for us. Tell me, John, why did you join
our armies?"

"An accident first, as you know. There was that meeting with your
brother at the Austrian border, and my appearance in the apparent role
of a spy, and then my great sympathy with the French, who I thought and
still think were attacked by a powerful and prepared enemy bent upon
their destruction. Then I thought and still think that France and
England represent democracy against absolutism, and then, although
every one of these reasons is powerful enough alone, yet another has
influenced me strongly."

"And what is that other, John?"

"It's intangible, Julie. It has been weighed and measured by nearly all
the great philosophers, but I don't think any two of them have ever
agreed about the result."

"You are a philosopher, sir, too, are you not? How do you define it?"

"I don't know that I've arrived at any conclusion."

"And yet, John, I thought that you were a man of decision."

"That's irony, Julie. But men of decision perhaps are puzzled by it more
than anybody else."

"Then you can neither describe it nor give it a name?"

"It has names, several--but most of them are misleading," said John,
thoughtfully.

"So you leave it to me to discover what this mysterious influence may
be, or to remain forever in ignorance of it."

In her dark red cloak with tendrils of the deep golden hair showing at
the edge of her hood, she seemed to John a very sprite of the snows, and
the blue eyes said clearly to the gray:

"I know!"

And the gray answered back in the same language:

"I know!"

Nevertheless John would not let words betray him. He thought that the
mountain and their isolation gave him an unfair advantage, and the young
crusader upon whom the mantle of chivalry had descended had too
knightly a soul to use it, at least in speech.

"And so, sir," she said, "you will not venture upon such an abstruse
subject?"

"No, I think not. I don't believe you could call it an evasion, but
perhaps it's fear."

"Fear of what, John?"

"I'm not sure about that, either. Perhaps elsewhere and under more
suitable circumstances I may be able to put my thought into words,
precise and understandable. It will take time, but that I shall do so
some day I have no doubt."

She looked away, and then the two, the snow shovels in their hands,
walked back gravely to the lodge. Suzanne stood in the doorway watching
them. She knew that they were wholly oblivious of her presence,