I sought the manager in his sanctum of polished wood--a _comptoir_ where
there was little to count. Managers were a fleeting race in the Kursaal
Promontonio. The Count was a kind master. But he was a Russian, and a
taskmaster like those of Egypt, in that he expected his managers to make
the bricks of dividends without the straw of visitors. With him I
covenanted to be roused at midnight.

Herr Gutwein was somewhat unwilling. He had not so many visitors that he
could afford to expend one on the cliffs of the Piz Langrev.

I looked out on the lake and the mountains from the window of my room
before I turned in. They did not look encouraging.

Hardly, it seemed, had my head touched the pillow, when "clang, clang"
went some one on my door. "It is half-past twelve, Herr, and time to get
up!"

I saw the frost-flowers on the window-pane, and shivered. Yet there was
the laughter of Henry and the Count to be faced; and, above all, I had
passed my word to Lucia.

"Well, I suppose I may as well get up and take a look at the thing, any
way. Perhaps it may be snowing," I said, with a devout hope that the
blinds of mist or storm might be drawn down close about the mountains.

But, pushing aside the green window-blind, I saw all the stars
twinkling; and the broad moon, a little worm-eaten about the upper edge,
was flinging a pale light over the Forno glacier and the thick pines
that hide Lake Cavaloccia.