"Perhaps in a former state of existence—" and she dimpled deliciously, he thought. "Let us hope—not as cat and dog." "If we did, I'm sure you wouldn't have worried me." "Nature in quadrupeds is strong." "Besides—I might have been the dog, and you the cat!" "In which case, I should have been the worried, not the worrier." "We might have encountered as spiders and beetles." "Pray don't suggest anything so awful. Nonsense apart—your imagination may be equal to it. Mine isn't." She laughed, and with one of her quick transitions, asked: "Are you going to do any climbing?" "I hope so. And you—?" with a glance at the lithe figure. "Oh, I want it most frightfully. I'd give anything in the world to go up a mountain. But I've had so little practice—none with real mountains. And I've no one to go with. Perhaps I shall find somebody soon." She named casually the village where they would soon be due, and his face lighted up. "Are you going there? So am I." "To-morrow?" she inquired eagerly. "No, but in a very few days. To-morrow at six in the morning I'm off to Martigny. But—I hope we may meet again." Mrs. Brutt was standing up, and Doris had to move. She longed to find out whether he would be at the same hotel with themselves, but could not resolve to put the question. He bowed a gravely polite farewell, as the two ladies withdrew. Often after dinner Mrs. Brutt would stay in the salon. This evening she insisted on a walk in the garden. "That man is really too forward," she said, drawing up her head with an air which Doris had learnt to understand. "You will have to be careful about making new acquaintances. It is not safe to be friendly with people that one knows nothing whatever about. He may be a sharper, or a man of bad character. Anyhow, a person you never set eyes on before. And you were treating him precisely like an old friend." "I wasn't!" the girl said indignantly. "I beg your pardon! I saw and heard. And nobody knows anything about him! I don't at all like his face. There's a sort of a sinister look." Mrs. Brutt was not always happy in her choice of adjectives. "I should not imagine that he is to be trusted. In fact, I am sure he is not. I can always depend on my own sense—my instinct—of other people's characters. I am never mistaken—and I have a strong sense that he is not a man in whom one could put any confidence." Doris held herself in with difficulty. Her own sense said exactly the opposite. She decided that it was not necessary to name the possibility of their meeting in the mountains. CHAPTER XV R. R. Maurice "GOOD morning, Mrs. Brutt. I'm going to breakfast. Are you better?" Doris's face, dimpled and radiant, made its appearance, answering a fretful "Entrez." "Shut the door, pray. Such a draught. I can't go down this morning— I am feeling so ill. It is the fault of the food, I am sure. And the heat yesterday was fearful—positively fearful."