Page:Claire Ambler (1928).djvu/94

 nor was it primarily the work of the epic beauty surrounding her. Two months earlier, in Rome, she had gone to the Palatine Hill to write a letter beginning, "Seated upon a block of marble in the banquet hall of Cæsar," and necessarily the picture suggested to the mind of her correspondent must have had Claire in the foreground with Cæsar somewhat remote. Thus, as she beheld the august and tragic beauty of Raona, her foremost happy thought was, "Here, surrounded by marvels, am I!"

What romantically thrilled her, then, was her own presence among the marvels; a thrill by no means unpardonable and not unknown to travellers older than Claire; nor need it be held to her discredit that at times she had the pleasantly tingling impression of herself that she was the central marvel of all. She always knew when people were looking at her, although she was pleasantly accustomed to their doing so. Gentlemen in the Louvre had turned from Velasquez portraits to look at her; and here in Raona, when she walked abroad, she was stared at almost violently. When she passed by them, tourists temporarily forgot this most heroically beautiful of all earthly landscapes; and when she came into the hotel refectory for lunch or dinner she well knew that she