“Yes!” he replied.  “But I think this bridge that spans the gorge is a more wonderful thing than all the wild works of nature around us.  I admire men, like our friend Camille Langis, who know how to build these bridges.  What a fine fellow he is!  Most men, with his wealth, lead idle, useless lives.  But there he is now, building bridges across mountains just as wild as these, in Hungary.  Why don’t you marry him, my dear?  He is madly in love with you, and you have known him all your life.”

“That’s just it,” said his daughter, with a movement of impatience, “I have known him all my life.  How can I now fall wildly and suddenly in love with him?  No!  If ever I lose my heart, I am sure it will be to some stranger, to someone quite different from all the men we meet in Paris.”

“You are incorrigibly romantic, Antoinette,” said her father, with just a touch of ill-humour.  “You want a fairy prince, eh?—­one of those strange, picturesque, impossible creatures that only exist in the imagination of poets and school girls.  You are now twenty-four years old, Antoinette, and if you don’t soon become more reasonable, you will die an old maid.”

“Would that be a very great misfortune, father darling?” said Antoinette with a roguish smile.  “If ever I marry, you know, I shall have to leave you.  And what would you do then?  You would be driven to marry your cook!”

This sally put the old scientist in a good humour.  His daughter was the charm and solace of his life, and though he would have liked to see her happily married, he did not know what he should do when she left him.  On the way back to the hotel, Antoinette tried to find some edelweiss, but she was not able to clamber up to the high rocks on which this rare flower grows.  Great therefore were her joy and surprise, on returning to the hotel, to find on the table of her room a wicker basket, full of edelweiss, and rarer Alpine flowers.  Was it for her?  Yes!  For in the basket was a note addressed, “Mlle. Moriaz.”  Fluttering with excitement she opened it, and read: 

      “I arrived in this valley, disgusted with life, sad, and
     weary to death.  But I saw you pass by my window, and some
     strange, new power entered my soul.  Now I know that I shall
     live, and accomplish my work in the world.  ’What does this
     matter to me?’ you will say when you read these lines—­and you
     will be right.  My only excuse for writing to you in this way
     is that I shall depart in a few days, and that you will never
     see me, and never know who I am.”

After getting over her first impression of profound astonishment, Antoinette laughed, and then gave way to curiosity.  Who had brought the flowers?  “A little peasant boy,” said the hotel porter, “but I did not know him.  He must have come from another village.”