"A day like this" meant that there was a wind which no one under fifty
had any business to know came out of the east, for it arrived from a sky
blue as a vast, inverted cup of turquoise. The sea was a cup, too; a cup
of gold glittering where the Esterel mountains rimmed it, and full to
the frothing brim of blue spilt by the sky.
Perhaps there was a hint of keenness in the breeze, and the palms in the
hotel garden were whispering to each other about it, while they rocked
the roses tangled among their fans; yet it seemed to me that the
whispers were not of complaint, but of joy--joy of life, joy of beauty,
and joy of the spring. The air smelled of a thousand flowers, this air
that Lady Turnour shunned as if it were poison, and brought me a sense
of happiness and adventure fresh as the morning. I knew I had no right
to the feeling, because this wasn't my adventure. I was only in it on
sufferance, to oil the wheels of it, so to speak, for my betters; yet
golden joy ran through all my veins as gaily, as generously, as if I
were a princess instead of a lady's-maid.
Why on earth I was happy, I didn't know, for it was perfectly clear that
I was going to have a horrid time; but I pitied everybody who wasn't
young, and starting off on a motor tour, even if on fifty francs a month
"all found.
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