" Children left the side of their ox-eyed bonnes to
challenge the handsome young stranger with shy, friendly approaches.
Bevies of flashing-eyed American girls "took him in" with parthian
glances, and even a widowed Russian princess, hobbling by, easing
her gouty steps with a jeweled cane, gazed back upon the moody
Adonis and sighed for the vanished days, when she possessed both
the physical and mental capacity to wander from the beaten paths
of the proprieties.
But--the world forgetting--the young man lingered long, gazing out
upon the broad expanse of the waters, his eyes resting carelessly
upon the superb panorama of the southern shore. He had wandered far
away from the Grand Hotel National, in the aimlessness of sore
mental unrest, and, all unheeded, the hours passed on, as he threaded
the streets of the proud old Swiss burgher city. He had known its
every turn in brighter days, and, though the year of ninety-one was
a brilliant Alpine season, and he was in the very flower of youth
and manly promise, gaunt care walked as a viewless warder at Alan
Hawke's side.
He had crossed over the Pont de Montblanc to the British Consulate,
only to learn that the very man whom he had come from Monaco to
seek, was now already at Aix la Chapelle, on his way to America,
on a long leave. He had wearily made a tour of the principal hotels
and scanned the registers with no lucky find! Not a single gleam
of hope shone out in all the polyglot inscriptions passing under
his eye! And so he had sadly betaken himself to a safe, retired
place, where he could hold the aforesaid council of war.
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