She gave a little cry of surprise and alarm as she made a recoiling gesture that Tartarin did not perceive, having already stooped to feel about the short and crackling grass around them. “_Té, pardi!_ here it is!” he cried joyfully. He shook the dainty shoe which the snow had powdered, and putting a knee to earth, most gallantly in the snow and the dampness, he asked, for all reward, the honour of replacing it on Cinderella’s foot. She, more repellent than in the tale, replied with a very curt “no;” and endeavoured, by hopping on one foot, to reinstate her silk stocking in its little bronze shoe; but in that she could never have succeeded without the help of the hero, who was greatly moved by feeling for an instant that delicate hand upon his shoulder. “You have good eyes,” she said, by way of thanks as they now walked side by side, and feeling their way. “The habit of watching for game, mademoiselle.” “Ah! you are a sportsman?” She said it with an incredulous, satirical, accent Tartarin had only to name himself in order to convince her, but, like the bearers of all illustrious names, he preferred discretion, coquetry. So, wishing to graduate the surprise, he answered:-- “I am a sportsman, _efféctivemain_.” She continued in the same tone of irony:-- “And what game do you prefer to hunt?” “The great carnivora, wild beasts...” uttered Tartarin, thinking to dazzle her. “Do you find many on the Rigi?” Always gallant, and ready in reply, Tartarin was about to say that on the Rigi he had so far met none but gazelles, when his answer was suddenly cut short by the appearance of two shadows, who called out:-- “Sonia!.. Sonia!..” “I’m coming,” she said, and turning to Tartarin, whose eyes, now accustomed to the darkness, could distinguish her pale and pretty face beneath her mantle, she added, this time seriously:-- “You have undertaken a dangerous enterprise, my good man... take care you do not leave your bones here.” So saying, she instantly disappeared in the darkness with her companions. Later, the threatening intonation that emphasized those words was fated to trouble the imagination of the Southerner; but now, he was simply vexed at the term “good man,” cast upon his elderly embonpoint, and also at the abrupt departure of the young girl just at the moment when he was about to name himself, and enjoy her stupefaction. He made a few steps in the direction the group had taken, hearing a confused murmur, with coughs and sneezes, of the clustering tourists waiting impatiently for the rising of the sun, the most vigorous among them having climbed to a little belvedere, the steps of which, wadded with snow, could be whitely distinguished in the vanishing darkness. A gleam was beginning to light the Orient, saluted by a fresh blast from the Alpine horn, and that “Ah!!” of relief, always heard in theatres when the third bell raises the curtain.