y of a one-eyed
geologist who discoursed playfully on the foraminifera of the Pacific
slope.

One day Dasent came on her alone, and burst out wrathfully:

"Why are you treating me like this?"

"Like what?"

"You are making a fool of me. I'm not going to stand it."

Then she realized that when the average man does not get what he wants
exactly when he wants it he loses his temper. She soothed him according to
the better instincts of her sex, but resolved to play no more with
elementary young Britons. One-eyed geologists were safer companions. The
former pitched their hearts into her lap; the latter, like Pawkins, the
geologist of the Pacific slope, gave her boxes of fossils. She preferred
the fossils. You could do what you liked with them: throw them overboard
when the donor was not looking, or leave them behind in a railway carriage,
or take them home and present them to the vicar who collected butterflies,
beetles, ammonites, and tobacco stoppers. But an odd assortment of hearts
to a woman who does not want them is really a confounded nuisance. Zora was
very much relieved when Dasent, after eating an enormous breakfast, bade
her a tragic farewell at Gibraltar.

* * * * *

It was a cloudless afternoon when she steamed into Marseilles. The barren
rock islands on the east rose blue-gray from a blue sea. To the west lay
the Isles of Frioul and the island of the Chateau d'If, with its prison
lying grim and long on the crest; in front the busy port, the white noble
city crowned by the church of Notre Dame de la Garde standing sentinel
against the clear sky.

Zora stood on the crowded deck watching the scene, touched as she always
was by natural beauty, but sad at heart. Marseilles, within four-and-twenty
hours of London, meant home. Although she intended to continue her
wanderings to Naples and Alexandria, she felt that she had come to the end
of her journey. It had been as profitless as the last. Pawkins, by her
side, pointed out the geological feature of the rocks. She listened
vaguely, and wondered whether she was to bring him home tied to her chariot
as she had brought Septimus Dix and Clem Sypher. The thought of Sypher drew
her heart to Marseilles.

"I wish I were landing here like you, and going straight home," she said,
interrupting the flow of scientific information. "I've already been to
Naples, and I shall find nothing I want at Alexandria."

"Geologically, it's not very i