Between sky and water there stretched across the picture
a broad, looming, dimly-defined band of shadow, marked here
and there at the top by little slanting patches of an
intensely glowing white. He looked at this darkling middle
distance for a moment or two without comprehension.
Then he turned and hurriedly moved to the door of Julia's
room and beat upon it.
"Get up!" he called through the panels. "Here's your
sunrise--here's your Alpine view. Go to your window
and see it!"
A clear voice, not unmirthful, replied: "I've been watching
it for half an hour, thanks. Isn't it glorious?"
He was more fortunate at the opposite door, for Alfred
was still asleep. The young man, upon hearing the news,
however, made a toilet of unexampled brevity, and came
breathlessly forth. Thorpe followed him to the balcony,
where he stood collarless and uncombed, with the fresh
morning breeze blowing his hair awry, his lips parted,
his eyes staring with what the uncle felt to be a painful
fixedness before him.
Thorpe had seen many mountains in many lands. They did
not interest him very much. He thought, however, that he
could see now why people who had no mountains of their
own should get excited about Switzerland. He understood
a number of these sentimental things now, for that matter,
which had been Greek to him three months before.
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