He might have been lying, Condy." "What difference would that make ?" And so they went along in that fine, clear, Western morning, on the edge of the Continent, both of them young and strong and vigorous, the Pacific under their eyes, the great clean Trades blowing in their faces, the smell of the salt sea coming in long aromatic whiffs to their nostrils.

Young and strong and fresh, their imaginations thronging with pictures of vigorous action and adventure, buccaneering, filibustering, and all the swing, the leap, the rush and gallop, the exuberant, strong life of the great, uncharted world of Romance.
And all unknowingly they were a Romance in themselves.

Cynicism, old age, and the weariness of all things done had no place in the world in which they walked.

They still had their illusions, all the keenness of their sensations, all the vividness of their impressions.

The simple things of the world, the great, broad, primal emotions of the race stirred in them.