“No,” I admitted, “but there were probably so many that one didn’t notice them—­like flies, you know.”

“Of course, the air of Switzerland is dark with mules and donkeys,” said Molly, who always seemed quick to resent any obstacles thrown between me and my mule.  “One sees them in picture books.  All that Lord Lane will have to say is, ‘Let there be mules,’ and there will be mules—­strings of them.  He will only have to pick and choose.  The thing will be to get a good one, and a nice, handsome, troubadour-sort of man who can cook, and jodel, and sew, and put up tents, and keep off murderers in mountain passes at night.  It may take a day or two to find exactly what is wanted.”

“The best person in Switzerland to give Monty all the information he needs,” said Jack, evidently not wholly convinced, “is Herr Widmer, who has an hotel high above Lucerne, on the Sonnenberg.  He has another in Mentone, and I’ve heard him tell how he has often come up from the Riviera to Switzerland on horseback.  He would be able to advise Monty exactly how to go.”

“Let’s stop at his place on the Sonnenberg, then,” said Molly, who never took more than sixty seconds to make the most momentous decisions, less important ones getting themselves arranged while slow-minded English people drew breath.

Certainly, as we drove through the streets of Lucerne, we saw neither mules nor donkeys, but Molly accounted for this by saying that no doubt they were all at dinner.  In any case, with the blue lake a-glitter with silver sequins dropped from the gowns of those sparkling White Ladies, the mountains; the shops gay and bright in the sunshine, on one side the way, shadows lying cool and soft under the long line of green trees on the other, who could take thought of absent mules?  Let them dine or die; it mattered not.  Lucerne was beautiful, the day divine.

When we were lunching on the balcony of the Winstons’ private sitting-room at the Sonnenberg, with mountains billowing round and below us, I saw that there was something on Molly’s mind for she was distraite.  Suddenly she said, “Before you talk to Herr Widmer about your mule, don’t you think that you had better decide absolutely upon your route?”

“But, darling,” objected Jack, “that is largely what he wants advice about.”

“He can’t do better than take mine, then,” said Molly.  “Lord Lane, promise me you’ll take mine and no one’s else.”

“Of course I’ll promise,” I answered recklessly, for her eyes were irresistible, and any man would have been enraptured that so exquisite a creature should interest herself in his fate.  “It doesn’t much matter to me where I go, so long as I can moon about in the mountains, and eventually, before I’m old and grey, bring up on the Riviera.”

“Well, then,” said Molly, “since you are so accommodating, I not only advise but order you to go over the Great St. Bernard Pass, down to Aosta.”