“The Aiguille d’Argentiere.  Do you know it, father?”

“I have heard of it,” said Garratt Skinner.

“Well, somehow that made a difference.  It is difficult to explain.  But I felt the difference.  I felt something had happened to me which I had to recognize—­a new thing.  Climbing that mountain, staying for an hour upon its summit in the sunlight with all those great still pinnacles and ice-slopes about me—­it was just like hearing very beautiful music.”  She was sitting now leaning forward with her hands clasped in front of her and speaking with great earnestness.  “All the vague longings which had ever stirred within me, longings for something beyond, and beyond, came back upon me in a tumult.  There was a place in shadow at my feet far below, the only place in shadow, a wall of black rock called the Col Dolent.  It seemed to me that I was living in that cold shadow.  I wanted to get up on the ridge, with the sunlight.  So I came to you.”

It seemed to Sylvia, that intently as she spoke, her words were and must be elusive to another, unless that other had felt what she felt or were moved by sympathy to feel it.  Her father listened without ridicule, without a smile.  Indeed, once or twice he nodded his head to her words.  Was it comprehension, she wondered, or was it only patience?

“When I came down from that summit, I felt that what I had hated before was no longer endurable at all.  So I came to you.”

Her father got up from his chair and stood for a little while looking out of the window.  He was clearly troubled by her words.  He turned away with a shrug of his shoulders.

“But—­but—­what can I do for you here?” he cried.  “Sylvia, I am a very poor man.  Your mother, on the other hand, has some money.”

“Oh, father, I shan’t cost you much,” she replied, eagerly.  “I might perhaps by looking after things save you money.  I won’t cost you much.”

Garratt Skinner looked at her with a rueful smile.

“You look to me rather an expensive person to keep up,” he said.

“Mother dressed me like this.  It’s not my choice,” she said.  “I let her do as she wished.  It did not seem to matter much.  Really, if you will let me stay, you will find me useful,” she said, in a pathetic appeal.

“Useful?” said Garratt Skinner, suddenly.  He again took stock of her, but now with a scrutiny which caused her a vague discomfort.  He seemed to be appraising her from the color of her hair and eyes to the prettiness of her feet, almost as though she was for sale, and he a doubtful purchaser.  She looked down on the carpet and slowly her blood colored her neck and rose into her face.  “Useful,” he said, slowly.  “Perhaps so, yes, perhaps so.”  And upon that he changed his tone.  “We will see, Sylvia.  You must stay here for the present, at all events.  Luckily, there is a spare room.  I have some friends here staying to supper—­just a bachelor’s friends, you know, taking pot-luck without any ceremony, very good fellows, not polished, perhaps, but sound of heart, Sylvia my girl, sound of heart.”  All his perplexity had vanished; he had taken his part; and he rattled along with a friendly liveliness which cleared the shadows from Sylvia’s thoughts and provoked upon her face her rare and winning smile.  He rang the bell for the housemaid.