Yet she flirts outrageously at times, in
her own imperial way. Better late than never. I'm certain you'll like
her, and perhaps she'll like you."
"_Qui vivra verra_," Keene said, rising slowly. "Let us go home now.
Draw your plaid closer round you, it's getting chilly."
CHAPTER III.
There is a terrace in Dorade, fenced in from every wind that blows,
except the south, and even that has to creep cautiously and cunningly
round a sharp corner to make its entrance good. Four small stunted palms
grow there; they look painfully out of place, and conscious of it; for
they are always bowing their heads in a meek humiliation, and shiver in
a strange unhealthy way at the slightest breeze, just as you may see
Asiatics doing in our "land of mist and snow." But the natives regard
those unhappy exotics with a fanatical pride, pointing them out to all
comers as living witnesses to the perfection of the climate; they would
gladly stone any irreverent stranger who should suggest a comparison
between their sacred shrubs and the giants of Indian seas. The only
inhabitant of the place who ever attained any eminence any where (he
really _was_ a good tailor), bequeathed a certain sum for the
beautifying of the renowned _allee_, instead of endowing charitable
institutions, and his townsmen endorsed the act by erecting a little
mural tablet to commemorate his public spirit.
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