A man so recently parted from the only woman
he could ever love had no right to look at such things, he thought. How
young and chivalrous and honest he was--poor Paul!
So he took to visiting Versailles and Fontainebleau and Compiegne with
a guide-book, and came to the conclusion it was all "beastly rot."
So he turned his back upon France and fled to Switzerland.
Do you know Switzerland?--you who read. Do you know it at the
beginning of May? A feast of blue lakes, and snow-peaks, and the
divinest green of young beeches, and the sombre shadow of dark firs,
and the exhilaration of the air.
If you do, I need not tell you about it. Only in any case now, you
must see it through the eyes of Paul. That is if you intend to read
another page of this bad book.
It was pouring with rain when he drove from the station to the
hotel. His temper was at its worst. Pilatus hid his head in mist, the
Buergenstock was invisible--it was chilly, too, and the fire smoked in
the sitting-room when Paul had it lighted.
His heart yearned for his own snug room at Verdayne Place, and the
jolly voice of Isabella Waring counting point, quint and quatorze.
What nonsense to send him abroad. As if such treatment could be
effectual as a cure for a love like his. He almost laughed at his
mother's folly.
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