a mark, came in smelling of gun-oil; and after a little pause of
waiting came the Countess.

"Where," said the Count, "is our Alpinist?" Henry had not seen him that
day. He was no doubt somewhere about. But Herr Gutwein smiled, and also
the waiter. They knew something. There was a crying at the door. The
porter, full of noisy admiration, rang the great bell as for an arrival.
Gutwein disappeared. The Count followed, then came Lucia and Henry. At
that moment I arrived, outwardly calm, with my clothes carefully dusted
from travel-stains, all the equipment of the ascent left in the wayside
chalet by the bridge. I gave an easy good-morning to the group, taking
off my hat to Madame. The Count cried disdainfully that I was a
slug-a-bed. Henry asked with obvious sarcasm if I had not been up the
Piz Langrev. The Countess held out her hand in an uncertain way.
Certainly I must have been very young, for all this gave me intense
pleasure. Especially did my heart leap when I took the Countess to the
window a little to the right, and, pointing with one hand upwards, put
the Count's binocular into her hands. The sun of the mid-noon was
shining on a black speck floating from the topmost cliff of the Piz
Langrev. As she looked she flung out her hand to me, still continuing to
gaze with the glass held in the other. She saw her own scarlet favour
flying from the pine-branch. That cry of wonder and delight was better
to me than the Victoria Cross. I was young then. It is so good to be
young, and better to be in love.

CHAPTER X

THE PURPLE CHALET

Our life at the Kursaal Promontonio was full of change and adventure.
For adventures are to the adventurous. In the morning we read quietly
together, Henry and I, beginning as soon as the sun touched our balcony,
and continuing three or four hours, with only such intermission as the
boiling of our spirit-lamp and the making of cups of tea afforded to the
steady work of the morning.

Then at breakfast-time the work of the day was over. We were ready to
make the most of the long hours of sunshine which remained. Sometimes we
rowed with Lucia and her brother on the lake, dreaming under the
headlands and letting the boat drift among the pictured images of the
mountains.

Oftener the Count and Henry would go to their shooting, or away on some
of the long walks which they took in company.

One evening it happened that M. Bourget, the architect of the hotel, a
bright young Belgian, was