There is nothing to equal the charm of these first wakings at dawn in foreign lands, full of the mysterious enchantment of the unknown. And this unknown was so very lovely, and this traveller so utterly untravelled, so happily open to impressions. So even the woman of mystery seemed to think, as she leant against a window in the couloir, with wide eyes and parted lips, absorbed in the pageant of sunlit sea and snow-sprinkled land and deep-hued foliage flashing by—all her schemes and machinations apparently in abeyance for a time. And yet in the dizzy and futile excursion Ermengarde had made to the breakfast car, where the sight of the simple but expensive déjeuner of coffee and roll and the fresh morning faces enjoying it, did but increase her physical misery and make it impossible to eat or drink, she had observed that this mysterious woman, breakfasting like others with amazing calm and even content, had exchanged significant glances with the Nihilist, whose shifty, sinister gaze had been, as usual, quite unable to meet the straightforward innocence of Ermengarde's—though she rarely looked in his direction, she perpetually felt his sinister gaze upon her, piercing even the dishevelled masses of back hair of which she was acutely and shamefastly conscious. And once when she had staggered and nearly fallen, in making a hasty exit from the coffee-scented car, this woman had sprung to her rescue with a cry of "Mrs. Allonby," and so supported her back to their corner-cupboard—misnamed state-room—without, it must be owned, inflicting any serious or even perceptible injury upon her.
"But how," Ermengarde asked in annihilating accents on recovery; "how did you know my name?"
It is not easy to disconcert that kind of person, she thought, observing the quickness with which the woman recovered her equanimity and the admirable calm with which she replied, while affecting to suppress a smile, "My dear lady, naturally by the label on your bag. Besides," she added, with the serpentine guile that affects simplicity, "you asked me last night if I had read any of your husband's books?"
"If I did, it must have been in my sleep," Ermengarde reflected with unspoken sarcasm. "And had you?" she asked grimly.
"Surely you remember that I am among Mr. Allonby's most assiduous readers, and predict a future for him."
"Poor old Arthur! She made a wrong shot that time," thought Ermengarde, who was inclined to consider her husband's essays in literature as so much waste of hours more legitimately and profitably given to journalism. Had she not been overcome by train nausea, she would have asked what was the woman of mystery's favourite among her husband's works, which she believed she had never read. Few people had.
As it was, she could only cling miserably on to the little hinged seat in the couloir, whither the ladies had been compelled to take refuge while their two sleeping-bunks were being transformed into one sofa. There she clung, jostled by fellow-passengers staggering past in various stages of disarray and dishevelment—where, by the way, were all the smart owners of huge trunks, tall flunkeys, and reluctantly prim maids of Victoria platform?—jolted by the swaying of the rushing train, and dimly conscious that this young woman never ceased to keep an eye upon her lightest motion, under pretence of sympathy with her discomfort, even when apparently absorbed in thought—sad thought, to judge by her drooping mouth and wistful gaze, clouded more than once by tears, furtively dashed away. Had Ermengarde dreamed of suppressed sobs above her once or twice during the night? Was the Anarchist her husband, and did he beat her? But there was no wedding-ring on the slender hand, that had more than once ministered to ungrateful Ermengarde's needs. For this absence there might be reason good.
Suddenly as they flew along the woman's face was transfigured by a flash of irradiating rapture; she caught her breath, put out her hand, and gasped in a quick, eager whisper: "Mrs. Allonby; look!"
Ermengarde had already seen, and, as the sorrow and perplexity had vanished from her companion's face at the sight, the weariness and physical discomfort went out of hers, while both gazed and gazed in a silent passion of joyous admiration, with moistened eyes and trembling lips, absorbed, rapt, caught up and away into the very shrine and inmost heart of beauty.
They saw, in the transparent stillness of that sunny morning, a long headland, perhaps island, running out to sea, rising boldly from the waves, and outlined in dark blue on a deep blue sky, above a sheet of dark blue sea, the jewel-like surface of which was unruffled by the faintest breeze; and they knew that they were at last beyond all doubt seeing the Mediterranean, and that it was blue, deeply, darkly, divinely blue, blue beyond imagination or description. The hue of a peacock's neck in depth and velvety texture, yet with the liquid blueness of a jewel; blue in various rich shades, all harmonious and each deeper than the other; a blue as warm as crimson, but still, not shifting, and never iridescent. It seemed to be the colour of happiness; it filled them with a pure and exquisite gladness. It was like a glorious dream of what colour might be, and never is, though it was, then and there in their sight—for one moment of irrecoverable splendour before the long train had rushed past. Warmth, sweetness, freshness and life were all in the glorious, unspeakable colour of velvety blue mountain and sea and sky.