Caesar or Nothing | Page 6

time."
The dining-car waiter came and filled their cups with _caf��-au-lait_. Laura drew off her gloves and took one of the hot cups between her white hands.
"Oh, this is comforting!" she said.
Caesar began to sip the boiling liquid.
"I don't see how you can stand it. It's scalding."
"That's the way to get warm," replied Caesar, undisturbed.
Laura began to take her coffee by spoonfuls. Just then there come into the dining-car a tall blond gentleman and a young, charming lady, each smarter than the other. The man bowed to Laura with much formality.
"Who is he?" asked Caesar.
"He is the second son of Lord Marchmont, and he has married a Yankee millionairess."
"You knew him in Rome?"
"No, I knew him at Florence last year, and he paid me attention rather boldly."
"He is looking at you a lot now."
"He is capable of thinking that I am off on an adventure with you."
"Possibly. She is a magnificent woman."
"Right you are. She is a marvel. She is almost too pretty. She shows no character; she has no air of breeding." "There doesn't seem to be any great congeniality between them."
"No, they don't get on very well. But come along, pay, let's go. So many people are coming in here."
Laura got up, and after her, Caesar. As she passed, one heard the swish of her silk petticoats. The travellers looked at her with admiration.
"I believe these people envy me," said Caesar philosophically.
"It's quite possible, bambino," she responded, laughing.
They entered their compartment. The train was running at full speed along the coast. The greenish sea and the cloudy sky stretched away and blotted out the horizon. At Toulon the bad weather continued; a bit beyond, the sun came out, pallid in the fog, circled with a yellowish halo; then the fog dispersed rapidly and a brilliant sun made the snow-covered country shine.
"Oh! How beautiful!" exclaimed Laura.
The dense pure snow had packed down. The grape-vines broke up this white background symmetrically, like flocks of crows settled on the earth; the pines held high their rounds of foliage, and the cypresses, stern and slim, stood out very black against all the whiteness.
On passing Hy��res, as the train turned away from the shore, running inland, grim snowy mountains began for some while to be visible, and the sun vanished among the clouds; but when the train came out once more toward the sea, near San Rafael, suddenly,--as if a theatrical effect had been arranged,--the Mediterranean appeared, blue, flooded with sunshine, full of lights and reflections. The sky stretched radiant above the sea, without a cloud, without a shred of vapour.
"How marvellous! How beautiful!" Laura again exclaimed, contemplating the landscape with emotion. "These blessed countries where the sun is!"
"They have no other drawback, than that the men who inhabit them are a trifle vague," said Caesar.
"Bah!"
The air had grown milder; on the surface of the sea patterns of silver foam, formed by the beating of the waves, widened themselves out; the sun's reflection on the restless waters made shining spots and rays, flaming swords that dazzled the eye.
The train seemed to puff joyfully at submerging itself in this bland and voluptuous atmosphere; the palm-trees of Cannes came surging up like a promise of felicity, and the C?te d'Azur began to show its luminous and splendid beauty.
Caesar, tired of so much light, took a book from his pocket: _The Speculator's Manual_ of Proudhon, and set to reading it attentively and to marking the passages that struck him as interesting.

THE ENGLISHMAN AND HIS WIFE
Laura, when she was not watching the landscape, was looking at those who came and went in the corridor.
"The Englishman is lying in wait," Laura observed.
"What Englishman?" asked Caesar.
"The son of the lord."
"Ah, yes."
Caesar kept on reading, and Laura continued to watch the landscape which hurried by outside the window. After a while she exclaimed:
"O Lord, what hideous things!"
"What things?"
"Those war-ships."
Caesar looked where his sister pointed. In a roadstead brilliant with sunlight he saw two men-of-war, black and full of cannons.
"That's the way one ought to be to face life, armed to the teeth," exclaimed Caesar.
"Why?" asked Laura.
"Because life is hard, and you have to be as hard as it is in order to win."
"You don't consider yourself hard enough?"
"No."
"Well, I think you are. You are like those rough, pointed rocks on the shore, and I am like the sea.... They throw me off and I come back." "That is because, perhaps, when you get down to it, nothing makes any real difference to you."
"Oh, _bambino!_" exclaimed Laura, taking Caesar's hand with affectionate irony. "You always have to be so cruel to your mamma."
Caesar burst into laughter, and kept Laura's hand between both of his.
"The Englishman feels sad looking at us," he said. "He doesn't dream that I am your brother."
"Open the door, I will tell him to come in."
Caesar did so, and