Her ideals of men were colored by the American prejudice in favor of those who aim high and venture much.  In her childhood she had read Malory and Froissart with a boy’s delight.  She possessed, too, that poetic sense of the charm of “the spirit of place” that is the natural accompaniment of the imaginative temperament.  The cry of bugles sometimes brought tears to her eyes; her breath came quickly when she sat—­as she often did—­in the Fort Myer drill hall at Washington and watched the alert cavalrymen dashing toward the spectators’ gallery in the mimic charge.  The work that brave men do she admired above anything else in the world.  As a child in Washington she had looked wonderingly upon the statues of heroes and the frequent military pageants of the capital; and she had wept at the solemn pomp of military funerals.  Once on a battleship she had thrilled at the salutes of a mighty fleet in the Hudson below the tomb of Grant; and soon thereafter had felt awe possess her as she gazed upon the white marble effigy of Lee in the chapel at Lexington; for the contemplation of heroes was dear to her, and she was proud to believe that her father, a veteran of the Civil War, and her soldier brother were a tie between herself and the old heroic times.

Armitage was aware that a jeweler’s shop was hardly the place for extended conversation with a young woman whom he scarcely knew, but he lingered in the joy of hearing this American girl’s voice, and what she said interested him immensely.  He had seen her first in Paris a few months before at an exhibition of battle paintings.  He had come upon her standing quite alone before High Tide at Gettysburg, the picture of the year; and he had noted the quick mounting of color to her cheeks as the splendid movement of the painting—­its ardor and fire—­took hold of her.  He saw her again in Florence; and it was from there that he had deliberately followed the Claibornes.

His own plans were now quite unsettled by his interview with Von Stroebel.  He fully expected Chauvenet in Geneva; the man had apparently been on cordial terms with the Claibornes; and as he had seemed to be master of his own time, it was wholly possible that he would appear before the Claibornes left Geneva.  It was now the second day after Von Stroebel’s departure, and Armitage began to feel uneasy.

He stood with Shirley quite near the shop door, watching for Captain Claiborne to come back with the carriage.

“But America—­isn’t America the most marvelous product of romance in the world,—­its discovery,—­the successive conflicts that led up to the realization of democracy?  Consider the worthless idlers of the Middle Ages going about banging one another’s armor with battle-axes.  Let us have peace, said the tired warrior.”

“He could afford to say it; he was the victor,” said Shirley.

“Ah! there is Captain Claiborne.  I am indebted to you, Miss Claiborne, for many pleasant suggestions.”