The minister leaned forward eagerly. "Then there is a political side to it?"
"There would be if everything had not turned out so fortunately."
"I believe that I understand now," said Courtlandt, his face hardening. Strange, he had not thought of it before. His skepticism had blinded him to all but one angle. "Your advice to drop the matter is excellent."
The chief of police elevated his brows interrogatively.
"For I presume," continued Courtlandt, rising, "that Mademoiselle's abductor is by this time safely across the frontier."
There is a heavenly terrace, flanked by marvelous trees. To the left, far down below, is a curving, dark-shaded, turquoise body of water called Lecco; to the right there lies the queen of lakes, the crown of Italy, a corn-flower sapphire known as Como. Over and about it--this terrace--poets have raved and tousled their neglected locks in vain to find the perfect phrasing; novelists have come and gone and have carried away peace and inspiration; and painters have painted it from a thousand points of view, and perhaps are painting it from another thousand this very minute. It is the Place of Honeymoons. Rich lovers come and idle there; and lovers of modest means rush up to it and down from it to catch the next steamer to Menaggio. Eros was not born in Greece: of all barren mountains, unstirring, Hymettus, or Olympus, or whatever they called it in the days of the junketing gods, is completest. No; Venus went a-touring and abode a while upon this same gracious spot, once dear to Pliny the younger.
Between the blessed ledge and the towering mountains over the way, rolls a small valley, caressed on either side by the lakes. There are flower gardens, from which in summer rises the spicy perfume of lavender; there are rows upon rows of grape-vines, terraced downward; there are purple figs and white and ruby mulberries. Around and about, rising sheer from the waters, wherever the eye may rove, heaven-touching, salmon-tinted mountains abound, with scarfs of filmy cloud aslant their rugged profiles, and beauty-patches of snow. And everywhere the dark and brooding cypress, the copper beech, the green pine accentuate the pink and blue and white stucco of the villas, the rich and the humble.