I saw the Roman Empire, that Scarlet Woman whose sands were dyed crimson with blood to appease her harlotry, whose ships were laden with treasures from the immutable East, grain from the valley of the Nile, spices from Arabia, precious purple stuffs from Tyre, tribute and spoil, slaves and jewels from conquered nations she absorbed; and yet whose very emperors were the unconscious instruments of a Progress they wot not of, preserved to the West by Marathon and Salamis.  With Caesar’s legions its message went forth across Hispania to the cliffs of the wild western ocean, through Hercynian forests to tribes that dwelt where great rivers roll up their bars by misty, northern seas, and even to Celtic fastnesses beyond the Wall....

IV.

In and out of my early memories like a dancing ray of sunlight flits the spirit of Nancy.  I was always fond of her, but in extreme youth I accepted her incense with masculine complacency and took her allegiance for granted, never seeking to fathom the nature of the spell I exercised over her.  Naturally other children teased me about her; but what was worse, with that charming lack of self-consciousness and consideration for what in after life are called the finer feelings, they teased her about me before me, my presence deterring them not at all.  I can see them hopping around her in the Peters yard crying out:—­“Nancy’s in love with Hugh!  Nancy’s in love with Hugh!”

A sufficiently thrilling pastime, this, for Nancy could take care of herself.  I was a bungler beside her when it came to retaliation, and not the least of her attractions for me was her capacity for anger:  fury would be a better term.  She would fly at them—­even as she flew at the head-hunters when the Petrel was menaced; and she could run like a deer.  Woe to the unfortunate victim she overtook!  Masculine strength, exercised apologetically, availed but little, and I have seen Russell Peters and Gene Hollister retire from such encounters humiliated and weeping.  She never caught Ralph; his methods of torture were more intelligent and subtle than Gene’s and Russell’s, but she was his equal when it came to a question of tongues.

“I know what’s the matter with you, Ralph Hambleton,” she would say.  “You’re jealous.”  An accusation that invariably put him on the defensive.  “You think all the girls are in love with you, don’t you?”

These scenes I found somewhat embarrassing.  Not so Nancy.  After discomfiting her tormenters, or wounding and scattering them, she would return to my side....  In spite of her frankly expressed preference for me she had an elusiveness that made a continual appeal to my imagination.  She was never obvious or commonplace, and long before I began to experience the discomforts and sufferings of youthful love I was fascinated by a nature eloquent with contradictions and inconsistencies.  She was a tomboy, yet her own sex was enhanced rather than overwhelmed by contact with the other:  and no matter how many trees she climbed she never seemed to lose her daintiness.  It was innate.