"Yet Madame sits beautifully, is a good rider?" "Oh, I can ride--horses--not nightmares, not wild donkeys up endless chimneys." Then it was that this man of infinite resource came to the rescue. He took the donkey's short bridle--too short to be used by the rider--in one hand, and passing his other arm behind the saddle brought the lawless animal into subjection, and diverted the rider's attention from her misadventures to the splendour of the prospect, which was unfolding beneath them with every step they mounted, but which she had been totally unable to see because it was all behind. Then, after a short rest and rearrangement of the Bond Street hat, which, besides having been slept upon, was obviously not intended to ride donkeys up precipices in, he personally conducted donkey and rider for the remainder of the ascent, making Ermengarde's hair stand on end by disputing edges of precipices with the animal, and preserving her in violent and unexpected jerks by the support of his arm. "But how will you ever face the miserable people you have fastened upon wild animals against their will, when we get to the top--that is, if there is any top, and we ever get there?" she asked. "Ah, Madame," he replied with twinkling eyes and a small shrug, "I am discreet. I do not face them, especially the fat lady, till they have been fed. But--she is a _drôlesse_, that stout one. Imagine to yourself, her porters have already dropped her twice _à force de rire_ simply. They fall soft, those padded ones. And she is now happily safe on high." "But can they be expected to stay in your house after being captured and carried up by force?" This youth pleased Ermengarde; she told herself, while looking kindly into his sunny, smiling eyes, that he was a dear boy. Foreign subordinates, especially French, she had always understood, are very different from our clumsy, self-conscious countrymen; no need to keep them at such a distance; they can be amusing and companionable without being impertinent or vulgar. And this one had the bearing of a prince in disguise. "But they are obliged to stay, Madame; for, look you, once there, they cannot get down again. Besides, it is so charming on high that no one ever wishes to. Moreover, it is not, as Madame supposes, my house." "No? You are--who are you, then--not the proprietor?" "Heaven forbid! I am quite simply--they call me--Monsieur Isidore, at your service." "Son?" she pondered silently, "secretary--or _maitre-d'hotel_?" They were now winding round a rocky steep, crowned by a plain white building, half hidden by cypresses, the flickering, flame-like points of which surprised her by their solemn and symbolic beauty. Making a sudden sharp turn they found themselves in a sunny, open garden, ablaze with flowers of summer sweetness, shaded by orange, olive, and palm trees, planted sparsely upon a ridge summit, and commanding a glorious, wide, and open prospect ending in the warm, deep blue of the sea.