heard of his intention and unanimously requested him to let her alone, which, he did, reluctantly yielding to arguments which shall remain a secret.  A certain Archduchess who was at Saint Moritz and was curious to see her adopted the simple plan of asking her to tea without knowing her, at which Marcello was furious; a semi-imperial Russian personage unblushingly scraped acquaintance with Marcello and was extremely bland for a few days, in the hope of being introduced to Regina.  When he found that this was impossible, he went away, not in the least disconcerted, and he was heard to say that the girl “would go far.”

Regina would have been blind if she had not been aware that she attracted all this attention, and as she was probably not intended by nature for a saint, she would have been pleased by it if there had been room in her thoughts for any one but Marcello—­even for herself.

She walked far up the road, and after the first mile or two she met no one.  At that hour the people who made excursions were already far away, and those who meant to do nothing stayed nearer to Pontresina.  She grew tired of the road after a time.  It led straight to the foot of the glacier, and she was not attracted by snow and ice as northern people are; there was something repellent to her in the thought of the bleakness and cold, and the sunshine itself looked as hard as the distant peaks on which it fell.  But on the right there were rocky spurs of the mountains, half covered with short trees and brilliant with wild flowers that grew in little natural gardens here and there, not far below the level of perpetual snow.  She left the road, and began to climb where there was no path.  The air was delicious with the scent of flowers and shrubs; there were alp-roses everywhere, and purple gentian, and the little iva blossom that has an aromatic smell, and on tiny moss ledges the cold white stars of the edelweiss seemed to be keeping themselves as far above reach as they could.  But she climbed as lightly as a savage woman, and picked them and sat down to look at them in the sunshine.  Just beyond where she rested, the rock narrowed suddenly to a steep pass, within which were dark shadows.  People who do not attempt anything in the way of ascending peaks often wander in that direction in search of edelweiss, but Regina fancied that she was sure to be alone as long as she pleased to stay.

If she had not been sure of that she would not have taken off her left shoe to shake out some tiny thing that had got into it and that annoyed her.  It turned out to be a bit of pine-needle.  It was pleasant to feel her foot freed from the hot leather and resting on the thick moss, and so the other shoe came off too, and was turned upside down and shaken, as an excuse, for there was nothing in it, and both feet rested in the moss, side by side.  She wished she could take off her stockings, and if there had been a stream she would have done it, so sure was she that no one would disturb her, up there amongst the rocks and ever so far from Pontresina.  It would have been delightful to paddle in the cold running water, for it was much hotter than she had ever supposed that it could be in such a place.