head.

"They had a guide, I think?" said the 'English Grundy.'

This time Lennan managed to get out: "Yes, sir."

"Stormer, I fancy, is quite an expert!" and turning to the lady whom the
young 'Grundys' addressed as 'Madre' he added:

"To me the great charm of mountain-climbing was always the freedom from
people--the remoteness."

The mother of the young 'Grundys,' looking at Lennan with her
half-closed eyes, answered:

"That, to me, would be the disadvantage; I always like to be mixing with
my own kind."

The grey-bearded 'Grundy' murmured in a muffled voice:

"Dangerous thing, that, to say--in an hotel!"

And they went on talking, but of what Lennan no longer knew, lost in
this sudden feeling of sick fear. In the presence of these 'English
Grundys,' so superior to all vulgar sensations, he could not give vent
to his alarm; already they viewed him as unsound for having fainted.
Then he grasped that there had begun all round him a sort of luxurious
speculation on what might have happened to the Stormers. The descent was
very nasty; there was a particularly bad traverse. The 'Grundy,' whose
collar was not now crumpled, said he did not believe in women climbing.