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"What a charming dreamer!" he thought.
It was rather convenient for the Count to be able to pass, just then,
for a dreamer.
As a matter of fact, he was an extremely practical old gentleman.



CHAPTER VIII


"Sanidin?" queried Denis almost flippantly, as he held up a fragment of
rock.
He was not particularly eager to hear Marten's answer. He had thought,
only a few days ago, that he would like to be a geologist; Marten had
inspired him with a fancy for that science. The fit was already
passing.
How quickly this geological mood had evaporated. How quickly everything
evaporated, nowadays.
All was not well with Denis. Early that morning he had tried his hand
at poetry once more, after a long interval. Four words--that was all the
inspiration which had come to him.
"Or vine-wreathed Tuscany. . . ."
A pretty turn, in the earlier manner of Keats. It looked well on the
snowy paper. "Or vine-wreathed Tuscany." He was content with that
phrase, so far as it went. But where was the rest of the stanza?
How easily, a year or two ago, could he have fashioned the whole verse.


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