By-and-bye I knew how a man feels in a treadmill, and I was anxious for the Boy’s sake, seeing the queer little figure in the panama and dressing-gown gradually droop, despite the brave spirit with which it was animated.  Losing confidence in my boasted ability as a pioneer, I called Joseph to the rescue, and bade him take the lead.

Having intruded upon him suddenly, behind the screen of snow-cloud, I found him engaged in the Samaritan act—­no doubt carried out on purely humanitarian principles—­of warming one of Innocentina’s hands in his.  I simulated blindness with such histrionic skill that honest Joseph was deceived thereby; but not so Innocentina.  She tossed her head, and folded her arms in her cape as if it had been the toga of a Roman senator unjustly accused of treason.  She had been, so she assured me, at that instant on the point of coming forward to entreat her young monsieur to mount Fanny, since he must be deadly tired; but the Boy, joining us at the moment, denied excessive fatigue and said that he would freeze if he rode.  Besides, he added, it would be cruel to burden Fanny, in her present state of depression.  The most likely thing was that we should have to carry her; and if she continued to shrink at her present rate per minute, soon we could slip her into one of our pockets.

Joseph, promoted to the post of honour, forged ahead; and either Fanny and Souris insisted upon following Finois, or else Innocentina felt called upon to continue the process of conversion even in adverse circumstances; at all events, the Boy and I almost immediately found ourselves in the background, all that we could see of our companions being a tassel-like grey tail quivering above a moving blur of little legs, scarcely thicker than toothpicks.

The Boy, who was still sulking in the dressing-gown, suddenly broke by a spasmodic chuckle the silence which had blended chillingly with the weather.

“What’s up?” I enquired, thawing joyously in the brief gleam of moral sunshine.

“I was only thinking that if Innocentina wants to convert Joseph from heresy she’d better not lecture him to-day about eternal fire.  The idea is too inviting.  I never envied anyone so much as my namesake, St. Laurence, on his gridiron.  It would be a luxury to grill.”

“Perhaps the gridiron was to him what my dressing-gown is to you,” said I.

“I’m getting resigned to it.  That’s the reason I’m talking to you.  I hated you for five minutes; but—­you never like people so much as when you’ve just finished hating them.”

“Which means that I’m forgiven?”

“That, and something more.”

“Good imp!  The thermometer is rising.  But I feel a beast to have got you into this scrape.  If it hadn’t been for me, you wouldn’t have known that a mule-path existed on Mont Revard.”

“I’m not sorry we came.  This will be something to remember always.  It’s a real adventure.  Afterwards we shall get the point of view.”