"
Marie blushed, a sudden bright blush. "Oh, you have told me about
them--how they shoot under the terrace. That's one reason why I love
staying here at Cap Martin, or taking excursions where everything is
purely beautiful, and nothing to make one sad."
"I don't remember telling you about the pigeon-shooting," Angelo said.
"Well, if you didn't tell me, somebody else must have, mustn't
they--else how could I know?"
"Highnesses, Mister the Stereo-Mondaine."
A frail wisp of a man was ushered by the butler on to the loggia: a man
very shabby, very thin, very proud, with a camera out of proportion to
his size and strength, hugged under one arm. He would have been known as
a Frenchman if found dressed in furs at the North Pole.
He explained passionately that, had he been a mere photographer, he
would not have ventured to intrude upon such distinguished company; but
he was unique in his profession, a Stereo-Mondaine, a traveller who knew
his world and had a _metier_ very special. He was, in short, an artist
in colour photography; and before asking the privilege that he desired,
he would beg to show a sample of his most successful work at Monte
Carlo.
"Here, for instance," he went on hurriedly in his French of the Midi,
"is a treasure of artisticness; a marvel of a portrait, a poem!" And he
displayed a large glass plate, neatly bound round the edges with gilt
paper. His thin hand, on which veins rose in a bas relief, held the
plate up tremulously against the light.
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