All of it was still dripping, shining, covered in places by a cloak of ooze; and fragments of marble or gold sparkled in the sun. On the right and on the left wound two long silver ribands. They were the waterfalls which had once more found the bed of their stone canals and poured their waters along them.
“The forum,” said Ralph, who was a trifle pale and whose voice betrayed the emotion with which the sight [[308]]filled him. “The forum—almost of the same dimensions and the same shape. The papers of the old Marquess contain a plan and explanations of it which I studied last night. The town of Juvains was under the big lake, under this one were the hot baths and the temples consecrated to the Gods of Health and Strength, all ranged round the temple of Youth, of which you see the circular colonnade.”
With an arm round Aurelie’s waist, to help her over the slippery ground, he led her down the sacred way. The great slabs were slippery under their feet. Moss and water plants and small pebbles covered their surface. Here and there among the pebbles were pieces of money. Ralph picked up two of them: they were stamped with the effigy of Constantine.
They stopped before a small temple dedicated to Youth. What remained of it was delightful; and there was enough to enable the imagination to reconstruct an admirably proportioned rotunda, raised upon several steps. Under it was the basin of a fountain, held up by four plump and sturdy children, from the middle of which must have risen the statue of Youth. Only two of them were still to be seen, charming, gracious, dipping their feet in the basin, from which in days gone by four of them hurled jets of water into the air.
Large pipes of lead, doubtless hidden when the city flourished, appeared to come from a spot in the cliff, where was the spring which supplied the fountain. To [[309]]the end of one of them a tap had been recently soldered. Ralph turned it. A jet of water darted out of it, a trifle muddy.
“L’Eau de Jouvence,” said Ralph. “This is the water that was in the bottle they took from the death-bed of your grandfather. The analysis of it was written on the label of that bottle.”
For two hours they strolled about this fabulous city. Aurelie felt again the sensations she had felt on her first visit, latent in the depths of her being, and suddenly revived. She had seen that group of funeral urns, and this mutilated Goddess and that street with broken pavement and this arcade that made her tremble with melancholy joy.
She said softly: “My beloved, it is to you that I owe all this happiness. But for you I should feel nothing but misery. While I am with you everything is beautiful and delightful. I love you.”
At ten o’clock the bells of Clermont-Ferrand were chiming for High Mass. Aurelie and Ralph came to the mouth of the passage. The two cascades poured into it, running on the right and left of the triumphal way, and vanished down four open sluices.
The amazing visit came to an end. As Ralph said once more, that which had been hidden during the ages must not yet appear in the light of day. No one must see it before the hour at which Aurelie should have been acknowledged its mistress. [[310]]