Jean liked the warm-hearted, unconventional tone of the letter, and the knowledge that she would so soon be leaving Montavan filled her with a sense of relief. During the four days which had elapsed since the Englishman’s departure her restlessness had grown on her. Montavan had become too vividly reminiscent of the hours which they had shared together for her peace of mind. She wanted to forget that stolen day--thrust it away into the background of her thoughts. Unfortunately for the success of her efforts in this direction, the element of the unknown which surrounded the Englishman, quite apart from anything else, would have tended to keep him in the forefront of her mind. It was only now, surveying their acquaintance in retrospect, that she fully realised how complete had been his reticence. True his figure dominated her thoughts, but it was a figure devoid of any background of home, or friends, or profession. He might be a king or a crossing-sweeper, for all she knew to the contrary--only that neither the members of the one nor the other profession are usually addicted to sojourning at Swiss chalets and forming promiscuous friendships on the ice. There were moments when she felt that she detested this man from nowhere who had contrived to break through her feminine guard of aloofness merely to gratify his whim to spend a day in her company. But there were other moments when the memory of that stolen day glowed and pulsed like some rare gem against the even, grey monotony of all the days that had preceded it--and of those which must come after. She could not have analysed, even to herself, the emotions it had wakened in her. They were too complex, too fluctuating. ***** As she packed her trunks in preparation for an early start the following day, Jean recalled with satisfaction the genuine ring of welcome which had sounded through the letter that had come from England. Until she had received it, she had been the prey of an increasing diffidence with regard to suddenly billeting herself for an indefinite period upon even such an old friend of her father’s as Lady Anne--a timidity Peterson himself had certainly not shared when he penned his request.