As I looked across the bay, Doris seemed but a little thing, almost
insignificant, and the thought came that I had not come for nothing
even if I did not succeed in winning her.
"Doris, dear, forgive me if I am looking at this bay instead of you,
but I've never seen anything like this before," and feeling I was
doing very poor justice to the emotions I was experiencing, I said:
"Is it not strange that all this is at once to me new and old? I seem,
as it were, to have come into my inheritance."
"Your inheritance! Am I not----"
"Dearest, you are. Say that you are my inheritance, my beautiful
inheritance; how many years have I waited for it?" As I took her in my
arms she caught sight of the waiter, and turning from her I looked
across the bay, and my desire nearly died in the infinite sweetness
blowing across the bay.
"Azure hills, not blue; hitherto I have only seen blue."
"They're blue to-day because there is a slight mist, but they are in
reality red."
"A red-hilled bay," I said, "and all the slopes flecked with the white
sides of villas."
"Peeping through olive trees."
"Olive trees, of course. I have never yet seen the olive; the olive
begins at Avignon or thereabouts, doesn't it? It was dark night when
we passed through Avignon.
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