'A mountain in Illyriaalmost as good as the Rigi.'
'Why not go to the Rigi?' said Mrs. Coles.
'Crowds. But I will go to the Rigi too, if Hazel makes a point of it. The Dobratsch has more variety of scenery than the Rigi. Both give you lakes and glaciers; but from the Dobratsch you have a view of tremendous weatherworn limestone peaks, and riven Dolomites. Then we will visit the Warmbad-Villach.'
'What is that, Duke?'
'A little watering place. You would like it. A warm clear spring breaks forth just at the borders of the forest. It is a nice place to be late in the season. Then there is another walk I want to shew her, in the Rainthal, going from Taufers.'
'It sounds like a guide-book,' said Mrs. Coles chuckling. 'Where is
Taufers?'
'That is in the Austrian Tyrol. You go for a couple of hours beside a glacier stream which is almost all the way a broad ribband of white foam. The bed of the brook is so steep and rocky that the water is dashed and shivered into spray, glittering in the sunshine, and wetting you all the same. What do you say to that, Hazel? You like brooks.'
Hazel had been deep in the intricacies of a bit of netting; the little foot with the netting-stirrup perched up on a foot cushion, the long needle flying swiftly to and fro. A stir of colour now and then, a curl of the lips, were the only tokens that she heard what went on. She answered sedately.
'They are good society, to follow.'
'And the lakes are not bad,' Dane went on. 'We should go to München of course, to study art; and from there we will take flying runs to the lakes; Ammersee, and Walchensee, and Königsee, and the rest of them.'