The appearance of her _premier dejeuner_ came as a web come distraction from her thoughts, and with the consumption of _café au lait_ and the crisp little rolls, hot from the oven, accompanying it, the whole matter began to assume a less heinous aspect. After all, argued Jean’s weak human nature, the unconventionality of the affair had been considerably tempered by the fact that the Englishman had practically saved her life during the course of the day. Alone, she would undoubtedly have foundered in the drifting snow; and when a man has rescued you from an early and unpleasantly chilly grave, it certainly sets the acquaintance between you, however short its duration, on a new and more intimate plane. “Good-bye, little comrade; thank you for my magic moment.” The words, and the manner of their utterance, came back to Jean, bringing with them a warm and comforting reassurance. The man who had thus spoken had not thought her cheap; he was too fine in his perceptions to have misunderstood like that. She felt suddenly certain of it. And the pendulum of self-respect swung back into its place once more. ***** Presently she caught herself wondering whether she would see him again before she left Montavan. True, he had told her he was going away the next day. But had he actually gone? Somewhere within her lurked a fugitive, half-formed hope that he might have altered his intention. She tried to brush the thought aside, refusing to recognise it and determinedly maintaining that it mattered nothing to her whether he stayed or went. Nevertheless, throughout the whole day--in the morning when she made a pretence of enjoying the skating on the rink, and again in the afternoon when she walked through the pine-woods with the Varignys--she was subconsciously alert for any glimpse of the lean, supple figure which a single day had sufficed to mate so acutely familiar. But by evening she was driven into accepting the fact that he had quitted the mountains, and of a sudden Montavan ceased to interest her; the magic that had disguised it yesterday was gone. It had become merely a dull little village where she was awaiting Lady Anne Brennan’s answer to her father’s letter, and she grew restlessly impatient for that answer to arrive. It came at last, during the afternoon of the following day, in the form of a telegram: “_Delighted to welcome you. Letter follows._” The letter followed in due course, two days later, the tardiness of its arrival accounted for by the fact that the writer had been moving about from place to place, and that Peterson’s own letter, after pursuing her for days, had only just caught up with her. “I cannot tell you,” wrote Lady Anne in her squarish, characteristic hand, “how delighted I shall be to have the daughter of Glyn and Jacqueline with me for a time. Although Glyn with a grown-up daughter sounds quite improbable; he never really grew up himself. So you must come and convince me that the unexpected has happened.” *****