"As our interesting friend" (she meant the Professor) "is not here," said Mrs. Trescott, sinking in a breathless condition upon a Saracen block, "there is no one to tell us its history."
"There is no history," said Verney, "or, rather, no one knows it; and to me that is its chief attraction. There are, of course, legends in stacks, but nothing authentic. The Saracens undoubtedly occupied it for a time, and kept the whole coast below cowering under their cruel sway. But it is hardly probable that they built it; they did not build so far inland; they preferred the shore."
Our specified object, of course, in climbing that breathless path was "the view."
Now there are various ways of seeing views. I have known "views" which required long gazing at points where there was nothing earthly to be seen: in such cases there was probably something heavenly. Other "views" reveal themselves only to two persons at a time; if a third appears, immediately there is nothing to be seen. As to our own manner of looking at the Sant' Agnese view, I will mention that Mrs. Trescott looked at it from a snug corner, on a soft shawl, with her eyes closed. Mrs. Clary looked at it retrospectively, as it were; she began phrases like these: "When I was here three years ago—" pause, sigh, full stop. "Once I was here at sunset—" ditto. Janet, on a remote rock, looked at it, I think, amid a little tragedy from Inness, interrupted and made more tragic by the incursions of Baker, who would not be frowned away. Verney looked at it from a high niche in which he had incautiously seated himself for a moment, and now remained imprisoned, because Miss Elaine had placed herself across the entrance so that he could not emerge without asking her to rise; from this niche, like the tenor of Trovatore in his tower, he occasionally sent across a Miserere to Janet in the distance, like this: "Do you ob—serve, Miss Trescott, the col—ors of the lem—ons below?" And Janet would gesture an assent. Lloyd and Margaret had found a place on a little projecting plateau, where, with the warm sunshine flooding over them, they sat contentedly talking. Meanwhile having neither sleep, retrospect, tragedy, Miserere, nor conversation with which to entertain myself, I really looked at the view, and probably was the only person who did. I had time enough for it. We remained there nearly two hours.
At last our donkey-driver came up to tell us that dancing was going on below, and that there was not much time if we wished to see it, since the long homeward journey still lay before us. So we elders began to call: "Janet!" "Janet!" "Margaret!" "Mr. Verney!" And presently from the rock, the niche, and the plateau they came slowly in, Janet flushed, and Inness very pale, Baker like a thunder-cloud, Miss Elaine smiling and conscious, Verney annoyed, Lloyd just as usual, and Margaret with a younger look in her face than I had seen there for months. In the little rock amphitheatre below we found the villagers merrily dancing; and some strangers like ourselves, who had come out from Mentone later, were amusing themselves by dancing also. Janet joined the circle with Baker, and Inness, after leaning on the parapet awhile, with his back to the dancers, gazing into space, disappeared. I think he went homeward by another path across the mountains. Miss Elaine admired "so much" Miss Trescott's courage in dancing before "so many strangers." She (Miss Elaine) was far "too shy to attempt it." But I did not notice that she was violently urged to the attempt. In the meantime Lloyd was looking at an English girl belonging to the other party, who was dancing near us. She was tall and shapely, with the beautiful English rose-pink complexion, and abundant light hair which had the glint of bronze where the sun shone across it. After a while, as the others came near, he recognized in one of them an acquaintance, who turned out to be the brother of the young lady who had been dancing.
When, as we returned, we reached the main street of Mentone, Margaret and I, who were behind, stopped a moment and looked back. The far peak of Sant' Agnese was flushed with rose-light, although where we were it was already night.
"It does not seem as if we could have been there," I said. "It looks so far away."
"Yes, we have been there," said Margaret; "we have been there. But already it is far, far away."
