"Ever since we started this morning, I have been recapturing my own sensations on my first ascent.

Watching you, your enjoyment, your eagerness to live fully every moment of this day, I almost feel as if I too had come fresh to the mountains, as if the Argentiere were my first peak." He saw the blood mount into her cheeks.
"Was that the reason why you questioned me as to what I thought and felt ?" she asked.
"Yes." "I thought you were testing me," she said, slowly.

"I thought you were trying whether I was--worthy"; and once again humility had framed her words and modulated their utterance.

She recognized without rancor, but in distress, that people had the right to look on her as without the pale.
The guides packed up the _Ruecksacks_, and they started once more up the moraine.

In a little while they descended on to the lateral glacier which descending from the recesses of the Aiguille d'Argentiere in front of them flowed into the great basin behind.