You can see men dancing round the fires, and big, rushing women. Oh, Mr. Hendricks, isn’t it all glorious—all too glorious and ripping for words!’ And his brown eyes shone like lamps.

‘You mean that it’s spontaneous, natural?’ the other guided him, welcoming the new enthusiasm, yet still bewildered by the startling change. It was not mere nerves he saw. There was nothing morbid in it.

‘They’re doing it, I mean, because they have to,’ came the decided answer, ‘and because they feel it. They’re not just copying the world.’ He put his hand upon the other’s arm. There was dry heat in it that Hendricks felt even through his clothes. ‘And that’s what I want,’ the boy went on, raising his voice; ‘what I’ve always wanted without knowing it—real things that can make me alive. I’ve often had it in my dreams, you know, but now I’ve found it.’

‘But I didn’t know. You never told me of those dreams.’

The boy’s cheeks flushed, so that the colour and the fire in his eyes made him positively splendid. He answered slowly, as out of some part he had hitherto kept deliberately concealed.

‘Because I never could get hold of it in words. It sounded so silly even to myself, and I thought Father would train it all away and laugh at it. It’s awfully far down in me, but it’s so real I knew it must come out one day, and that I should find it. Oh, I say, Mr. Hendricks,’ and he lowered his voice, leaning out across the window-sill suddenly, ‘that fills me up and feeds me’—he pointed to the heights—‘and gives me life. The life I’ve seen till now was only a kind of show. It starved me. I want to go up there and feel it pouring through my blood.’ He filled his lungs with the strong mountain air, and paused while he exhaled it slowly, as though tasting it with delight and understanding. Then he burst out again, ‘I vote we go. Will you come with me? What d’you say. Eh?’

They stared at each other hard a moment. Something as primitive and irresistible as love passed through the air between them. With a great effort the older man kept the balance true.

‘Not to-night, not now,’ he said firmly. ‘It’s too late. To-morrow, if you like—with pleasure.’

‘But to-morrow night,’ cried the boy with a rush, ‘when the fires are blazing and the wind is loose. Not in the stupid daylight.’

‘All right. To-morrow night. And my old friend, Monsieur Leysin, shall be our guide. He knows the way, and he knows the people too.’

Lord Ernie seized his hands with enthusiasm. His vigour was so disconcerting that it seemed to affect his physical appearance.