Mlle. Giraud laid aside her leopard-skin robe.  It seemed to be a trifle incongruous now.  In the mountains it had appeared fitting and natural.  And if Armstrong was not mistaken she laid aside with it something of the high dignity of her demeanour.  As the country became more populous and significant of comfortable life he saw, with a feeling of joy, that the exalted princess and priestess of the Andean peaks was changing to a woman—­an earth woman, but no less enticing.  A little colour crept to the surface of her marble cheek.  She arranged the conventional dress that the removal of the robe now disclosed with the solicitous touch of one who is conscious of the eyes of others.  She smoothed the careless sweep of her hair.  A mundane interest, long latent in the chilling atmosphere of the ascetic peaks, showed in her eyes.

This thaw in his divinity sent Armstrong’s heart going faster.  So might an Arctic explorer thrill at his first ken of green fields and liquescent waters.  They were on a lower plane of earth and life and were succumbing to its peculiar, subtle influence.  The austerity of the hills no longer thinned the air they breathed.  About them was the breath of fruit and corn and builded homes, the comfortable smell of smoke and warm earth and the consolations man has placed between himself and the dust of his brother earth from which he sprung.  While traversing those awful mountains, Mile.  Giraud had seemed to be wrapped in their spirit of reverent reserve.  Was this that same woman—­now palpitating, warm, eager, throbbing with conscious life and charm, feminine to her finger-tips?  Pondering over this, Armstrong felt certain misgivings intrude upon his thoughts.  He wished he could stop there with this changing creature, descending no farther.  Here was the elevation and environment to which her nature seemed to respond with its best.  He feared to go down upon the man-dominated levels.  Would her spirit not yield still further in that artificial zone to which they were descending?

Now from a little plateau they saw the sea flash at the edge of the green lowlands.  Mile.  Giraud gave a little, catching sigh.

“Oh! look, Mr. Armstrong, there is the sea!  Isn’t it lovely?  I’m so tired of mountains.”  She heaved a pretty shoulder in a gesture of repugnance.  “Those horrid Indians!  Just think of what I suffered!  Although I suppose I attained my ambition of becoming a stellar attraction, I wouldn’t care to repeat the engagement.  It was very nice of you to bring me away.  Tell me, Mr. Armstrong—­honestly, now —­do I look such an awful, awful fright?  I haven’t looked into a mirror, you know, for months.”

Armstrong made answer according to his changed moods.  Also he laid his hand upon hers as it rested upon the horn of her saddle.  Luis was at the head of the pack train and could not see.  She allowed it to remain there, and her eyes smiled frankly into his.

Then at sundown they dropped upon the coast level under the palms and lemons among the vivid greens and scarlets and ochres of the tierra caliente.  They rode into Macuto, and saw the line of volatile bathers frolicking in the surf.  The mountains were very far away.