Notwithstanding the disorder of her travelling-dress, Jacqueline allowed her friend to take her straight from the railway station to the Terrace of Monte Carlo.  She fell into ecstasies at sight of the African cacti, the century plants, and the fig-trees of Barbary, covering the low walls whence they looked down into the water; at the fragrance of the evergreens that surrounded the beautiful palace with its balustrades, dedicated to all the worst passions of the human race; with the sharp rocky outline of Turbia; with an almost invisible speck on the horizon which they said was Corsica; with everything, which, whether mirage or reality, lifted her out of herself, and plunged her into that state of excited happiness and indescribable sense of bodily comfort, which exterior impressions so easily produce upon the young.

After exhausting her vocabulary in exclamations and in questions, she stood silent, watching the sun as it sank beneath the waters, thinking that life is well worth living if it can give us such glorious spectacles, notwithstanding all the difficulties that may have to be passed through.  Several minutes elapsed before she turned her radiant face and dazzled eyes toward Wanda, or rather toward the spot where Wanda had been standing beside her.  “Oh! my dear—­how beautiful!” she murmured with a long sigh.

The sigh was echoed by a man, who for a few moments had looked at her with as much admiration as she had looked at the landscape.  He answered her by saying, in a low voice, the tones of which made her tremble from head to foot: 

“Jacqueline!”

“Monsieur de Cymier!”

The words slipped through her lips as they suddenly turned pale.  She had an instinctive, sudden persuasion that she had been led into a snare.  If not, why was Madame Strahlberg now absorbed in conversation with three other persons at some little distance.

“Forgive me—­you did not expect to see me—­you seem quite startled,” said the young man, drawing near her.  With an effort she commanded herself and looked full in his face.  Her anger rose.  She had seen the same look in the ugly, brutal face of Oscar de Talbrun.  From the Terrace of Monte Carlo her memory flew back to a country road in Normandy, and she clenched her hand round an imaginary riding-whip.  She needed coolness and she needed courage.  They came as if by miracle.

“It is certain, Monsieur,” she answered, slowly, “that I did not expect to meet you here.”

“Chance has had pity on me,” he replied, bowing low, as she had set him the example of ceremony.

But he had no idea of losing time in commonplace remarks—­he wished to take up their intimacy on the terms it had been formerly, to resume the romance he himself had interrupted.

“I knew,” he said in the same low voice, full of persuasion, which gave especial meaning to his words, “I knew that, after all, we should meet again.”

“I did not expect it,” said Jacqueline, haughtily.