ed, and you do
not want to go out at nights to search for company, then it is as well to
have a companion. And it is well to choose your companion in your youth,
madame, so that you may have many recollections to talk over together
when the good of life is chiefly recollection."

He made his visitors sit down, fetched out a bottle of wine and offered
them the hospitalities of his house, easily and naturally, like the true
gentleman he was. It seemed to Chayne that he looked a little older, that
he was a little more heavy in his gait, a little more troubled with his
eyes than he had been last year. But at all events to-night he had the
spirit, the good-humor of his youth. He talked of old exploits upon peaks
then unclimbed, he brought out his guide's book, in which his messieurs
had written down their names and the dates of the climbs, and the
photographs which they had sent to him.

"There are many photographs of men grown famous, madame," he said,
proudly, "with whom I had the good fortune to climb when they and I and
the Alps were all young together. But it is not only the famous who are
interesting. Look, madame! Here is your husband's friend, Monsieur
Lattery--a good climber but not always very sure on ice."

"You always will say that, Michel," protested Chayne. "I never knew a man
so obstinate."

Michel Revailloud smiled and said to Sylvia:

"I knew he would spring out on me. Never say a word against Monsieur
Lattery if you would keep friends with Monsieur Chayne. See, I give you
good advice in return for your kindness in visiting an old man.
Nevertheless," and he dropped his voice in a pretence of secrecy and
nodded emphatically: "It is true. Monsieur Lattery was not always sure on
ice. And here, madame, is the portrait of one whose name is no doubt
known to you in London--Professor Kenyon."

Sylvia, who was turning over the leaves of the guide's little book,
looked up at the photograph.

"It was taken many years ago," she said.

"Twenty or twenty-five years ago," said Michel, with a shrug of the
shoulders, "when he and I and the Alps were young."

Chayne began quickly to look through the photographs outspread upon the
table. If Kenyon's portrait was amongst Revailloud's small treasures,
there might be another which he had no wish for his wife to see, the
portrait of the man who climbed with Kenyon, who was Kenyon's "John
Lattery." There might well be the group before the Monte Rosa Hotel in
Zermatt whi