Page:C N and A M Williamson - The Lightning Conductor.djvu/294

 used to be almost the same in both ways when one lived, breathed, and moved for bicycles. Do you remember how I would talk of nothing else, and made "bike slang" answer for all human nature's daily needs? You were annoyed one night when I took your arm as we were walking together, and told you you were "geared too high for me."

If my life depended now on giving accurate details of the country through which we've been driving, I should have to resign myself to die. I only know that I've never been so happy, or seen half so much that was beautiful and (as that Mrs. Bennett, who wanted to marry you so badly, was always saying) "soul-satisfying."

Well, we left Bordighera the day after Christmas. Brown called it "Boxing Day," but I didn't understand what he meant till he explained. We went spinning along the Riviera di Ponente, towards Genoa la Superba, where we were to halt for the night. Perhaps—just perhaps—a true critic of beauty, whose blood had cooled with much experience, would say that the Italian Riviera road wasn't quite equal to the French between Cannes and Mentone. But it's Italy, Italy! And there's the difference of charm between the two (as I said to Brown) that there is between a magnificent young French Duchesse, confident of her own charms, with generations of breeding and wealth behind her, and a lovely, peach-tinted, simple-hearted Italian peasant girl. How rich the colour is everywhere!—and yet it never seems to dazzle the eye. I suppose it's the wonderful atmosphere that harmonises everything. And