It was the climax of the beautiful journey. The train disgorged nearly all its passengers as if this place like a magnet was drawing them out. He saw Bob Bender, and Jarvie Tope. He watched old Professor Durand looking curiously about him, and a white-haired porter taking the baggage of Mrs. Belmire. He felt alone, abandoned.
As the train lingered, loth to leave this charmed spot, Hugh felt a sudden desire to get off. He saw the fair-haired girl struggling with a basket-valise. With a sudden impulse he gathered together his own luggage and prepared to descend, but the train was already in motion.
“Just as well. Now for Menton.”
Then behold! the train halted again and backed to the station.
“Fate!” said Hugh and jumped off. He passed through a long baggage room into a courtyard where there was a line of luxurious hotel omnibuses and porters in livery. The court was backed by a wall of rock that rose to the heights of a glorious garden. Palms speared the silvery arc-lights. Masses of geraniums stained the face of the rock. On the winding steps that led to the garden a nude statue of a woman was set in a niche amid ferns and water-lilies, and a diamond spray of water.
On the long hill to the right was a line of fiacres. He saw the fair-haired girl hand her bag to one of the drivers.
“Pension Paoli,” she said.
Hugh watched her drive away; then he, too, hailed a fiacre. The dark driver bent to him with smiling politeness.
“Where to, monsieur?”
Hugh thought for a moment. As he stood there he had a strange thrill of wonder and of joy. He seemed to breathe an enchanted air; the silver lights amid the trees were those of fairyland; he felt as if he were hesitating on the very threshold of romance.