CHAPTER I
The sea which he had just crossed lay gleaming behind him, every lovely ripple washing the shores of a new continent.
The cliffs which he saw rising white in the sunlight were the Norman cliffs. Beyond them the fields waved in the summer air and the June sky spread blue over France.
As he stepped down from the gang-plank and touched French soil, he gazed about him in delight.
The air was salt and indescribably sweet. The breeze came to him over the ripening fields and mingled with the breath of the sea.
They passed his luggage through the Customs quickly, and Antony was free to wonder and to explore. Not since he had left the oleanders and jasmines of New Orleans had he smelled such delicious odours as those of sea-girdled Havre. A few soldiers in red uniforms tramped down the streets singing the Marseillaise. A group of fish-wives offered him mussels and crabs.
In his grey travelling clothes, his soft grey hat, his bag in his hand, he went away from the port toward the wide avenue.
The bright colour of a red awning of a café caught his eye; he decided to breakfast before going on to Paris.
Paris! The word thrilled him through and through.