The large window looked southwest,
with the harbour and rock of Monaco to the right, and to the left an
exquisite group of palms on the Casino terrace, which gave an almost
mysterious value to a background of violet sky melting into deeper
violet sea. As she stood looking out, silver voices of bells chimed
melodiously across the water, from the great Byzantine cathedral on the
Rock. It was all beautiful and poetic. Mary would have taken the room if
it had been a hundred instead of a paltry thirty francs a day. But she
could not afford to stop and look at the violet sea, still haunted by
the red wreckage of sunset. She had her shopping to do, for she must
somehow find exactly the right hat and dress, ready to put on, or she
would have to dine in her room, and that would be imprisonment on the
first night at Monte Carlo.
She ran quickly downstairs again, not in the least tired after her
journey, and changed a thousand-franc note, which perhaps inspired
official confidence in the young English lady with only a hand-bag for
luggage. Also, she inquired where she could buy the prettiest things to
wear, and was directed to the Galerie Charles Trois, which turned out to
be that covered gallery with shops and restaurants that she had noticed
when driving up the hill.
By this time, though it was not yet dark, lights gleamed everywhere like
great diamonds scintillating among the palms, or stars shining on the
hills. The grass and trees and flowers in the _Place_ of the Casino
looked twice as unreal as before, all theatrically vivid in colour, and
extraordinarily flat, as if cut out of painted cardboard against a
background of gauze.
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