Vane carried the provisions in a fishing-creel, and on leaving the head of the valley they climbed leisurely up easy slopes, slipping on the crisp hill grass now and then. By and by they plunged into tangled heather on a bolder ridge, which was rent by black gullies, down which at times wild torrents poured. This did not trouble either of the men, but Vane was surprised at the ease with which Evelyn threaded her way across the heath. She wore a short skirt, and he noticed the supple grace of her movements and the delicate colour the wind had brought into her face. She had changed since they left the valley. She seemed to have flung off something, and her laugh had a gayer ring; but while she chatted with him he was still conscious of a subtle reserve in her manner.
Climbing still, they reached the haunts of the cloud-berries and brushed through broad patches of the snowy blossoms that open their gleaming cups among the moss and heather.
Then turning the flank of a steep ascent, they reached the foot of a shingly scree, and sat down to lunch in the warm sunshine, where the wind was cut off by the peak above. Beneath them a great rift opened up among the rocks, and far beyond the blue lake in the depths of it they caught the silver gleam of the distant sea.
The creel was promptly emptied, and when Mabel afterwards took Carroll away to see if he could get up a chimney in some neighbouring crags, Vane lay resting on one elbow not far from Evelyn. She was looking down the long hollow, with the sunshine upon her face.
“You didn’t seem to mind the climb,” he said.
“I enjoyed it. I am fond of the mountains, and I have to thank you for a day among them.”
On the surface, the words offered an opening for a complimentary rejoinder, but Vane was too shrewd to seize it. He had made one venture, and he surmised that a second one would not please her.
“They’re almost at your door,” he said. “One would imagine you could indulge in a scramble among them whenever if pleased you.”
“There are a good many things that look so close and still are out of reach,” Evelyn answered with a smile that somehow troubled him. Then her manner changed. “You are content with this?”
Vane gazed about him; at purple crags in shadow, glistening threads of water that fell among the rocks, and long slopes that lay steeped in softest colour, under the summer sky.