our
life--except when you thought that Lucy was a possible law-breaker."

At the moment, and from where they stood, the sea-scape and the
coast-road stood revealed before and behind them for many a league. In
front it descended by sharp spirals to a river-bed. Vera Nugent
standing there, her chin upon her hands, her hands upon her staff,
could see straight below her feet two absorbed couples, as it were on
different grades of the scene. In the first the fair Margery Dacre
leaned against a rock while Lingen, on his knees, tied her shoestring;
at a lower level yet Macartney, having handed his Lucy over a torrent,
stooped his head to receive his tribute. Vera, who had a grain of pity
in her, hoped that Urquhart had been spared; but whether he was or not
she never knew. No signs of disturbance were upon him at the ensuing
picnic, unless his treatment of Macartney--with a kind of humorous
savagery--betrayed him. They talked of the Folgefond, that mighty
snow-field beyond the fiord which the three men intended to traverse
in a day or two's time.

"Brace yourself, my friend," Urquhart said. "Hearts have been broken
on that ground before now."

James said that he had made his peace with God--but Lucy looked
full-eyed and serious.

"I never know when you are laughing at us," she said to Urquhart.

"Be sure that I have never laughed at you in my life," he said across
the table-cloth.

"He laughs at me," said James behind his eyeglass; "but I defy him.
The man who can laugh at himself is the man I envy. Now I never could
do that."

"You've hit me in a vital spot," Urquhart said. "That's my little
weakness; and that's why I've never succeeded in anything--even in
breaking my neck."

Lancelot nudged his friend Patrick. "Do you twig that?"

Patrick blinked, having his mouth too full to nod conveniently.

"Can't drive a motor, I suppose! Can't fly--I don't think."

"As to breaking your neck," said James, "there's still a chance for
you."

"I shall make a mess of it," Urquhart retorted.

"Is this going to be a neck-breaking expedition?" That was from
Lingen, who now had an object in life.

"I never said so," Urquhart told him. "I said heart-breaking--a far
simpler affair."

"What is going to break your heart in it, please?" Lucy asked him.
She saw that there lay something behind his rattle.

"Well," said Urquhart, brazening it out, "it would break mine to get
over the snow-field--some eight miles of it, there are-