"
Regina would have been blind if she had not been aware that she
attracted all this attention, and as she was probably not intended by
nature for a saint, she would have been pleased by it if there had been
room in her thoughts for any one but Marcello--even for herself.
She walked far up the road, and after the first mile or two she met no
one. At that hour the people who made excursions were already far away,
and those who meant to do nothing stayed nearer to Pontresina. She grew
tired of the road after a time. It led straight to the foot of the
glacier, and she was not attracted by snow and ice as northern people
are; there was something repellent to her in the thought of the
bleakness and cold, and the sunshine itself looked as hard as the
distant peaks on which it fell. But on the right there were rocky spurs
of the mountains, half covered with short trees and brilliant with wild
flowers that grew in little natural gardens here and there, not far
below the level of perpetual snow. She left the road, and began to climb
where there was no path. The air was delicious with the scent of flowers
and shrubs; there were alp-roses everywhere, and purple gentian, and the
little iva blossom that has an aromatic smell, and on tiny moss ledges
the cold white stars of the edelweiss seemed to be keeping themselves as
far above reach as they could. But she climbed as lightly as a savage
woman, and picked them and sat down to look at them in the sunshine.
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