simply MUST
have him for best man. The only bridesmaid now would be Sylvia....
Sylvia Doone? Why, she was only a kid! And the memory of a little girl
in a very short holland frock, with flaxen hair, pretty blue eyes, and
a face so fair that you could almost see through it, came up before
him. But that, of course, was six years ago; she would not still be in
a frock that showed her knees, or wear beads, or be afraid of bulls that
were never there. It was stupid being best man--they might have got
some decent chap! And then he forgot all--for there was SHE, out on
the terrace. In his rush to join her he passed several of the 'English
Grundys,' who stared at him askance. Indeed, his conduct of the night
before might well have upset them. An Oxford man, fainting in an hotel!
Something wrong there! . . .

And then, when he reached her, he did find courage.

"Was it really moonlight?"

"All moonlight."

"But it was warm!"

And, when she did not answer that, he had within him just the same
light, intoxicated feeling as after he had won a race at school.

But now came a dreadful blow. His tutor's old guide had suddenly turned
up, after a climb with a party of Germans. The war-horse had been
aroused in Stormer. He wished to start that afternoon for a certain hut,
and go up a certain peak at dawn next day. But Lennan was not to go. Why
not? Because of last night's faint; and because, forsooth, he was not
some stupid thing they called 'an expert.' As if--! Where she could go
he could! This was to treat him like a child. Of course he could go up
this rotten mountain. It was because she did not care enough to take
him! She did not think him man enough! Did she think that he could not
climb what--her husband--could? And if it were dangerous SHE ought not
to be going, leaving him behind--that was simply cruel! But she only
smiled, and he flung away from her, not having seen that all this grief
of his only made her happy.

And that afternoon they went off without him. What deep, dark thoughts
he had then! What passionate hatred of his own youth! What schemes he
wove, by which she might come back, and find him gone-up some mountain
far more dangerous and fatiguing! If people did not think him fit to
climb with, he would climb by himself. That, anyway, everyone admitted,
was dangerous. And it would be her fault. She would be sorry then. He
would get up, and be off before dawn; he put his things out ready, and
filled his flask.