Persuasion.
The next day the wreathing mists which lightly swept the mountains had gathered moisture enough to descend in thick rain. It fell continuously, but was still so vapourish that there was as much white as grey everywhere, and the sun behind the clouds suffused them with dazzling light.
The broad fjord presented enchantingly ethereal and aerial effects. A grey veil blurred the heights on its other side, but here and there a mysterious gleam of whiteness shot out from their snowy summits, radiantly piercing the gloom. Silvery lights fell across the faint grey of the waters, which changed to opal nearer shore, and took in places a clear transparent emerald-green. A rough ridge of stone walled in a small harbour, and here were boats drawn up, black, green, white, sharp points of contrast to the delicate half-tones beyond.
The covered balconies of the inn were thronged with dissatisfied travellers, casting gloomy glances at the falling rain.
“Detestable climate,” muttered Colonel Martyn, pulling up his coat collar. He added to Wareham, “You’re a lucky fellow to be getting out of it. I wish I could.”
“Don’t be absurd, Tom,” his wife retaliated. “The weather at home is infinitely worse.”
“I don’t see it.”
“You are like the ostrich. You bury your head.”
The professor lifted his from a newspaper, with the sniff of a war-horse.
“My dear Mrs Martyn, you don’t credit that ridiculous fable?”