‘Yes,’ said the Poet, ‘these are well enough; but they are a feeble imitation of their fellows in the real South, the true Ausonia.’
Lamia was as ready to believe everything she was told as to admire everything she saw; and her only lament was that, even though moving at a leisurely pace, beautiful scene after beautiful scene was withdrawn from her gaze along that winding road, almost before she could really behold it.
ORANGE GROVE, MENTONE
There came a stage in our journey which, as you may suppose, was not by any means one of a single day, when I felt certain a question would arise likely to lead to some difference of opinion, and I was curious to see how it would arrange itself. But, like Lamia herself, who was the person mainly interested, I carefully avoided all allusion to it. She, with infinitely more tact, as becomes a woman, kept gradually and dexterously leading up to it, while seeming to be quite unconscious of it, and indeed as if moving in quite an opposite direction.
‘Now,’ said Veronica, with that perfect freedom from afterthought or unspoken inner thought so characteristic of her, ‘now we turn inland and ascend. Say good-bye to the coast-line, which you will not see again till we reach the summit.’
‘And say good-bye likewise,’ added the Poet, ‘to the Provençal tongue, that seems to bear much about the same relation to French that the Venetian dialect bears to Italian, and to have retained the indefinable charm of flowers, perfume, and poetry that hovered round the cradle of modern verse, and has been handed down to us from the lips of lovely ladies and obeisant troubadours.’
Lamia showed no appreciation of these observations, as I could well perceive, and went on inwardly concerting a well-calculated strategy of her own.
‘How long will it take us,’ she asked, with apparent unconcern, ‘to reach the summit?’