He had travelled overland for nearly a month, out of the heart of Asia, to find himself, after all, in a graveyard of great expectations! He had explored Edelweiss, the capital.

He had ridden about the ramparts; he had taken snapshots of the fortress down the river and had not been molested; he had gone mule-back up the mountain to the snowcapped monastery of St.Valentine, overtopping and overlooking the green valleys below; he had seen the tower in which illustrious prisoners were reported to have been held; he had ridden over the King's Road to Ganlook and had stood on American bridges at midnight--all the while wondering why he was there.

Moreover, he had traversed the narrow, winding streets of the city by day and night; never, in all his travels, had he encountered a more peaceful, less spirit-stirring place or populace.
Everybody was busy, and thrifty, and law abiding.

He might just as well have gone to Prague or Nuremburg; either was as old and as quaint and as stupid as this lukewarm city in the hills.
Where were the beautiful women he had read about and dreamed of ever since he left Teheran?
On his soul, he had not seen half a dozen women in Edelweiss who were more than passably fair to look upon.

True, he had to admit, the people he had seen were of the lower and middle classes--the shopkeepers and the shopgirls, the hucksters and the fruit vendors.