‘Oh, you poor predestined victim to extortion,’ exclaimed Daphne, looking at him with a serio-comic air. ‘Such a man as you ought never to go about without a keeper. However, as you have been so good as to allow yourself to be fleeced for my sake, I accept the chain with pleasure, and will wear it as the badge of my future captivity.’ She shot a swift side-glance at Gerald as she spoke, curious to see how he took this direct allusion to an engagement which it had been her habit somewhat to ignore. He was standing looking listlessly along the street, interested neither in man nor woman; but though he had an air of utter vacancy, eyes that saw not, ears that heard not, Daphne detected a quiver of lip and brow, which showed her that the shot had gone home. Sir Vernon had gone to the museum to look at the pictures, leaving the young people free to wander where they pleased until dinner-time. They went up and down the arched ways, looking at the shops and stalls, the country people, the dogs, the cattle; then turned aside from this busy thoroughfare, where all the life and commerce of the canton seemed to have concentrated itself, to explore the dusky cathedral, where all was silence, and coolness, and repose. There was one great disappointment for Daphne. The grand panoramic picture of the Alps, for which the minster terrace is celebrated, was not on view to-day. The mountains hid themselves behind a gauzy veil, a warm vapour which thickened the air above the old city. ‘I can’t think what I have done to offend the Alps,’ cried Daphne petulantly. ‘They seem to bear a grudge against me. They wouldn’t show me their frosty pows at Geneva, and they won’t at Berne. I am not going to break my heart about them, however. Please let us get the cathedral over as fast as we can, and go and look at the bears. I am dying to see the live bears; for I have seen so many inanimate ones in stone, and wood, and iron, that I seem to have bears on the brain.’ They were standing in the open square in front of the cathedral, looking up at the bronze statue of Rudolph von Erlach, with the four seated bears at its base. They went into the church presently, and admired the fifteenth-century stained glass, and sculptured Pietas, and the choir stalls. As they were leaving the church, they saw a man and a woman going quietly into the vestry, preceded by the minister in his black gown. ‘A wedding evidently,’ whispered Edgar to Daphne. ‘Wouldn’t you like to see a Swiss wedding?’ ‘Do you think they are going to be married? What a sober idea of matrimony! I should have thought a Swiss wedding would have been like a scene in an opera.’ An inquiry of the verger proved that it was really a wedding, so they all crept quietly into the spacious vestry, and stood in the background, while the priest tied the knot according to the Calvinistic manner.