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."
"I wish we could get one now," said I. "But the prospect isn't
cheerful. Molly Winston's prophecy is being fulfilled. She was certain
that sooner or later I should be lost on a mountain; and her sketch of
me, curled up in sleeping-sack and tent, toasting my toes before a
fire of twigs, and eating tinned soup, steaming hot, made me long to
lose myself immediately.
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