‘But zis mountain to-day too long, too high. You get tired, signorina. Perhaps anozzer day we take li’l’ baby mountain, zen you can go.’
‘I am going to-day.’
‘It is not possible, signorina. I have not brought ze donk’.’
‘Oh, I’m going to walk.’
‘As you please, signorina.’
He sighed patiently. Then he looked up and caught her eye. They both laughed.
‘Signorina,’ he whispered, ‘I ver’ happy to-day. Zat Costantina she more kind. Yesterday ver’ unkind; I go home ver’ sad. But to-day I sink——’
‘Yes?’
‘I sink after all maybe she like me li’l’ bit.’
Giuseppe rowed the three climbers a mile or so down the lake and set them ashore at the base of their mountain. They started up gaily and had accomplished half their journey before they thought of being tired. Tony surpassed himself; if he had been entertaining the day before he was doubly so now. His spirits were bubbling over and contagious. He and Constance acted like two children out of school. They ran races and talked to the peasants in the wayside cottages. They drove a herd of goats for half a mile while the goatherd strolled behind and smoked Tony’s cigarettes. Constance took a water-jar from a little girl they met coming from the fountain and endeavoured to balance it on her own head, with the result that she nearly drowned both herself and the child.