cleaving her way
through the water. Antony, from her decks, looked once more at the
receding land. Again he saw it rising, like a purple amethyst, from the
sea, but this time it was veiled in the rose-coloured light of the
sinking sun. He looked towards that portion of the amethyst where the
little courtyard with the orange trees in green tubs was situated.

Once more he heard his question and the Duchessa's answer. It was a
memory which was to remain with him for many a month.

CHAPTER VII

ENGLAND

A week later, Antony was sitting in a first-class carriage on his way
from Plymouth to Waterloo. He gazed through the window, his mind filled
with various emotions.

Uppermost was the memory of the voyage and the Duchessa. The memory
already appeared to him almost as a vivid and extraordinarily beautiful
dream, though reason assured him to the contrary. The whole events of the
last month, and even his present position in the train, appeared to him
intangible and unreal. It seemed a dream self, rather than the real
Antony, who was gazing from the window at the landscape which was
slipping past him; who was looking out on the English fields, the English
woods, and the English cottages past which the train was tearing. He saw
gardens ablaze with flowers; bushes snowy with hawthorn; horses and cows
standing idly in the shadow of the trees; and, now and again, small,
trimly-kept country stations, looking for all the world like prim
schoolgirls in gay print dresses.

He glanced from the window to the rack opposite to him, where his
portmanteau was lying. That, at all events, was tangible, real, and
familiar. It struck the sole familiar note in the extraordinary
unfamiliarity of everything around him. He looked at his own initials
painted on it, slowly tracing them in his mind. He pulled out his
po