“What do you mean?” asked Mrs. Lascelles, suspiciously.

“I wonder he didn’t tell you,” I replied, to gain time in which to decide how to make the best use of such an unforeseen opportunity.

“Well, he didn’t; so please will you, Captain Clephane?”

“Bob Evers,” said I, with befitting gravity, “is climbing the Matterhorn at this moment.”

“Never!”

“At least he has started.”

“When did he start?”

“An hour or more ago, with a couple of guides.”

“He told you, then?”

“Only just as he was starting.”

“Was it a sudden idea?”

“More or less, I think.”

I waited for the next question, but that was the last of them.  Just then the interloping cloud floated clear of the moon, and I saw that my companion was wrapped up as on the earlier night, in the same unconventional combination of rain-coat and golf-cape; but now the hood hung down, and the sudden rush of moonlight showed me a face as full of sheer perplexity and annoyance as I could have hoped to find it, and as free from deeper feeling.

“The silly boy!” exclaimed Mrs. Lascelles at last.  “I suppose it really is pretty safe, Captain Clephane?”

“Safer than most dangerous things, I believe; and they are the safest, as you know, because you take most care.  He has a couple of excellent guides; the chance of getting them was partly why he went.  In all human probability we shall have him back safe and sound, and fearfully pleased with himself, long before this time to-morrow.  Meanwhile, Mrs. Lascelles,” I continued with the courage of my opportunity, “it is a very good chance for me to speak to you about our friend Bob.  I have wanted to do so for some little time.”

“Have you, indeed?” said Mrs. Lascelles, coldly.

“I have,” I answered imperturbably; “and if it wasn’t so late I should ask for a hearing now.”

“Oh, let us get it over, by all means!”

But as she spoke Mrs. Lascelles glanced over the shoulder that she shrugged so contemptuously, toward the lights in the bedroom windows, most of which were wide open.

“We could walk toward the zig-zags,” I suggested.  “There is a seat within a hundred yards, if you don’t think it too cold to sit, but in any case I needn’t keep you many minutes.  Bob Evers,” I continued, as my suggestion was tacitly accepted, “paid me the compliment of confiding in me somewhat freely before he started on this hare-brained expedition of his.”

“So it appears.”

“Ah, but he didn’t only tell me what he was going to do; he told me why he was doing it,” said I, as we sauntered on our way side by side.  “It was difficult to believe,” I added, when I had waited long enough for the question upon which I had reckoned.

“Indeed?”

“He said he had proposed to you.”

And again I waited, but never a word.

“That child!” I added with deliberate scorn.