Softly the watcher turned inwards, and at once a gay, cracked voice spoke out of the darkness.

“Hullo, darling!  Up and watching already!  Ye gods!  What a sky!  Why didn’t you wake me sooner?  Have I time for a plunge?”

“Perhaps—­if you will let me help you dress after it.  Certainly not otherwise.”  The deep voice had in it a tremulous note that was like a caress.  The speaker was looking into the shadows.  The glory without no longer held her.

“All right then, you shall—­just for a treat.  Perhaps you would like to shave me as well?”

“Shave you!” There was scorn this time in the answering voice.  “You couldn’t grow a single hair if you tried!”

“True, O Queen!  I couldn’t.  And the few I was born with are invisible.  Hence my failure to distinguish myself in the Army.  It is to be hoped the deficiency will not blight my Parliamentary career also—­always supposing I get there.”

“Ah, but you did distinguish yourself.  I heard—­once”—­the words came with slight hesitation—­“that you ought to have had the V.C. after the Wara expedition,—­only you refused it.”

“I wonder what gas-bag let that out,” commented Nick.  “You shouldn’t believe all you hear, you know.  Now, darling, I’m ready for the plunge, and I must look sharp about it too.  Do you mind rummaging out a towel?”

“But, Nick, was it true?”

“What?  The V.C. episode?  Oh, I suppose so, more or less.  I didn’t want to be decorated for running away, you see.  It didn’t seem exactly suitable.  Besides, I didn’t do it for that.”

“Nick, do you know you make me feel more contemptible every day?” There was an unmistakable quiver of distress in the words.

“My own girl, don’t be a goose!” came the light response.  “You don’t honestly suppose I could ever regret anything now, do you?  Why, it’s a lost faculty.”

He stepped from the tent, clad loosely in a bath sheet, and bestowed a kiss upon his wife’s downcast face in passing.  “Look here, sweetheart, if you cry while I’m in the water, I’ll beat you directly I come out.  That’s a promise, not a threat.  And by the way, I’ve got something good to tell you presently; so keep your heart up.”

He laughed at her and went his way, humming tunelessly after his own peculiarly volatile fashion.  She listened to his singing, as he splashed in the stream below, as though it were the sweetest music on earth; and she knew that he had spoken the truth.  Whatever sacrifices he had made in the past, regret was a thing impossible to him now.

By the time he joined her again, she had driven away her own.  The sky was changing mysteriously.  The purple depth was lightening, the stars receding.

“We must hurry,” said Nick.  “The gods won’t wait for us.”

But they were ready first after all, and the morning found them high up the mountainside with their faces to the east.

Sudden and splendid, the sun flashed up over the edge of the world, and the snow of the mountain crests shone in roselit glory for a few magic seconds, then shimmered to gold—­glittering as the peaks of Paradise.