"With your bowl and dagger and monody," said Miss Denham, breaking into one of her rare laughs, "you are in full tragedy this afternoon. I am afraid my innocent plot will seem very tame to you in the face of such dreadful things."
"I promise beforehand to regard it as the one important matter in the world. What is it?"
"Nothing more than this: I want you to insist that aunt Gertrude and I ought to make the ascent of Montanvert and visit the Mer de Glace—before uncle Denham arrives."
"Why, would he object?"
"I do not think anything would induce him to trust either of us on one of those narrow mule-paths."
"But everybody goes up Montanvert as a matter of course. The bridle-way is perfectly safe."
"Uncle Denham once witnessed a painful accident on the Wetterhorn—indeed, he himself barely escaped death; and any suggestion of mountain climbing that cannot be done on wheels always meets a negative from him. I suspect my aunt will not strongly favor the proposal, but when I make it I shall depend on you to sustain me."
"I shall surely do so, Miss Denham. I have had this same excursion in my mind all along."
"I was wondering how I should get the chance to ask the favor of you, when that special Providence, which your friend Mr. Flemming pretends not to believe in, managed it for me."
"It wasn't I, then, but Providence, that invited you to walk?"