"I wonder what the
stepson is like?"
"Luckily it doesn't matter much to me," said the chauffeur
indifferently.
"Nor to me. But his name's Herbert."
"His surname?"
"I don't know. There's a Herbert lurking somewhere. It always suggests
to me oily hair parted in the middle and smeared down on each side of a
low, narrow forehead. Could you know a 'Bertie'?"
"I did once, and never want to again. He was a swine and a snob. Hope
you never came across the combination?"
I forgot to answer, because, having left the mountain world behind, a
formidable line of nobly planned arches began striding along beside us,
through the sun-bright fields, and I was sure it must be the giant Roman
aqueduct of Frejus.
Instead of discussing such little things as the Turnours and their
Bertie, we began to talk of Phoenicians, Ligurians, and of Romans; of
Pliny, who had a beloved friend at Frejus; and all the while to breathe
in the perfume of a land over which a vast tidal wave of balsamic pines
had swept.
Frejus we were not to see now: that was for the dim future, after lunch;
but we turned to the left off the main road, and ran on until we saw,
bathed in pines, deliciously deluged and drowned in pines, the white
glimmer of classic-looking villas.
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