it that you liked best?"

"The climbing, of course," he answered.

"But which of all the landscapes? What struck you most? What impressed
you most vividly? Your first view of Mont Blanc, or that marvellous
gorge below the Tete Noire,--or----?"

"It was all uncommonly jolly. But there's a family resemblance in Swiss
mountains, don't you know? They're all white--and they're all peaky.
There's a likeness in Swiss lakes, too, if you come to think of it.
They're all blue, and they're all wet. And Swiss villages, now--don't
you think they are rather disappointing?--such a cruel plagiarism of
those plaster chalets the image-men carry about the London streets, and
no candle-ends burning inside to make 'em look pretty. But I liked
Lucerne uncommonly, there was such a capital billiard-table at the
hotel."

"Roderick!" cried Lady Mabel, with a disgusted look. "I don't think you
have a vestige of poetry in your nature."

"I hope I haven't," replied Rorie devoutly.

"You could see those sublime scenes, and never once feel your heart
thrilled or your mind exalted--you can come home from your first Swiss
tour and talk about billiard-tables!"

"The scenery was very nice," said Rorie thoughtfully. "Yes; there were
times, perhaps, when I was a trifle stunned by all that grand calm
beauty, the silence, the solitude, the awfulness of it all; but I have
hardly tune to feel the thrill when I came bump up against a party of
tourists, English or American, all talking the same twaddle, and all
patronising the scenery. That took the charm out of the landscape
somehow, and I coiled up, as the Yankees say. And now you want me to go
into second-hand raptures, and repeat my emotions, as if I were writing
a tourist's article for a magazine. I can't do it, Mabel."

"Well, I won't bore you any more about it," said Lady Mabel, "but I
confess my disappointment. I thought we should have such nice long
talks about Switzerland."

"What's the use of talking of a place? If it's so lovely that one can't
live without it, one had better go back there."

This was a practical way of putting things which was too much for Lady
Mabel. She fanned herself gently with a great fan of cloudy looking
feathers, such as Titania might have used that midsummer night near
Athens. She relapsed into a placid silence, looking at Rorie
thoughtfully with her calm blue eyes.

His travels had improved him. That bronze hue suited him wonderfully
well. He looked more manl