He said, playfully: "To-day you are. I mustn't be selfish and have you
every day."

"Ah, you are laughing at me; but I know I was here yesterday."

Her father set his lips in patience, and Lanfear did not insist.

They had halted at this point because, across a wide valley on the
shoulder of an approaching height, the ruined village of Possana showed,
and lower down and nearer the seat the new town which its people had
built when they escaped from the destruction of their world-old home.

World-old it all was, with reference to the human life of it; but the
spring-time was immortally young in the landscape. Over the expanses of
green and brown fields, and hovering about the gray and white cottages,
was a mist of peach and cherry blossoms. Above these the hoar olives
thickened, and the vines climbed from terrace to terrace. The valley
narrowed inland, and ceased in the embrace of the hills drawing
mysteriously together in the distances.

"I think we've got the best part of it here, Miss Gerald," Lanfear broke
the common silence by saying. "You couldn't see much more of Possana
after you got there."

"Besides," her father ventured a pleasantry which jarred on the younger
man, "if you were there with the doctor yesterday, you won't want to
make the climb again to-day. Give it up, Nannie!"

"Oh no," she said, "I can't give it up."