“‘I BELIEVE,’ HE SAID, ‘THAT YOU OUGHT TO KISS—MY HAND.’”
CHAPTER XXIII
“What do I think of Theos?” Sara repeated. “I think it must be the lost paradise of the lotus-eaters. It does not seem possible for anything ever to happen here.”
Ughtred laughed.
“We share the primitive passions with the rest of mankind,” he assured her. “We know what it is to be excited, even to be rowdy. The wear and tear of life perhaps touches us more lightly than in your Western cities. You see we are a rural people.”
“Miss Van Decht,” Reist remarked dryly, “misses perhaps the clang of the electric cars and the factory sirens.”
“It is the proverbial peace of the city amongst the mountains,” Ughtred said. “Yet if you listen you can hear the murmur of voices in the cafés, and there is a band playing in the square.”