Long minutes passed, and at last I could sit still no longer.  Gaily risking my brother’s displeasure, now I knew that he wasn’t “cross,” I slipped out into the snow again, opened the car door, stood in the doorway, hanging on with one hand, and after much manoeuvring extricated the tea-basket from among spare tyres and luggage on the roof.  Then, swinging it down, planted it inside the car, opened it, and scooped up a kettleful of snow.  As soon as the big white lump had melted over a rose and azure flame of alcohol, I added more snow, and still more, until the kettle was filled with water.  By the time I had warmed and dried my feet on the automatic heater under the floor, the water bubbled; and as jets of steam began to pour from the spout I saw six figures approaching, dark as if they had been cut out in black velvet against the snow.

“Tea for seven!” I said to myself; but the kettle was large, if the cups were few.

It took half an hour to dig the car out, and push her up from the hollow where the snow lay thickest.  When she stood only a foot deep, she consented readily to move.  We bade good-bye to the five men, for whom we had emptied our not-too-well filled pockets, and forged, bumbling, past St. Flour.  It was a great strain for a heavy car, and the chauffeur only said, “I thought so!” when a chain snapped five or six miles farther on.

“What a good thing Lady Turnour isn’t here!” said I, as he doctored the wounded Aigle.

[Illustration:  “It took half an hour to dig the car out, and push her up from the hollow where the snow lay thickest”]

“Lots of girls would be in a blue funk,” said he.  “I could shake that beastly woman for not taking you with her.”

“Oh!” I exclaimed.  “When I’m not doing you any harm!”

He glanced up from his work, and then, as if on an irresistible impulse, left the chain to come and stand beside me, as I sat wrapped up in his gift “for a good girl.”

He gazed at me for a moment without speaking, and I wonderingly returned the gaze, not knowing what was to follow.

The moon had come sailing up like a great silver ship, over the snow billows, and gleamed against a sky which was still a garden of full-blown roses not yet faded, though sunset was long over.  The soft, pure light shone on his dark face, cutting it out clearly, and he had never looked so handsome.

“You don’t mean to do me any harm, do you?” he said.

“I couldn’t if I would, and wouldn’t if I could,” I answered in surprise.

“Yet you do me harm.”

“You’re joking!”

“I never was further from joking in my life.  You do me harm because you make me wish for something I can’t have, something it’s a constant fight with me, ever since we’ve been thrown together, not to wish for, not to think of.  Yet you say I’m cross!  Now, do you know what I mean, and will you help me a little to remain your faithful brother, instead of tempting me—­tempting me, however unconsciously, to—­to wish—­for—­for—­what a fool I am!  I’m going to finish my mending.”