‘Perhaps a couple of hours.‘ ‘And to descend?’
‘To descend where?’ asked Veronica, who, I think, began to suspect what was fermenting in Lamia’s mind.
‘Anywhere,’ answered Lamia. ‘I mean where we reach, as you said, the coast-line again.’
‘An hour perhaps,’ I said.
Then followed a short interval of silence or truce, broken by Lamia, who, far too strategic to attack the question in front, was now evidently meditating a flank movement which interested me greatly.
‘Do you remember my once saying that I wished I were a poet?’
‘Dear Lamia, I can only say to you, as one so often has to write to unknown correspondents who send one verse, the intention of which is better than its execution,—
‘To have the great poetic heart
Is more than all poetic fame.‘
‘But, when one has neither,’ she replied, bringing her forces rapidly into action, and resolved at all costs to turn Veronica’s position, ‘it is so nice and so advantageous to be taken about by one who has both.’