silent for a moment or two, looking up the glacier toward the
Aiguille d'Argentiere.

"I thank you very much for coming with me," and again the humility in
her voice, as of one outside the door, touched and hurt him. "I am
very grateful," and here a smile lightened her grave face, "and I am
rather proud!"

"You came up to Lognan at a good time for me," he answered, as they shook
hands. "I shall cross the Col Dolent with a better heart to-morrow."

They shook hands, and he asked:

"Shall I see no more of you?"

"That is as you will," she replied, simply.

"I should like to. In Paris, perhaps, or wherever you are likely to be. I
am on leave now for some months."

She thought for a second or two. Then she said:

"If you will give me your address, I will write to you. I think I shall
be in England."

"I live in Sussex, on the South Downs."

She took his card, and as she turned away she pointed to the Aiguille
d'Argentiere.

"I shall dream of that to-night."

"Surely not," he replied, laughing down to her over the wooden
balustrade. "You will dream of running water."

She glanced up at him in surprise that he should have remembered this
strange quality of hers. Then she turned away and went down to the pine
woods and the village of Les Tines.

CHAPTER VIII

SYLVIA PARTS FROM HER MOTHER

Meanwhile Mrs. Thesiger laughed her shrill laugh and chatted noisily in
the garden of the hotel. She picnicked on the day of Sylvia's ascent
amongst the sham ruins on the road to Sallanches with a few detached
idlers of various nationalities.

"Quite, quite charming," she cried, and she rippled with enthusiasm over
the artificial lake and the artificial rocks amongst which she seemed so
appropriate a figure; and she shrugged her pretty shoulders over the
eccentricities of her daughter, who was undoubtedly burning her
complexion to the color of brick-dust among those stupid mountains. She
came back a trifle flushed in the cool of the afternoon, and in the
evening slipped discreetly into the little Cercle at the back of the
Casino, where she played baccarat in a company which flattery could
hardly have termed doubtful. She was indeed not displeased to be rid of
her unsatisfactory daughter for a night and a couple of days.

"Sylvia won't fit in."

Thus for a long time she had been accustomed piteously to complain; and
with ever more reason. Less and less did Sylvia fit in with Mrs.
Thesiger's scheme of life. It