The cool, shadowy room, with its table ready laid for dinner near the
latticed window, was a welcome change to the three dusty voyagers as
they were ushered into it by the German landlord, whose round head
thinly thatched with whitey-brown hair gave him the appearance of having
been left out over night in a hoar frost. It was a refreshment in itself
to look at him, so crisp and cool, with that blinding afternoon glare
lying on the heated mountain-slopes.

"I could be contented here a month," said Mrs. Denham, throwing off her
bonnet, and seating herself in the embrasure of the window.

"The marquis allows us only three quarters of an hour," Lynde observed.
"He says we cannot afford to lose much time if we want to reach Chamouni
before sundown."

"Chamouni will wait for us."

"But the sunset won't."

Lynde had a better reason than that for wishing to press on. It was
between there and Magland, or, rather, just beyond Magland, that he
proposed to invite Miss Denham to walk. The wonderful cascade of
Arpenaz, though it could be seen as well from the carriage, was to serve
as pretext. Of course he would be obliged to include Mrs. Denham in his
invitation, and he had sufficient faith in the inconsistency of woman
not to rely too confidently on her declining. "As she never walks,
she'll come along fast enough," was Lynde's grim reflection.

He had by no means resolved on what he should say to Miss Ruth, if he
got her alone. In the ten minutes' walk, which would be almost