My companion’s mind seemed to be so completely diverted by this prospect that I breathed again.  He could be depended upon I knew, never to think seriously of me when there was an opportunity of thinking seriously of himself, and in that certainty I relaxed my efforts to make it quite impossible that anything should happen.  I forgot the contingencies of the situation in finding whiter glaciers and deeper gorges, and looking for the Bergamesque sheep and their shepherds which Baedeker assured us were to be seen pasturing on the slopes and heights of the Julier wearing long curling locks, mantles of brown wool, and peaked Calabrian hats.  We grew quite frivolous over this phenomenon, which did not appear, and it was only after some time that we observed the Baedeker to be of 1877, and decided that the home of truth was not in old editions.  It seemed to me afterwards that Mr. Mafferton had been waiting for his opportunity; he certainly took advantage of a very insufficient one.

“It’s exactly,” said I, talking of the compartments of the diligence, “as if Isabel and Dicky had the first floor front, momma and poppa the dining room, and you and I the second floor back.”

It was one of those things that one lives to repent if one survives them five seconds; but my remorse was immediately swallowed up in consequences.  I do not propose to go into the details of Mr. Mafferton’s second attempt upon my insignificant hand—­to be precise, I wear fives and a quarter—­but he began by saying that he thought we could do better than that, meaning the second floor back, and he mentioned Park Lane.  He also said that ever since Dicky, doubtless before his affections had become involved, had told him that there was a possibility of my changing my mind—­I was nearly false to Dicky at this point—­he had been giving the matter his best consideration, and he had finally decided that it was only fair that I should have an opportunity of doing so.  These were not his exact words, but I can be quite sure of my impression.  We were trotting past the lake at Maloja when this came upon me, and when I reflected that I owed it about equally to poppa and to Dicky Dod I felt that I could have personally chastised them—­could have slapped them—­both.  What I longed to do with Mr. Mafferton was to hurl him, figuratively speaking, down an abyss, but that would have been to send him into Mrs. Portheris’s beckoning arms next morning, and I had little faith in any floral hat and pink bun once its mamma’s commands were laid upon it.  I thought of my cradle companion—­not tenderly, I confess—­and told Mr. Mafferton that I didn’t know what I had done to deserve such an honour a second time, and asked him if he had properly considered the effect on Isabel.  I added that I fancied Dicky was generalising about American girls changing their minds, but I would try and see if I had changed mine and would let him know in six days, at Harwich.  Any decision made on this side of the Channel might so easily be upset.  And this I did knowing quite well that Dicky and Isabel and I were all to elope from Boulogne, Dicky and Isabel for frivolity and I for propriety; for this had been arranged.  In writing a description of our English tour I do not wish to exculpate myself in any particular.