"Quite so, Miss Stillwater," said Lord Stafford. "You know Pope's familiar couplet—
Women like variegated tulips show,
'Tis to their changes, half their charms they owe.'"
"Do you echo that sentiment, Lord Stafford," asked Mrs. Bunker, archly.
"Well, really, that's a difficult question, Mrs. Bunker. One is bored by monotony, of course—but sometimes these sudden changes can be deucedly unpleasant—ha, ha, ha, ha!"
"There is the river," explained Indiana, pointing to a black rushing current, murmuring angrily below them. They watched it for a mile, sometimes writhing slowly in its rocky bed, like a long black snake, while the angry murmur grew faint and then rose again as the water rushed on with renewed power, frothing madly over the holders and rocks which barred its progress. Suddenly before them rose the blue, distant peak of one of the giant mountains.
"You wish to climb all the mountains?" inquired Indiana. "This will be the first—it is the nearest. I have climbed it." Lord Canning surveyed it with interest.
"And will you climb it with me again?"
"I suppose so. I climb it every year. It's only four miles from our camp to the trail."
"Always driving with this blue peak before us," remarked Lord Canning, after a while, "reminds me of the high aims we set for ourselves, and which we never seem to reach—the ideal of the true artist which he despairs of ever attaining—but, still, his eyes fixed on that pale blue peak of perfection in the sky, he forgets the bitter materialisms of life."
Indiana bent down and gazed at the dark current.