do, or need do. Up Mont Blanc
to-day, Tresten! It's the very day for an ascent:--one of the rare
crystalline jewels coming in a Swiss August; we should see the kingdoms
of the earth--and a Republic! But I could climb with all my heart in a
snowstorm to-day. Andes on Himalayas! as high as you like. The Republic
by the way, small enough in the ring 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 bod