said Sylvia. "You've the very features for that profession; austere, yet benevolent. But you're not really afraid now?"
"Not sitting down," admitted Miss M'Pherson, gradually regaining her accustomed calm. "Do you think you'd be afraid, and lose your head or anything, if I just strolled on to the top for the view, and came back to you in about half an hour?"
"No – o," said the governess. "I may as well accustom myself to loneliness, since I am obliged to spend my remaining years on this spot. But I'm not at all sure that the Grand Duchess would approve – "
"You mean Lady de Courcy. She wouldn't mind. She knows I have a steady head, and – physically – a good heart. Besides, I shall have only myself to look after; and one doesn't need a chaperon for a morning call on a mountain view."
"I'm not so certain about this mountain view!"
"You're very subtle. But I really haven't come out to look for him this morning. There's plenty of time for that by and by."
"Dear Princess, don't speak as if you could possibly do such a thing at any time."
"Miss de Courcy, please! Why do you suppose we are all in das Land im Gebirge, if not to pursue a certain imperial eagle to his eyrie, where he masquerades as a common bird?"
"Ah, my dear, don't demean yourself, even to me, who know you so well. You are here not to pursue, but to give an Emperor who wants a Princess for his consort a chance to fall in love with herself."
"If he will! But what do Mary de Courcy and Jane Collinson know about the affairs of emperors and princesses? Au revoir, dear friend. Presently, if you find the courage to look, you will see me waving a handkerchief-flag at the top."
Sylvia took up her alpenstock and pushed on. There was a route to the highest peak of the Weisshorn only to be attacked by experienced climbers; but the path along which she and Miss M'Pherson had set out from Heiligengelt four hours ago was merely tedious, never dangerous. Sylvia knew that her governess was safe and not half as much frightened by the unaccustomed height as she pretended.
They had started at half-past seven, just as a September sun was beginning to draw the night chill out of the keen mountain air; and it was now nearly twelve. Sylvia was hungry.
In Wandeck, the second largest town of Rhaetia, she had bought rücksacks for herself and Miss M'Pherson; and to-day these acquisitions were being tested for the first time. Each bag stored an abundant luncheon for its bearer while on top, secured by straps passed across the shoulders, reposed a wrap to be used in rain or rest after violent exercise. Sylvia's rücksack grew heavy as she ascended, though at first its weight had seemed insignificant; and spying at a distance a green plateau on the mountainside, it occurred to her that it might be well to lighten the load and satisfy her appetite at the same time.
"That good M'Pherson is quite happy with Baedeker and won't be vexed if I am gone a little longer than I said," she assured herself. There was no gracious plateau at the top of the Weisshorn; only a sterile heap of rocks on which to stand for self-gratulation or incidentally to admire the view, and there was, besides, enough difficulty in reaching this lower point of vantage to make the venture attractive. The path zig-zagged up, a mere scratch on the face of the mountain; but the plateau, like a terrace laid out upon a buttress, could be gained only by scrambling over rough rocks and climbing in good earnest here and there. Beyond the visible strip of green, the natural terrace stretched away into mystery round the corner like the end of a picture in perspective.
Sylvia calculated the effort and decided that she was equal to it; but before she had gone halfway, she would gladly have stood once more on the path worn by the feet of less ambitious travellers. She even felt a certain sympathy with the sentiments Miss M'Pherson had expressed; yet there was nothing to do but go on. It would be worse to turn than to proceed. Her cheeks began to burn, and her heart to tap a warning against her side. How huge a giant was this mountain – towering above her, falling sheer away beneath her feet, down there where she did not care to look how – pitifully insignificant she!
But there was the plateau, bathed in sunshine like the Promised Land. And to her ears was wafted therefrom the sound of a man's voice, cheerily, melodiously jödelling.
"What if it should be he?" thought Sylvia. She had come all the way from England to meet him, and it was hard that he should jödel while she perished. Much good would it do her if her spirit beheld him bending over her crushed material remains.
Still the voice of the invisible one jödelled on.
"Help!" Sylvia added an impromptu to the chorus. "He may as well save me, be he emperor or tourist. Oh, I hope this isn't a lesson not to climb too high. Ought I to call for help in Rhaetian or English? I'll try both, to make quite sure."
She did try both, with the result that the jödelling suddenly stopped. Instead, an iron-shod boot rang against a rock. Forgetting fear in desire to know whether the actor now to appear for the first time on her life's stage would be hero or super, her foot slipped from its scanty hold. Stumbling, she slid from the rocky ledge down to the plateau, finally landing on her knees at the feet of a young man who strode hastily round the corner.
"Himmel!" exclaimed a voice, half laughing, half startled. She dared not look up, lest she should meet disappointment. Would it be he, sent to her by Destiny, or some tourist, sent by Cook?
One who knew Maximilian's habits well (the only one, besides her mother, wholly taken into confidence) had told her that to find him as a man, and not an emperor, she should make her pilgrimage to Heiligengelt in the chamois-hunting season. She had remembered this hint. She had come; was she now about to see?
Two brown hands were held out to help her. Slowly she raised her eyes. They travelled up and up. Beginning with a pair of big nailed boots, they glided over the knitted detail of woollen stockings, and were stopped for an instant at an unexpected obstacle in the shape of bare, muscular brown knees. (Thank goodness, at least Fate had spared her a tourist!) Short, shabby trousers; a gray coat, passemoiled with green, from one pocket of which protruded a great hunch of bread and ham, evidently just thrust in; broad shoulders; a throat like a column of bronze; a face – the blood leaped in Sylvia's veins and sang in her ears. It was he – it was he! Here was the eyrie: the eagle was at home.
All her life had but led up to this moment. Under the soft hat of green felt, adorned with the beard of a chamois, was the face she had dreamed of by night and day. A dark, austere face, with more of Mars than Apollo in its lines, but to her worth all the ideals of all the sculptors in the world. He was dressed as a chamois-hunter, and there was nothing in the well-worn costume to distinguish the wearer from the type he represented; but as easily might the eagle to whom she likened him try to pass for a barnyard fowl as this man for a peasant – so Sylvia thought.
She hoped that he did not feel the beating in her fingers-ends as he caught her hands, lifted and set her on her feet. There was humiliation in this tempest of her pulses, knowing that he did not share it. To her, this meeting was an epoch: to him, a trivial incident. She would have keyed his emotion to hers, if she could, but since she had had years of preparation, he a single moment, perhaps she might have rested satisfied with the expression in his eyes.
It said, had she been calm enough to read it: "Is heaven raining goddesses to-day?"
Now, what was she to say to him? How make the most of this wonderful chance that had come, to know the man and not the Emperor? Each word should be chosen, like a bit of mosaic that fits into a complicated pattern. She should marshal her sentences as a general marshals his battalions, with a plan of campaign for each one. A spirit-monitor (a match-making monitor) seemed to whisper these advices in her ear; yet she was powerless to heed them. Like a school girl about
