Adrian was duly carried abroad under the Mebberley wing;
but as a reluctant concession to sanity Homburg and other
inconveniently fashionable resorts were given a wide berth,
and the Mebberley establishment planted itself down in the
best hotel at Dohledorf, an Alpine townlet somewhere at the
back of the Engadine. It was the usual kind of resort, with
the usual type of visitors, that one finds over the greater
part of Switzerland during the summer season, but to Adrian
it was all unusual. The mountain air, the certainty of
regular and abundant meals, and in particular the social
atmosphere, affected him much as the indiscriminating
fervour of a forcing-house might affect a weed that had
strayed within its limits. He had been brought up in a world
where breakages were regarded as crimes and expiated as
such; it was something new and altogether exhilarating to
find that you were considered rather amusing if you smashed
things in the right manner and at the recognized hours.
Susan Mebberley had expressed the intention of showing
Adrian a bit of the world; the particular bit of the world
represented by Dohledorf began to be shown a good deal of
Adrian.
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