‘How do you like it?’ he asked his friend, when he had lighted his cigarette.  ‘I hope you are enjoying yourself.’

‘I never was happier in my life,’ answered Hammond.

He was standing on higher ground, with Mary at his elbow, pointing out and expatiating upon the details of the prospect.  There were the lakes—­Grasmere, a disk of shining blue; Rydal, a patch of silver; and Windermere winding amidst a labyrinth of wooded hills.

‘Aren’t you tired?’ asked Maulevrier.

‘Not a whit.’

’Oh, I forgot you had done Cotapaxi, or as much of Cotapaxi as living mortal ever has done.  That makes a difference.  I am going home.’

‘Oh, Maulevrier!’ exclaimed Mary, piteously.

’I am going home.  You two can go to the top.  You are both hardened mountaineers, and I am not in it with either of you.  When I rashly consented to a pedestrian ascent of Helvellyn I had forgotten what the gentleman was like; and as to Dolly Waggon I had actually forgotten her existence.  But now I see the lady—­as steep as the side of a house, and as stony—­no, naught but herself can be her parallel in stoniness.  No, Molly, I will go no further.’

‘But we shall go down on the other side,’ urged Mary.  ’It is a little steeper on the Cumberland side, but not nearly so far.’

’A little steeper!  I Can anything be steeper than Dolly Waggon?  Yes, you are right.  It is steeper on the Cumberland side.  I remember coming down a sheer descent, like an exaggerated sugar-loaf; but I was on a pony, and it was the brute’s look-out.  I will not go down the Cumberland side on my own legs.  No, Molly, not even for you.  But if you and Hammond want to go to the top, there is nothing to prevent you.  He is a skilled mountaineer.  I’ll trust you with him.’

Mary blushed, and made no reply.  Of all things in the world she least wanted to abandon the expedition.  Yet to climb Helvellyn alone with her brother’s friend would no doubt be a terrible violation of those laws of maidenly propriety which Fraeulein was always expounding.  If Mary were to do this thing, which she longed to do, she must hazard a lecture from her governess, and probably a biting reproof from her grandmother.

‘Will you trust yourself with me, Lady Mary?’ asked Hammond, looking at her with a gaze so earnest—­so much more earnest than the occasion required—­that her blushes deepened and her eyelids fell.  ’I have done a good deal of climbing in my day, and I am not afraid of anything Helvellyn can do to me.  I promise to take great care of you if you will come.’

How could she refuse?  How could she for one moment pretend that she did not trust him, that her heart did not yearn to go with him.  She would have climbed the shingly steep of Cotapaxi with him—­or crossed the great Sahara with him—­and feared nothing.  Her trust in him was infinite—­as infinite as her reverence and love.

‘I am afraid Fraeulein would make a fuss,’ she faltered, after a pause.