“We were just going to organise a search-party,” added the little Count. “I, myself”—stoutly—“should have joined in the search.”
Weary as she was, Jean could hardly refrain from smiling at the idea of the diminutive Count in the rôle of gallant preserver. He would have been considerably less well-qualified even than herself to cope with the drifting snow through which the sheer, dogged strength of the Englishman had brought her safely.
Instinctively she turned with the intention of effecting an introduction between the latter and the Varignys, only to find that he had disappeared. He had taken the opportunity presented by the little ferment of excitement which had greeted her safe return to slip away.
She felt oddly disconcerted. And yet, she reflected, it was so like him—so like the conception of him which she had formed, at least—to evade both her thanks and the enthusiasm with which a recital of the afternoon’s adventure Would have been received.
CHAPTER VI—THE MAGIC MOMENT
JEAN, surprisingly revived by a hot bath and a hot drink, and comfortably tucked up beside the fire in her room, was recounting the day’s adventure to Madame de Varigny.
It was a somewhat expurgated version of the affair that she outlined—thoughtfully calculated to allay the natural apprehensions of a temporary chaperon—in which the unknown Englishman figured innocuously as merely having come to her assistance when, in the course of her afternoon’s tramp, she had been overtaken by the blizzard. Of the stolen day, snatched from under Mrs. Grundy’s enquiring nose, Jean preserved a discreet silence.
“I don’t know who he could be,” she pursued. “I’ve never seen him on the ice before; I should certainly have recognised him if I had. He was a lean, brown man, very English-looking—that sort of cold-tub-every-morning effect, you know. Oh! And he had one perfectly white lock of hair that was distinctly attractive. It looked”—descriptively—“as though someone had dabbed a powdered finger on his hair—just in the right place.”