Lister doubted. He was athletic and steady, but the climb looked awkward for a beginner.
"If you are going, I'll try."
"You imagine you can go where I can go?"
"Something like that," Lister admitted. "If I'm beaten, you're accountable and will have to help."
He was satisfied by Barbara's frank laugh. Her mood was changeable. Not long since he had, with awkward sympathy, thought her a proud humiliated woman; now she was marked by the humor of a careless girl. He could, however, play up to her later mood, and when they set off he began to joke.
The rock slanted, and cracks and breaks gave a firm hold, but there was not a crack wherever one was needed and the pitch was steep. Then in places the slabs were slippery with wet lichen and Lister's ordinary walking boots could get no grip. His jokes stopped and the sweat began to dew his face. His breath got hard and he felt his heart beat. It was obvious that climbing needed study.
For all that, he went on and found a strange delight in watching Barbara. Her clothes harmonized with the soft colors of lichen and stone; her movements were confident and light. He got no sense of effort; her pose was seldom strained and the lines of her limbs and body flowed in easy curves. He thought she rather flitted than labored up the rock. Practice no doubt accounted for much, but something was due to temperament. Barbara did not hesitate; she trusted her luck and went ahead.
At length she stopped, pressed against the stone in the hollow of a gully, while Lister crept obliquely across a long wet slab. He looked up and saw her face, finely colored after effort, against a background of green and gold. The berries on a small mountain-ash in a cranny harmonized with the carmine of her skin. She looked down and smiled with careless amusement.
Then Lister's foot slipped and he could get no hold for his hands. His smooth boots drew a greasy line across the wet slab as he slid down. Perhaps the risk was not very daunting, but he knew he must not roll down far. At the bottom of the slab he brought up with his foot braced against a knob, and he saw Barbara coming after him. When she stopped her glance was apologetic.
"I forgot you hadn't proper boots. Give me your hand and try again."