And both were young

"Where are you going, Philippa?" Mrs. Jackman asked sharply as Flip turned away from the group of tourists standing about in the cold hall of the Chateau of Chillon.

"I'm going for a walk," Flip said.

Her father put his hand on her shoulder. "I'd rather you stayed with us, Flip."

She looked up at him, her eyes bright with pleading. "_Please_, father!" she whispered. Then she turned and ran out of the chateau, away from the dark, prisoning stones, and out into the sunlight that was as bright and as sudden as bugles. She ran down a small path that led to Lake Geneva, and because she was blinded by sudden tears and by the sunlight striking on the lake she did not see the boy or the dog sitting on a rock at the lake's edge, and she crashed into them.

"I'm sorry!" she gasped as the boy slid off the rock and one of his legs went knee deep into the water before he was able to regain his balance. She looked at his angry, handsome face and said quickly, this time in French, "I'm terribly sorry. I didn't see you."

"You should watch where you're going!" the boy cried, and bent down to wring the water out of his trouser leg. The dog, a large and ferocious brindle bull, began leaping up at Flip, threatening to knock her down.

"Oh--" she gasped. "Please--please--"

"Down, Ariel. Down!" the boy commanded, and the bulldog dropped to his feet and then lay down in the path in front of Flip, his stump of a tail wagging with such frenzy that his whole body quivered.

The boy looked at Flip's navy blue coat. "I'm afraid Ariel got your coat dirty. His paws are always muddy."

"That's all right," Flip said. "If I let it dry it will brush off." She looked up at the boy standing very straight and tall, one foot on the rock. Flip was tall for fifteen ("I do hope you won't grow any taller, Philippa dear," Mrs. Jackman kept saying,) but this boy was even taller than she was and perhaps a year older.

"I'm sorry I knocked you into the lake," Flip said.

"Oh, that's all right. I'll dry off." The boy smiled; Flip had not realized how somber his face was until he smiled. "Is anything the matter?" he asked.

Flip brushed her hand across her eyes and smiled back. "No. I was just--in a rage. I always cry when I'm mad. It's terrible!" She blew her nose furiously.

The boy laughed. "May I ask you a question?" he said. "It's to settle a kind of bet." He reached down and took hold of the bulldog's collar, forcing him to rise to his feet. "Now sit properly, Ariel," he commanded, and the dog dropped obediently to its haunches, its tongue hanging out as it panted heavily. "And try not to drool, Ariel," the boy said. Then he smiled at Flip again. "You are staying at the Montreux Palace, aren't you?"

"Yes." Flip nodded. "We came in from Paris last night."

"Are you Norwegian?"

"No. I'm American."

"She was right, then," the boy said.

"Right? About what? Who?" Flip asked. She sat down on the rock at the edge of the water and Ariel inched over until he could rest his head on her knee.

"My mother. We play a game whenever we're in hotels, my parents and I. We look at all the people in the dining room and decide what nationalities they are. It's lots of fun. My mother thought you were American but my father and I thought maybe you were Norwegian, because of your hair, you know."

Flip reached up and felt her hair. It was the color of very pale corn and she wore it cut quite short, parted on the side with a bang falling over her rather high forehead. Mrs. Jackman had suggested that she have a permanent but for once Flip's father had not agreed. "She has enough wave of her own and it suits her face this way," he said, and Mrs. Jackman subsided.

"Your hair's very pretty," the boy said quickly. "And it made me wonder if you mightn't be Scandinavian. Your father's so very fair, too. But my mother said that your mother couldn't be anything but American. She said that only an American could wear clothes like that. She's very beautiful, your mother."

"She isn't my mother," Flip said. "My mother is dead."

"Oh." The boy dropped his eyes. "I'm sorry."

"Mrs. Jackman came from Paris with father and me." Flip's voice was as hard and sharp as the stone she had picked up and was holding between her fingers. "She's always being terribly kind and doing things for me and I hate her."

"Watch out that Ariel doesn't drool on your skirt," the boy said. "One of his worst faults is drooling. What's your name?"

"Philippa Hunter. What's yours?" Her voice still sounded angry.

"Paul Laurens. People--" he hesitated, "people who aren't your own parents can sometimes be--be wonderful."

"Not Mrs. Jackman," Flip said. "She makes me call her Eunice. I feel funny calling her Eunice. And when she calls my father 'darling' I hate her. She's the one I got so mad at just now." She looked up at Paul in surprise. "I've never talked about Eunice before. Not to anyone. I shouldn't have talked like that. I'm sorry."

"That's all right," Paul said. "Ariel's made your coat very dirty. I hope it will brush off. You have on a uniform, don't you?"

"Yes," Flip answered, and her voice was harsh because for the moment tears were threatening her again. "I'm being sent to a boarding school and I don't want to go. Mrs. Jackman arranged it all." She looked out across the brilliant expanse of lake, scowling unhappily, and forced the tears back.

"What do you want to do?" Paul asked.

"I want to be an artist some day, like my father. School won't help me to be an artist." She continued to stare out over the water and her eyes rested on a small lake steamer, very clean and white, passing by. "I should like to get on that boat," she said, "and just ride and ride, forever and ever."

"But the boat comes to shore and everybody has to get off at last," Paul told her.

"Why?" Flip asked. "Why?" She looked longingly after the boat for a moment and then she looked at the mountains that seemed to be climbing up into the sky. They looked like the mountains that she had often made up out of cloud formations during the long slow summers in Connecticut, only she was in Switzerland now; these were real mountains; this was real snow on their shining peaks. "Well--" she stood up, dislodging Ariel. "I'd better go back now. Mrs. Jackman will think I'm off weeping somewhere."

Paul shook her hand. His grip was firm and strong. "Ariel doesn't usually take to people the way he has to you. When Ariel doesn't like people I know I'm never going to like them either. He has very good taste. Perhaps we'll meet again sometime."

He smiled and Flip smiled back, murmuring shyly, "I hope so."

"My father and I are going to spend the winter up the mountain somewhere," Paul said. "My mother's a singer and she has to go off on a tour for all winter. They've been wandering about the chateau. They like it because that's where my father proposed to my mother." He smiled again and then his face changed and became so serious that Flip looked at him in surprise. "I don't like it," he explained, "because I don't like any place that's been a prison." Then he said, trying to speak lightly, "Do you know that poem of the English poet, Byron? The Prisoner of Chillon? It's all about a man who was a prisoner in the chateau."

"Yes," Flip said. "We studied it in English last year. I didn't like it much but I think I shall pretend that my school is a prison and I am the prisoner and at Christmas my father will rescue me."

"If he doesn't," Paul said, "I will."