CHAPTER XXXVII

“_...  His wife and children perceiving it, began to cry after him to return; but the man put his fingers in his ears and ran on, crying, ‘Life!  Life Eternal!_’”

They had been in the Louvre, had spent an hour with Felix in that glowing embodiment of the pomp and majesty of human flesh known as the Rubens Medici-Room, and now, for the sheer pleasure of it, had decided to walk home.  Mrs. Marshall-Smith, endowed with a figure which showed as yet no need for exercise, and having passed youth’s restless liking for it, had vetoed the plan as far as she went, and entering her waiting ear, had been borne smoothly off, an opulent Juno without her peacocks.

The three who were left, lingered for a moment in the quiet sunny square of the Louvre, looking up at the statue of Lafayette, around at the blossoming early shrubs.  Sylvia was still under the spell of the riotous, full-blown splendor of the paintings she had seen.  Wherever she looked, she saw again the rainbow brilliance of those glossy satins, that rippling flooding golden hair, those ample, heaving bosoms, those liquid gleaming eyes, the soft abundance of that white and ruddy flesh, with the patina of time like a golden haze over it.  The spectacle had been magnificent and the scene they now entered was a worthy successor to it.  They walked down through the garden of the Tuileries and emerged upon the Place de la Concorde at five o’clock of a perfect April afternoon, when the great square hummed and sang with the gleaming traffic of luxury.  Countless automobiles, like glistening beetles, darted about, each one with its load of carefully dressed and coiffed women, looking out on the weaving glitter of the street with the proprietary, complacent stare of those who feel themselves in the midst of a civilization with which they are in perfect accord.  Up the avenue, beyond, streamed an incessant parade of more costly ears, more carriages, shining, caparisoned horses, every outfit sumptuous to its last detail, every one different from all the others, and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of them, till in the distance they dwindled to a black stream dominated by the upward sweep of the Arc de Triomphe, magnified to fabulous proportions by the filmy haze of the spring day.  To their left flowed the Seine, blue and flashing.  A little breeze stirred the new leaves on the innumerable trees.

Sylvia stopped for an instant to take in the marvel of this pageant, enacted every day of every season against that magnificent background.  She made a gesture to call her companions’ attention to it—­“Isn’t it in the key of Rubens—­bloom, radiance, life expansive!”

“And Chabrier should set it to music,” said Morrison.

“What does it make you think of?” she asked.  “It makes me think of a beautiful young Greek, in a purple chiton, with a wreath of roses in his hair.”

“It makes me think of a beautiful young woman, all fire and spirit, and fineness, who drinks life like a perfumed wine,” said Morrison, his eyes on hers.  She felt a little shiver of frightened pleasure, and turned to Page to carry it off, “What does it make you think of?” she asked.