“Yes.  Twelve hundred feet of ice at an angle of fifty degrees.”

“And the bergschrund’s just beneath.”

“Yes, you must not slip on the Col Dolent,” said he, quietly.

Sylvia was silent a little while.  Then she said with a slight hesitation: 

“And you cross that pass to-day?”

There was still more hesitation in Chayne’s voice as he answered: 

“Well, no!  You see, this is your first mountain.  And you have only two guides.”

Sylvia looked at him seriously.

“How many should I have taken for the Aiguille d’Argentiere?  Twelve?”

Chayne smiled feebly.

“Well, no,” and his confusion increased.  “Two, as a rule, are enough—­unless—­”

“Unless the amateur is very clumsy,” she added.  “Thank you, Captain Chayne.”

“I didn’t mean that,” he cried.  He had no idea whether she was angry or not.  She was just looking quietly and steadily into his face and waiting for his explanation.

“Well, the truth is,” he blurted out, “I wanted to go up the Aiguille d’Argentiere with you,” and he saw a smile dimple her cheeks.

“I am honored,” she said, and the tone of her voice showed besides that she was very glad.

“Oh, but it wasn’t only for the sake of your company,” he said, and stopped.  “I don’t seem to be very polite, do I?” he said, lamentably.

“Not very,” she replied.

“What I mean is this,” he explained.  “Ever since we started this morning, I have been recapturing my own sensations on my first ascent.  Watching you, your enjoyment, your eagerness to live fully every moment of this day, I almost feel as if I too had come fresh to the mountains, as if the Argentiere were my first peak.”

He saw the blood mount into her cheeks.

“Was that the reason why you questioned me as to what I thought and felt?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“I thought you were testing me,” she said, slowly.  “I thought you were trying whether I was—­worthy”; and once again humility had framed her words and modulated their utterance.  She recognized without rancor, but in distress, that people had the right to look on her as without the pale.

The guides packed up the Ruecksacks, and they started once more up the moraine.  In a little while they descended on to the lateral glacier which descending from the recesses of the Aiguille d’Argentiere in front of them flowed into the great basin behind.  They roped together now in one party and ascended the glacier diagonally, rounding a great buttress which descends from the rock ledge and bisects the ice, and drawing close to the steep cliffs.  In a little while they crossed the bergschrund from the glacier on to the wall of mountain, and traversing by easy rocks at the foot of the cliffs came at last to a big steep gully filled with hard ice which led up to the ridge just below the final peak.