KENYON'S JOHN LATTERY

Chayne returned to London on the following day, restless and troubled.
Jealousy, he knew, was the natural lot of the lover. But that he should
have to be jealous of a Walter Hine--there was the sting. He asked the
old question over and over again, the old futile question which the
unrewarded suitor puts to himself with amazement and a despair at the
ridiculous eccentricities of human nature. "What in the world can she see
in the fellow?" However, he did not lose heart. It was not in his nature
to let go once he had clearly set his desires upon a particular goal.
Sooner or later, people and things would adjust themselves to their
proper proportions in Sylvia's eyes. Meanwhile there was something to be
done--a doubt to be set at rest, perhaps a discovery to be made.

His conversation with Garratt Skinner, the subject which Garratt Skinner
had chosen, and the knowledge with which he had spoken, had seemed to
Chayne rather curious. A man might sit by his fireside and follow with
interest, nay almost with the passion of the mountaineer, the history of
Alpine exploration and adventure. That had happened before now. And very
likely Chayne would have troubled himself no more about Garratt Skinner's
introduction of the theme but for one or two circumstances which the more
he reflected upon them became the more significant. For instance: Garratt
Skinner had spoken and had asked questions about the new ascents made,
the new passes crossed within the last twenty years, just as a man would
ask who had obtained his knowledge out of books. But of the earlier
ascents he had spoken differently, though the difference was subtle and
hard to define. He seemed to be upon more familiar ground. He left in
Chayne's mind a definite suspicion that he was speaking no longer out of
books, but from an intimate personal knowledge, the knowledge of actual
experience. The suspicion had grown up gradually, but it had strengthened
almost into a conviction.

It was to the old climbs that Garratt Skinner's conversation perpetually
recurred--the Aiguille Verte, the Grand and the Petit Dru and the
traverse between them, the Col Dolent, the Grandes Jorasses and the
Brenva route--yes, above all, the Brenva route up Mont Blanc. Moreover,
how in the world should he know that those slabs of black granite on the
top of the Grepon were veined with red--splashed with red as he described
them? Unless he had ascended them, or the Aiguill