Peter Fern was crazy about mountains. Climbing was the __1__ of his life. Church towers，seaside cliffs, rock faces, ice mountains，anything “If it is there” , he used to say, “then I want to climb it.”

    So the news of his marriage gave me a __2__ . I‘d never known him to take much interest in __3__ . Well，Peter Fern a married man! I couldn't __4__ it. I __5__ whether his wife would try to stop some of his risky __6__ .

    She was French perhaps--from that place __7__ he usually spent his holidays. Chamonix，wasn‘t it? From Chamonix he'd climbed Mount Blanc on his seventeenth birthday, and another one the day after! That was it, then: She was French，from a mountaineering family. No __8__ . No other explanation.

A month later I met them __9__ in town. Anna surprised me—because she was English. She was a dancer in the __10__．

    “I have __11__ climbed more than sixty steps in my life,” she told me. “Peter has his __12__ , and I‘ve got mine. No __13__ ”. “None at all，”Peter said, smiling. “Where did you spend your __14__ ?” I askeD．Somewhere far __15__ theatres and mountains，was it? “We had a week's holiday,” Anna said, “I flew to New York to see Dirke Dancers on Broadway. A wonderful __16__ !” Peter said, “I didn’t want to __17__ the good weather. So I went to Switzerland and climbed the north __18__ of the Eiger with Allen Dunlop. Great __19__ , the Eiger. Grand place for a honeymoon! I‘ll show you the __20__ we took one day.”