fancied would
strongly appeal to her. Moreover, there was truth in it.

"I will tell you why, mademoiselle. It is to be your first mountain. It
will be a day in your life which you will never forget. Therefore you
want it to be as complete as possible--is it not so? It is a good
rock-climb, the Aiguille des Charmoz--yes. But the Argentiere is more
complete. There is a glacier, a rock traverse, a couloir up a rock-cliff,
and at the top of that a steep ice-slope. And that is not all. You want
your last step on to the summit to reveal a new world to you. On the
Charmoz, it is true, there is a cleft at the very top up which you
scramble between two straight walls and you pop your head out above the
mountain. Yes, but you see little that is new; for before you enter the
cleft you see both sides of the mountain. With the Argentiere it is
different. You mount at the last, for quite a time behind the mountain
with your face to the ice-slope; and then suddenly you step out upon the
top and the chain of Mont Blanc will strike suddenly upon your eyes and
heart. See, mademoiselle, I love these mountains with a very great pride
and I would dearly like you to have that wonderful white revelation of a
new strange world upon your first ascent."

Before he had ended, he knew that he had won. He heard the girl draw
sharply in her breath. She was making for herself a picture of the last
step from the ice-slope to summit ridge.

"Very well," she said. "It shall be the Aiguille d'Argentiere."

Michel went upon his way out of Chamonix and across the fields. They
would be sure to speak, those two, to-morrow at the Pavillon de Lognan.
If only there were no other party there in that small inn! Michel's hopes
took a leap and reached beyond the Pavillon de Lognan. To ascend one's
first mountain--yes, that was enviable and good. But one should have a
companion with whom one can live over again the raptures of that day, in
the after time. Well--perhaps--perhaps!

Michel pushed open the door of his cottage, and lit his lamp, without
after all bethinking him that the room was dark and empty. His ice-axes
stood in a corner, the polished steel of their adz-heads gleaming in the
light; his _Ruecksack_ and some coils of rope hung upon pegs; his book
with the signatures and the comments of his patrons lay at his elbow on
the table, a complete record of his life. But he was not thinking that
they had served him for the last time. He sat down in his ch