“Might a humble mortal ask, ‘Why Aosta?’” I ventured.

“Because it’s beautiful, and beneficent, and a great many other things which begin with B.”

“You’ve never seen it, though,” said Jack.

“But I’ve always wanted to see it, and as you and I have another programme to carry out at present, it would be nice if Lord Lane would go, and tell us all about it.  He’s promised me to keep a sort of diary, for our benefit later.”

“I saw the Duchess of Aosta married at Kingston-on-Thames,” I reflected aloud.  “She was a very pretty girl.  What am I to do after I’ve made my pilgrimage to her country—­about which, by the way, I know practically nothing except that there’s a poster in railway stations which represents it as having bright pink mountains and a purply-yellow sky?”

“Oh, after Aosta, I’ve no instructions,” replied Molly, as if she washed her hands of me and of my affairs.  “For the rest, let Fate decide.”  As she spoke, she looked mystic, sibylline, and I could almost fancy that before her dreamy eyes arose a vision of my future as if floating in a magic crystal.  For an instant I was inclined to beg that she would prophesy, but the mood passed.  All that I asked or expected to get from the future was a mule, a man, some mountains, and forgetfulness.

It was decided, then, that the only questions to be put to Herr Widmer should concern the mule.  I had a vague dream of presently standing on the balcony, while various muleteers and their well-groomed animals passed in review under my eyes, but the landlord’s first words struck at my hopes and left them maimed.

“There are no mules to be had in Lucerne,” he said.

“In the country near by, then?”

“Nor in the country near by.  The nearest place where you could get one would be in the Valais—­best at Brig.”

“But I don’t want to go to Brig,” I said forlornly.  “If I went to Brig, that would mean that I should have to do a lot of walking afterwards, to reach the parts I wish to reach, through the hot Rhone Valley, where I should be eaten up by gnats and other disagreeable wild beasts.  I know the Rhone Valley between Brig and Martigny already, by railway travelling, and that is more than enough.”

“The Rhone Valley is a misunderstood valley.  Even between Martigny and Brig, it is far more beautiful than anyone who has seen it only from the railway can possibly judge,” pleaded Herr Widmer.  “It well repays a riding or walking tour.”

But my soul girded against the Rhone Valley, and I would not be driven into it by persuasion.  “I’d rather put up with a donkey to carry my luggage,” said I, with visions of discarding half my Instantaneous Breakfasts, “than begin my walk in the Rhone Valley.  Surely, Lucerne can be counted on to yield me up at least a donkey?”

“You must go into Italy to find an ane,” replied the landlord, inexorable as Destiny.