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XVIII

THEY came to Bougie at sunset, and in that warm but fragile light the town seemed not so much built as made merely of colour and painted, a plaid of old rose and faint green and gray, upon its Mediterranean hillside. Here the senile British General proved too violent a pedestrian for the sedentary young American during a stroll—or what Sir William remarkably called a stroll—up and down the steeply slanting streets in the twilight. Mme. Momoro swept ahead with the tall Englishman; Lady Broadfeather and Miss Crewe, chirruping to the polite Hyacinthe, kept nearly up with them; but Ogle fell behind, and, when the dark came on, found his way back alone to the hotel, out of breath, tired, and more disgruntled than ever.

At dinner, however, he found that it was possible for him to become even more so. Upon the wine list the General discovered a red Beaune, a dear lost love of his, he said—and not only said, but copiously proved by wearing his lost love's colours, ere long, as