Samuel Brohl and Company | Page 7

chambre. They breakfasted tolerably well in a village situated in the lower portion of a notch, called Tiefenkasten, which means, literally, deep chest, and certainly a deeper never has been seen. After breakfast they pursued their way farther, and towards four o'clock in the afternoon they reached the entrance of the savage defile of Bergunerstein, which deserves to be compared with that of Via Mala. The road lies between a wall of rocks and a precipice of nearly two hundred metres, at the bottom of which rush the swift waters of the Albula. This wild scenery deeply moved Mlle. Moriaz; she never had seen anything like it at Cormeilles or anywhere about Paris. She alighted, and, moving towards the parapet, leaned over it, contemplating at her ease the depths below, which the foaming torrent beneath filled with its roars.
Her father speedily joined her.
"Do you not find this music charming?" she asked of him.
"Charming, I grant," he replied; "but more charming still are those brave workmen who, at the risk of their necks, have engineered such a suspended highway as we see here. I think you admire the torrent too much, and the road not enough." And after a pause he added, "I wish that our friend Camille Langis had had fewer dangers to contend with in constructing his." Antoinette turned quickly and looked at her father; then she bestowed her attention once more upon the Albula. "To be sure," resumed M. Moriaz, stroking his whiskers with the head of his cane, "Camille is just the man to make his way through difficulties. He has a youthful air that is very deceptive, but he always has been astonishingly precocious. At twenty years of age he became head of his class at the Central School; but the best thing about him is that, although in possession of a fortune, yet he has a passion for work. The rich man who works accepts voluntary poverty."
There arose from the precipice a damp, chill breeze; Mlle. Moriaz drew over her head a red hood that she held in her hand, and scraping off with her finger some of the facing of the parapet, which glittered with scales of mica, she asked: "What do you call this?"
"It is gneiss, a sort of sheet-granite; but do not you too admire people who work when they are not compelled to do anything?"
"Then you must admire yourself a great deal."
"Oh, I! In my early youth I worked from necessity, and then I formed a habit which I cannot now get rid of; while Camille Langis--"
"Once more?" she ejaculated, with a gesture of impatience. "What prompts you to speak to me of Camille?"
"Nothing. I often think of him."
"Do not let us two play at diplomacy. You have had news of him lately?"
"You just remind me that I have, through a letter from Mme. De Lorcy."
"Mme de Lorcy, my godmother, would do better to meddle with what concerns her. That woman is incorrigible."
"Of what would you have her correct herself?"
"Simply of her mania for making my happiness after her own fashion. I read in your eyes that Camille has returned to Paris. What is his object?"
"I know nothing about it. How should I know? I only presume--that is, I suppose----"
"You do not suppose--you know."
"Not at all. At the same time, since hypothesis is the road which leads to science, a road we savants travel every day, I--"
"You know very well," she again interposed, "that I promised him nothing."
"Strictly speaking, I admit; but you requested me to tell him that you found him too young. He has laboured conscientiously since then to correct that fault." Then playfully pinching her cheeks, he added: "You are a great girl for objections. Soon you will be twenty-five years old, and you have refused five eligible offers. Have you taken a vow to remain unmarried?"
"Ah! you have no mercy," she cried. "What! you cannot even spare me on the Albula! You know that, of all subjects of conversation, I have most antipathy for this."
"Come, come; you are slandering me now, my child. I spoke to you of Camille as I might have spoken of the King of Prussia; and you rose in arms at once, taking it wholly to yourself."
Antoinette was silent for some moments.
"Decidedly, you are very fond of Camille," she presently said.
"Of all the sons-in-law you could propose to me----"
"But I do not propose any."
"That is precisely what I find fault with."
"Very good; since you think so much of him, this Camille, suppose you command me to marry him?"
"If I were to command, would you obey?"
"Perhaps, just for the curiosity of the thing," she rejoined, laughing.
"Naughty girl, to mock at her father!" said he. "If these twenty years I have been in servitude, I can scarcely emancipate myself in a day. However, since the