“Since my diplomacy has been so successful, madame, I will not deny it.  From the first moment when I heard you with your small and pretty voice say on the steps of the hotel ‘I am sorry’ to my patron in his great distress, and when I saw your face, too thoughtful for one so young, I thought it would be a fine thing if you and he could come together.  In youth to be lonely—­what is it?  You slip on your hat and your cloak and you go out.  But when you are old, and your habits are settled, and you do not want to go out at nights to search for company, then it is as well to have a companion.  And it is well to choose your companion in your youth, madame, so that you may have many recollections to talk over together when the good of life is chiefly recollection.”

He made his visitors sit down, fetched out a bottle of wine and offered them the hospitalities of his house, easily and naturally, like the true gentleman he was.  It seemed to Chayne that he looked a little older, that he was a little more heavy in his gait, a little more troubled with his eyes than he had been last year.  But at all events to-night he had the spirit, the good-humor of his youth.  He talked of old exploits upon peaks then unclimbed, he brought out his guide’s book, in which his messieurs had written down their names and the dates of the climbs, and the photographs which they had sent to him.

“There are many photographs of men grown famous, madame,” he said, proudly, “with whom I had the good fortune to climb when they and I and the Alps were all young together.  But it is not only the famous who are interesting.  Look, madame!  Here is your husband’s friend, Monsieur Lattery—­a good climber but not always very sure on ice.”

“You always will say that, Michel,” protested Chayne.  “I never knew a man so obstinate.”

Michel Revailloud smiled and said to Sylvia: 

“I knew he would spring out on me.  Never say a word against Monsieur Lattery if you would keep friends with Monsieur Chayne.  See, I give you good advice in return for your kindness in visiting an old man.  Nevertheless,” and he dropped his voice in a pretence of secrecy and nodded emphatically:  “It is true.  Monsieur Lattery was not always sure on ice.  And here, madame, is the portrait of one whose name is no doubt known to you in London—­Professor Kenyon.”

Sylvia, who was turning over the leaves of the guide’s little book, looked up at the photograph.

“It was taken many years ago,” she said.

“Twenty or twenty-five years ago,” said Michel, with a shrug of the shoulders, “when he and I and the Alps were young.”

Chayne began quickly to look through the photographs outspread upon the table.  If Kenyon’s portrait was amongst Revailloud’s small treasures, there might be another which he had no wish for his wife to see, the portrait of the man who climbed with Kenyon, who was Kenyon’s “John Lattery.”  There might well be the group before the Monte Rosa Hotel in Zermatt which he himself had seen in Kenyon’s rooms.  Fortunately however, or so it seemed to him, Sylvia was engrossed in Michel’s little book.