The first group of people that caught sight of the Captain with his checked legs and his arm in a sling began to smile. Observing this smile, and fancying himself deceived, the Captain attempted to put his eyeglass into his left eye with his right hand, and regularly failed. His efforts towards this feat changed the smiles to enormous laughter. "I dare say it’s awfully funny," said he. "But what can a fellow do with one arm in a sling?" The laughter was merely intensified. And the group, growing as luge after luge arrived at the end of the track, seemed to give itself up to mirth, to the exclusion of even a proper curiosity about the nature of the Captain’s damage. Each fresh attempt to put the eyeglass to his eye was coal on the crackling fire. The Clutterbucks alone seemed glum. "What on earth is the joke?" Denry asked primly. "Captain Deverax came to grief late yesterday afternoon, ski-ing with the Countess Ruhl. That’s why he did n’t turn up last night. By the way, where was it, Captain?" "On the mountain, near Attalens," Deverax answered gloomily. "Happily there was a farmhouse near—it was almost dark." "With the Countess?" demanded a young impulsive schoolgirl. "You did say the Countess, didn’t you?" Denry asked. "Why, certainly," said the Captain testily. "Well," said the schoolgirl with the nonchalant thoughtless cruelty of youth, "considering that we all saw the Countess off in the funicular at three o’clock I don’t see how you could have been ski-ing with her when it was nearly dark." And the child turned up the hill with her luge, leaving her elders to unknot the situation. "Oh, yes!" said Denry. "I forgot to tell you that the Countess left yesterday after lunch." At the same moment the page-boy, reappearing, touched his cap and placed a note in the Captain’s only free hand. "Could n’t deliver it, Sir. The Comtesse left early yesterday afternoon." Convicted of imaginary adventure with noble ladies, the Captain made his retreat, muttering, back to the hotel. At lunch Denry related the exact circumstances to a delighted table, and the exact circumstances soon reached the Clutterbuck faction at the Métropole. On the following day the Clutterbuck faction and Captain Deverax (now fully enlightened) left Mont Pridoux for some paradise unknown. If murderous thoughts could kill, Denry would have lain dead. But he survived to go with about half the Beau-Site guests to the funicular station to wish the Clutterbucks a pleasant journey. The Captain might have challenged him to a duel, but a haughty and icy ceremoniousness was deemed the best treatment for Denry. "Never show a wound" must have been the Captain’s motto. The Beau-Site had scored effectively. And, now that its rival had lost eleven clients by one single train, it beat the Métropole even in vulgar numbers. Denry had an embryo of a conscience somewhere, and Nellie’s was fully developed.