of empires and monarchies, if you measure it geometrically!  You remember the laugh at the exact elevation of Mount Olympus?  But Zeus’s eagle sat on it, and top me Olympus, after you have imagined the eagle aloft there! after Homer, is the meaning.  That will be one of the lessons for our young Republicans—­to teach them not to give themselves up to the embrace of dead materialism because, as they fancy, they have had to depend on material weapons for carving their way, and have had no help from other quarters.  A suicidal delusion!  The spiritual weapon has done most, and always does.  They are sons of an idea.  They deny their parentage when they scoff at idealism.  It’s a tendency we shall have to guard against; it leads back to the old order of things, if we do not trim our light.  She is waiting for you!  Go.  You will find me here.  And don’t forget my instructions.  Appoint for the afternoon—­not late.  Too near night will seem like Orpheus going below, and I hope to meet a living woman, not a ghost—­ha! coloured like a lantern in a cavern, good Lord!  Covered with lichen!  Say three o’clock, not later.  The reason is, I want to have it over early and be sure of what I am doing; I’m bothered by it; I shall have to make arrangements . . . a thousand little matters . . . telegraph to Paris, I daresay; she’s fond of Paris, and I must learn who’s there to meet her.  Now start.  I’ll walk a dozen steps with you.  I think of her as if, since we parted, she had been sitting on a throne in Erebus, and must be ghastly.  I had a dream of a dead tree that upset me.  In fact, you see I must have it over.  The whole affair makes me feel too young.’

Tresten advised him to spend an hour with the baroness.

‘I can’t; she makes me feel too old,’ said Alvan.  ’She talks.  She listens, but I don’t want to speak.  Dead silence!—­let it be a dash of the pen till you return.  As for these good people hurrying to their traffic, and tourists and loungers, they have a trick for killing time without hurting him.  I wish I had.  I try to smother a minute, and up the old fellow jumps quivering all over and threatening me body and soul.  They don’t appear as if they had news on their faces this morning.  I’ve not seen a newspaper and won’t look at one.  Here we separate.  Be formal in mentioning me to her but be particularly civil.  I know you have the right tone:  she’s a critical puss.  Days like these are the days for her to be out.  There goes a parasol like one I ’ve seen her carry.  Stay—­no!  Don’t forget my instructions.  Paris for a time.  It may be the Pyrenees.  Paris on our way back.  She would like the Pyrenees.  It’s not too late for society at Luchon and Cauterets.  She likes mountains, she mounts well:  in any case, plenty of mules can be had.  Paris to wind up with.  Paris will be fuller about the beginning of October.’