He owned he might have been mistaken, as the brilliant fellow flew swift and high between leaves, like an ordinary fritillary.
Not the less did they get their glimpse of the wonders in the sunny eternity of a child's afternoon.
'An Auerhahn, Chillon!' she said, picturing the maturer day when she had scaled perilous heights with him at night to stalk the blackcock in the prime of the morning.

She wished they could have had another such adventure to stamp the old home on his heart freshly, to the exclusion of beautiful English faces.
On the level of the valley, where they met the torrent-river, walking side by side with him, she ventured an inquiry: 'English girls are fair girls, are they not ?' 'There are some dark also,' he replied.
'But the best-looking are fair ?' 'Perhaps they are, with us.' 'Mother was fair.' 'She was.' 'I have only seen a few of them, once at Vies and at Venice, and those Baths we are going to; and at Meran, I think.' 'You considered them charming ?' 'Not all.' It was touching that she should be such a stranger to her countrywomen! He drew a portrait-case from his breast-pocket, pressing the spring, and handed it to her, saying: 'There is one.' He spoke indifferently, but as soon as she had seen the face inside it, with a look at him and a deep breath; she understood that he was an altered brother, and that they were three instead of two.
She handed it back to him, saying hushedly and only 'Yes.' He did not ask an opinion upon the beauty she had seen.

His pace increased, and she hastened her steps beside him.

She had not much to learn when some minutes later she said; 'Shall I see her, Chillon ?' 'She is one of the ladies we are to meet.' 'What a pity!' Carinthia stepped faster, enlightened as to his wish to get to the Baths without delay; and her heart softened in reflecting how readily he had yielded to her silly preference for going on foot.
Her cry of regret was equivocal; it produced no impression on him.

They reached a village where her leader deemed it adviseable to drive for the remainder of the distance up the valley to the barrier snow-mountain.
She assented instantly, she had no longer any active wishes of her own, save to make amends to her brother, who was and would ever be her brother: she could not be robbed of their relationship.
Something undefined in her feeling of possession she had been robbed of, she knew it by her spiritlessness; and she would fain have attributed it to the idle motion of the car, now and them stupidly jolting her on, after the valiant exercise of her limbs.