running after us, but great cork trees marched beside the road, like an
army of crusaders in disarray, half in, half out, of armour. Above, rose
the Mountains of the Moors, whose very name seemed to ring with the
distant echo of a Saracen war song; and here and there, on a bare, wild
hillside, towered all that was left of some ancient castle, fallen into
ruin. Cogolin was fine, and Grimaud was even finer.

Up a steep ascent, through shadowy forests we had passed, now and then
coming suddenly upon a little red-roofed village nestling among the
trees as a strawberry among its leaves, when abruptly we flashed out
where spaces of sky and silver sea opened. Between hills that seemed to
sweep a curtsey to us, we flew down an apple-paring road toward Hyères.

The Turnours had lunched, if not wisely, probably too well, at Valescure
about one o'clock, and it wasn't yet four; but the air at the beautiful
Costebelle hotels is said to be perpetually glittering with Royalties
and other bright beings of the great world, so her ladyship wouldn't
have been persuaded to miss the place.

Not that anyone tried to persuade her, for the two powers behind the
throne (and in front of the car) wanted to go--not to see the Royalties,
but the beauties of Costebelle itself.

We slipped gently through the town of Hyères, whose avenues of giant
palms looked like great sea anemones turned into trees, and then spurted
up a hill into a vast and fragrant grove that smelled of a thousand
flowers. In the grove stood three hotels, with wide views over
jade-green lagoons to an indigo sea; and at the most charming of the
trio we stopped.