“Tony, did you kiss my hand?”
“Scusi, signorina. I ver’ sorry to wake you, but it is tree o’clock and ze Signor Papa he say we must start just now or we nevair get to ze top.”
“Answer my question.”
“Signorina, I cannot tell to you a lie. It is true, I forget I am just poor donkey-man. I play li’l’ game. You sleeping beauty; I am ze prince. I come to wake you. Just one kiss I drop on your hand—one ver’ little kiss, signorina.”
Constance assumed an air of indignant reproof but in the midst of it she laughed.
“I wish you wouldn’t be so funny, Tony; I can’t scold you as much as you deserve. But I am angry just the same, and if anything like that ever happens again I shall be very very angry.
“Signorina, I would not make you very very angry for anysing. As long as I live nosing like zat shall happen again. No, nevair, I promise.”
They plunged into a pine wood and climbed for another two hours, the summit always vanishing before them like a mirage. At the end of that time they were apparently no nearer their goal than when they had started. They had followed first one path, then another, until they had lost all sense of direction, and finally when they came to a place where three paths diverged, they had to acknowledge themselves definitely lost. Mr. Wilder elected one path, Tony another, and Constance sat down on a rock.
“I’m not going any farther,” she observed.
“You can’t stay here all night,” said her father.