"It is a good thing to smoke." "I had forgotten," said Chayne.
He filled his pipe and then took a fuse from his match-box.
"No, don't waste it," cried Michel quickly before he could strike it.

"I remember your fuses, monsieur." Michel struck a sulphur match and held it as it spluttered, and frizzled, in the hollow of his great hands.

The flame burnt up.

He held it first to Chayne's pipe-bowl and then to his own; and for a moment his face was lit with the red glow.

Its age thus revealed, and framed in the darkness, shocked Chayne, even at this moment, more than it had done on the platform at Chamonix.