weather. The
weather? Oh, for the tongues of men and angels, to chant the glory of
the weather. The weather is made of sugar and spice, of frankincense and
myrrh, of milk and honey, of every conceivable ingredient that's nice.
The sky is an inverted bowl of Sevres--that priceless bleu-royal; and
there are appetising little clouds of whipped cream sticking to it. The
air is full of gold, like eau-de-vie de Dantzic;--if we only had a
liquefying apparatus, we could recapture the first fine careless nectar
of the gods, the poor dead gods of Greece. The earth is as aromatic as
an orange stuck with cloves; I can't begin to tell you all the wondrous
woody, mossy, racy things it smells of. The sea is a great sheet of
watered-silk, as blue as my blue eyes. And the birds, the robins and the
throstles, the blackbirds and the black-caps, the linnets and the little
Jenny Wrens, knowing the value of silence, are hoarding it like misers;
but like prodigals, they 're squandering sound. The ear of mortal never
heard such a delirious, delicious, such a crystalline, argentine,
ivory-smooth, velvety-soft, such a ravishing, such an enravished tumult
of sweet voices. Showers, cascades, of pearls and rubies, emeralds,
diamonds, sapphires. The weather, says Anthony Rowleigh. He could n't
stand the weather. The weather is as perfect as a perfect work of
art--as perfect as one of my own incomparable madrigals. It is
absolutely perfect."

He tossed his head, in sign of finality.

"It appears so," Anthony discriminated gloomily; "but appearances are
risky things to judge by. It may have charms for a voluptuary like you;
but I"--and he took a tone of high austerity--"I, as an Englishman, have
my suspicions of anything so flagrantly un-English."

"Apropos of things un-English," said Adrian, "I 'm pining for a serious
word with you."

Anthony pulled a wry face.

"Oh, if you 've been attacked by one of your periodic spasms of
seriousness," he sighed.

"It's about calling on Madame Torrebianca," said Adrian.

"Oh," sighed Anthony. With a presence of mind that I can't help thinking
rather remarkable, he feigned a continuity of mood; but something went
_ping_ within him.

"Look here," said Adrian, imperatively. "I 'll thank you to drop that
air of ineffable fatigue of yours, and to sit up and listen. I don't
suppose you wish to be deliberately discourteous, do you? And as those
ladies happen to be new-comers, and your immediat