It had gone.
“We must row.”
There was nothing for it.
To gain the long, white breakwater, with the immemorial willow-tree at its end, that was the most salient feature of the island’s approach, required, nevertheless, resolution.
“It’s so far, dear,” the Countess kept on saying. “I had no idea how far it was! Had you any conception at all it was so far?”
“Let us await the wind, then. It’s bound to rally.”
But no air swelled the sun-bleached sails, or disturbed the pearly patine of the paralysed waters.
“I shall never get this peace, I only realise it exists ...” the Countess murmured with dream-glazed eyes.
“It’s astonishing ... the stillness,” Mademoiselle Blumenghast murmured, with a faint tremor, peering round towards the shore.
On the banks young censia-trees raised their boughs like strong white whips towards the mountains, upon whose loftier heights lay, here and there, a little stray patch of snow.