Page:Rowland--The Mountain of Fears.djvu/188

  blue eyes were gleaming like sapphires, and her hair put one in mind of the burnished copper one sees when the schooner heels to the trade-wind. Fancy, Doctor, one of those profuse Californians, abundant as a cluster of Tokay grapes, thrust close against a yellow-haired atavism of the Neolithic age like my poor acquaintance Stewart. Ach! he was drunk before he had finished his sherry; at every sip he tasted the subtle perfume of her, and the cup she held to him was filled with wine as old as the race and as deep as the blue of her sapphire eyes. She was receiving, I fancy, as well as giving. Ach! it was very primitive! Instead of the yacht and the sparkle of the yellow lamp-light on the plate and glass there should have been a forest and the pale moonlight filtering through the boughs of giant hemlocks. . ..

"I looked at the Count, and upon my word, Doctor, I saw that he was relishing the thing!—more than that, he was enjoying it! haps it was the interest of the student; [ 172 ]