There she stood real and solid, a little in her tweeds and with her shining eyes intimate and unforgettable, as though I had never ceased to see them for all those intervening years. And us both and holding back our emotion was, quite unmistakably, Miss Summersley , a blonde business-like young woman with a stumpy nose very cruelly and by a pince-nez that did much more than its duty by its name. She remained seated, her chair a little, pushing herself back from the table and regarding me—intelligently.  
It was one of those moments in life when one is taken unawares. I think our common of the need of masking the reality of our encounter, the hasty search in our minds for some face upon this meeting, must have been very obvious to the lady who observed us. Mary's first thought was for a . Mine was to make it plain we met by accident.
 
"It's Mr.—Stephen!" said Mary.
 
"It's you!"
 
"Dropped out of the sky!"
 
"From over there. I was and go there late."
 
"Very late?"
 
"One gleam of light—and a yawning waiter. Or I should have had to break windows.... And then I meet you!"
 
Then for a moment or so we were silent, with our sense of the immense gravity of this position growing upon us. A little tow-headed waiter-boy appeared with their coffee and rolls on a tray high on his hand.
 
"You'll have your coffee out here with us?" said Mary.
 
"Where else?" said I, as though there was no conceivable alternative, and told the tow-headed waiter.
 
Belatedly Mary turned to introduce me to her secretary: "My friend Miss Summersley Satchel. Mr.—Stephen." Miss Satchel and I bowed to each other and agreed that the lake was very beautiful in the morning light. "Mr. Stephen," said Mary, in unnecessary explanation, "is an old friend of my mother's. And I haven't seen him for years. How is Mrs. Stephen—and the children?"
 
I answered and began to tell of my climb down the Titlis. I addressed myself with unnecessary to Miss Satchel. I did perhaps over-accentuate the extreme fortuitousness of my appearance.... From where I stood, the whole course of the previous day after I had come over the shoulder was visible. It seemed a soft little shining pathway to the top, but the dangers of the descent had a romantic in the morning light. "The rule of the game," said I, "is that one stops and waits for daylight. I wonder if anyone keeps that rule."
 
We talked for a time of mountains, I still a little until my coffee came. Miss Summersley Satchel produced that frequent and most unpleasant bye-product of a British education, an intelligent interest in . "I wonder," she said, with a brow of and eyeing me rather with a magnified eye, "why it is called Titlis. There must be some reason...."
 
Presently Miss Satchel was dismissed indoors on a excuse and Mary and I were alone together. We eyed one another gravely. Perhaps all the more gravely because of the wild excitement that was quickening our pulse and breathing, and thrilling through our nerves. She pushed back the plate before her and put her dear elbows on the table and dropped her chin between her hands in an attitude that seemed all made of little memories.
 
"I suppose," she said, "something of this kind was bound to happen."
 
 
She turned her eyes to the mountains shining in the morning light. "I'm glad it has happened in a beautiful place. It ............