tired, no
doubt--were resting in their rooms. He sat through dinner as best he
could; got away before dessert, and flew upstairs. For a minute he stood
there doubtful; on which door should he knock? Then timidly he tapped
on hers. No answer! He knocked loud on his tutor's door. No answer! They
were not back, then. Not back? What could that mean? Or could it be
that they were both asleep? Once more he knocked on her door; then
desperately turned the handle, and took a flying glance. Empty, tidy,
untouched! Not back! He turned and ran downstairs again. All the guests
were streaming out from dinner, and he became entangled with a group of
'English Grundys' discussing a climbing accident which had occurred in
Switzerland. He listened, feeling suddenly quite sick. One of them, the
short grey-bearded Grundy with the rather whispering voice, said to him:
"All alone again to-night? The Stormers not back?" Lennan did his best
to answer, but something had closed his throat; he could only shake his
head.

"They had a guide, I think?" said the 'English Grundy.'

This time Lennan managed to get out: "Yes, sir."

"Stormer, I fancy, is quite an expert!" and turning to the lady whom the
young 'Grundys' addressed as 'Madre' he added:

"To me the great charm of mountain-climbing was always the freedom from
people--the remoteness."

The mother of the young 'Grundys,' looking at Lennan with her
half-closed eyes, answered:

"That, to me, would be the disadvantage; I always like to be mixing with
my own kind."

The grey-bearded 'Grundy' murmured in a muffled voice:

"Dangerous thing, that, to say--in an hotel!"

And they went on talking, but of what Lennan no longer knew, lost in
this sudden feeling of sick fear. In the presence of these 'English
Grundys,' so superior to all vulgar sensations, he could not give vent
to his alarm; already they viewed him as unsound for having fainted.
Then he grasped that there had begun all round him a sort of luxurious
speculation on what might have happened to the Stormers. The descent was
very nasty; there was a particularly bad traverse. The 'Grundy,' whose
collar was not now crumpled, said he did not believe in women climbing.
It was one of the signs of the times that he most deplored. The mother
of the young 'Grundys' countered him at once: In practice she agreed
that they were out of place, but theoretically she could not see
why they should not climb. An American standing near threw all i