"You know quite well," she said, "that we've arranged to go up the Dent de Vaulion."
"It will be the Pendant du Suchet."
I felt that we were going over the details of the expedition in silence.... I saw once more our start at midnight—we were quite a troop with my cousins the de Jougnes;—the formation of a column, the men waving lamps, the women helping themselves along with ice-axes; the long ascent enlivened by songs and chatter; we should have gone astray a hundred times but for the sure instinct of Doctor Claudel, an old inhabitant of the country; the cows in the fields, awakened by our torches and our laughter, getting up and making their bells tinkle; the end of the ascent grown rougher, our shoes, which were unprovided with nails, slipping on the stony incline; several tumbles; a little wall skirted and then crossed. And all at once, at our side, the lights of the canton of Vaud had revealed themselves, at an immense depth, through a curtain of gloom: they might have been the lights of ships in the roads, seen from the top of a gigantic cliff. The darkness had dissipated gradually like a mist. Little by little the horizon had withdrawn to the boundaries of the world. The pure line of snowy Alps stood out against the rosy streak of dawn.... A few minutes of waiting, and Phœbus rose resplendent and expanded, assuming many a bizarre shape, until, full-blown and triumphant, he deigned to reflect his disk in the waters of Neufchâtel.
The picture held me captive. As Jeannine repeated, "In a week's time ... that's agreed, isn't it?" I acquiesced; and then said whimsically:
"Who knows what may have happened in a week's time! We may be in the midst of war!"
"Oh, come, there won't be any more war!" Then suddenly grown serious:
"You don't believe it, do you?" she went on.
I affected a certain gravity:
"Well, really, the papers were horribly pessimistic the day before yesterday...."
"Here's the train!" the little boy interrupted.