been ill; permit me to offer you a chaise-longue here in the breeze.' He led the way, and as we drew near the lady I saw that I had done her injustice. She was more than lovely; she was positively radiant with a beauty of the most alluring type in a land where every one is weary and relaxed; glowing with youth and health and high vitality, she was as fresh in that sodden clime as a clear wind from the north—and yet, there was something beside, something less clear, more earthy, a lavishness of charm and form and feature; her type suggested a creature bred for the slave mart. It was evident that she was an American; the women of no other race possess that peculiar blending of subtlety, ignorance and audacity. 'A Californian,' thought I; 'a survival of the fittest New England stock transplanted from a climate where only the very fit do survive to a country whose finest crop is babies.'
"I glanced at the Count, the lax, yellow tissues of whom suggested a squeezed orange,
[ 166 ]
