Rowland and Roderick turned aside from the little paved footway that clambered and dipped and wound and doubled beside the lake, and stretched themselves idly beneath a fig-tree, on a grassy promontory.

Rowland had never known anything so divinely soothing as the dreamy softness of that early autumn afternoon.

The iridescent mountains shut him in; the little waves, beneath him, fretted the white pebbles at the laziest intervals; the festooned vines above him swayed just visibly in the all but motionless air.
Roderick lay observing it all with his arms thrown back and his hands under his head.

"This suits me," he said; "I could be happy here and forget everything.

Why not stay here forever ?" He kept his position for a long time and seemed lost in his thoughts.