That night the coachman put up his horses and slept at Chamounix. Next morning early the ladies were ready to start; and Michel, who had engaged a vehicle for himself, started also. Other driving parties, as well as automobilists, were leaving the hotel at the same hour, and there was no reason why he should be remarked by Miss Ricardo and Miss Verney.
The ladies were evidently not in a hurry to reach their journey's end, or they would have chosen to travel by train or motor. The first day, having started early in the morning, they reached La Grande Chartreuse in time for luncheon. Paul Michel was not far behind them. He too stopped to eat, and saw the great monastery, like most other travellers who toured in this direction, and several times encountered Miss Ricardo and Miss Verney, who scarcely glanced at him. Once, in the vast, deserted monastery itself, they condescended to show their Italian-speaking driver something of the place, or else he, being already familiar with it, was playing guide. Michel could not be sure which was the case, but the young man walked respectfully by Miss Verney's side, while Miss Ricardo wandered ahead, with a volume of Murray in her hand.
"I wonder?" Michel began to ask himself, in response to a striking idea which was knocking at his mind.
He had no portrait of Ian Barr as a grown man,
