high trees, the blue lake, and then that bright green mountain.

"I have never known anything like those snow-peaks for sailing
under false colours," Peter said. "I have seen them every
colour of the calendar, except their native white."

"You must n't blame the poor things," pleaded the Duchessa.
"They can't help it. It's all along o' the distance and the
atmosphere and the sun."

She closed her fan, with which she had been more or less idly
playing throughout their dialogue, and replaced it on the
table. Among the books there--French books, for the most part,
in yellow paper--Peter saw, with something of a flutter (he
could never see it without something of a flutter), the
grey-and-gold binding of "A Man of Words."

The Duchessa caught his glance.

"Yes," she said; "your friend's novel. I told you I had been
re-reading it."

"Yes," said he.

"And--do you know--I 'm inclined to agree with your own
enthusiastic estimate of it?" she went on. "I think it's
extremely--but extremely--clever; and more--very charming, very
beautiful. The fatal gift of beauty!"

And her smile reminded him that the application of the tag was