Then, unfortunately, the rains set in and the result was a mental washout that carried the last vestige of his poetical idea out into the vasty deep where individual ideas become world-thought, though there was a moment when he had an inspiration-something about keeping Lent, which should typify the rains. But this, too, drifted off like a chip on an ocean, and the song became mere literary junk. Probably the law of compensation is responsible for the fact that, while the coast's dazzling summer is flawed by trade winds, its rainy season is tempered by mushrooms.

At least, so thought Van Mater. Connoisseur that he was in the joys of living, he confessed to a new sensation when, for the first time, he found himself plodding over the seared, round-shouldered hills, spongy with the supererogatory wetness of a three days' downpour. The rain had ceased temporarily, but the sky wore a look of ineffable gloom, and the feathery mist trailed along the earth like an uneasy ghost.