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| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 04:36:07 -0700 |
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| committer | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 04:36:07 -0700 |
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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/11153-0.txt b/11153-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..14e6405 --- /dev/null +++ b/11153-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4418 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 11153 *** + +No Hero + +By E.W. Hornung + + +1903 + + + +CONTENTS + +Chapter + +I. A Plenipotentiary + +II. The Theatre of War + +III. First Blood + +IV. A Little Knowledge + +V. A Marked Woman + +VI. Out of Action + +VII. Second Fiddle + +VIII. Prayers and Parables + +IX. Sub Judice + +X. The Last Word + +XI. The Lion's Mouth + +XII. A Stern Chase + +XIII. Number Three + + + + +No Hero + + +CHAPTER I + +A PLENIPOTENTIARY + + +Has no writer ever dealt with the dramatic aspect of the unopened +envelope? I cannot recall such a passage in any of my authors, and yet +to my mind there is much matter for philosophy in what is always the +expressionless shell of a boundless possibility. Your friend may run +after you in the street, and you know at a glance whether his news is to +be good, bad, or indifferent; but in his handwriting on the +breakfast-table there is never a hint as to the nature of his +communication. Whether he has sustained a loss or an addition to his +family, whether he wants you to dine with him at the club or to lend him +ten pounds, his handwriting at least will be the same, unless, indeed, +he be offended, when he will generally indite your name with a studious +precision and a distant grace quite foreign to his ordinary caligraphy. + +These reflections, trite enough as I know, are nevertheless inevitable +if one is to begin one's unheroic story in the modern manner, at the +latest possible point. That is clearly the point at which a waiter +brought me the fatal letter from Catherine Evers. Apart even from its +immediate consequences, the letter had a _prima facie_ interest, of no +ordinary kind, as the first for years from a once constant +correspondent. And so I sat studying the envelope with a curiosity too +piquant not to be enjoyed. What in the world could so obsolete a friend +find to say to one now? Six months earlier there had been a certain +opportunity for an advance, which at that time could not possibly have +been misconstrued; when they landed me, a few later, there was another +and perhaps a better one. But this was the last summer of the late +century, and already I was beginning to get about like a lamplighter on +my two sticks. Now, young men about town, on two walking-sticks, in the +year of grace 1900, meant only one thing. Quite a stimulating thing in +the beginning, but even as I write, in this the next winter but one, a +national irritation of which the name alone might prevent you from +reading another word. + +Catherine's handwriting, on the contrary, was still stimulating, if +indeed I ever found it more so in the foolish past. It had not altered +in the least. There was the same sweet pedantry of the Attic _e_, the +same superiority to the most venial abbreviation, the same inconsistent +forest of exclamatory notes, thick as poplars across the channel. The +present plantation started after my own Christian name, to wit "Dear +Duncan!!" Yet there was nothing Germanic in Catherine's ancestry; it was +only her apologetic little way of addressing me as though nothing had +ever happened, of asking whether she might. Her own old tact and charm +were in that tentative burial of the past. In the first line she had all +but won my entire forgiveness; but the very next interfered with the +effect. + +"You promised to do anything for me!" + +I should be sorry to deny it, I am sure, for not to this day do I know +what I did say on the occasion to which she evidently referred. But was +it kind to break the silence of years with such a reference? Was it even +quite decent in Catherine to ignore my existence until I could be of use +to her, and then to ask the favour in her first breath? It was true, as +she went on to remind me, that we were more or less connected after all, +and at least conceivable that no one else could help her as I could, if +I would. In any case, it was a certain satisfaction to hear that +Catherine herself was of the last opinion. I read on. She was in a +difficulty; but she did not say what the difficulty was. For one +unworthy moment the thought of money entered my mind, to be ejected the +next, as the Catherine of old came more and more into the mental focus. +Pride was the last thing in which I had found her wanting, and her +letter indicated no change in that respect. + +"You may wonder," she wrote just at the end, "why I have never sent you +a single word of inquiry, or sympathy, or congratulation!! +Well--suppose it was 'bad blood'!! between us when you went away! Mind, +_I_ never meant it to be so, but suppose it was: could I treat the dear +old you like that, and the Great New You like somebody else? You have +your own fame to thank for my unkindness! _I_ am only thankful they +haven't given you the V.C.!! _Then_ I should _never_ have dared--not +even now!!!" + +I smoked a cigarette when I had read it all twice over, and as I crushed +the fire out of the stump I felt I could as soon think of lighting it +again as I should have expected Catherine Evers to set a fresh match to +me. That, I was resolved, she should never do; nor was I quite coxcomb +enough to suspect her of the desire for a moment. But a man who has once +made a fool of himself, especially about a woman somewhat older than +himself, does not soon get over the soreness; and mine returned with the +very fascination which made itself felt even in the shortest little +letter. + +Catherine wrote from the old address in Elm Park Gardens, and she wanted +me to call as early as I could, or to make any appointment I liked. I +therefore telegraphed that I was coming at three o'clock that afternoon, +and thus made for myself one of the longest mornings that I can remember +spending in town. I was staying at the time at the Kensington Palace +Hotel, to be out of the central racket of things, and yet more or less +under the eye of the surgeon who still hoped to extract the last bullet +in time. I can remember spending half the morning gazing aimlessly over +the grand old trees, already prematurely bronzed, and the other half in +limping in their shadow to the Round Pond, where a few little townridden +boys were sailing their humble craft. It was near the middle of August, +and for the first time I was thankful that an earlier migration had not +been feasible in my case. + +In spite of my telegram Mrs. Evers was not at home when I arrived, but +she had left a message which more than explained matters. She was +lunching out, but only in Brechin Place, and I was to wait in the study +if I did not mind. I did not, and yet I did, for the room in which +Catherine certainly read her books and wrote her letters was also the +scene of that which I was beginning to find it rather hard work to +forget as it was. Nor had it changed any more than her handwriting, or +than the woman herself as I confidently expected to find her now. I have +often thought that at about forty both sexes stand still to the eye, and +I did not expect Catherine Evers, who could barely have reached that +rubicon, to show much symptom of the later marches. To me, here in her +den, the other year was just the other day. My time in India was little +better than a dream to me, while as for angry shots at either end of +Africa, it was never I who had been there to hear them. I must have come +by my sticks in some less romantic fashion. Nothing could convince me +that I had ever been many days or miles away from a room that I knew by +heart, and found full as I left it of familiar trifles and poignant +associations. + +That was the shelf devoted to her poets; there was no addition that I +could see. Over it hung the fine photograph of Watts's "Hope," an ironic +emblem, and elsewhere one of that intolerably sad picture, his "Paolo +and Francesca": how I remembered the wet Sunday when Catherine took me +to see the original in Melbury Road! The old piano which was never +touched, the one which had been in St. Helena with Napoleon's doctor, +there it stood to an inch where it had stood of old, a sort of +grand-stand for the photographs of Catherine's friends. I descried my +own young effigy among the rest, in a frame which I recollected giving +her at the time. Well, I looked all the idiot I must have been; and +there was the very Persian rug that I had knelt on in my idiocy! I could +afford to smile at myself to-day; yet now it all seemed yesterday, not +even the day before, until of a sudden I caught sight of that other +photograph in the place of honour on the mantelpiece. It was one by +Hills and Sanders, of a tall youth in flannels, armed with a +long-handled racket, and the sweet open countenance which Robin Evers +had worn from his cradle upward. I should have known him anywhere and at +any age. It was the same dear, honest face; but to think that this giant +was little Bob! He had not gone to Eton when I saw him last; now I knew +from the sporting papers that he was up at Cambridge; but it was left to +his photograph to bring home the flight of time. + +Certainly his mother would never have done so when all at once the door +opened and she stood before me, looking about thirty in the ample shadow +of a cavalier's hat. Simply but admirably gowned, as I knew she would +be, her slender figure looked more youthful still; yet in all this there +was no intent; the dry cool smile was that of an older woman, and I was +prepared for greater cordiality than I could honestly detect in the +greeting of the small firm hand. But it was kind, as indeed her whole +reception of me was; only it had always been the way of Catherine the +correspondent to make one expect a little more than mere kindness, and +of Catherine the companion to disappoint that expectation. Her +conversation needed few exclamatory points. + +"Still halt and lame," she murmured over my sticks. "You poor thing, you +are to sit down this instant." + +And I obeyed her as one always had, merely remarking that I was getting +along famously now. + +"You must have had an awful time," continued Catherine, seating herself +near me, her calm wise eyes on mine. + +"Blood-poisoning," said I. "It nearly knocked me out, but I'm glad to +say it didn't quite." + +Indeed, I had never felt quite so glad before. + +"Ah! that was too hard and cruel; but I was thinking of the day itself," +explained Catherine, and paused in some sweet transparent awe of one who +had been through it. + +"It was a beastly day," said I, forgetting her objection to the epithet +until it was out. But Catherine did not wince. Her fixed eyes were full +of thought. + +"It was all that here," she said. "One depressing morning I had a +telegram from Bob, 'Spion Kop taken'--" + +"So Bob," I nodded, "had it as badly as everybody else!" + +"Worse," declared Catherine, her eye hardening; "it was all I could do +to keep him at Cambridge, though he had only just gone up. He would have +given up everything and flown to the Front if I had let him." + +And she wore the inexorable face with which I could picture her standing +in his way; and in Catherine I could admire that dogged look and all it +spelt, because a great passion is always admirable. The passion of +Catherine's life was her boy, the only son of his mother, and she a +widow. It had been so when he was quite small, as I remembered it with a +pinch of jealousy startling as a twinge from an old wound. More than +ever must it be so now; that was as natural as the maternal embargo in +which Catherine seemed almost to glory. And yet, I reflected, if all the +widows had thought only of their only sons--and of themselves! + +"The next depressing morning," continued Catherine, happily oblivious of +what was passing through one's mind, "the first thing I saw, the first +time I put my nose outside, was a great pink placard with 'Spion Kop +Abandoned!' Duncan, it was too awful." + +"I wish we'd sat tight," I said, "I must confess." + +"Tight!" cried Catherine in dry horror. "I should have abandoned it long +before. I should have run away--hard! To think that you didn't--that's +quite enough for me." + +And again I sustained the full flattery of that speechless awe which was +yet unembarrassing by reason of its freedom from undue solemnity. + +"There were some of us who hadn't a leg to run on," I had to say; "I was +one, Mrs. Evers." + +"I beg your pardon?" + +"Catherine, then." But it put me to the blush. + +"Thank you. If you really wish me to call you 'Captain Clephane' you +have only to say so; but in that case I can't ask the favour I had made +up my mind to ask--of so old a friend." + +Her most winning voice was as good a servant as ever; the touch of scorn +in it was enough to stimulate, but not to sting; and it was the same +with the sudden light in the steady intellectual eyes. + +"Catherine," I said, "you can't indeed ask any favour of me! There you +are quite right. It is not a word to use between us." + +Mrs. Evers gave me one of her deliberate looks before replying. + +"And I am not so sure that it is a favour," she said softly enough at +last. "It is really your advice I want to ask, in the first place at all +events. Duncan, it's about old Bob!" + +The corners of her mouth twitched, her eyes filled with a quaint +humorous concern, and as a preamble I was handed the photograph which I +had already studied on my own account. + +"Isn't he a dear?" asked Bob's mother. "Would you have known him, +Duncan?" + +"I did know him," said I. "Spotted him at a glance. He's the same old +Bob all over." + +I was fortunate enough to meet the swift glance I got for that, for in +sheer sweetness and affection it outdid all remembered glances of the +past. In a moment it was as though I had more than regained the lost +ground of lost years. And in another moment, on the heels of the +discovery, came the still more startling one that I was glad to have +regained my ground, was thankful to be reinstated, and strangely, +acutely, yet uneasily happy, as I had never been since the old days in +this very room. + +Half in a dream I heard Catherine telling of her boy, of his Eton +triumphs, how he had been one of the rackets pair two years, and in the +eleven his last, but "in Pop" before he was seventeen, and yet as simple +and unaffected and unspoilt with it all as the small boy whom I +remembered. And I did remember him, and knew his mother well enough to +believe it all; for she did not chant his praises to organ music, but +rather hummed them to the banjo; and one felt that her own demure +humour, so signal and so permanent a charm in Catherine, would have been +the saving of half-a-dozen Bobs. + +"And yet," she wound up at her starting-point, "it's about poor old Bob +I want to speak to you!" + +"Not in a fix, I hope?" + +"I hope not, Duncan." + +Catherine was serious now. + +"Or mischief?" + +"That depends on what you mean by mischief." + +Catherine was more serious still. + +"Well, there are several brands, but only one or two that really +poison--unless, of course, a man is very poor." + +And my mind harked back to its first suspicion, of some financial +embarrassment, now conceivable enough; but Catherine told me her boy was +not poor, with the air of one who would have drunk ditchwater rather +than let the other want for champagne. + +"It is just the opposite," she added: "in little more than a year, when +he comes of age, he will have quite as much as is good for him. You know +what he is, or rather you don't. I do. And if I were not his mother I +should fall in love with him myself!" + +Catherine looked down on me as she returned from replacing Bob's +photograph on the mantelpiece. The humour had gone out of her eye; in +its place was an almost animal glitter, a far harder light than had +accompanied the significant reference to the patriotic impulse which she +had nipped in the bud. It was probably only the old, old look of the +lioness whose whelp is threatened, but it was something new to me in +Catherine Evers, something half-repellent and yet almost wholly fine. + +"You don't mean to say it's that?" I asked aghast. + +"No, I don't," Catherine answered, with a hard little laugh. "He's not +quite twenty, remember; but I am afraid that he is making a fool of +himself, and I want it stopped." + +I waited for more, merely venturing to nod my sympathetic concern. + +"Poor old Bob, as you may suppose, is not a genius. He is far too nice," +declared Catherine's old self, "to be anything so nasty. But I always +thought he had his head screwed on, and his heart screwed in, or I never +would have let him loose in a Swiss hotel. As it was, I was only too +glad for him to go with George Kennerley, who was as good at work at +Eton as Bob was at games." + +In Catherine's tone, for all the books on her shelves, the pictures on +her walls, there was no doubt at all as to which of the two an Eton boy +should be good at, and I agreed sincerely with another nod. + +"They were to read together for an hour or so every day. I thought it +would be a nice little change for Bob, and it was quite a chance; he +must do a certain amount of work, you see. Well, they only went at the +beginning of the month, and already they have had enough of each other's +society." + +"You don't mean that they've had a row?" + +Catherine inclined a mortified head. + +"Bob never had such a thing in his life before, nor did I ever know +anybody who succeeded in having one with Bob. It does take two, you +know. And when one of the two has an angelic temper, and tact enough for +twenty--" + +"You naturally blame the other," I put in, as she paused in visible +perplexity. + +"But I don't, Duncan, and that's just the point. George is devoted to +Bob, and is as nice as he can be himself, in his own sober, honest, +plodding way. He may not have the temper, he certainly has not the tact, +but he worships Bob and has come back quite miserable." + +"Then he has come back, and you have seen him?" + +"He was here last night. You must know that Bob writes to me every day, +even from Cambridge, if it's only a line; and in yesterday's letter he +mentioned quite casually that George had had enough of it and was off +home. It was a little too casual to be quite natural in old Bob, and +there are other things he has been mentioning in the same way. If any +instinct is to be relied upon it is a mother's, and mine amounted almost +to second sight. I sent Master George a telegram, and he came in last +night." + +"Well?"' + +"Not a word! There was bad blood between them, but that was all I could +get out of him. Vulgar disagreeables between Bob, of all people, and his +greatest friend! If you could have seen the poor fellow sitting where +you are sitting now, like a prisoner in the dock! I put him in the +witness-box instead, and examined him on scraps of Bob's letters to me. +It was as unscrupulous as you please, but I felt unscrupulous; and the +poor dear was too loyal to admit, yet too honest to deny, a single +thing." + +"And?" said I, as Bob's mother paused again. + +"And," cried she, with conscious melodrama in the fiery twinkle of her +eye--"and, I know all! There is an odious creature at the hotel--a +widow, if you please! A 'ripping widow' Bob called her in his first +letter; then it was 'Mrs. Lascelles'; but now it is only 'some people' +whom he escorts here, there, and everywhere. _Some_ people, indeed!" + +Catherine smiled unmercifully. I relied upon my nod. + +"I needn't tell you," she went on, "that the creature is at least twenty +years older than my baby, and not at all nice at that. George didn't +tell me, mind, but he couldn't deny a single thing. It was about her +that they fell out. Poor George remonstrated, not too diplomatically, I +daresay, but I can quite see that my Bob behaved as he was never known +to behave on land or sea. The poor child has been bewitched, neither +more nor less." + +"He'll get over it," I murmured, with the somewhat shaky confidence born +of my own experience. + +Catherine looked at me in mild surprise. + +"But it's going on now, Duncan--it's going on still!" + +"Well," I added, with all the comfort that my voice would carry, and +which an exaggerated concern seemed to demand: "well, Catherine, it +can't go very far at his age!" Nor to this hour can I yet conceive a +sounder saying, in all the circumstances of the case, and with one's +knowledge of the type of lad; but my fate was the common one of +comforters, and I was made speedily and painfully aware that I had now +indeed said the most unfortunate thing. + +Catherine did not stamp her foot, but she did everything else required +by tradition of the exasperated lady. Not go far? As if it had not gone +too far already to be tolerated another instant longer than was +necessary! + +"He is making a fool of himself--my boy--my Bob--before a whole +hotelful of sharp eyes and sharper tongues! Is that not far enough for +it to have gone? Duncan, it must be stopped, and stopped at once; but I +am not the one to do it. I would rather it went on," cried Catherine +tragically, as though the pit yawned before us all, "than that his +mother should fly to his rescue before all the world! But a friend might +do it, Duncan--if--" + +Her voice had dropped. I bent my ear. + +"If only," she sighed, "I had a friend who would!" + +Catherine was still looking down when I looked up; but the droop of the +slender body, the humble angle of the cavalier hat, the faint flush +underneath, all formed together a challenge and an appeal which were the +more irresistible for their sweet shamefacedness. Acute consciousness of +the past (I thought), and (I even fancied) some penitence for a wrong by +no means past undoing, were in every sensitive inch of her, as she sat a +suppliant to the old player of that part. And there are emotions of +which the body may be yet more eloquent than the face; there was the +figure of Watts's "Hope" drooping over as she drooped, not more lissom +and speaking than her own; just then it caught my eye, and on the spot +it was as though the lute's last string of that sweet masterpiece had +vibrated aloud in Catherine's room. + +My hand shook as I reached for my trusty sticks, but I cannot say that +my voice betrayed me when I inquired the name of the Swiss hotel. + +"The Riffel Alp," said Catherine--"above Zermatt, you know." + +"I start to-morrow morning," I rejoined, "if that will do." + +Then Catherine looked up. I cannot describe her look. Transfiguration +were the idle word, but the inadequate, and yet more than one would +scatter the effect of so sudden a burst of human sunlight. + +"Would you really go?" she cried. "Do you mean it, Duncan?" + +"I only wish," I replied, "that it were to Australia." + +"But then you would be weeks too late." + +"Ah, that's another story! I may be too late as it is." + +Her brightness clouded on the instant; only a gleam of annoyance pierced +the cloud. + +"Too late for what, may I ask?" + +"Everything except stopping the banns." + +"Please don't talk nonsense, Duncan. Banns at nineteen!" + +"It is nonsense, I agree; at the same time the minor consequences will +be the hardest to deal with. If they are being talked about, well, they +are being talked about. You know Bob best: suppose he is making a fool +of himself, is he the sort of fellow to stop because one tells him so? I +should say not, from what I know of him, and of you." + +"I don't know," argued Catherine, looking pleased with her compliment. +"You used to have quite an influence over him, if you remember." + +"That's quite possible; but then he was a small boy, now he is a grown +man." + +"But you are a much older one." + +"Too old to trust to that." + +"And you have been wounded in the war." + +"The hotel may be full of wounded officers; if not I might get a little +unworthy purchase there. In any case I'll go. I should have to go +somewhere before many days. It may as well be to that place as to +another. I have heard that the air is glorious; and I'll keep an eye on +Robin, if I can't do anything else." + +"That's enough for me," cried Catherine, warmly. "I have sufficient +faith in you to leave all the rest to your own discretion and good sense +and better heart. And I never shall forget it, Duncan, never, never! You +are the one person he wouldn't instantly suspect as an emissary, besides +being the only one I ever--ever trusted well enough to--to take at your +word as I have done." + +I thought myself that the sentence might have pursued a bolder course +without untruth or necessary complications. Perhaps my conceit was on a +scale with my acknowledged infirmity where Catherine was concerned. But +I did think that there was more than trust in the eyes that now melted +into mine; there was liking at least, and gratitude enough to inspire +one to win infinitely more. I went so far as to take in mine the hand to +which I had dared to aspire in the temerity of my youth; nor shall I +pretend for a moment that the old aspirations had not already mounted to +their old seat in my brain. On the contrary, I was only wondering +whether the honesty of voicing my hopes would nowise counterbalance the +caddishness of the sort of stipulation they might imply. + +"All I ask," I was saying to myself, "is that you will give me another +chance, and take me seriously this time, if I prove myself worthy in the +way you want." + +But I am glad to think I had not said it when tea came up, and saved a +dangerous situation by breaking an insidious spell. + +I stayed another hour at least, and there are few in my memory which +passed more deliciously at the time. In writing of it now I feel that I +have made too little of Catherine Evers, in my anxiety not to make too +much, yet am about to leave her to stand or to fall in the reader's +opinion by such impression as I have already succeeded in creating in +his or her mind. Let me add one word, or two, while yet I may. A +baron's daughter (though you might have known Catherine some time +without knowing that), she had nevertheless married for mere love as a +very young girl, and had been left a widow before the birth of her boy. +I never knew her husband, though we were distant kin, nor yet herself +during the long years through which she mourned him. Catherine Evers was +beginning to recover her interest in the world when first we met; but +she never returned to that identical fold of society in which she had +been born and bred. It was, of course, despite her own performances, a +fold to which the worldly wolf was no stranger; and her trouble had +turned a light-hearted little lady into an eager, intellectual, +speculative being, with a sort of shame for her former estate, and an +undoubted reactionary dislike of dominion and of petty pomp. Of her own +high folk one neither saw nor heard a thing; her friends were the +powerful preachers of most denominations, and one or two only painted or +wrote; for she had been greatly exercised about religion, and somewhat +solaced by the arts. + +Of her charm for me, a lad with a sneaking regard for the pen, even when +I buckled on the sword, I need not be too analytical. No doubt about her +kindly interest, in the first instance, in so morbid a curiosity as a +subaltern who cared for books and was prepared to extend his gracious +patronage to pictures. This subaltern had only too much money, and if +the truth be known, only too little honest interest in the career into +which he had allowed himself to drift. An early stage of that career +brought him up to London, where family pressure drove him on a day to +Elm Park Gardens. The rest is easily conceived. Here was a woman, still +young, though some years older than oneself; attractive, intellectual, +amusing, the soul of sympathy, at once a spiritual influence and the +best companion in the world; and for a time, at least, she had taken a +perhaps imprudent interest in a lad whom she so greatly interested +herself, on so many and various accounts. Must you marvel that the +young fool mistook the interest, on both sides, for a more intense +feeling, of which he for one had no experience at the time, and that he +fell by his mistake at a ridiculously early stage of his career? + +It is, I grant, more surprising to find the same young man playing Harry +Esmond (at due distance) to the same Lady Castlewood after years in +India and a taste of two wars. But Catherine's room was Catherine's +room, a very haunt of the higher sirens, charged with noble promptings +and forgotten influences and impossible vows. And you will please bear +in mind that as yet I am but setting forth, from this rarefied +atmosphere, upon my invidious mission. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE THEATRE OF WAR + + +It is a far cry to Zermatt at the best of times, and that is not the +middle of August. The annual rush was at its height, the trains crowded, +the heat of them overpowering. I chose to sit up all night in my corner +of an ordinary compartment, as a lesser evil than the _wagon-lit_ in +which you cannot sit up at all. In the morning one was in Switzerland, +with a black collar, a rusty chin, and a countenance in keeping with its +appointments. It was not as though the night had been beguiled for me by +such considerations as are only proper to the devout pilgrim in his +lady's service. + +On the contrary, and to tell the honest truth, I found it quite +impossible to sustain such a serious view of the very special service to +which I was foresworn: the more I thought of it, in one sense, the less +in another, until my only chance was to go forward with grim humour in +the spirit of impersonal curiosity which that attitude induces. In a +word, and the cant one which yet happens to express my state of mind to +a nicety, I had already "weakened" on the whole business which I had +been in such a foolish hurry to undertake, though not for one +reactionary moment upon her for whom I had undertaken it. I was still +entirely eager to "do her behest in pleasure or in pain"; but this +particular enterprise I was beginning to view apart from its +inspiration, on its intrinsic demerits, and the more clearly I saw it in +its own light, the less pleasure did the prospect afford me. + +A young giant, whom I had not seen since his childhood, was merely +understood to be carrying on a conspicuous, but in all probability the +most innocent, flirtation in a Swiss hotel; and here was I, on mere +second-hand hearsay, crossing half Europe to spoil his perfectly +legitimate sport! I did not examine my project from the unknown lady's +point of view; it made me quite hot enough to consider it from that of +my own sex. Yet, the day before yesterday, I had more than acquiesced +in the dubious plan. I had even volunteered for its achievement. The +train rattled out one long, maddening tune to my own incessant +marvellings at my own secret apostasy: the stuffy compartment was not +Catherine's sanctum of the quickening memorials and the olden spell. +Catherine herself was no longer before me in the vivacious flesh, with +her half playful pathos of word and look, her fascinating outward light +and shade, her deeper and steadier intellectual glow. Those, I suppose, +were the charms which had undone me, first as well as last; but the +memory of them was no solace in the train. Nor was I tempted to dream +again of ultimate reward. I could see now no further than my immediate +part, and a more distasteful mixture of the mean and of the ludicrous I +hope never to rehearse again. + +One mitigation I might have set against the rest. Dining at the Rag the +night before I left, I met a man who knew a man then staying at the +Riffel Alp. My man was a sapper with whom I had had a very slight +acquaintance out in India, but he happened to be one of those +good-natured creatures who never hesitate to bestir themselves or their +friends to oblige a mere acquaintance: he asked if I had secured rooms, +and on learning that I had not, insisted on telegraphing to his friend +to do his best for me. I had not hitherto appreciated the popularity of +a resort which I happened only to know by name, nor did I even on +getting at Lausanne a telegram to say that a room was duly reserved for +me. It was only when I actually arrived, tired out with travel, toward +the second evening, and when half of those who had come up with me were +sent down again to Zermatt for their pains, that I felt as grateful as I +ought to have been from the beginning. Here upon a mere ledge of the +High Alps was a hotel with tier upon tier of windows winking in the +setting sun. On every hand were dazzling peaks piled against a turquoise +sky, yet drawn respectfully apart from the incomparable Matterhorn, that +proud grim chieftain of them all. The grand spectacle and the magic air +made me thankful to be there, if only for their sake, albeit the more +regretful that a purer purpose had not drawn me to so fine a spot. + +My unknown friend at court, one Quinby, a civilian, came up and spoke +before I had been five minutes at my destination. He was a very tall and +extraordinarily thin man, with an ill-nourished red moustache, and an +easy geniality of a somewhat acid sort. He had a trick of laughing +softly through his nose, and my two sticks served to excite a sense of +humour as odd as its habitual expression. + +"I'm glad you carry the outward signs," said he, "for I made the most of +your wounds and you really owe your room to them. You see, we're a very +representative crowd. That festive old boy, strutting up and down with +his cigar, in the Panama hat, is really best known in the black cap: +it's old Sankey, the hanging judge. The big man with his back turned you +will know in a moment when he looks this way: it's our celebrated friend +Belgrave Teale. He comes down in one or other of his parts every day: +to-day it's the genial squire, yesterday it was the haw-haw officer of +the Crimean school. But a real live officer from the Front we don't +happen to have had, much less a wounded one, and you limp straight into +the breach." + +I should have resented these pleasantries from an ordinary stranger, but +this libertine might be held to have earned his charter, and moreover I +had further use for him. We were loitering on the steps between the +glass veranda and the terrace at the back of the hotel. The little +sunlit stage was full of vivid, trivial, transitory life, it seemed as a +foil to the vast eternal scene. The hanging judge still strutted with +his cigar, peering jocosely from under the broad brim of his Panama; the +great actor still posed aloof, the human Matterhorn of the group. I +descried no showy woman with a tall youth dancing attendance; among the +brick-red English faces there was not one that bore the least +resemblance to the latest photograph of Bob Evers. + +A little consideration suggested my first move. + +"I think I saw a visitors' book in the hall," I said. "I may as well +stick down my name." + +But before doing so I ran my eye up and down the pages inscribed by +those who had arrived that month. + +"See anybody you know?" inquired Quinby, who hovered obligingly at my +elbow. It was really necessary to be as disingenuous as possible, more +especially with a person whose own conversation was evidently quite +unguarded. + +"Yes, by Jove I do! Robin Evers, of all people!" + +"Do you know him?" + +The question came pretty quickly. I was sorry I had said so much. + +"Well, I once knew a small boy of that name; but then they are not a +small clan." + +"His mother's the Honourable," said Quinby, with studious unconcern, yet +I fancied with increased interest in me. + +"I used to see something of them both," I deliberately admitted, "when +the lad was little. How has he turned out?" + +Quinby gave his peculiar nasal laugh. + +"A nice youth," said he. "A very nice youth!" + +"Do you mean nice or nasty?" I asked, inclined to bridle at his tone. + +"Oh, anything but nasty," said Quinby. "Only--well--perhaps a bit rapid +for his years!" + +I stooped and put my name in the book before making any further remark. +Then I handed Quinby my cigarette-case, and we sat down on the nearest +lounge. + +"Rapid, is he?" said I. "That's quite interesting. And how does it take +him?" + +"Oh, not in any way that's discreditable; but as a matter of fact, +there's a gay young widow here, and they're fairly going it!" + +I lit my cigarette with a certain unexpected sense of downright +satisfaction. So there was something in it after all. It had seemed such +a fool's errand in the train. + +"A young widow," I repeated, emphasising one of Quinby's epithets and +ignoring the other. + +"I mean, of course, she's a good deal older than Evers." + +"And her name?" + +"A Mrs. Lascelles." + +I nodded. + +"Do you happen to know anything about her, Captain Clephane?" + +"I can't say I do." + +"No more does anybody else," said Quinby, "except that she's an Indian +widow of sorts." + +"Indian!" I repeated with more interest. + +Quinby looked at me. + +"You've been out there yourself, perhaps?" + +"It was there I knew Hamilton," said I, naming our common friend in the +Engineers. + +"Yet you're sure you never came across Mrs. Lascelles there?" + +"India's a large place," I said, smiling as I shook my head. + +"I wonder if Hamilton did," speculated Quinby aloud. + +"And the Lascelleses," I added, "are another large clan." + +"Well," he went on, after a moment's further cogitation, "there's nobody +here can place this particular Mrs. Lascelles; but there are some who +say things which they can tell you themselves. I'm not going to repeat +them if you know anything about the boy. I only wish you knew him well +enough to give him a friendly word of advice!" + +"Is it so bad as all that?" + +"My dear sir, I don't say there's anything bad about it," returned +Quinby, who seemed to possess a pretty gift of suggestive negation. "But +you may hear another opinion from other people, for you will find that +the whole hotel is talking about it. No," he went on, watching my eyes, +"it's no use looking for them at this time of day; they disappear from +morning to night; if you want to see them you must take a stroll when +everybody else is thinking of turning in. Then you may have better luck. +But here are the letters at last." + +The concierge had appeared, hugging an overflowing armful of postal +matter. In another minute there was hardly standing room in the little +hall. My companion uttered his unlovely laugh. + +"And here comes the British lion roaring for his London papers! It isn't +his letters he's so keen on, if you notice, Captain Clephane; it's his +_Daily Mail_, with the latest cricket, and after that the war. Teale is +an exception, of course. He has a stack of press-cuttings every day. +You will see him gloating over them in a minute. Ah! the old judge has +got his _Sportsman_; he reads nothing else except the _Sporting Times_, +and he's going back for the Leger. Do you see the man with the blue +spectacles and the peeled nose? He was last Vice Chancellor but one at +Cambridge. No, that's not a Bishop, it's an Archdeacon. All we want is a +Cabinet Minister now; every evening there is a rumour that the Colonial +Secretary is on his way, and most mornings you will hear that he has +actually arrived under cloud of night." + +The facetious Quinby did not confine his more or less caustic commentary +to the well-known folk of whom there seemed no dearth; in the ten or +twenty minutes that we sat together he further revealed himself as a +copious gossip, with a wide net alike for the big fish and for the +smallest fry. There was a sheepish gentleman with a twitching face, and +a shaven cleric in close attendance; the former a rich brand plucked +from burning by the latter, whose temporal reward was the present trip, +so Quinby assured me during the time it took them to pass before our +eyes through the now emptying hall. A delightfully boyish young American +came inquiring waggishly for his "best girl"; next moment I was given to +understand that he meant his bride, who was ten times too good for him, +with further trivialities to which the dressing-bell put a timely +period. There was no sign of my Etonian when I went upstairs. + +As I dressed in my small low room, with its sloping ceiling of varnished +wood, at the top of the house, I felt that after all I had learnt +nothing really new respecting that disturbing young gentleman. Quinby +had already proved himself such an arrant gossip as to discount every +word that he had said before I placed him in his proper type: it is one +which I have encountered elsewhere, that of the middle-aged bachelor who +will and must talk, and he had confessed his celibacy almost in his +first breath; but a more pronounced specimen of the type I am in no +hurry to meet again. If, however, there was some comfort in the thought +of his more than probable exaggerations, there was none at all in the +knowledge that these would be, if they had not already been, poured into +every tolerant ear in the place, if anything more freely than into mine. + +I was somewhat late for dinner, but the scandalous couple were later +still, and all the evening I saw nothing of them. That, however, was +greatly due to this fellow Quinby, whose determined offices one could +hardly disdain after once accepting favours from him. In the press after +dinner I saw his ferret's face peering this way and that, a good head +higher than any other, and the moment our eyes met he began elbowing his +way toward me. Only an ingrate would have turned and fled; and for the +next hour or two I suffered Quinby to exploit my wounds and me for a +good deal more than our intrinsic value. To do the man justice, however, +I had no fault to find with the very pleasant little circle into which +he insisted on ushering me, at one end of the glazed veranda, and should +have enjoyed my evening but for an inquisitive anxiety to get in touch +with the unsuspecting pair. Meanwhile the lilt of a waltz had mingled +with the click of billiard balls and the talking and laughing which make +a summer's night vocal in that outpost of pleasure on the silent +heights; and some of our party had gone off to dance. In the end I +followed them, sticks and all; but there was no Bob Evers among the +dancers, nor in the billiard-room, nor anywhere else indoors. + +Then, last of all, I looked where Quinby had advised me to look, and +there sure enough, on the almost deserted terrace, were the couple whom +I had come several hundred miles to put asunder. Hitherto I had only +realised the distasteful character of my task; now at a glance I had my +first inkling of its difficulty; and there ended the premature +satisfaction with which I had learnt that there was "something in" the +rumour which had reached Catherine's ears. + +There was no moon, but the mountain stars were the brightest I have ever +seen in Europe. The mountains themselves stood back, as it were, +darkling and unobtrusive; all that was left of the Matterhorn was a +towering gap in the stars; and in the faint cold light stood my +friends, somewhat close together, and I thought I saw the red tips of +two cigarettes. There was at least no mistaking the long loose limbs in +the light overcoat. And because a woman always looks relatively taller +than a man, this woman looked nearly as tall as this lad. + +"Bob Evers? You may not remember me, but my name's Clephane--Duncan, you +know!" + +I felt the veriest scoundrel, and yet the words came out as smoothly as +I have written them, as if to show me that I had been a potential +scoundrel all my life. + +"Duncan Clephane? Why, of course I remember you. I should think I did! I +say, though, you must have had a shocking time!" + +Bob's voice was quite quiet for all his astonishment, his manner a +miracle, though it was too dark to read the face; and his right hand +held tenderly to mine, as his eyes fell upon my sticks, while his left +poised a steady cigarette. And now I saw that there was only one red tip +after all. + +"I read your name in the visitors' book," said I, feeling too big a +brute to acknowledge the boy's solicitude for me. "I--I felt certain it +must be you." + +"How splendid!" cried the great fellow in his easy, soft, unconscious +voice, "By the way, may I introduce you to Mrs. Lascelles? Captain +Clephane's one of our very oldest friends, just back from the Front, and +precious nearly blown to bits!" + + + + +CHAPTER III + +FIRST BLOOD + + +Mrs. Lascelles and I exchanged our bows. For a dangerous woman there was +a rather striking want of study in her attire. Over the garment which I +believe is called a "rain-coat," the night being chilly, she had put on +her golf-cape as well, and the effect was a little heterogeneous. It +also argued qualities other than those for which I was naturally on the +watch. Of the lady's face I could see even less than of Bob's, for the +hood of the cape was upturned into a cowl, and even in Switzerland the +stars are only stars. But while I peered she let me hear her voice, and +a very rich one it was--almost deep in tone--the voice of a woman who +would sing contralto. + +"Have you really been fighting?" she asked, in a way that was either put +on, or else the expression of a more understanding sympathy than one +usually provoked; for pity and admiration, and even a helpless woman's +envy, might all have been discovered by an ear less critical and more +charitable than mine. + +"Like anything!" answered Bob, in his unaffected speech. + +"Until they knocked me out," I felt bound to add, "and that, +unfortunately, was before very long." + +"You must have been dreadfully wounded!" said Mrs. Lascelles, raising +her eyes from my sticks and gazing at me, I fancied, with some +intentness; but at her expression I could only guess. + +"Bowled over on Spion Kop," said Bob, "and fairly riddled as he lay." + +"But only about the legs, Mrs. Lascelles," I explained; "and you see I +didn't lose either, so I've no cause to complain. I had hardly a graze +higher up." + +"Were you up there the whole of that awful day?" asked Mrs. Lascelles, +on a low but thrilling note. + +"I'd got to be," said I, trying to lighten the subject with a laugh. But +Bob's tone was little better. + +"So he went staggering about among his men," he must needs chime in, +with other superfluities, "for I remember reading all about it in the +papers, and boasting like anything about having known you, Duncan, but +feeling simply sick with envy all the time. I say, you'll be a +tremendous hero up here, you know! I'm awfully glad you've come. It's +quite funny, all the same. I suppose you came to get bucked up? He +couldn't have gone to a better place, could he, Mrs. Lascelles?" + +"Indeed he could not. I only wish we could empty the hotel and fill +every bed with our poor wounded!" + +I do not know why I should have felt so much surprised. I had made unto +myself my own image of Mrs. Lascelles, and neither her appearance, nor a +single word that had fallen from her, was in the least in keeping with +my conception. Prepared for a certain type of woman, I was quite +confounded by its unconventional embodiment, and inclined to believe +that this was not the type at all. I ought to have known life better. +The most scheming mind may well entertain an enthusiasm for arms, +genuine enough in itself, at a martial crisis, and a natural manner is +by no means incompatible with the cardinal vices. That manner and that +enthusiasm were absolutely all that I as yet knew in favour of this Mrs. +Lascelles; but they were enough to cause me irritation. I wished to be +honest with somebody; let me at least be honestly inimical to her. I +took out my cigarette-case, and when about to help myself, handed it, +with a vile pretence at impulse, to Mrs. Lascelles instead. + +Mrs. Lascelles thanked me, in a higher key, but declined. + +"Don't you smoke?" I asked blandly. + +"Sometimes." + +"Ah! then I wasn't mistaken. I thought I saw two cigarettes just now." + +Indeed, I had first smelt and afterward discovered the second cigarette +smouldering on the ground. Bob was smoking his still. The chances were +that they had both been lighted at the same time; therefore the other +had been thrown away unfinished at my approach. And that was one more +variation from the type of my confident preconceptions. + +Young Robin had meanwhile had a quick eye on us both, and the stump of +his own cigarette was glowing between a firmer pair of lips than I had +looked for in that boyish face. + +"It's so funny," said he (but there was no fun in his voice), "the +prejudice some people have against ladies smoking. Why shouldn't they? +Where's the harm?" + +Now there is no new plea to be advanced on either side of this eternal +question, nor is it one upon which I ever felt strongly, but just then I +felt tempted to speak as though I did. I will not now dissect my motive, +but it was vaguely connected with my mission, and not unrighteous from +that standpoint. I said it was not a question of harm at all, but of +what one admired in a woman, and what one did not: a man loved to look +upon a woman as something above and beyond him, and there could be no +doubt that the gap seemed a little less when both were smoking like twin +funnels. That, I thought, was the adverse point of view; I did not say +that it was mine. + +"I'm glad to hear it," said Bob Evers, with the faintest coldness in his +tone, though I fancied he was fuming within, and admired both his +chivalry and his self-control. "To me it's quite funny. I call it sheer +selfishness. We enjoy a cigarette ourselves; why shouldn't they? We +don't force them to be teetotal, do we? Is it bad form for a lady to +drink a glass of wine? You mightn't bicycle once, might you, Mrs. +Lascelles? I daresay Captain Clephane doesn't approve of that yet!" + +"That's hitting below the belt," said I, laughing. "I wasn't giving you +my opinion, but only the old-fashioned view of the matter. I wish you'd +take one, Mrs. Lascelles, or I shall think I've been misunderstood all +round!" + +"No, thank you, Captain Clephane. That old-fashioned feeling is +infectious." + +"Then I will," cried Bob, "to show there's no ill-feeling. You old +fire-eater, I believe you just put up the argument to change the +conversation. Wouldn't you like a chair for those game legs?" + +"No, I've got to use them in moderation. I was going to have a stroll +when I spotted you at last." + +"Then we'll all take one together," cried the genial old Bob once more. +"It's a bit cold standing here, don't you think, Mrs. Lascelles? After +you with the match!" + +But I held it so long that he had to strike another, for I had looked on +Mrs. Lascelles at last. It was not an obviously interesting face, like +Catherine's, but interest there was of another kind. There was nothing +intellectual in the low brow, no enthusiasm for books and pictures in +the bold eyes, no witticism waiting on the full lips; but in the curve +of those lips and the look from those eyes, as in the deep chin and the +carriage of the hooded head, there was something perhaps not lower than +intellect in the scale of personal equipment. There was, at all events, +character and to spare. Even by the brief glimmer of a single match I +could see that (and more) for myself. Then came a moment's interval +before Bob struck his light, and in that moment her face changed. As I +saw it next, it appealed, it entreated, until the second match was +flung away. And the appeal was to such purpose that I do not think I was +five seconds silent. + +"And what do you do with yourself up here all day? I mean you hale +people; of course, I can only potter in the sun." + +The question, perhaps, was better in intention than in tact. I did not +mean them to take it to themselves, but Bob's answer showed that it was +open to misconstruction. + +"Some people climb," said he; "you'll know them by their noses. The +glaciers are almost as bad, though, aren't they, Mrs. Lascelles? Lots of +people potter about the glaciers. It's rather sport in the serracs; +you've got to rope. But you'll find lots more loafing about the place +all day, reading Tauchnitz novels, and watching people on the Matterhorn +through the telescope. That's the sort of thing, isn't it, Mrs. +Lascelles?" + +She also had misunderstood the drift of my unlucky question. But there +was nothing disingenuous in her reply. It reminded me of her eyes, as I +had seen them by the light of the first match. + +"Mr. Evers doesn't say that he is a climber himself, Captain Clephane; +but he is a very keen one, and so am I. We are both beginners, so we +have begun together. It's such fun. We do some little thing every day; +to-day we did the Schwarzee. You won't be any wiser, and the real +climbers wouldn't call it climbing, but it means three thousand feet +first and last. To-morrow we are going to the Monte Rosa hut. There is +no saying where we shall end up, if this weather holds." + +In this fashion Mrs. Lascelles not only made me a contemptuous present +of information which I had never sought, but tacitly rebuked poor Bob +for his gratuitous attempt at concealment. Clearly, they had nothing to +conceal; and the hotel talk was neither more nor less than hotel talk. +There was, nevertheless, a certain self-consciousness in the attitude of +either (unless I grossly misread them both) which of itself afforded +some excuse for the gossips in my own mind. + +Yet I did not know; every moment gave me a new point of view. On my +remarking, genuinely enough, that I only wished I could go with them, +Bob Evers echoed the wish so heartily that I could not but believe that +he meant what he said. On his side, in that case, there could be +absolutely nothing. And yet, again, when Mrs. Lascelles had left us, as +she did ere long in the easiest and most natural manner, and when we had +started a last cigarette together, then once more I was not so sure of +him. + +"That's rather a handsome woman," said I, with perhaps more than the +authority to which my years entitled me. But I fancied it would "draw" +poor Bob. And it did. + +"Rather handsome!" said he, with a soft little laugh not altogether +complimentary to me. "Yes, I should almost go as far myself. Still I +don't see how _you_ know; you haven't so much as seen her, my dear +fellow." + +"Haven't we been walking up and down outside this lighted veranda for +the last ten minutes?" + +Bob emitted a pitying puff. "Wait till you see her in the sunlight! +There's not many of them can stand it, as they get it up here. But she +can--like anything!" + +"She has made an impression on you, Bob," said I, but in so sedulously +inoffensive a manner that his self-betrayal was all the greater when he +told me quite hotly not to be an ass. + +Now I was more than ten years his senior, and Bob's manners were as +charming as only the manners of a nice Eton boy can be; therefore I held +my peace, but with difficulty refrained from nodding sapiently to +myself. We took a couple of steps in silence, then Bob stopped short. I +did the same. He was still a little stern; we were just within range of +the veranda lights, and I can see and hear him to this day, almost as +clearly as I did that night. + +"I'm not much good at making apologies," he began, with rather less +grace than becomes an apologist; but it was more than enough for me from +Bob. + +"Nor I at receiving them, my dear Bob." + +"Well, you've got to receive one now, whether you accept it or not. I +was the ass myself, and I beg your pardon!" + +Somehow I felt it was a good deal for a lad to say, at that age, and +with Bob's upbringing and popularity, even though he said it rather +scornfully in the fewest words. The scorn was really for himself, and I +could well understand it. Nay, I was glad to have something to forgive +in the beginning, I with my unforgivable mission, and would have laughed +the matter off without another word if Bob had let me. + +"I'm a bit raw on the point," said he, taking my arm for a last turn, +"and that's the truth. There was a fellow who came out with me, quite a +good chap really, and a tremendous pal of mine at Eton, yet he behaved +like a lunatic about this very thing. Poor chap, he reads like anything, +and I suppose he'd been overdoing it, for he actually asked me to choose +between Mrs. Lascelles and himself! What could a fellow do but let the +poor old simpleton go? They seem to think you can't be pals with a woman +without wanting to make love to her. Such utter rot! I confess I lose my +hair with them; but that doesn't excuse me in the least for losing it +with you." + +I assured him, on the other hand, that his very natural irritability on +the subject made all the difference in the world. "But whom," I added, +"do you mean by 'them'? Not anybody else in the hotel?" + +"Good heavens, no!" cried Bob, finding a fair target for his scorn at +last. "Do you think I care twopence what's said or thought by people I +never saw in my life before and am never likely to see again? I know how +I'm behaving. What does it matter what they think? Not that they're +likely to bother their heads about us any more than we do about them." + +"You don't know that." + +"I certainly don't care," declared my lordly youth, with obvious +sincerity. "No, I was only thinking of poor old George Kennerley and +people like him, if there are any. I did care what he thought, that is +until I saw he was as mad as anything on the subject. It was too silly. +I tell you what, though, I'd value your opinion!" And he came to another +stop and confronted me again, but this time such a picture of boyish +impulse and of innocent trust in me (even by that faint light) that I +was myself strongly inclined to be honest with him on the spot. But I +only smiled and shook my head. + +"Oh, no, you wouldn't," I assured him. + +"But I tell you I would!" he cried. "Do _you_ think there's any harm in +my going about with Mrs. Lascelles because I rather like her and she +rather likes me? I won't condescend to give you my word that I mean +none." + +What answer could I give? His charming frankness quite disarmed me, and +the more completely because I felt that a dignified reticence would have +been yet more characteristic of this clean, sweet youth, with his noble +unconsciousness alike of evil and of evil speaking. I told him the +truth--that there could be no harm at all with such a fellow as himself. +And he wrung my hand until he hurt it; but the physical pain was a +relief. + +Never can I remember going up to bed with a better opinion of another +person, or a worse one of myself. How could I go on with my thrice +detestable undertaking? Now that I was so sure of him, why should I even +think of it for another moment? Why not go back to London and tell his +mother that her early confidence had not been misplaced, that the lad +did know how to take care of himself, and better still of any woman whom +he chose to honour with his bright, pure-hearted friendship? All this I +felt as strongly as any conviction I have ever held. Why, then, could I +not write it at once to Catherine in as many words? + +Strange how one forgets, how I had forgotten in half an hour! The reason +came home to me on the stairs, and for the second time. + +It had come home first by the light of those two matches, struck outside +in the dark part of the deserted terrace. It was not the lad whom I +distrusted, but the woman of whose face I had then obtained my only +glimpse--that night. + +I had known her, after all, in India years before. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +A LITTLE KNOWLEDGE + + +Once in the Town Hall at Simla (the only time I was ever there) it was +my fortune to dance with a Mrs. Heymann of Lahore, a tall woman, but a +featherweight partner, and in all my dancing days I never had a better +waltz. To my delight she had one other left, though near the end, and we +were actually dancing when an excitable person came out of the +card-room, flushed with liquor and losses, and carried her off in the +most preposterous manner. It was a shock to me at the time to learn that +this outrageous little man was my partner's husband. Months later, when +I came across their case in the papers, it was, I am afraid, without +much sympathy for the injured husband. The man was quite unpresentable, +and I had seen no more of him at Simla, but of the woman just enough to +know her by matchlight on the terrace at the Riffel Alp. + +And this was Bob's widow, this dashing _divorcée_! Dashing she was as I +now remembered her, fine in mould, finer in spirit, reckless and +rebellious as she well might be. I had seen her submit before a +ball-room, but with the contempt that leads captivity captive. Seldom +have I admired anything more. It was splendid even to remember, the +ready outward obedience, the not less apparent indifference and disdain. +There was a woman whom any man might admire, who had had it in her to be +all things to some man! But Bob Evers was not a man at all. And +this--and this--was his widow! + +Was she one at all? How could I tell? Yes, it was Lascelles, the other +name in the case, to the best of my recollection. But had she any right +to bear it? And even supposing they had married, what had happened to +the second husband? Widow or no widow, second marriage or no second +marriage, defensible or indefensible, was this the right friend for a +lad still fresh from Eton, the only son of his mother, who had sent me +in secret to his side? + +There was only one answer to the last question, whatever might be said +or urged in reply to all the rest. I could not but feel that Catherine +Evers had been justified in her instinct to an almost miraculous degree; +that her worst fears were true enough, so far as the lady was concerned; +and that Providence alone could have inspired her to call in an agent +who knew what I knew, and who therefore saw his duty as plainly as I +already saw mine. But it is one thing to recognise a painful duty and +quite another thing to know how to minimise the pain to those most +affected by its performance. The problem was no easy one to my mind, and +I lay awake upon it far into the night. + +Tired out with travel, I fell asleep in the end, to awake with a start +in broad daylight. The sun was pouring through the uncurtained +dormer-window of my room under the roof. And in the sunlight, looking +his best in knickerbockers, as only thin men do, with face greased +against wind and glare, and blue spectacles in rest upon an Alpine +wideawake, stood the lad who had taken his share in keeping me awake. + +"I'm awfully sorry," he began. "It's horrid cheek, but when I saw your +room full of light I thought you might have been even earlier than I +was. You must get them to give you curtains up here." + +He had a note in his hand and I thought by his manner there was +something that he wished and yet hesitated to tell me. I accordingly +asked him what it was. + +"It's what we were speaking about last night!" burst out Bob. "That's +why I've come to you. It's these silly fools who can't mind their own +business and think everybody else is like themselves! Here's a note from +Mrs. Lascelles which makes it plain that that old idiot George is not +the only one who has been talking about us, and some of the talk has +reached her ears. She doesn't say so in so many words, but I can see +it's that. She wants to get out of our expedition to Monte Rosa +hut--wants me to go alone. The question is, ought I to let her get out +of it? Does it matter one rap what this rabble says about us? I've come +to ask your advice--you were such a brick about it all last night--and +what you say I'll do." + +I had begun to smile at Bob's notion of "a rabble": this one happened +to include a few quite eminent men, as you have seen, to say nothing of +the average quality of the crowd, of which I had been able to form some +opinion of my own. But I had already noticed in Bob the exclusiveness of +the type to which he belonged, and had welcomed it as one does welcome +the little faults of the well-night faultless. It was his last sentence +that made me feel too great a hypocrite to go on smiling. + +"It may not matter to you," I said at length, "but it may to the lady." + +"I suppose it does matter more to them?" + +The sunburnt face, puckered with a wry wistfulness, was only comic in +its incongruous coat of grease. But I was under no temptation to smile. +I had to confine my mind pretty closely to the general principle, and +rather studiously to ignore the particular instance, before I could +bring myself to answer the almost infantile inquiry in those honest +eyes. + +"My dear fellow, it must!" + +Bob looked disappointed but resigned. + +"Well, then, I won't press it, though I'm not sure that I agree. You +see, it's not as though there was or ever would be anything between us. +The idea's absurd. We are absolute pals and nothing else. That's what +makes all this such a silly bore. It's so unnecessary. Now she wants me +to go alone, but I don't see the fun of that." + +"Does she ask you to go alone?" + +"She does. That's the worst of it." + +I nodded, and he asked me why. + +"She probably thinks it would be the best answer to the tittle-tattlers, +Bob." + +That was not a deliberate lie; not until the words were out did it occur +to me that Mrs. Lascelles might now have another object in getting rid +of her swain for the day. But Bob's eyes lighted in a way that made me +feel a deliberate liar. + +"By Jove!" he said, "I never thought of that. I don't agree with her, +mind, but if that's her game I'll play it like a book. So long, Duncan! +I'm not one of those chaps who ask a man's advice without the slightest +intention of ever taking it!" + +"But I haven't ventured to advise you," I reminded the boy, with a +cowardly eye to the remotest consequences. + +"Perhaps not, but you've shown me what's the proper thing to do." And he +went away to do it there and then, like the blameless exception that I +found him to so many human rules. + +I had my breakfast upstairs after this, and lay for some considerable +time a prey to feelings which I shall make no further effort to expound; +for this interview had not altered, but only intensified them; and in +any case they must be obvious to those who take the trouble to conceive +themselves in my unenviable position. + +And it was my ironic luck to be so circumstanced in a place where I +could have enjoyed life to the hilt! Only to lie with the window open +was to breathe air of a keener purity, a finer temper, a more +exhilarating freshness, than had ever before entered my lungs; and to +get up and look out of the window was to peer into the limpid brilliance +of a gigantic crystal, where the smallest object was in startling +focus, and the very sunbeams cut with scissors. The people below trailed +shadows like running ink. The light was ultra-tropical. One looked for +drill suits and pith headgear, and was amazed to find pajamas +insufficient at the open window. + +Upon the terrace on the other side, when I eventually came down, there +were cane chairs and Tauchnitz novels under the umbrella tents, and the +telescope out and trained upon a party on the Matterhorn. A group of +people were waiting turns at the telescope, my friend Quinby and the +hanging judge among them. But I searched under the umbrella tents as +well as one could from the top of the steps before hobbling down to join +the group. + +"I have looked for an accident through that telescope," said the jocose +judge, "fifteen Augusts running. They usually have one the day after I +go." + +"Good morning, sir!" was Quinby's greeting; and I was instantly +introduced to Sir John Sankey, with such a parade of my military history +as made me wince and Sir John's eye twinkle. I fancied he had formed an +unkind estimate of my rather overpowering friend, and lived to hear my +impression confirmed in unjudicial language. But our first conversation +was about the war, and it lasted until the judge's turn came for the +telescope. + +"Black with people!" he ejaculated. "They ought to have a constable up +there to regulate the traffic." + +But when I looked it was long enough before my inexperienced eye could +discern the three midges strung on the single strand of cobweb against +the sloping snow. + +"They are coming down," explained the obliging Quinby. "That's one of +the most difficult places, the lower edge of the top slope. It's just a +little way along to the right where the first accident was.... By the +way, your friend Evers says he's going to do the Matterhorn before he +goes." + +It was unwelcome hearing, for Quinby had paused to regale me with a +lightning sketch of the first accident, and no one had contradicted his +gruesome details. + +"_Is_ young Evers a friend of yours?" inquired the judge. + +"He is." + +The judge did not say another word. But Quinby availed himself of the +first opportunity of playing Ancient Mariner to my Wedding Guest. + +"I saw you talking to them," he told me confidentially, "last night, you +know!" + +"Indeed." + +He took me by the sleeve. + +"Of course I don't know what you said, but it's evidently had an effect. +Evers has gone off alone for the first time since he has been here." + +I shifted my position. + +"You evidently keep an eye on him, Mr. Quinby." + +"I do, Clephane. I find him a diverting study. He is not the only one in +this hotel. There's old Teale on his balcony at the present minute, if +you look up. He has the best room in the hotel; the only trouble is that +it doesn't face the sun all day; he's not used to being in the shade, +and you'll hear him damn the limelight-man in heaps one of these fine +mornings. But your enterprising young friend is a more amusing person +than Belgrave Teale." + +I had heard enough of my enterprising young friend from this quarter. + +"Do you never make any expeditions yourself, Mr. Quinby?" + +"Sometimes." Quinby looked puzzled. "Why do you ask?" he was constrained +to add. + +"You should have volunteered instead of Mrs. Lascelles to-day. It would +have been an excellent opportunity for prosecuting your own rather +enterprising studies." + +One would have thought that one's displeasure was plain enough at last; +but not a bit of it. So far from resenting the rebuff, the fellow +plucked my sleeve, and I saw at a glance that he had not even listened +to my too elaborate sarcasm. + +"Talk of the--lady!" he whispered. "Here she comes." + +And a second glance intercepted Mrs. Lascelles on the steps, with her +bold good looks and her fine upstanding carriage, cut clean as a +diamond in that intensifying atmosphere, and hardly less dazzling to the +eye. Yet her cotton gown was simplicity's self; it was the right setting +for such natural brilliance, a brilliance of eyes and teeth and +colouring, a more uncommon brilliance of expression. Indeed it was a +wonderful expression, brave rather than sweet, yet capable of sweetness +too, and for the moment at least nobly free from the defensive +bitterness which was to mark it later. So she stood upon the steps, the +talk of the hotel, trailing, with characteristic independence, a cane +chair behind her, while she sought a shady place for it, even as I had +stood seeking for her: before she found one I was hobbling toward her. + +"Oh, thanks, Captain Clephane, but I couldn't think of allowing you! +Well, then, between us, if you insist. Here under the wall, I think, is +as good a place as any." + +She pointed out a clear space in the rapidly narrowing ribbon of shade, +and there I soon saw Mrs. Lascelles settled with her book (a trashy +novel, that somehow brought Catherine Evers rather sharply before my +mind's eye) in an isolation as complete as could be found upon the +crowded terrace, and too intentional on her part to permit of an +intrusion on mine. I lingered a moment, nevertheless. + +"So you didn't go to that hut after all, Mrs. Lascelles?" + +"No." She waited a moment before looking up at me. "And I'm afraid Mr. +Evers will never forgive me," she added after her look, in the rich +undertone that had impressed me overnight, before the cigarette +controversy. + +I was not going to say that I had seen Bob before he started, but it was +an opportunity of speaking generally of the lad. Thus I found myself +commenting on the coincidence of our meeting again--he and I--and again +lying before I realised that it was a lie. But Mrs. Lascelles sat +looking up at me with her fine and candid eyes, as though she knew as +well as I which was the real coincidence, and knew that I knew into the +bargain. It gave me the disconcerting sensation of being detected and +convicted at one blow. Bob Evers failed me as a topic, and I stood like +the fool I felt. + +"I am sure you ought not to stand about so much, Captain Clephane." + +Mrs. Lascelles was smiling faintly as I prepared to take her hint. + +"Doesn't it really do you any harm?" she inquired in time to detain me. + +"No, just the opposite. I am ordered to take all the exercise I can." + +"Even walking?" + +"Even hobbling, Mrs. Lascelles, if I don't overdo it." + +She sat some moments in thought. I guessed what she was thinking, and I +was right. + +"There are some lovely walks quite near, Captain Clephane. But you have +to climb a little, either going or coming." + +"I could climb a little," said I, making up my mind. "It's within the +meaning of the act--it would do me good. Which way will you take me, +Mrs. Lascelles?" + +Mrs. Lascelles looked up quickly, surprised at a boldness on which I was +already complimenting myself. But it is the only way with a bold woman. + +"Did I say I would take you at all, Captain Clephane?" + +"No, but I very much hope you will." + +And our eyes met as fairly as they had done by matchlight the night +before. + +"Then I will," said Mrs. Lascelles, "because I want to speak to you." + + + + +CHAPTER V + +A MARKED WOMAN + + +We had come farther than was wise without a rest, but all the seats on +the way were in full view of the hotel, and I had been irritated by +divers looks and whisperings as we traversed the always crowded terrace. +Bob Evers, no doubt, would have turned a deaf ear and a blind eye to +them. I myself could pretend to do so, but pretence was evidently one of +my strong points. I had not Bob's fine natural regardlessness, for all +my seniority and presumably superior knowledge of the world. + +So we had climbed the zigzags to the right of the Riffelberg and +followed the footpath overlooking the glacier, in the silence enjoined +by single file, but at last we were seated on the hillside, a trifle +beyond that emerald patch which some humourist has christened the +Cricket-ground. Beneath us were the serracs of the Gorner Glacier, +teased and tousled like a fringe of frozen breakers. Beyond the serracs +was the main stream of comparatively smooth ice, with its mourning band +of moraine, and beyond that the mammoth sweep and curve of the Théodule +where these glaciers join. Peak after peak of dazzling snow dwindled +away to the left. Only the gaunt Riffelhorn reared a brown head against +the blue. And there we sat, Mrs. Lascelles and I, with all this before +us and a rock behind, while I wondered what my companion meant to say, +and how she would begin. + +I had not to wonder long. + +"You were very good to me last night, Captain Clephane." + +There was evidently no beating about the bush for Mrs. Lascelles. I +thoroughly approved, but was nevertheless somewhat embarrassed for the +moment. + +"I--really I don't know how, Mrs. Lascelles!" + +"Oh, yes, you do, Captain Clephane; you recognised me at a glance, as I +did you." + +"I certainly thought I did," said I, poking about with the ferrule of +one of my sticks. + +"You know you did." + +"You are making me know it." + +"Captain Clephane, you knew it all along; but we won't argue that point. +I am not going to deny my identity. It is very good of you to give me +the chance, if rather unnecessary. I am not a criminal. Still you could +have made me feel like one, last night, and heaps of men would have done +so, either for the fun of it or from want of tact." + +I looked inquiringly at Mrs. Lascelles. She could tell me what she +pleased, but I was not going to anticipate her by displaying an +independent knowledge of matters which she might still care to keep to +herself. If she chose to open up a painful subject, well, the pain be +upon her own head. Yet I must say that there was very little of it in +her face as our eyes met. There was the eager candour that one could not +help admiring, with the glowing look of gratitude which I had done so +ridiculously little to earn; but the fine flushed face betrayed neither +pain, nor shame, nor the affectation of one or the other. There was a +certain shyness with the candour. That was all. + +"You know quite well what I mean," continued Mrs. Lascelles, with a +genuine smile at my disingenuous face. "When you met me before it was +under another name, which you have probably quite forgotten." + +"No, I remember it." + +"Do you remember my husband?" + +"Perfectly." + +"Did you ever hear--" + +Her lip trembled. I dropped my eyes. + +"Yes," I admitted, "or rather I saw it for myself in the papers. It's no +use pretending I didn't, nor yet that I was the least bit surprised +or--or anything else!" + +That was not one of my tactful speeches. It was culpably, might indeed +have been wilfully, ambiguous; and yet it was the kind of clumsy and +impulsive utterance which has the ring of a good intention, and is thus +inoffensive except to such as seek excuses for offence. My instincts +about Mrs. Lascelles did not place her in this category at all. +Nevertheless, the ensuing pause was long enough to make me feel uneasy, +and my companion only broke it as I was in the act of framing an +apology. + +"May I bore you, Captain Clephane?" she asked abruptly. I looked at her +once more. She had regained an equal mastery of face and voice, and the +admirable candour of her eyes was undimmed by the smallest trace of +tears. + +"You may try," said I, smiling with the obvious gallantry. + +"If I tell you something about myself from that time on, will you +believe what I say?" + +"You are the last person whom I should think of disbelieving." + +"Thank you, Captain Clephane." + +"On the other hand, I would much rather you didn't say anything that +gave you pain, or that you might afterward regret." + +There was a touch of weariness in Mrs. Lascelles's smile, a rather +pathetic touch to my mind, as she shook her head. + +"I am not very sensitive to pain," she remarked. "That is the one thing +to be said for having to bear a good deal while you are fairly young. I +want you to know more about me, because I believe you are the only +person here who knows anything at all. And then--you didn't give me away +last night!" + +I pointed to the grassy ledge in front of us, such a vivid green against +the house now a hundred feet below. + +"I am not pushing you over there," I said. "I take about as much credit +for that." + +"Ah," sighed Mrs. Lascelles, "but that dear boy, who turns out to be a +friend of yours, he knows less than anybody else! He doesn't even +suspect. It would have hurt me, yes, it would have hurt even me, to be +given away to him! You didn't do it while I was there, and I know you +didn't when I had turned my back." + +"Of course you know I didn't," I echoed rather testily as I took out a +cigarette. The case reminded me of the night before. But I did not again +hand it to Mrs. Lascelles. + +"Well, then," she continued, "since you didn't give me away, even +without thinking, I want you to know that after all there isn't quite so +much to give away as there might have been. A divorce, of course, is +always a divorce; there is no getting away from that, or from mine. But +I really did marry again. And I really am the widow they think I am." + +I looked quickly up at her, in pure pity and compassion for one gone so +far in sorrow and yet such a little way in life. It was a sudden +feeling, an unpremeditated look, but I might as well have spoken aloud. +Mrs. Lascelles read me unerringly, and she shook her head, sadly but +decidedly, while her eyes gazed calmly into mine. + +"_It_ was not a happy marriage, either," she said, as impersonally as if +speaking of another woman. "You may think what you like of me for saying +so to a comparative stranger; but I won't have your sympathy on false +pretences, simply because Major Lascelles is dead. Did you ever meet +him, by the way?" + +And she mentioned an Indian regiment. But the major and I had never met. + +"Well, it was not very happy for either of us. I suppose such marriages +never are. I know they are never supposed to be. Even if the couple are +everything to each other, there is all the world to point his finger, +and all the world's wife to turn her back, and you have to care a good +deal to get over that. But you may have been desperate in the first +instance; you may have said to yourself that the fire couldn't be much +worse than the frying-pan. In that case, of course, you deserve no +sympathy, and nothing is more irritating to me than the sympathy I don't +deserve. It's a matter of temperament; I'm obliged to speak out, even if +it puts people more against me than they were already. No, you needn't +say anything, Captain Clephane; you didn't express your sympathy, I +stopped you in time.... And yet it is rather hard, when one's still +reasonably young, with almost everything before one--to be a marked +woman all one's time!" + +Up to her last words, despite an inviting pause after almost every +sentence, I had succeeded in holding my tongue; though she was looking +wistfully now at the distant snow-peaks and obviously bestowing upon +herself the sympathy she did not want from me (as I had been told in so +many words, if not more plainly in the accompanying brief encounter +between our eyes), yet had I resisted every temptation to put in my +word, until these last two or three from Mrs. Lascelles. They, however, +demanded a denial, and I told her it was absurd to describe herself in +such terms. + +"I am marked," she persisted, "wherever I go I may be known, as you knew +me here. If it hadn't been you it would have been somebody else, and I +should have known of it indirectly instead of directly; but even +supposing I had escaped altogether at this hotel, the next one would +probably have made up for it." + +"Do you stay much in hotels?" + +There had been something in the mellow voice which made such a question +only natural, yet it was scarcely asked before I would have given a good +deal to recall it. + +"There is nowhere else to stay," said Mrs. Lascelles, "unless one sets +up house alone, which is costlier and far less comfortable. You see, one +does make a friend or two sometimes--before one is found out." + +"But surely your people--" + +This time I did check myself. + +"My people," said Mrs. Lascelles, "have washed their hands of me." + +"But Major Lascelles--surely _his_ people--" + +"They washed their hands of him! You see, they would be the first to +tell you, he had always been rather wild; but his crowning act of +madness in their eyes was his marriage. It was worse than the worst +thing he had ever done before. Still, it is not for me to say anything, +or feel anything, against his family...." + +And then I knew that they were making her an allowance; it was more than +I wanted to know; the ground was too delicate, and led nowhere in +particular. Still, it was difficult not to take a certain amount of +interest in a handsome woman who had made such a wreck of her life so +young, who was so utterly alone, so proud and independent in her +loneliness, and apparently quite fine-hearted and unspoilt. But for Bob +Evers and his mother, the interest that I took might have been a little +different in kind; but even with my solicitude for them there mingled +already no small consideration for the social solitary whom I watched +now as she sat peering across the glacier, the foremost figure in a +world of high lights and great backgrounds, and whom to watch was to +admire, even against the greatest of them all. Alas! mere admiration +could not change my task or stay my hand; it could but clog me by +destroying my singleness of purpose, and giving me a double heart to +match my double face. + +Since, however, a detestable duty had been undertaken, and since as a +duty it was more apparent than I had dreamt of finding it, there was +nothing for it but to go through with the thing and make immediate +enemies of my friends. So I set my teeth and talked of Bob. I was glad +Mrs. Lascelles liked him. His father was a remote connection of mine, +whom I had never met. But I had once known his mother very well. + +"And what is she like?" asked Mrs. Lascelles, calling her fine eyes home +from infinity, and fixing them once more on me. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +OUT OF ACTION + + +Now if, upon a warm, soft, summer evening, you were suddenly asked to +describe the perfect winter's day, either you would have to stop and +think a little, or your imagination is more elastic than mine. Yet you +might have a passionate preference for cold sun and bracing airs. To me, +Catherine Evers and this Mrs. Lascelles were as opposite to each other +as winter and summer, or the poles, or any other notorious antitheses. +There was no comparison between them in my mind, yet as I sat with one +among the sunlit, unfamiliar Alps, it was a distinct effort to picture +the other in the little London room I knew so well. For it was always +among her books and pictures that I thought of Catherine, and to think +was to wish myself there at her side, rather than to wish her here at +mine. Catherine's appeal, I used to think, was to the highest and the +best in me, to brain and soul, and young ambition, and withal to one's +love of wit and sense of humour. Mrs. Lascelles, on the other hand, +struck me primarily in the light of some splendid and spirited animal. I +still liked to dwell upon her dancing. She satisfied the mere eye more +and more. But I had no reason to suppose that she knew right from wrong +in art or literature, any more than she would seem to have distinguished +between them in life itself. Her Tauchnitz novel lay beside her on the +grass and I again reflected that it would not have found a place on +Catherine's loftiest shelf. Catherine would have raved about the view +and made delicious fun of Quinby and the judge, and we should have sat +together talking poetry and harmless scandal by the happy hour. Mrs. +Lascelles probably took place and people alike for granted. But she had +lived, and as an animal she was superb! I looked again into her healthy +face and speaking eyes, with their bitter knowledge of good and evil, +their scorn of scorn, their redeeming honesty and candour. The contrast +was complete in every detail except the widowhood of both women; but I +did not pursue it any farther; for once more there was but one woman in +my thoughts, and she sat near me under a red parasol--clashing so +humanly with the everlasting snows! + +"You don't answer my question, Captain Clephane. How much for your +thoughts?" + +"I'll make you a present of them, Mrs. Lascelles. I was beginning to +think that a lot of rot has been written about the eternal snows and the +mountain-tops and all the rest of it. There a few lines in that last +little volume of Browning--" + +I stopped of my own accord, for upon reflection the lines would have +made a rather embarrassing quotation. But meanwhile Mrs. Lascelles had +taken alarm on other grounds. + +"Oh, _don't_ quote Browning!" + +"Why not?" + +"He is far too deep for me; besides, I don't care for poetry, and I was +asking you about Mrs. Evers." + +"Well," I said, with some little severity, "she's a very clever woman." + +"Clever enough to understand Browning?" + +"Quite." + +If this was irony, it was also self-restraint, for it was to Catherine's +enthusiasm that I owed my own. The debt was one of such magnitude as a +life of devotion could scarcely have repaid, for to whom do we owe so +much as to those who first lifted the scales from our eyes and awakened +within us a soul for all such things? Catherine had been to me what I +instantly desired to become to this benighted beauty; but the desire was +not worth entertaining, since I hardly expected to be many minutes +longer on speaking terms with Mrs. Lascelles. I recalled the fact that +it was I who had broached the subject of Bob Evers and his mother, +together with my unpalatable motive for so doing. And I was seeking in +my mind, against the grain, I must confess, for a short cut back to Bob, +when Mrs. Lascelles suddenly led the way. + +"I don't think," said she, "that Mr. Evers takes after his mother." + +"I'm afraid he doesn't," I replied, "in that respect." + +"And I am glad," she said. "I do like a boy to be a boy. The only son +of his mother is always in danger of becoming something else. Tell me, +Captain Clephane, are they very devoted to each other?" + +There was some new note in that expressive voice of hers. Was it merely +wistful, was it really jealous, or was either element the product of my +own imagination? I made answer while I wondered: + +"Absolutely devoted, I should say; but it's years since I saw them +together. Bob was a small boy then, and one of the jolliest. Still I +never expected him to grow up the charming chap he is now." + +Mrs. Lascelles sat gazing at the great curve of Théodule Glacier. I +watched her face. + +"He _is_ charming," she said at length. "I am not sure that I ever met +anybody quite like him, or rather I am quite sure that I never did. He +is so quiet, in a way, and yet so wonderfully confident and at ease!" + +"That's Eton," said I. "He is the best type of Eton boy, and the best +type of Eton boy," I declared, airing the little condition with a +flourish, "is one of the greatest works of God." + +"I daresay you're right," said Mrs. Lascelles, smiling indulgently; "but +what is it? How do you define it? It isn't 'side,' and yet I can quite +imagine people who don't know him thinking that it is. He is cocksure of +himself, but of nothing else; that seems to me to be the difference. No +one could possibly be more simple in himself. He may have the assurance +of a man of fifty, yet it isn't put on; it's neither bumptious nor +affected, but just as natural in Mr. Evers as shyness and awkwardness in +the ordinary youth one meets. And he has the _savoir faire_ not to ask +questions!" + +Were we all mistaken? Was this the way in which a designing woman would +speak of the object of her designs? Not that I thought so hardly of Mrs. +Lascelles myself; but I did think that she might well fall in love with +Bob Evers, at least as well as he with her. Was this, then, the way in +which a woman would be likely to speak of the young man with whom she +had fallen in love? To me the appreciation sounded too frank and +discerning and acute. Yet I could not call it dispassionate, and +frankness was this woman's outstanding merit, though I was beginning to +discover others as well. Moreover, the fact remained that they had been +greatly talked about; that at any rate must be stopped and I was there +to stop it. + +I began to pick my words. + +"It's all Eton, except what is in the blood, and it's all a question of +manners, or rather of manner. Don't misunderstand me, Mrs. Lascelles. I +don't say that Bob isn't independent in character as well as in his +ways, but only that when all's said he's still a boy and not a man. He +can't possibly have a man's experience of the world, or even of himself. +He has a young head on his shoulders, after all, if not a younger one +than many a boy with half the assurance that you admire in him." + +Mrs. Lascelles looked at me point-blank. + +"Do you mean that he can't take care of himself?" + +"I don't say that." + +"Then what do you say?" + +The fine eyes met mine without a flicker. The full mouth was curved at +the corners in a tolerant, unsuspecting smile. It was hard to have to +make an enemy of so handsome and good-humoured a woman. And was it +necessary, was it even wise? As I hesitated she turned and glanced +downward once more toward the glacier, then rose and went to the lip of +our grassy ledge, and as she returned I caught the sound which she had +been the first to hear. It was the gritty planting of nailed boots upon +a hard, smooth rock. + +"I'm afraid you can't say it now," whispered Mrs. Lascelles. "Here's Mr. +Evers himself, coming this way back from the Monte Rosa hut! I'm going +to give him a surprise!" + +And it was a genuine one that she gave him, for I heard his boyish +greeting before I saw his hot brown face, and there was no mistaking the +sudden delight of both. It was sudden and spontaneous, complete, until +his eyes lit on me. Even then his smile did not disappear, but it +changed, as did his tone. + +"Good heavens!" cried Bob. "How on earth did _you_ get up here? By rail +to the Riffelberg, I hope?" + +"On my sticks." + +"It was much too far for him," added Mrs. Lascelles, "and all my fault +for showing him the way. But I'm afraid there was contributory obstinacy +in Captain Clephane, because he simply wouldn't turn back. And now tell +us about yourself, Mr. Evers; surely we were not coming back this way?" + +"_We_ were not," said Bob, with a something sardonic in his little +laugh, "but I thought I might as well. It's the long way, six miles on +end upon the glacier." + +"But have you really been to the hut?" + +"Rather!" + +"And where's our guide?" + +"Oh, I wouldn't be bothered with a guide all to myself." + +"My dear young man, you might have stepped straight into a crevasse!" + +"I precious nearly did," laughed Bob, again with something odd about his +laughter; "but I say, do you know, if you won't think me awfully rude, +I'll push on back and get changed. I'm as hot as anything and not fit +to be seen." + +And he was gone after very little more than a minute from first to last, +gone with rather an elaborate salute to Mrs. Lascelles, and rather a +cavalier nod to me. But then neither of us had made any effort to detain +him and a notable omission I thought it in Mrs. Lascelles, though to the +lad himself it may well have seemed as strange in the old friend as in +the new. + +"What was it," asked Mrs. Lascelles, when we were on our way home, "that +you were going to say about Mr. Evers when he appeared in the flesh in +that extraordinary way?" + +"I forget," said I, immorally. + +"Really? So soon? Don't you remember, I thought you meant that he +couldn't take care of himself, and you were just going to tell me what +you did mean?" + +"Oh, well, it wasn't that, because he can!" + +But, as a matter of fact, I had seen my way to taking care of Master Bob +without saying a word either to him or to Mrs. Lascelles, or at all +events without making enemies of them both. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +SECOND FIDDLE + + +My plan was quite obvious in its simplicity, and not in the least +discreditable from my point of view. It was perhaps inevitable that a +boy like Bob should imagine I was trying to "cut him out," as my blunt +friend Quinby phrased it to my face. I had not, of course, the smallest +desire to do any such vulgar thing. All I wanted was to make myself, if +possible, as agreeable to Mrs. Lascelles as this youth had done before +me, and in any case to share with him all the perils of her society. In +other words I meant to squeeze into "the imminent deadly breach" beside +Bob Evers, not necessarily in front of him. But if there was nothing +dastardly in this, neither was there anything heroic, since I was proof +against that kind of deadliness if Bob was not. + +On the other hand, the whole character of my mission was affected by the +decision at which I had now arrived. There was no longer a necessity to +speak plainly to anybody. That odious duty was eliminated from my plan +of campaign, and the "frontal attack" of recent history discarded for +the "turning movement" of the day. So I had learnt something in South +Africa after all. I had learnt how to avoid hard knocks which might very +well do more harm than good to the cause I had at heart. That cause was +still sharply defined before my mind. It was the first and most sacred +consideration. I wrote a reassuring despatch to Catherine Evers, and +took it myself to the little post-office opposite the hotel that very +evening before dressing for dinner. But I cannot say that I was thinking +of Catherine when I proceeded to spoil three successive ties in the +tying. + +Yet I can only repeat that I felt absolutely "proof" against the real +cause of my solicitude. It is the most delightful feeling where a +handsome woman is concerned. The judgment is not warped by passion or +clouded by emotion; you see the woman as she is, not as you wish to see +her, and if she disappoint it does not matter. You are not left to +choose between systematic self-deception and a humiliating admission of +your mistake. The lady has not been placed upon an impossible pedestal, +and she has not toppled down. In this case the lady started at the most +advantageous disadvantage; every admirable quality, her candour, her +courage, her spirited independence, her evident determination to piece a +broken life together again and make the best of it, told doubly in her +favour to me with my special knowledge of her past. It would be too much +to say that I was deeply interested; but Mrs. Lascelles had inspired me +with a certain sympathy and dispassionate regard. Cultivated she was +not, in the conventional sense, but she knew more than can be imbibed +from books. She knew life at first hand, had drained the cup for +herself, and yet could savour the lees. Not that she enlarged any +further on her own past. Mrs. Lascelles was never a great talker, like +Catherine; but she was certainly a woman to whom one could talk. And +talk to her I did thenceforward, with a conscientious conviction that I +was doing my duty, and only an occasional qualm for its congenial +character, while Bob listened with a wondering eye, or went his own way +without a word. + +It is easy to criticise my conduct now. It would have been difficult to +act otherwise at the time. I am speaking of the evening after my walk +with Mrs. Lascelles, of the next day when it rained, and now of my third +night at the hotel. The sky had cleared. The glass was high. There was a +finer edge than ever on the silhouetted mountains against the stars. It +appeared that Bob and Mrs. Lascelles had talked of taking their lunch to +the Findelen Glacier on the next fine day, for he came up and reminded +her of it as she sat with me in the glazed veranda after dinner. I had +seen him standing alone under the stars a few minutes before: so this +was the result of his cogitation. But in his manner there was nothing +studied, much less awkward, and his smile even included me, though he +had not spoken to me alone all day. + +"Oh, no, I hadn't forgotten, Mr. Evers. I am looking forward to it," +said my companion, with a smile of her own to which the most jealous +swain could not have taken exception. + +Bob Evers looked hard at me. + +"You'd better come, too," he said. + +"It's probably too far," said I, quite intending to play second fiddle +next day, for it was really Bob's turn. + +"Not for a man who has been up to the Cricket-ground," he rejoined. + +"But it's dreadfully slippery," put in Mrs. Lascelles, with a +sympathetic glance at my sticks. + +"Let him get them shod like alpenstocks," quoth Bob, "and nails in his +boots; then they'll be ready when he does the Matterhorn!" + +It might have passed for boyish banter, but I knew that it was something +more; the use of the third person changed from chaff to scorn as I +listened, and my sympathetic resolution went to the winds. + +"Thank you," I replied; "in that case I shall be delighted to come, and +I'll take your tip at once by giving orders about my boots." + +And with that I resigned my chair to Bob, not sorry for the chance; he +should not be able to say that I had monopolised Mrs. Lascelles without +intermission from the first. Nevertheless, I was annoyed with him for +what he had said, and for the moment my actions were no part of my +scheme. Consequently I was thus in the last mood for a familiarity from +Quinby, who was hanging about the door between the veranda and the hall, +and who would not let me pass. + +"That's awfully nice of you," he had the impudence to whisper. + +"What do you mean?" + +"Giving that poor young beggar another chance!" + +"I don't understand you." + +"Oh, I like that! You know very well that you've gone in on the military +ticket and deliberately cut the poor youngster--" + +I did not wait to hear the end of this gratuitous observation. It was +very rude of me, but in another minute I should have been guilty of a +worse affront. My annoyance had deepened into something like dismay. It +was not only Bob Evers who was misconstruing my little attentions to +Mrs. Lascelles. I was more or less prepared for that. But here were +outsiders talking about us--the three of us! So far from putting a stop +to the talk, I had given it a regular fillip: here were Quinby and his +friends as keen as possible to see what would happen next, if not +betting on a row. The situation had taken a sudden turn for the worse. I +forgot the pleasant hours that I had passed with Mrs. Lascelles, and +began to wish myself well out of the whole affair. But I had now no +intention of getting out of the glacier expedition. I would not have +missed it on any account. Bob had brought that on himself. + +And I daresay we seemed a sufficiently united trio as we marched along +the pretty winding path to the Findelen next morning. Dear Bob was not +only such a gentleman, but such a man, that it was almost a pleasure to +be at secret issue with him; he would make way for me at our lady's +side, listen with interest when she made me spin my martial yarns, laugh +if there was aught to laugh at, and in a word, give me every conceivable +chance. His manners might have failed him for one heated moment +overnight; they were beyond all praise this morning; and I repeatedly +discerned a morbid sporting dread of giving the adversary less than fair +play. It was sad to me to consider myself as such to Catherine's son, +but I was determined not to let the thought depress me, and there was +much outward occasion for good cheer. The morning was a perfect one in +every way. The rain had released all the pungent aromas of the mountain +woods through which we passed. Snowy height came in dazzling contrast +with a turquoise sky. The toy town of Zermatt spattered the green hollow +far below. And before me on the narrow path went Bob Evers in a flannel +suit, followed by Mrs. Lascelles and her red parasol, though he carried +her alpenstock with his own in readiness for the glacier. + +Thither we came in this order, I at least very hot from hard hobbling to +keep up; but the first breath from the glacier cooled me like a bath, +and the next like the great drink in the second stanza of the Ode to a +Nightingale. I could have shouted out for pleasure, and must have done +so but for the engrossing business of keeping a footing on the sloping +ice with its soiled margin of yet more treacherous _moraine_. Yet on the +glacier itself I was less handicapped than I had been on the way, and +hopped along finely with my two shod sticks and the sharp new nails in +my boots. Bob, however, was invariably in the van, and Mrs. Lascelles +seemed more disposed to wait for me than to hurry after him. I think he +pushed the pace unwittingly, under the prick of those emotions which +otherwise were in such excellent control. I can see him now, continually +waiting for us on the brow of some glistening ice-slope, leaning on his +alpenstock and looking back, jet-black by contrast between the blinding +hues of ice and sky. + +But once he waited on the brink of some unfathomable crevasse, and then +we all three cowered together and peeped down; the sides were green and +smooth and sinister, like a crack in the sea, but so close together that +one could not have fallen out of sight; yet when Bob loosened a lump of +ice and kicked it in we heard it clattering from wall to wall in +prolonged diminuendo before the faint splash just reached our ears. Mrs. +Lascelles shuddered, and threw out a hand to prevent me from peering +farther over. The gesture was obviously impersonal and instinctive, as +an older eye would have seen, but Bob's was smouldering when mine met it +next, and in the ensuing advance he left us farther behind than ever. +But on the rock where we had our lunch he was once more himself, bright +and boyish, careless and assured. So he continued till the end of that +chapter. On the way home, moreover, he never once forged ahead, but was +always ready with a hand for Mrs. Lascelles at the awkward places; and +on the way through the woods, nothing would serve him but that I should +set the pace, that we might all keep together. Judge therefore of my +surprise when he came to my room, as I was dressing for the absurdly +early dinner which is the one blot upon Riffel Alp arrangements, with +the startling remark that we "might as well run straight with one +another." + +"By all means, my dear fellow," said I, turning to him with the lather +on my chin. He was dressed already, as perfectly as usual, and his hands +were in his pockets. But his fresh brown face was as grave as any +judge's, and his mouth as stern. I went on to ask, disingenuously +enough, if we had not been "running straight with each other" as it was. + +"Not quite," said Bob Evers, dryly; "and we might as well, you know!" + +"To be sure; but don't mind if I go on shaving, and pray speak for +yourself." + +"I will," he rejoined. "Do you remember our conversation the night you +came?" + +"More or less." + +"I mean when you and I were alone together, before we turned in." + +"Oh, yes. I remember something about it." + +"It would be too silly to expect you to remember much," he went on after +a pause, with a more delicate irony than heretofore. "But, as a matter +of fact, I believe I said it was all rot that people talked about the +impossibility of being mere pals with a woman, and all that sort of +thing." + +"I believe you did.'" + +"Well, then, _that_ was rot. That's all." + +I turned round with my razor in mid-air, + +"My dear fellow!" I exclaimed. + +"Quite funny, isn't it?" he laughed, but rather harshly, while his +mountain bronze deepened under my scrutiny. + +"You are not in earnest, Bob!" said I; and on the word his laughter +ended, his colour went. + +"_I_ am," he answered through his teeth. "_Are you_?" + +Never was war carried more suddenly into the enemy's country, or that +enemy's breath more completely taken away than mine. What could I say? +"As much as you are, I should hope!" was what I ultimately said. + +The lad stood raking me with a steady fire from his blue eyes. + +"I mean to marry her," he said, "if she will have me." + +There was no laughing at him. Though barely twenty, as I knew, he was +man enough for any age as we faced each other in my room, and a man who +knew his own mind into the bargain. + +"But, my dear Bob," I ventured to remonstrate, "you are years too +young--" + +"That's my business. I am in earnest. What about you?" + +I breathed again. + +"My good fellow," said I, "you are at perfect liberty to give yourself +away to me, but you really mustn't expect me to do quite the same for +you." + +"I expect precious little, I can tell you!" the lad rejoined hotly. +"Not that it matters twopence so long as you are not misled by anything +I said the other day. I prefer to run straight with you--you can run as +you like with me. I only didn't want you to think that I was saying one +thing and doing another. As a matter of fact I meant all I said at the +time, or thought I did, until you came along and made me look into +myself rather more closely than I had done before. I won't say how you +managed it. You will probably see for yourself. But I'm very much +obliged to you, whatever happens. And now that we understand each other +there's no more to be said, and I'll clear out." + +There was, indeed, no more to be said, and I made no attempt to detain +him; for I did see for myself, only too clearly and precisely, how I had +managed to precipitate the very thing which I had come out from England +expressly to prevent. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +PRAYERS AND PARABLES + + +I had quite forgotten one element which plays its part in most affairs +of the affections. I mean, of course, the element of pique. Bob Evers, +with the field to himself, had been sensible and safe enough; it was my +intrusion, and nothing else, which had fanned his boyish flame into this +premature conflagration. Of that I felt convinced. But Bob would not +believe me if I told him so; and what else was there for me to tell him? +To betray Catherine and the secret of my presence, would simply hasten +an irrevocable step. To betray Mrs. Lascelles, and _her_ secret, would +certainly not prevent one. Both courses were out of the question upon +other grounds. Yet what else was left? + +To speak out boldly to Mrs. Lascelles, to betray Catherine and myself to +her? + +I shrank from that; nor had I any right to reveal a secret which was +not only mine. What then was I to do? Here was this lad professedly on +the point of proposing to this woman. It was useless to speak to the +lad; it was impossible to speak to the woman. To be sure, she might not +accept him; but the mere knowledge that she was to have the chance +seemed enormously to increase my responsibility in the matter. As for +the dilemma in which I now found myself, deservedly as you please, there +was no comparing it with any former phase of this affair. + + "O, what a tangled web we weave, + When first we practise to deceive!" + +The hackneyed lines sprang unbidden, as though to augment my punishment; +then suddenly I reflected that it was not in my own interest I had begun +to practise my deceit; and the thought of Catherine braced me up, +perhaps partly because I felt that it should. I put myself back into the +fascinating little room in Elm Park Gardens. I saw the slender figure in +the picture hat, I heard the half-humorous and half-pathetic voice. +After all, it was for Catherine I had undertaken this ridiculous +mission; she was therefore my first and had much better be my only +consideration. I could not run with the hare after hunting with the +hounds. And I should like to have seen Catherine's face if I had +expressed any sympathy with the hare! + +No; it was better to be unscrupulously stanch to one woman than weakly +chivalrous toward both; and my mind was made up by the end of dinner. +There was only one chance now of saving the wretched Bob, or rather one +way of setting to work to save him; and that was by actually adopting +the course with which he had already credited me. He thought I was +"trying to cut him out." Well, I would try! + +But the more I thought of him, of Mrs. Lascelles, of them both, the less +sanguine I felt of success; for had I been she (I could not help +admitting it to myself), as lonely, as reckless, as unlucky, I would +have married the dear young idiot on the spot. Not that my own marriage +(with Mrs. Lascelles) was an end that I contemplated for a moment as I +took my cynical resolve. And now I trust that I have made both my +position and my intentions very plain, and have written myself down +neither more of a fool nor less of a knave than circumstances (and one's +own infirmities) combined to make me at this juncture of my career. + +The design was still something bolder than its execution, and if Bob did +not propose that night it was certainly no fault of mine. I saw him with +Mrs. Lascelles on the terrace after dinner; but I had neither the heart +nor the face to thrust myself upon them. Everything was altered since +Bob had shown me his hand; there were certain rules of the game which +even I must now observe. So I left him in undisputed possession of the +perilous ground, and being in a heavy glow from the strong air of the +glacier, went early to my room; where I lay long enough without a wink, +but quite prepared for Bob, with news of his engagement, at every step +in the corridor. + +Next day was Sunday, and chiefly, I am afraid, because there was neither +blind nor curtain to my dormer-window, and the morning sun streamed full +upon my pillow, I got up and went to early service in the little tin +Protestant Church. It was wonderfully well attended. Quinby was there, +a head taller than anybody else, and some sizes smaller in heads. The +American bridegroom came in late with his "best girl." The late Vice +Chancellor, with the peeled nose, and Mr. Belgrave Teale, fit for Church +Parade, or for the afternoon act in one of his own fashion-plays, took +round the offertory bags, into which Mr. Justice Sankey (in race-course +checks) dropped gold. It was not the sort of service at which one cares +to look about one, but I was among the early comers, and I could not +help it. Mrs. Lascelles, however, was there before me, whereas Bob Evers +was not there at all. Nevertheless, I did not mean to walk back with her +until I saw her walking very much alone, a sort of cynosure even on the +way from church, though humble and grave and unconscious as any country +maid. I watched her with the rest, but in a spirit of my own. Some +subtle change I seemed to detect in Mrs. Lascelles as in Bob. Had he +really declared himself overnight, and had she actually accepted him? A +new load seemed to rest upon her shoulders, a new anxiety, a new care; +and as if to confirm my idea, she started and changed colour as I came +up. + +"I didn't see you in church," she remarked, in her own natural fashion, +when we had exchanged the ordinary salutations. + +"I am afraid you wouldn't expect to see me, Mrs. Lascelles." + +"Well, as a matter of fact, I didn't, but I suppose," added Mrs. +Lascelles, as her rich voice fell into a pensive (but not a pathetic) +key, "I suppose it is you who are much more surprised at seeing me. I +can't help it if you are, Captain Clephane. I am not really a religious +person. I have not flown to that extreme as yet. But it has been a +comfort to me, sometimes; and so, sometimes, I go." + +It was very simply said, but with a sigh at the end that left me +wondering whether she was in any new need of spiritual solace. Did she +already find herself in the dilemma in which I had imagined her, and was +it really a dilemma to her? New hopes began to chase my fears, and were +gaining upon them when a flannel suit on the sunlit steps caused a +temporary check: there was Bob waiting for us, his hands in his +pockets, a smile upon his face, yet in the slope of his shoulders and +the carriage of his head a certain indefinable but very visible +attention and intent. + +"Is Mrs. Evers a religious woman?" asked my companion, her step slowing +ever so slightly as we approached. + +"Not exactly; but she knows all about it," I replied. + +"And doesn't believe very much? Then we shouldn't hit it off," exclaimed +Mrs. Lascelles, "for I know nothing and believe all I can! Nevertheless, +I'm not going to church again to-day." + +The last words were in a sort of aside, and I afterwards heard that Bob +and Mrs. Lascelles had attended the later service together on the +previous Sunday; but I guessed almost as much on the spot, and it put +out of my head both the unjust assumption of the earlier remark, +concerning Catherine, and the contrast between them which Mrs. Lascelles +could hardly afford to emphasise. + +"Let's go somewhere else instead--Zermatt--or anywhere else you like," I +suggested, eagerly; but we were close to the steps, and before she +could reply Bob had taken off his straw hat to Mrs. Lascelles, and flung +me a nod. + +"How very energetic!" he cried. "I only hope it's a true indication of +form, for I've got a scheme: instead of putting in another chapel I +propose we stroll down to Zermatt for lunch and come back by the train." + +Bob's proposal was made pointedly to Mrs. Lascelles, and as pointedly +excluded me, but she stood between the two of us with a charming smile +of good-humoured perplexity. + +"Now what am I to say? Captain Clephane was in the very act of making +the same suggestion!" + +Bob glared on me for an instant in spite of Eton and all his ancestors. + +"We'll all go together," I cried before he could speak. "Why not?" + +Nor was this mere unreasoning or good-natured impulse, since Bob could +scarcely have pressed his suit in my presence, while I should certainly +have done my best to retard it; still, it was rather a relief to me to +see him shake his head with some return of his natural grace. + +"My idea was to show Mrs. Lascelles the gorge," said Bob, "but you can +do that as well as I can; you can't miss it; besides, I've seen it, and +I really ought to stay up here, as a matter of fact, for I'm on the +track of a guide for the Matterhorn." + +We looked at him narrowly with one accord, but he betrayed no signs of +desperate impulse, only those of "climbing fever," and I at least +breathed again. + +"But if you want a guide," said I, "Zermatt's full of them." + +"I know," said he, "but it's a particular swell I'm after, and he hangs +out up here in the season. They expect him back from a big trip any +moment, and I really ought to be on the spot to snap him up." + +So Bob retired, in very fair order after all, and not without his +laughing apologies to Mrs. Lascelles; but it was sad to me to note the +spurious ring his laugh had now; it was like the death-knell of the +simple and the single heart that it had been my lot, if not my mission, +to poison and to warp. But the less said about my odious task, the +sooner to its fulfilment, which now seemed close at hand. + +It was not in fact so imminent as I supposed, for the descent into +Zermatt is somewhat too steep for the conduct of a necessarily delicate +debate. Sound legs go down at a compulsory run, and my companion was +continually waiting for me to catch her up, only to shoot ahead again +perforce. Or the path was too narrow for us to walk abreast, and you +cannot become confidential in single file; or the noise of falling +waters drowned our voices, when we stood together on that precarious +platform in the cool depths of the gorge, otherwise such an admirable +setting for the scene that I foresaw. Then it was a beautiful walk in +itself, with its short tacks in the precipitous pine-woods above, its +sudden plunge into the sunken gorge below, its final sweep across the +green valley beyond; and it was all so new to us both that there were +impressions to exchange or to compare at every turn. In fine, and with +all the will in the world, it was quite impossible to get in a word +about Bob before luncheon at the Monte Rosa, and by that time I for one +was in no mood to introduce so difficult a topic. + +But an opportunity there came, an opportunity such as even I could not +neglect; on the contrary, I made too much of it, as the sequel will +show. It was in the little museum which every tourist goes to see. We +had shuddered over the gruesome relics of the first and worst +catastrophe on the Matterhorn, and were looking in silence upon the +primitive portraits of the two younger Englishmen who had lost their +lives on that historic occasion. It appeared that they had both been +about the same age as Bob Evers, and I pointed this out to my companion. +It was a particularly obvious remark to make; but Mrs. Lascelles turned +her face quickly to mine, and the colour left it in the half-lit, +half-haunted little room, which we happened to have all to ourselves. + +"Don't let him go up, Captain Clephane; don't let him, please!" + +"Do you mean Bob Evers?" I asked, to gain time while I considered what +to say; for the intensity of her manner took me aback. + +"You know I do," said Mrs. Lascelles, impatiently; "don't let him go up +the Matterhorn to-night, or to-morrow morning, or whenever it is that he +means to start." + +"But, my dear Mrs. Lascelles, who am I to prevent that young gentleman +from doing what he likes?" + +"I thought you were more or less related?" + +"Rather less than more." + +"But aren't you very intimate with his mother?" + +I had to meet a pretty penetrating look. + +"I was once." + +"Well, then, for his mother's sake you ought to do your best to keep him +out of danger, Captain Clephane." + +It was my turn to repay the look which I had just received. No doubt I +did so with only too much interest; no doubt I was equally clumsy of +speech; but it was my opportunity, and something or other must be said. + +"Quite so, Mrs. Lascelles; and for his mother's sake," said I, "I not +only will do, I have already done, my best to keep the lad out of harm's +way. He is the apple of her eye; they are simply all the world to one +another. It would break her heart if anything happened to +him--anything--if she were to lose him in any sense of the word." + +I waited a moment, thinking she would speak, prepared on my side to be +as explicit as she pleased; but Mrs. Lascelles only looked at me with +her mouth tight shut and her eyes wide open; and I concluded--somewhat +uneasily, I will confess--that she saw for herself what I meant. + +"As for the Matterhorn," I went on, "that, I believe, is not such a very +dangerous exploit in these days. There are permanent chains and things +where there used to be polished precipices. It makes the real +mountaineers rather scornful; anyone with legs and a head, they will +tell you, can climb the Matterhorn nowadays. If I had the legs I'd go +with him, like a shot." + +"To share the danger, I suppose?" + +"And the sport." + +"Ah," said Mrs. Lascelles, "and the sport, of course! I had forgotten +that!" + +Yet I did not perceive that I had been found out, for nothing was +further from my mind than to prolong the parable to which I had stooped +in passing a few moments before. It had served its purpose, I conceived. +I had given my veiled warning; it never occurred to me that Mrs. +Lascelles might be indulging in a veiled retort. I thought she was +annoyed at the hint that I had given her. I began to repent of that +myself. It had quite spoilt our day, and so many and long were the +silences, as we wandered from little shop to little shop, and finally +with relief to the train, that I had plenty of time to remember how much +we had found to talk about all the morning. + +But matters were coming to a head in spite of me, for Bob Evers waylaid +us on our return, and, with hardly a word to Mrs. Lascelles, straightway +followed me to my room. He was pale with a suppressed anger which flared +up even as he closed my door behind him, but though his honest face was +now in flames, he still kept control of his tongue. + +"I want you to lend me one of those sticks of yours," he said, quietly; +"the heaviest, for choice." + +"What the devil for?" I demanded, thinking for the moment of no +shoulders but my own. + +"To give that bounder Quinby the licking he deserves!" cried Bob: "to +give it him now at once, when the post comes in, and there are plenty of +people about to see the fun. Do you know what he's been saying and +spreading all over the place?" + +"No," I answered, my heart sinking within me. "What has he been saying?" + +The colour altered on Bob's face, altered and softened to a veritable +blush, and his eyes avoided mine. + +"I'm ashamed to tell you, it makes me so sick," he said, disgustedly. +"But the fact is that he's been spreading a report about Mrs. Lascelles; +it has nothing on earth to do with me. It appears he only heard it +himself this morning, by letter, but the brute has made good use of his +time! _I_ only got wind of it an hour or two ago, of course quite by +accident, and I haven't seen the fellow since; but he's particularly +keen on his letters, and either he explains himself to my satisfaction +or I make an example of him before the hotel. It's a thing I never +dreamt of doing in my life, and I'm sorry the poor beast is such a +scarecrow; but it's a duty to punish that sort of crime against a woman, +and now I'm sure you'll lend me one of your sticks. I am only sorry I +didn't bring one with me." + +"But wait a bit, my dear fellow," said I, for he was actually holding +out his hand: "you have still to tell me what the report was." + +"Divorce!" he answered in a tragic voice. "Clephane, the fellow says she +was divorced in India, and that it was--that it was her fault!" + +He turned away his face. It was in a flame. + +"And you are going to thrash Quinby for saying that?" + +"If he sticks to it, I most certainly am," said Bob, the fire settling +in his blue eyes. + +"I should think twice about it, Bob, if I were you." + +"My dear man, what else do you suppose I have been thinking of all the +afternoon?" + +"It will make a fresh scandal, you see." + +"I can't help that." + +And Bob shut his mouth with a self-willed snap. + +"But what good will it do?" + +"A liar will be punished, that's all! It's no use talking, Clephane; my +mind is made up." + +"But are you so sure that it's a lie?" I was obliged to say it at last, +reluctantly enough, yet with a wretched feeling that I might just as +well have said it in the beginning. + +"Sure?" he echoed, his innocent eyes widening before mine. "Why, of +course I'm sure! You don't know what pals we've been. Of course I never +asked questions, but she's told me heaps and heaps of things; it would +fit in with some of them, if it were true." + +Then I told him that it was true, and how I knew that it was true, and +my reason for having kept all that knowledge to myself until now. "I +could not give her away even to you, Bob, nor yet tell you that I had +known her before; for you would have been certain to ask when and how; +and it was in her first husband's time, and under his name." + +It was a comfort to be quite honest for once with one of them, and it is +a relief even now to remember that I was absolutely honest with Bob +Evers about this. He said almost at once that he would have done the +same himself, and even as he spoke his whole manner changed toward me. +His face had darkened at my unexpected confirmation of the odious +rumour, but already it was beginning to lighten toward me, as though he +found my attitude the one redeeming feature in the new aspect of +affairs. He even thanked me for my late reserve, obviously from his +heart, and in a way that went to mine on more grounds than one. It was +as though a kindness to Mrs. Lascelles was already the greatest possible +kindness to him. + +"But I am glad you have told me now," he added, "for it explains many +things. I was inclined to look upon you, Duncan--you won't mind my +telling you now--as a bit of a deliberate interloper! But all the time +you knew her first, and that alters everything. I hope to out you still, +but I sha'n't any longer bear you a grudge if you out me!" + +I was horrified. + +"My dear fellow," I cried, "do you mean to say this makes no +difference?" + +"It does to Quinby. I must keep my hands off him, I suppose, though to +my mind he deserves his licking all the more." + +"But does it make no difference to _you_? My good boy, can you at your +age seriously think of marrying a woman who has been married twice +already, and divorced once?" + +"I didn't know that when I thought of it first," he answered, doggedly, +"and I am not going to let it make a difference now. Do you suppose I +would stand away from her because of anything that's past and over? Do +they stand away from us for--that sort of thing?" + +Of course I said that was rather different, with as much conviction as +though the ancient dogma had been my own. + +"But, Duncan, you know it's the very last thing you're dreaming of doing +yourself!" + +And again I argued, as feebly as you please, that it was quite different +in my case--that I was a good ten years older than he, and not my +mother's only son. + +Bob stiffened on the spot. + +"My mother must take care of herself," said he; "and I," he added, "I +must take care of myself, if you don't mind. And I hope you won't, for +you've been most awfully good to me, you know! I never thought so until +these last few minutes; but now I sha'n't forget it, no matter how it +all turns out!" + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +SUB JUDICE + + +Well, I made a belated attempt to earn my young friend's good opinion. I +kept out of his way after dinner, and went in search of Quinby instead. +I felt I had a crow of my own to pluck with this gentleman, who owed to +my timely intervention a far greater immunity than he deserved. It was +in the little billiard-room I found him, pachydermatously applauding the +creditable attempts of Sir John Sankey at the cannon game, and as +studiously ignoring the excellent shots of an undistinguished clergyman +who was beating the judge. Quinby made room for me beside him, with a +civility which might have caused me some compunction, but I repaid him +by coming promptly to my point. + +"What's this report about Mrs. Lascelles?" I asked, not angrily at all, +for naturally my feeling in the matter was not so strong as Bob's, but +with a certain contemptuous interest, if a man can judge of his own +outward manner from his inner temper at the time. + +Quinby favoured me with a narrow though a sidelong look; the room was +very full, and in the general chit-chat, punctuated by the constant +clicking of the heavy balls, there was very little danger of our being +overheard. But Quinby was careful to lower his voice. + +"It's perfectly true," said he, "if you mean about her being divorced." + +"Yes, that was what I heard; but who started the report?" + +"Who started it. You may well ask! Who starts anything in a place like +this? Ah, good shot, Sir John, good shot!" + +"Never mind the good shots, Quinby. I really rather want to talk to you +about this. I sha'n't keep you long." + +"Talk away, then. I am listening." + +"Mrs. Lascelles and I are rather friends." + +"So I can see." + +"Very well, then, I want to know who started all this. It may be +perfectly true, as you say, but who found it out? If you can't tell me +I must ask somebody else." + +The ruddy Alpine colouring had suddenly become accentuated in the case +of Quinby. + +"As a matter of fact," said he, "it was I who first heard of it, quite +by chance. You can't blame me for that, Clephane." + +"Of course not," said I encouragingly. + +"Well, unfortunately I let it out; and you know how things get about in +an hotel." + +"It was unfortunate," I agreed. "But how on earth did you come to hear?" + +Quinby hummed and hawed; he had heard from a soldier friend, a man who +had known her in India, a man whom I knew myself, in fact Hamilton the +sapper, who had telegraphed to Quinby to secure me my room. I ought to +have been disarmed by the coincidence; but I recalled our initial +conversation, about India and Hamilton and Mrs. Lascelles, and I could +not consider it a coincidence at all. + +"You don't mean to tell me," said I, aping the surprise I might have +felt, "that our friend wrote and gave Mrs. Lascelles away to you of his +own accord?" + +But Quinby did not vouchsafe an answer. "Hard luck, Sir John!" cried +he, as the judge missed an easy cannon, leaving his opponent a still +easier one, which lost him the game. I proceeded to press my question in +a somewhat stronger form, though still with all the suavity at my +command. + +"Surely," I urged, "you must have written to ask him about her first?" + +"That's my business, I fancy," said Quinby, with a peculiarly aggressive +specimen of the nasal snigger of which enough was made in a previous +chapter, but of which Quinby himself never tired. + +"Quite," I agreed; "but do you also consider it your business to inquire +deliberately into the past life of a lady whom I believe you only know +by sight, and to spread the result of your inquiries broadcast in the +hotel? Is that your idea of chivalry? I shall ask Sir John Sankey +whether it is his," I added, as the judge joined us with genial +condescension, and I recollected that his proverbial harshness toward +the male offender was redeemed by an extraordinary sympathy with the +women. Thereupon I laid a general case before Sir John, asking him +point-blank whether he considered such conduct as Quinby's (but I did +not say whose the conduct was) either justifiable in itself or conducive +to the enjoyment of a holiday community like ours. + +"It depends," said the judge, cocking a critical eye on the now furious +Quinby. "I am afraid we most of us enjoy our scandal, and for my part I +always like to see a humbug catch it hot. But if the scandal's about a +woman, and if it's an old scandal, and if she's a lonely woman, that +quite alters the case, and in my opinion the author of it deserves all +he gets." + +At this Quinby burst out, with an unrestrained heat that did not lower +him in my estimation, though the whole of his tirade was directed +exclusively against me. I had been talking "at" him, he declared. I +might as well have been straightforward while I was about it. He, for +his part, was not afraid to take the responsibility for anything he +might have said. It was perfectly true, to begin with. The so-called +Mrs. Lascelles, who was such a friend of mine, had been the wife of a +German Jew in Lahore, who had divorced her on her elopement with a +Major Lascelles, whom she had left in his turn, and whose name she had +not the smallest right to bear. Quinby exercised some restraint in the +utterances of these calumnies, or the whole room must have heard them, +but even as it was we had more listeners than the judge when my turn +came. + +"I won't give you the lie, Quinby, because I am quite sure you don't +know you are telling one," said I; "but as a matter of fact you are +giving currency to two. In the first place, this lady is Mrs. Lascelles, +for the major did marry her; in the second place, Major Lascelles is +dead." + +"And how do you know?" inquired Quinby, with a touch of genuine surprise +to mitigate an insolent disbelief. + +"You forget," said I, "that it was in India I knew your own informant. I +can only say that my information in all this matter is a good deal +better than his. I knew Mrs. Lascelles herself quite well out there; I +knew the other side of her case. It doesn't seem to have struck you, +Quinby, that such a woman must have suffered a good deal before, and +after, taking such a step. Or I don't suppose you would have spread +yourself to make her suffer a little more," + +And I still consider that a charitable view of his behaviour; but Quinby +was of another opinion, which he expressed with his offensive little +laugh as he lifted his long body from the settee. + +"This is what one gets for securing a room for a man one doesn't know!" +said he. + +"On the contrary," I retorted, "I haven't forgotten that, and I have +saved you something because of it. I happen to have saved you no less +than a severe thrashing from a stronger man than myself, who is even +more indignant with you than I am, and who wanted to borrow one of my +sticks for the purpose!" + +"And it would have served him perfectly right," was the old judge's +comment, when the mischief-maker had departed without returning my +parting shot. "I suppose you meant young Evers, Captain Clephane?" + +"I did indeed, Sir John. I had to tell him the truth in order to +restrain him." + +The old judge raised his eyebrows. + +"Then you hadn't to tell him it before? You are certainly consistent, +and I rather admire your position as regards the lady. But I am not so +sure that it was altogether fair toward the lad. It is one thing to +stand up for the poor soul, my dear sir, but it would be another thing +to let a nice boy like that go and marry her!" + +So that was the opinion of this ripe old citizen of the world! It ought +not to have irritated me as it did. It would be Catherine's opinion, of +course; but a dispassionate view was not to be expected from her. I had +not hitherto thought otherwise, myself; but now I experienced a perverse +inclination to take the opposite side. Was it so utterly impossible for +a woman with this woman's record to make a good wife to some man yet? I +did not admit it for an instant; he would be a lucky man who won so +healthy and so good a heart; thus I argued to myself with Mrs. Lascelles +in my mind, and nobody else. But Bob Evers was not a man, I was not sure +that he was out of his teens, and to think of him was to think at once +with Sir John Sankey and all the rest. Yes, yes, it would be madness and +suicide in such a youth; there could be no two opinions about that; and +yet I felt indignant at the mildest expression of that which I myself +could not deny. + +Such was my somewhat chaotic state of mind when I had fled the +billiard-room in my turn, and put on my overcoat and cap to commune with +myself outside. Nobody did justice to Mrs. Lascelles; it was terribly +hard to do her justice; those were perhaps the ideas that were oftenest +uppermost. I did not see how I was to be the exception and prove the +rule; my brief was for Bob, and there was an end of it. It was foolish +to worry, especially on such a night. The moon had waxed since my +arrival, and now hung almost round and altogether dazzling in the little +sky the mountains left us. Yet I had the terrace all to myself; the +magnificent voice of our latest celebrity had drawn everybody else in +doors, or under the open drawing-room windows through which it poured +out into the glorious night. And in the vivid moonlight the very +mountains seemed to have gathered about the little human hive upon their +heights, to be listening to the grand rich notes that had some right to +break their ancient silence. + + "If doughty deeds my lady please, + Right soon I'll mount my steed; + And strong his arm, and fast his seat, + That bears frae me the meed. + I'll wear thy colours in my cap, + Thy picture at my heart; + And he that bends not to thine eye + Shall rue it to his smart!" + +It was a brave new setting to brave old lines, as simple and direct as +themselves, studiously in keeping, passionate, virile, almost inspired; +and the whole so justly given that the great notes did not drown the +words as they often will, but all came clean to the ear. No wonder the +hotel held its breath! I was standing entranced myself, an outpost of +the audience underneath the windows, whose fringe I could just see round +the uttermost angle of the hotel, when Bob Evers ran down the steps, and +came toward me in such guise that I could not swear to him till the last +yard. + +"Don't say a word," he whispered excitedly. "I'm just off!" + +"Off where?" I gasped, for he had changed into full mountaineering garb, +and there was his greased face beaming in the moonlight, and the blue +spectacles twinkling about his hat-band, at half-past nine at night. + +"Up the Matterhorn!" + +"At this time of night?" + +"It is a bit late, and that's why I want it kept quiet. I don't want any +fuss or advice. I've got a couple of excellent guides waiting for me +just below by the shoemaker's hut. I told you I was on their tracks. +Well, it was to-night or never as far as they were concerned, they are +so tremendously full up. So to-night it is, and don't you remind me of +my mother!" + +I was thinking of her when he spoke; for the song had swung through a +worthy refrain into another verse, and now I knew it better. It was +Catherine who had introduced me to all my lyrics; it was to Catherine I +had once hymned this one in my unformed heart. + +"But I thought," said I, as I forced myself to think, "that everybody +went up to the _Cabane_ overnight, and started fresh from there in the +morning?" + +"Most people do, but it's as broad as it's long," declared Bob, airily, +rapidly, and with the same unwonted excitement, born as I thought of +his unwonted enterprise. "You have a ripping moonlight walk instead of a +so-called night's rest in a frowsy hut. We shall get our breakfast there +instead, and I expect to start fresher than if I had slept there and +been knocked up at two o'clock in the morning. That's all settled, +anyhow, and you can look for me on top through the telescope after +breakfast. I shall be back before dark, and then--" + +"Well, what then?" I asked, for Bob had made a significant and yet +irresolute pause, as though he could not quite bring himself to tell me +something that was on his mind. + +"Well," he echoed nonchalantly at last, as though he had not hesitated +at all, "as a matter of fact, to-morrow night I am to know my fate. I +have asked Mrs. Lascelles to marry me, and she hasn't said no, but I am +giving her till to-morrow night. That's all, Clephane. I thought it a +fair thing to let you know. If you want to waltz in and try your luck +while I'm gone, there's nothing on earth to prevent you, and it might be +most satisfactory to everybody. As a matter of fact, I'm only going so +as to get over the time and keep out of the way." + +"As a matter of fact?" I queried, waving a little stick toward the +lighted windows. "Listen a minute, and then tell me!" + +And we listened together to the last and clearest rendering of the +refrain-- + + "Then tell me how to woo thee, Love; + O tell me how to woo thee! + For thy dear sake, nae care I'll take, + Tho' ne'er another trow me!" + +"What tosh!" shouted Bob (his mother should have heard him) through the +applause. "Of course I'm going to take care of myself, and of course I +meant to rush the Matterhorn while I'm here, but between ourselves +that's my only reason for rushing it to-night." + +Yet had he no boyish vision of quick promotion in the lady's heart, no +primitive desire to show his mettle out of hand, to set her trembling +while he did or died? He had, I thought, and he had not; that shining +face could only have reflected a single and candid heart. But it is +these very natures, so simple and sweet-hearted and transparent, that +are least to be trusted on the subject of their own motives and +emotions, for they are the soonest deceived, not only by others but in +themselves. Or so I venture to think, and even then reflected, as I +shook my dear lad's hand by the side parapet of the moonlit terrace, and +watched him run down into the shadows of the fir-trees and so out of my +sight with two dark and stalwart figures that promptly detached +themselves from the shadows of the shoemaker's hut. A third figure +mounted to where I now sat listening to the easy, swinging, confident +steps, as they fell fainter and fainter upon the ear; it was the +shoemaker himself who had shod my two sticks with spikes and my boots +with formidable nails; and we exchanged a few words in a mixture of +languages which I should be very sorry to reproduce. + +"Do you know those two guides?" is what I first asked in effect. + +"Very well, monsieur." + +"Are they good guides?" + +"The very best, monsieur." + + + + +CHAPTER X + +THE LAST WORD + + +"Is that you?" + +It was an hour or so later, but still I sat ruminating upon the parapet, +within a yard or two of the spot where I had first accosted Bob Evers +and Mrs. Lascelles. I had retraced the little sequence of subsequent +events, paltry enough in themselves, yet of a certain symmetry and some +importance as a whole. I had attacked and defended my own conduct down +to that hour, when I ought to have been formulating its logical +conclusion, and during my unprofitable deliberations the night had aged +and altered (as it were) behind my back. There was no more music in the +drawing-room. There were no more people under the drawing-room windows. +The lights in all the lower windows were not what they had been; it was +the bedroom tiers that were illuminated now. But I did not realise that +there was less light outside until I awoke to the fact that Mrs. +Lascelles was peering tentatively toward me, and putting her question in +such an uncertain tone. + +"That depends who I am supposed to be," I answered, laughing as I rose +to put my personality beyond doubt. + +"How stupid of me!" laughed Mrs. Lascelles in her turn, though rather +nervously to my fancy. "I thought it was Mr. Evers!" + +I had hard work to suppress an exclamation. So he had not told her what +he was going to do, and yet he had not forbidden me to tell her. Poor +Bob was more subtle than I had supposed, but it was a simple subtlety, a +strange chord but still in key with his character as I knew it. + +"I am sorry to disappoint you," said I. "But I am afraid you won't see +any more of Bob Evers to-night." + +"What do you mean?" asked Mrs. Lascelles, suspiciously. + +"I wonder he didn't tell you," I replied, to gain time in which to +decide how to make the best use of such an unforeseen opportunity. + +"Well, he didn't; so please will you, Captain Clephane?" + +"Bob Evers," said I, with befitting gravity, "is climbing the Matterhorn +at this moment." + +"Never!" + +"At least he has started." + +"When did he start?" + +"An hour or more ago, with a couple of guides." + +"He told you, then?" + +"Only just as he was starting." + +"Was it a sudden idea?" + +"More or less, I think." + +I waited for the next question, but that was the last of them. Just then +the interloping cloud floated clear of the moon, and I saw that my +companion was wrapped up as on the earlier night, in the same +unconventional combination of rain-coat and golf-cape; but now the hood +hung down, and the sudden rush of moonlight showed me a face as full of +sheer perplexity and annoyance as I could have hoped to find it, and as +free from deeper feeling. + +"The silly boy!" exclaimed Mrs. Lascelles at last. "I suppose it really +is pretty safe, Captain Clephane?" + +"Safer than most dangerous things, I believe; and they are the safest, +as you know, because you take most care. He has a couple of excellent +guides; the chance of getting them was partly why he went. In all human +probability we shall have him back safe and sound, and fearfully pleased +with himself, long before this time to-morrow. Meanwhile, Mrs. +Lascelles," I continued with the courage of my opportunity, "it is a +very good chance for me to speak to you about our friend Bob. I have +wanted to do so for some little time." + +"Have you, indeed?" said Mrs. Lascelles, coldly. + +"I have," I answered imperturbably; "and if it wasn't so late I should +ask for a hearing now." + +"Oh, let us get it over, by all means!" + +But as she spoke Mrs. Lascelles glanced over the shoulder that she +shrugged so contemptuously, toward the lights in the bedroom windows, +most of which were wide open. + +"We could walk toward the zig-zags," I suggested. "There is a seat +within a hundred yards, if you don't think it too cold to sit, but in +any case I needn't keep you many minutes. Bob Evers," I continued, as my +suggestion was tacitly accepted, "paid me the compliment of confiding in +me somewhat freely before he started on this hare-brained expedition of +his." + +"So it appears." + +"Ah, but he didn't only tell me what he was going to do; he told me why +he was doing it," said I, as we sauntered on our way side by side. "It +was difficult to believe," I added, when I had waited long enough for +the question upon which I had reckoned. + +"Indeed?" + +"He said he had proposed to you." + +And again I waited, but never a word. + +"That child!" I added with deliberate scorn. + +But a further pause was broken only by my companion's measured steps and +my own awkward shuffle. + +"That baby!" I insisted. + +"Did you tell him he was one, Captain Clephane?" asked Mrs. Lascelles, +dryly, but drawn so far at last. + +"I spared his feelings. But can it be true, Mrs. Lascelles?" + +"It is true." + +"Is it a fact that you didn't give him a definite answer?" + +"I don't know what business it is of yours," said Mrs. Lascelles, +bluntly; "and since he seems to have told you everything, neither do I +know why you should ask me. However, it is quite true that I did not +finally refuse him on the spot." + +This carefully qualified confirmation should have afforded me abundant +satisfaction. I was over-eager in the matter, however, and I cried out +impetuously: + +"But you will?" + +"Will what?" + +"Refuse the boy!" + +We had reached the seat, but neither of us sat down. Mrs. Lascelles +appeared to be surveying me with equal resentment and defiance. I, on +the other hand, having shot my bolt, did my best to look conciliatory. + +"Why should I refuse him?" she asked at length, with less emotion and +more dignity than her bearing had led me to expect. "You seem so sure +about it, you know!" + +"He is such a boy--such an utter child--as I said just now." I was +conscious of the weakness of saying it again, and it alone, but my +strongest arguments were too strong for direct statement. + +This one, however, was not unfruitful in the end. + +"And I," said Mrs. Lascelles, "how old do you think I am? Thirty-five?" + +"Of course not," I replied, with obvious gallantry. "But I doubt if Bob +is even twenty." + +"Well, then, you won't believe me, but I was married before I was his +age, and I am just six-and-twenty now." + +It was a surprise to me. I did not doubt it for a moment; one never did +doubt Mrs. Lascelles. It was indeed easy enough to believe (so much I +told her) if one looked upon the woman as she was, and only difficult in +the prejudicial light of her matrimonial record. I did not add these +things. "But you are a good deal older," I could not help saying, "in +the ways of the world, and it is there that Bob is such an absolute +infant." + +"But I thought an Eton boy was a man of the world?" said Mrs. Lascelles, +quoting me against myself with the utmost readiness. + +"Ah, in some things," I had to concede. "Only in some things, however." + +"Well," she rejoined, "of course I know what you mean by the other +things. They matter to your mind much more than mere age, even if I had +been fifteen years older, instead of five or six. It's the old story, +from the man's point of view. You can live anything down, but you won't +let us. There is no fresh start for a woman; there never was and never +will be." + +I protested that this was unfair. "I never said that, or anything like +it, Mrs. Lascellcs!" + +"No, you don't say it, but you think it!" she cried back. "It is the one +thing you have in your mind. I was unhappy, I did wrong, so I can never +be happy, I can never do right! I am unfit to marry again, to marry a +good man, even if he loves me, even if I love him!" + +"I neither say nor think anything of the kind," I reiterated, and with +some slight effect this time. Mrs. Lascelles put no more absurdities +into my mouth. + +"Then what do you say?" she demanded, her deep voice vibrant with +scornful indignation, though there were tears in it too. + +"I think he will be a lucky fellow who gets you," I said, and meant +every word, as I looked at her well in the moonlight, with her shining +eyes, and curling lip, and fighting flush. + +"Thank you, Captain Clephane!" + +And I thought I was to be honoured with a contemptuous courtesy; but I +was not. + +"He ought to be a man, however," I went on, "and not a boy, and still +less the only child of a woman with whom you would never get on." + +"So you are as sure of that," exclaimed Mrs. Lascelles, "as of +everything else!" It seemed, however, to soften her, or at least to +change the current of her thoughts. "Yet you get on with her?" she added +with a wistful intonation. + +I could not deny that I got on with Catherine Evers. + +"You are even fond of her?" + +"Quite fond." + +"Then do you find me a very disagreeable person, that she and I couldn't +possibly hit it off, in your opinion?" + +"It isn't that, Mrs. Lascelles," said I, almost wearily. "You must know +what it is. You want to marry her son--" + +Mrs. Lascelles smiled. + +"Well, let us suppose you do. That would be quite enough for Mrs. Evers. +No matter who you were, how peerless, how incomparable in every way, she +would rather die than let you marry him at his age. I don't say she's +wrong--I don't say she's right. I give you the plain fact for what it is +worth: you would find her from the first a clever and determined +adversary, a regular little lioness with her cub, and absolutely +intolerant on that particular point." + +I could see Catherine as I spoke, the Catherine I had seen last, and +liked least to remember; but the vision faded before the moonlit reality +of Mrs. Lascelles, laughing to herself like a great, naughty, pretty +child. + +"I really think I must marry him," she said, "and see what happens!" + +"If you do," I answered, in all seriousness, "you will begin by +separating mother and son, and end by making both their lives miserable, +and bringing the last misery into your own." + +And either my tone impressed her, or the covert reminder in my last +words; for the bold smile faded from her face, and she looked longer and +more searchingly in mine than she had done as yet. + +"You know Mrs. Evers exceedingly well," Mrs. Lascelles remarked. + +"I did years ago," I guardedly replied. + +"Do you mean to say," urged my companion, "that you have not seen her +for years?" + +I did not altogether like her tone. Yet it was so downright and +straightforward, it was hard to be the very reverse in answer to it, and +I shied idiotically at the honest lie. I had quite lost sight both of +Bob and his mother, I declared, from the day I went to India until now. + +"You mean until you came out here?" persisted Mrs. Lascelles. + +"Until the other day," I said, relying on a carefully affirmative tone +to close the subject. There was a pause. I began to hope I had +succeeded. The flattering tale was never finished. + +"I believe," said Mrs. Lascelles, "that you saw Mrs. Evers in town +before you started." + +It was too late to lie. + +"As a matter of fact," I answered easily, "I did." + +I built no hopes on the pause which followed that. Somehow I had my face +to the moon, and Mrs. Lascelles had her back. Yet I knew that her +scrutiny of me was more critical than ever. + +"How funny of Bob never to have told me!" she said. + +"Told you what?" + +"That you saw his mother just before you left." + +"I didn't tell him," I said at length. + +"That was funny of you, Captain Clephane." + +"On the contrary," I argued, with the impudence which was now my only +chance, "it was only natural. Bob was rather raw with his friend +Kennerley, you see. You knew about that?" + +"Oh, yes." + +"And why they fell out?" + +"Yes." + +"Well, he might have thought the other fellow had been telling tales, +and that I had come out to have an eye on him, if he had known that I +happened to see his mother just before I started." + +There was another pause; but now I was committed to an attitude, and +prepared for the worst. + +"Perhaps there would have been some truth in it?" suggested Mrs. +Lascelles. + +"Perhaps," I agreed, "a little." + +The pause now was the longest of all. It had no terrors for me. Another +cloud had come between us and the moon. I was sorry for that. I felt +that I was missing something. Even the fine upstanding figure before me +was no longer sharp enough to be expressive. + +"I have been harking back," explained Mrs. Lascelles, eventually. "Now I +begin to follow. You saw his mother, you heard a report, and you +volunteered or at least consented to come out and keep an eye on the +dear boy, as you say yourself. Am I not more or less right so far, +Captain Clephane?" + +Her tone was frozen honey. + +"More or less," I admitted ironically. + +"Of course, I don't know what report that other miserable young man may +have carried home with him. I don't want to know. But I can guess. One +does not stay in hotel after hotel without getting a pretty shrewd idea +of the way people talk about one. I know the sort of things they have +been saying here. You would hear them yourself, no doubt, Captain +Clephane, as soon as you arrived." + +I admitted that I had, but reminded Mrs. Lascelles that the first person +I had spoken to was also the greatest gossip in the hotel. She paid no +attention to the remark, but stood looking at me again, with the look +that I could never quite see to read. + +"And then," she went on, "you found out who it was, and you remembered +all about me, and your worst fears were confirmed. That must have been +an interesting moment. I wonder how you felt.... Did it never occur to +you to speak plainly to anybody?" + +"I wasn't going to give you away," I said, stolidly, though with no +conscious parade of virtue. + +"Yet, you see, it would have made no difference if you had! Did you +seriously think it would make much difference, Captain Clephane, to a +really chivalrous young man?" I bowed my head to the well-earned taunt. +"But," she went on, "there was no need for you to speak to Mr. Evers. +You might have spoken to me. Why did you not do that?" + +"Because I didn't want to quarrel with you," I answered quite honestly; +"because I enjoyed your society too much myself." + +"That was very nice of you," said Mrs. Lascelles, with a sudden although +subtle return of the good-nature which had always attracted me. "If it +is sincere," she added, as an apparent afterthought. + +"I am perfectly sincere now." + +"Then what do you think I should do?" she asked me, in the soft new tone +which actually flattered me with the idea that she was making up her +mind to take my advice. + +"Refuse this lad!" + +"And then?" she almost whispered. + +"And then--" + +I hesitated. I found it hard to say what I thought, hard even upon +myself. We had been good friends. I admired the woman cordially; her +society was pleasant to me, as it always had been. Nevertheless, we had +just engaged in a duel of no friendly character; and now that we seemed +of a sudden to have become friends again, it was the harder to give her +the only advice which I considered compatible alike with my duty and the +varied demands of the situation. If she took it as she seemed disposed +to do, the immediate loss would be mine, and I foresaw besides a much +more disagreeable reckoning with Bob Evers than the one now approaching +an amicable conclusion. I should have to stay behind to face the music +of his wrath alone. Still, at the risk of appearing brutal I made my +proposal in plain terms; but, to minimise that risk, I ventured to take +the lady's hand and was glad to find the familiarity permitted in the +same friendly spirit in which it was indulged. + +"I would have no 'and then,'" I said, "if I were you. I should refuse +him under such circumstances that he couldn't possibly bother you, or +himself about you, again. Now is your opportunity." + +"Is it?" she asked, a thrilling timbre in her low voice. And I fancied +there was a kindred tremor in the firm warm hand within mine. + +"The best of opportunities," I replied, "if you are not too wedded to +this place, and can tear yourself away from the rest of us." (Her hand +lay loose in mine.) "Mrs. Lascelles, I should go to-morrow morning" (her +hand fell away altogether), "while he is still up the Matterhorn and I +shouldn't let him know where I--shouldn't give him a chance of finding +out--" + +A sudden peal of laughter cut me short. I could not have believed it +came from my companion. But no other soul was near us, though I looked +all ways. It was the merriest laughter imaginable, only the merriment +was harsh and hard. + +"Oh, thank you, Captain Clephane! You are too delicious! I saw it +coming; I only wondered whether I could contain myself until it came. +Yet I could hardly believe that even you would commit yourself to that +finishing touch of impudence! Certainly it is an opportunity, _his_ +being out of the way. _You_ were not long in making use of it, were you? +It will amuse him when he comes down, though it may open his eyes. I +shall tell him everything, so I give you warning. Every single thing, +that you have had the insolence to tell me!" + +She had caught up her skirts from the ground, she had half turned away +from me, toward the hotel. The false merriment had died out of her. The +true indignation remained, ringing in every accent of the deep sweet +voice, and drawn up in every inch of the tall straight figure. I do not +remember whether the moon was hid or shining at the moment. I only know +that my lady's eyes shone bright enough for me to see them then and ever +after, bright and dry with a scorn that burnt too hot for tears; and +that I admired her even while she scorned me, as I had never thought to +admire any woman but one, but this woman least of all. + +So we both stood, intent, some seconds, looking our last upon each other +if I was wise. Then I lifted my hat, and offered my congratulations +(more sincere than they sounded) to her and Bob. + +"Did I tell you why he is going up?" I added. "It is to pass the time +until he knows his fate. If only we could let him know it now!" + +Mrs. Lascelles glanced toward the mountain, and my eyes followed hers. +A great cloud hid the grim outstanding summit. + +"If only you had prevented him from going!" she cried back at me in a +last reproach; and to me her tone was conclusive, it rang so true, and +so invidiously free from the smaller emotions which it had been my own +unhappiness to inspire. It was the real woman who had spoken out once +more, suddenly, perhaps unthinkingly, but obviously from her heart. And +as she turned, I followed her very slowly and without a word; for now +was I surely and deservedly undone. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +THE LION'S MOUTH + + +It was a chilly morning, with rather a high wind; from the haze about +the mountains of the Zermatt valley, which were all that I could see +from my bedroom window, it occurred to me that I might look in vain for +the Matterhorn from the other side of the hotel. It was still visible, +however, when I came down, a white cloud wound about its middle like a +cloth, and the hotel telescope already trained upon its summit from the +shelter of the glass veranda. + +"See anybody?" I asked of a man who sat at the telescope as though his +eye was frozen to the lens. He might have been witnessing the most +exciting adventure, where the naked eye saw only rock and snow, and cold +grey sky; but he rose at last with a shake of the head, a great gaunt +man with kind keen eyes, and the skin peeled off his nose. + +"No," said he, "I can't see anybody, and I'm very glad I can't. It's +about as bad a morning for it as you could possibly have; yet last night +was so fine that some fellows might have got up to the hut, and been +foolish enough not to come down again. But have a look for yourself." + +"Oh, thanks," said I, considerably relieved at what I heard, "but if you +can't see anybody I'm sure I can't. You have done it yourself, I +daresay?" + +The gaunt man smiled demurely, and the keen eyes twinkled in his flayed +face. He was, indeed, a palpable mountaineer. + +"What, the Matterhorn?" said he, lowering his voice and looking about +him as if on the point of some discreditable admission. "Oh, yes, I've +done the Matterhorn, back and front and both sides, with and without +guides; but everybody has, in these days. It's nothing when you know the +ropes and chains and things. They've got everything up there now except +an iron staircase. Still, I should be sorry to tackle it to-day, even if +they had a lift!" + +"Do you think guides would?" I asked, less reassured than I had felt at +first. + +"It depends on the guides. They are not the first to turn back, as a +rule; but they like wind and mist even less than we do. The guides know +what wind and mist mean." + +I now understood the special disadvantages of the day and realised the +obvious dangers. I could only hope that either Bob Evers or his guides +had shown the one kind of courage required by the occasion, the moral +courage of turning back. But I was not at all sure of Bob. His stimulus +was not that of the single-minded, level-headed mountaineer; in his +romantic exaltation he was capable of hailing the very perils as so many +more means of grace in the sight of Mrs. Lascelles; yet without doubt he +would have repudiated any such incentive, and that in all the sincerity +of his simple heart. He did not know himself as I knew him. + +My fears were soon confirmed. Returning to the glass veranda, after the +stock breakfast of the Swiss hotel, with its horseshoe rolls and +fabricated honey, I found the telescope the centre of an ominous crowd, +on whose fringe hovered my new friend the mountaineer. + +"We were wrong," he muttered to me. "Some fools are up there, after +all." + +"How many?" I asked quickly. + +"I don't know. There's no getting near the telescope now, and won't be +till the clouds blot them out altogether." + +I looked out at the Matterhorn. The loincloth of cloud had shaken itself +out into a flowing robe, from which only the brown skull of the mountain +protruded in its white skull-cap. + +"There are three of them," announced a nasal voice from the heart of the +little crowd. "A great long chap and two guides." + +"He can't possibly know that," remarked the mountaineer to me, "but +let's hope it is so." + +"They're as plain as pike-staffs," continued Quinby, whose bent blond +head I now distinguished, as he occupied the congenial post of Sister +Anne. "They seem stuck.... No, they're getting up on to the snow-slope, +and the front man's cutting steps." + +"Then they're all right for the present," said the mountaineer. "It's +the getting down that's ticklish." + +"You can see the rope blowing about between them ... what a wind there +must be ... it's bent out taut like a bow, you can see it against the +snow, and they're bending themselves more than forty-five degrees to +meet it." + +"All very well going _up_," murmured the mountaineer: there was a +sinister innuendo in the curt comments of the practical man. + +I turned into the hall. It, however, was quite deserted. I had hoped I +might see something of Mrs. Lascelles; she was not one of those in the +glass veranda. I now looked in the drawing-room, but neither was she +there. Returning to the empty hall, I passed a minute peering through +the locked glass door of the pigeon-holes in which the careful concierge +files the unclaimed letters. There was nothing for me that I could +discern, in the C pigeon-hole; but next door but one, under E, there lay +on the very top a letter which caught my eye and more. It had not been +through any post. It was a note directed to R. Evers, Esq., in a hand +that I knew instinctively to be that of Mrs. Lascelles, though I had +never seen it in my life before. It was a good hand, but large and bold +and downright as herself. + +The concierge stood in the doorway, one eye on the disappearing +Matterhorn, one on the experts and others in animated conclave round the +still inaccessible telescope. I touched the concierge on the arm. + +"Did you see Mrs. Lascelles this morning?" + +The man's eyes opened before his lips. + +"She has gone away, sir." + +"I know," I said, having indeed divined no less. "What train did she +catch?" + +"The first one from here. That also catches the early train from +Zermatt." + +"I am sorry," I said after a pause. "I hoped to see Mrs. Lascelles +before she went; now I must write. She left you an address, I suppose?" + +"Oh, yes, sir." + +"I shall ask you for it later on. No letters for me, I suppose?" + +"No, sir." + +"Sure?" + +"I will look again." + +And I looked with him, over his shoulder; but there was nothing; and +the note for Bob Evers now inspired me with a tripartite blend of +curiosity, envy, and apprehension. I would have had a last word from the +same hand myself; had it been never so scornful, this silent scorn was +the harder sort to bear. Also I wanted much to know what her last word +was to Bob--and dreaded more what it might be. + +There remained the unexpected triumph of having got rid of my lady after +all. That is not to be belittled even now. It is a triumph to succeed in +any undertaking, more especially when one has abandoned one's own last +hope of such success. The unpleasant character of this particular +emprise made its eventual accomplishment in some ways the greater matter +for congratulation in my eyes. At least I had done my part. I had come +to hate it, but the thing was done, and it had been a fairly difficult +thing to do. It was impossible not to plume oneself a little on the +whole, but the feeling was a superficial one, with deeper and uneasier +feelings underneath. Still, I had practically redeemed my impulsive +promise to Catherine Evers; her son and this woman once parted, it +should be easy to keep them apart, and my knowledge of the woman +forbade me to deny the fullest significance to her departure. She had +gone away to stay away--from Bob. She had listened to me the less with +her ears, because her reason and her heart had been compelled to heed. +To be sure, she saw the unsuitability, the impossibility, as clearly as +we did. But it was I who, at all events, had helped to make her see it; +wherefore I deserved well of Catherine Evers, if of no other person in +the world. + +Oddly enough, this last consideration afforded me least satisfaction; it +seemed to bring home to me by force of contrast the poor figure that I +must assuredly cut in the eyes of the other two, the still poorer +opinion that they would have of me if ever they knew all. I did not care +to pursue this train of thought. It was a subject upon which I was not +prepared to examine myself; to change it, I thought of Bob's present +peril, which I had almost forgotten as I lounged abstractedly in the +empty hall. If anything were to happen to him, in the vulgar sense! What +an irony, what poetic punishment for us survivors! And yet, even as I +rehearsed the ghastly climax in my mind, I told myself that the mother +would rather see him even thus, than married to a widow who had also +been divorced; it was the younger woman who would never forgive me, or +herself. + +Disappointed faces met me on my next visit to the veranda. The little +crowd there had dwindled to a group. I could have had the telescope now +for as long as I liked: the upper part of the Matterhorn was finally and +utterly effaced and swallowed up by dense white mist and cloud. My +friend the mountaineer looked grave, but his disfigured face did not +wear the baulked expression of others to which he drew my attention. + +"It is like the curtain coming down with the man's head still in the +lion's mouth," said he. + +"I hope," said I devoutly, "that you don't seriously think there's any +analogy?" + +The climber looked at me steadily, and then smiled. + +"Well, no, perhaps I don't think it quite so bad as all that. But it's +no use pretending it isn't dangerous. May I ask if you know who the +foolhardy fellow is?" + +I said I did not know, but mentioned my suspicion, only begging my +climbing friend not to let the name go any farther. It was in too many +mouths already, in quite another connection, I was going on to explain; +but the mountaineer nodded, as much as to warn me that even he knew all +about that. It was Bob's office, however, to provide the hotel with its +sensation while he remained, and he was not allowed to perform +anonymously very long. His departure over night leaked out. I was asked +if it was true. The flight of Mrs. Lascelles was the next discovery; +desperate deductions were drawn at once. She had jilted the unlucky +youth and sent him in utter recklessness on his intentionally suicidal +ascent. Nobody any longer expected to see him come down alive; so much I +gathered from the fragments of conversation that reached my ears; and +never was better occupation for a bad day than appeared to be afforded +by the discussion of the supposititious tragedy in all its imaginary +details. As, however, the talk invariably abated at my approach, giving +place to uncomplimentary glances in my direction, I could not but infer +that public opinion had assigned me an unenviable part in the piece. +Perhaps I deserved it, though not from their point of view. + +The afternoon was at once a dreariness and a dread. There was no ray of +sun without, no sort of warmth within. The Matterhorn never reappeared, +but seemed the grimmer monster for this sinister invisibility. I +gathered that there was real occasion for anxiety, if not for alarm, and +I nursed mine chiefly in my own room until I heard the news when I went +down for my letters. Bob Evers had walked in as though nothing had +happened, and gone straight up to his room with a note that the +concierge handed him. Some one had asked him whether it was he who had +been up the Matterhorn in the morning, and young Evers had vouchsafed +the barest affirmative compatible with civility. The sunburnt climber +was my informant. + +"And I don't mind telling you it is a relief to me," he added, "and to +everybody, though I shouldn't wonder if there was a little unconscious +disappointment in the air as well. I congratulate you, for I could see +you were anxious, and I must find an opportunity of congratulating your +young friend himself." + +Meanwhile no such opportunity was afforded me, though I quite expected +and was fully prepared for another visit from Bob in my room. I waited +for him there until dinner-time, but he never came, and I was beginning +to wish he would. It was like the wrapping of the Matterhorn in mist; it +only widened the field of apprehension; and yet it was not for me to go +to the boy. My unrest was further aggravated by a letter which I had +just received from the boy's mother in answer to my first to her. It was +not a very dreadful letter; but I only trusted that no evil impulse had +caused Catherine to write in anything like the same strain to Bob; for +neither was it a very charitable letter, nor one that a man could be +glad to get from the woman whom he had set out on an enduring pinnacle. +There was only this to be said for it, that years ago I had sought in +vain for a really human weakness in Catherine Evers, and now at last I +had found one. She was rather too human about Mrs. Lascelles. + +I looked for Bob both at and after dinner, but we were never within +speaking distance and I fancied he avoided even my eye. What had Mrs. +Lascelles said? He looked redder and browner and rougher in the face, +but I heard that he would hardly open his lips at table, that he was +almost surly on the subject of his exploit. Everybody else appeared to +me to be speaking of it, or of Bob himself; but I had him on my nerves +and may well have formed an exaggerated impression about it all. Only I +do not forget some of the things I did overhear that day, and night; and +they now had the effect of sending me in search of Bob, since Bob would +not come near me. "I will have it out with him," I grimly decided, "and +then get out of this myself by the first train going." I had had quite +enough of the place that had enchanted me up to the last four-and-twenty +hours. I began to see myself back in Elm Park Gardens. There, at least, +if also there alone, I should get some credit for what I had done. + +It was no use looking for Bob upon the terrace now; yet I did look +there, among other obvious places, before I could bring myself to knock +at his door. There was a light in his room, so I knew that he was there, +and he cried out admittance in so sharp a tone that I fancied he also +knew who knocked. I found him packing in his shirt-sleeves. He received +me with a stare in exact keeping with his tone. What on earth had Mrs. +Lascelles said? + +"Going away?" I asked, as a mere preliminary, and I shut the door behind +me. Bob followed the action with raised eyebrows, then flung me the +shortest possible affirmative, as he bent once more over the suit-case on +the bed. + +But in a few seconds he looked up. + +"Anything I can do for you, Clephane?" + +"That depends where you are going." + +Bob went on packing with a smile. I guessed where he was going. "I +thought there might be something pressing," he remarked, without looking +up again. + +"There is," said I. "There is something you can do for me on the spot. +You can try to believe that I have not meant to be quite such a skunk as +I may have seemed--to you," I was on the point of adding, but I stopped +short of that advisedly, as I thought of Mrs. Lascelles also. + +"Oh, that's all right," said Bob, in a would-be airy tone that carried +its own contradiction. "All's fair, according to the proverb; I no more +blame you than you would have blamed me. I hope, on the contrary, that I +may congratulate you." + +And he stood up with a look which, coupled with his words, made it my +turn to stare. + +"Indeed you may not," said I. + +"Aren't you engaged to her?" he asked. + +"Good God, no!" I cried. "What made you think so?" + +"Everything!" exclaimed Bob, after a moment's pause of obvious +bewilderment. "I--you see--I had a note from Mrs. Lascelles herself!" + +"Yes?" said I, carefully careless, but I wanted more than ever to know +that missive's gist. + +"Only a few lines," Bob went on, ruefully; "they are the first thing I +heard or saw when I got down, and they almost made me wish I'd come down +with a run! Well, it's no use talking about it, I only thought you'd +know. It was the usual smack in the eye, I suppose, only nicely put and +all that. She didn't tell me where she was going, or why; she told me I +had better ask you." + +"But you wouldn't condescend." + +Bob gave a rather friendly little laugh. + +"I said I'd see you damned!" he admitted. "But of course I thought you +were the lucky man. I still half believe you are!" + +"Well, I'm not." + +"Do you mean to say that she's refused you too?" + +"She hasn't had the chance." + +Bob's eyes opened to an infantile width. + +"But you told me you were in earnest!" he urged. + +"As much in earnest as you were, I believe was what I said." + +"That's the same thing," returned Bob, sharply. "You may not think it +is. I don't care what you think. But I'm very sorry you said you were in +earnest if you were not." + +And his tone convinced me that he was no longer commiserating himself; +he was sorry on some new account, and the evident reality of his regret +filled me in turn with all the qualms of a guilty conscience. + +"Why are you sorry?" I demanded. + +"Oh, not on my own account," said Bob. "I'm delighted, personally, of +course." + +"Then do you mean to say--you actually told her--I was as much in +earnest as you were?" + +Bob Evers smiled openly in my face; it was the only revenge he ever +took; and even it was tempered by the inextinguishable sweetness of +expression and the childlike wide-eyed candour which were Bob's even in +the hour of his humiliation, and will be, one hopes, all his days. + +"Not in so many words," he said, "but I am afraid I did tell her in +effect. You see, I took you at your word. I thought it was quite true. +I'm awfully sorry, Duncan. But it really does serve you right!" + +I made no answer. I was looking at the suit-case on the bed. Bob seemed +to have lost all interest in his packing. I turned to leave him without +a word. + +"I am awfully sorry!" he was the one to say again. I began to wonder +when he would see all round the point, and how it would affect his +feeling (to say nothing of his actions) when he did. Meanwhile it was +Bob who was holding out his hand. + +"So am I," I said, taking it. + +And for once I, too, was not thinking about myself. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +A STERN CHASE + + +Where had Bob been going, and where was he going now? If these were not +the first questions that I asked myself on coming away from him, they +were at all events among my last thoughts that night, and as it +happened, quite my first next morning. His voice had reached me through +my bedroom window, on the head of a dream about himself. I got up and +looked out; there was Bob Evers seeing the suit-case into the tiny train +which brings your baggage (and yourself, if you like) to the very door +of the Riffel Alp Hotel. Bob did not like and I watched him out of sight +down the winding path threaded by the shining rails. He walked slowly, +head and shoulders bent, it might be with dogged resolve, it might be in +mere depression; there was never a glimpse of his face, nor a backward +glance as he swung round the final corner, with his great-coat over his +arm. + +In spite of my curiosity as to his destination, I made no attempt to +discover it for myself, but on consideration I was guilty of certain +inquiries concerning that of Mrs. Lascelles. They had not to be very +exhaustive; she had made no secret of her original plans upon leaving +the Riffel Alp, and they did not appear to have undergone much change. I +myself left the same forenoon, and lay that night amid the smells of +Brigues, after a little tour of its hotels, in one of which I found the +name of Mrs. Lascelles in the register, while in every one I was +prepared to light upon Bob Evers in the flesh. But that encounter did +not occur. + +In the early morning I was one of a shivering handful who awaited the +diligence for the Furka Pass; and an ominous drizzle made me thankful +that my telegram of the previous day had been too late to secure me an +outside seat. It was quite damp enough within. Nor did the day improve +as we drove, or the view attract me in the least. It was at its worst as +a sight, and I at mine as a sightseer. I have as little recollection of +my fellow-passengers; but I still see the page in the hotel register at +the Rhone Glacier, with the name I sought written boldly in its place, +just twenty-four hours earlier. + +The Furka Pass has its European reputation; it would gain nothing from +my enthusiastic praises, had I any enthusiasm to draw upon, or the +descriptive powers to do it justice. But what I best remember is the +time it took us to climb those interminable zig-zags, and to shake off +the too tenacious sight of the hotel in the hollow where I had seen a +signature and eaten my lunch. Now I think of it, there were two couples +who had come so far with us, but at the Rhone Glacier they exchanged +their mutually demonstrative adieux, and I thought the couple who came +on would never have done waving to the couple who stayed behind. They +kept it up for at least an hour, and then broke out again at each of our +many last glimpses of the hotel, now hundreds of feet below. That was +the only diversion until these energetic people went to see the glacier +cave at the summit of the pass. I am glad to remember that I preferred +refreshment at the inn. After that, night fell upon a scene whose +desolation impressed me more than its grandeur, and so in the end we +rattled into Andermatt: here was a huge hotel all but empty, with a +perfect tome of a visitors' book, and in it sure enough the fine free +autograph which I was beginning to know so well. + +"Yes, sare," said the concierge, "the season end suddenly mit the bad +vedder at the beginning of the veek. You know that lady? She has been +here last night; she go avay again to-day, on to Göschenen and Zürich. +Yes, sare, she shall be in Zürich to-night." + +I was in Zürich myself the night after. I knew the hotel to go to, knew +it from Mrs. Lascelles herself, whose experience of continental hotels +was so pathetically extensive. This was the best in Switzerland, so she +had assured me in one of our talks: she could never pass through Zürich +without making a night of it at the Baur au Lac. But one night of it +appeared to be enough, or so it had proved on this occasion, for again I +missed her by a few hours. I was annoyed. I agreed with Mrs. Lascelles +about this hotel. Since I had made up my mind to overtake her first or +last, it might as well have been a comfortable place like this, where +there was good cooking and good music and all the comforts which I may +or may not have needed, but which I was certainly beginning to desire. + +What a contrast to the place at which I found myself the following +night. It was a place called Triberg, in the Black Forest, which I had +never penetrated before, and certainly never shall again. It seemed to +me an uttermost end of the earth, but it was raining when I arrived, and +the rain never ceased for an instant while I was there. About a dozen +hotel omnibuses met the train, from which only three passengers +alighted; the other two were a young married couple at whom I would not +have looked twice, though we all boarded the same lucky 'bus, had not +the young man stared very hard at me. + +"Captain Clephane," said he, "I guess you've forgotten me; but you may +remember my best gurl?" + +It was our good-natured young American from the Riffel Alp, who had not +only joined in the daily laugh against himself up there, but must needs +raise it as soon as ever he met one of us again. I rather think his best +girl did not hear him, for she was staring through the streaming omnibus +windows into an absolutely deserted country street, and I feared that +her eyes would soon resemble the panes. She brightened, however, in a +very flattering way, as I thought, on finding a third soul for one or +both of them to speak to, for a change. I only wished I could have +returned the compliment in my heart. + +"Captain Clephane," continued the young bridegroom, "we came down Monday +last. Say, who do you guess came down along with us?" + +"A friend of yours," prompted the bride, as I put on as blank an +expression as possible. + +I opened my eyes a little wider. It seemed the only thing to do. + +"Captain Clephane," said the bridegroom, beaming all over his +good-humoured face, "it was a lady named Lascelles, and it's to her +advice we owe this pleasure. We travelled together as far as Loocerne. +We guess we'll put salt on her at this hotel." + +"So does the Captain," announced the bride, who could not look at me +without a smile, which I altogether declined to return. But I need +hardly confess that she was right. It was from Mrs. Lascelles that I +also had heard of the dismal spot to which we were come, as her own +ultimate objective after Switzerland. It was the only address with which +she had provided the concierge at the Riffel Alp. All day I had +regretted the night wasted at Zürich, on the chance of saving a day; but +until this moment I had been sanguine of bringing my dubious quest to a +successful issue here in Triberg. Now I was no longer even anxious to do +so. I did not desire witnesses of a meeting which might well be of a +character humiliating to myself. Still less should I have chosen for +such witnesses a couple who were plainly disposed to put the usual +misconstruction upon the relations of any man with any woman. + +My disappointment was consequently less than theirs when we drove up to +as gloomy a hostelry as I have ever beheld, with the blue-black forest +smoking wet behind it, to find that here also the foul weather had +brought the season to a premature and sudden end, literally emptying +this particular hotel. Nor did the landlord give us the welcome we might +have expected on a hasty consideration of the circumstances. He said +that he had been on the point of shutting up that house until next +season and hinted at less profit than loss upon three persons only. + +"But there's a fourth person coming," declared the disconsolate bride. +"We figured on finding her right here!" + +"A Mrs. Lascelles," her husband explained. + +"Been and gone," said the landlord, grinning sardonically. "Too lonely +for the lady. She has arrived last night, and gone away again this +morning. You will find her at the Darmstaedterhof, in Baden-Baden, +unless she changes her mind on the way." + +I caught his grin. It had been the same story, at every stage of my +journey; the chances were that it would be the same thing again at +Baden-Baden. There may have been something, however, of which I was +unaware in my smile; for I found myself under close observation by the +bride; and as our eyes met her hand slipped within her husband's arm. + +"I guess _we_ won't find her there," she said. "I guess we'll just light +out for ourselves, and wish the captain luck." + +A stern chase is proverbially protracted, but on dry land it has usually +one end. Mine ended in Baden on the fifth (and first fine) day, rather +early in the afternoon. On arrival I drove straight to the +Darmstaedterhof, and asked to see no visitors' books, for the five days +had taken the edge off my finesse, but inquired at once whether a Mrs. +Lascelles was staying there or not. She was. It seemed incredible. Were +they sure she had not just left? They were sure. But she was not in; at +my request they made equally sure of that. She had probably gone to the +Conversationshaus, to listen to the band. All Baden went there in the +afternoon, to listen to that band. It was a very good band. Baden-Baden +was a very good place. There was no better hotel in Baden-Baden than the +Darmstaedterhof; there were no such baths in the other hotels, these +came straight from the spring, at their natural temperature. They were +matchless for rheumatism, especially in the legs. The old Empress, +Augusta, when in Baden, used to patronise this very hotel and no other. +They could show me the actual bath, and I myself could have pension +(baths excluded) for eight marks and fifty a day. If I would be so kind +as to step into the lift, I should see the room for myself, and then +with my permission they would bring in my luggage and pay the cab. + +All this by degrees, from a pale youth in frock-coat and forage-cap, and +a more prosperous personage with _pince-nez_ and a paunch (yet another +concierge and my latest landlord respectively), while I stood making up +my mind. The closing proposition was of some assistance to me. I had no +luggage on the cab, of which the cabman's hat alone was visible, at the +bottom of a flight of steps, at the far end of the flagged approach. I +had left my luggage at the station, but I only recollected the fact upon +being recalled from a mental forecast of the interview before me to +these exceedingly petty preliminaries. + +There and then I paid off the cab and found my own way to this +Conversationshaus. I liked the look of the trim, fresh town in its +perfect amphitheatre of pine-clad hills, covered in by a rich blue sky +from which the last clouds were exhaling like breath from a mirror. The +well-drained streets were drying clean as in a black frost; checkered +with sharp shadows, twinkling with shop windows, and strikingly free +from the more cumbrous forms of traffic. If this was Germany, I could +dispense with certain discreditable prejudices. I had to inquire my way +of a policeman in a flaming helm; because I could not understand his +copious directions, he led me to a tiny bridge within earshot of the +band, and there refused my proferred coin with the dignity of a +Hohenzollern. Under the tiny bridge there ran the shallowest and +clearest of little rivers. Up the white walls of the houses clambered a +deal of Virginia creeper, brought on by the rain, and now almost scarlet +in the strong sunlight. Presently at some gates there was a mark to pay, +or it may have been two; immediate admittance to an avenue of +fascinating shops, with an inner avenue of trees, little tables under +them, and the crash of the band growing louder at every yard. Eventual +access to a fine, broad terrace, a fine, long façade, a bandstand, and +people listening and walking up and down, people listening and drinking +beer or coffee at more little tables, people listening and reading on +rows of chairs, people standing to listen with all their ears; but not +for a long time the person I sought. + + * * * * * + +Not for a very long time, but yet, at last, and all alone, among the +readers on the chairs, deep in a Tauchnitz volume even here as in the +Alps; more daintily yet not less simply dressed, in pink muslin and a +big black hat; and blessed here as there with such blooming health, such +inimitable freshness, such a general air of well-being and of deep +content, as almost to disgust me after my whole week's search and my own +hourly qualms. + +So I found Mrs. Lascelles in the end, and so I saw her until she looked +up and saw me; then the picture changed; but I am not going to describe +the change. + +"Well, really!" she cried out. + +"It has taken me all the week to find you," said I, as I replaced my +hat. + +Her eyes flashed again. + +"Has it, indeed! And now you have found me, aren't you satisfied? Pray +have a good look, Captain Clephane. You won't find anybody else!" + +Her meaning dawned on me at last. + +"I didn't expect to, Mrs. Lascelles." + +"Am I to believe that?" + +"You must do as you please. It is the truth. Mrs. Lascelles, I have been +all the week looking for you and you alone." + +I spoke with some warmth, for not only did I speak the truth, but it had +become more and more the truth at every stage of my journey since +Brigues. Mrs. Lascelles leant back in her chair and surveyed me with +less anger, but with the purer and more pernicious scorn. + +"And what business had you to do that?" she asked calmly. "How dare you, +I should like to know?" + +"I dared," said I, "because I owed you a debt which, I felt, must be +paid in person, or it would never be paid at all. Mrs. Lascelles, I +owed and do owe you about the most abject apology man ever made! I have +followed you all this way for no other earthly reason than to make it, +in all sincere humility. But it has taken me more or less since Tuesday +morning; and I can't kneel here. Do you mind if I sit down?" + +Mrs. Lascelles drew in the hem of her pink muslin, with an all but +insufferable gesture of unwilling resignation. I took the next chair but +one, but, leaning my elbow on the chair-back between us, was rather the +gainer by the intervening inches, which enabled me to study a perfect +profile and the most wonderful colouring as I could scarcely have done +at still closer range. She never turned to look at me, but simply +listened while the band played, and people passed, and I said my say. It +was very short: there was so little that she did not know. There was the +excitement about Bob, his subsequent reappearance, our scene in his room +and my last sight of him in the morning; but the bare facts went into +few words, and there was no demand for details. Mrs. Lascelles seemed to +have lost all interest in her latest lover; but when I tried to speak +of my own hateful hand in that affair, to explain what I could of it, +but to extenuate nothing, and to apologise from my heart for it all, +then there was a change in her, then her blood mounted, then her bosom +heaved, and I was silenced by a single flash from her eyes. + +"Yes," said she, "you could let him think you were in earnest, you could +pose as his rival, you could pretend all that! Not to me, I grant you! +Even you did not go quite so far as that; or was it that you knew that I +should see through you? You made up for it, however, the other night. +That I never, never, never shall forgive. I, who had never seriously +thought of accepting him, who was only hesitating in order to refuse him +in the most deliberate and final manner imaginable--I, to have the word +put into my mouth--by you! I, who was going in any case, of my own +accord, to be told to go--by you! One thing you will never know, Captain +Clephane, and that is how nearly you drove me into marrying him just to +spite you and his miserable mother. I meant to do it, that night when I +left you. It would have served you right if I had!" + +She did not rise. She did not look at me again. But I saw the tears +standing in her eyes, one I saw roll down her cheek, and the sight smote +me harder than her hardest word, though more words followed in broken +whispers. + +"It wasn't because I cared ... that you hurt me as you did. I never did +care for him ... like that. It was ... because ... you seemed to think +my society contamination ... to an honest boy. I did care for him, but +not like that. I cared too much for him to let him marry me ... to +contaminate him for life!" + +I repudiated the reiterated word with all my might. I had never used it, +even in my thoughts; it had never once occurred to me in connection with +her. Had I not shown as much? Had I behaved as though I feared +contamination for myself? I rapped out these questions with undue +triumph, in my heat, only to perceive their second edge as it cut me to +the quick. + +"But you were playing a part," retorted Mrs. Lascelles. "You don't deny +it. Are you proud of it, that you rub it in? Or are you going to begin +denying it now?" + +Unfortunately, that was impossible. Tt was too late for denials. But, +driven into my last corner, as it seemed, I relapsed for the moment into +thought, and my thoughts took the form of a rapid retrospect of all the +hours that this angry woman and I had spent together. I was introduced +to her again by poor Bob. I recognised her again by the light of a +match, and accosted her next morning in the strong sunshine. We went for +our first walk together. We sat together on the green ledge overlooking +the glaciers, and first she talked about herself, and then we both +talked about Bob, and then Bob appeared in the flesh and gave me my +disastrous idea. Then there was the day on the Findelen that we had all +three spent together. Then there was the walk home from early church +(short as it had been), the subsequent expedition to Zermatt and back, +with its bright beginning and its clouded end. Up to that point, at all +events, they had been happy hours, so many of them unburdened by a +single thought of Bob Evers and his folly, not one of them haunted by +the usual sense of a part that is played. I almost wondered as I +realised this. I supposed it would be no use attempting to express +myself to Mrs. Lascelles, but I felt I must say something before I went, +so I said: + +"I deny nothing, and I'm proud of nothing, but neither am I quite so +ashamed as perhaps I ought to be. Shall I tell you why, Mrs. Lascelles? +It may have been an insolent and an infamous part, as you imply; but I +enjoyed playing it, and I used often to forget it was a part at all. So +much so that even now I'm not so sure that it was one! There--I suppose +that makes it all ten times worse. But I won't apologise again. Do you +mind giving me that stick?" + +I had rested the two of them against the chair between us. Mrs. +Lascelles had taken possession of one, with which she was methodically +probing the path, for there had been no time to draw their Alpine teeth. +She did not comply with my request. She smiled instead. + +"I mind very much," her old voice said. "Now we have finished fighting, +perhaps you will listen to the _Meistersinger_--for it is worth +listening to on that band--and try to appreciate Baden while you are +here. There are no more trains for hours." + +The wooded hills rose over the bandstand, against the bright blue sky. +The shadow of the colonnade lay sharp and black beyond our feet, with +people passing, and the band crashing, in the sunlight beyond. That was +Baden. I should not have found it a difficult place to appreciate, a +week or so before; even now it was no hardship to sit there listening to +the one bit of Wagner that my ear welcomes as a friend, and furtively to +watch my companion as she sat and listened too. You will perceive by +what train of associations my eyes soon fell upon the Tauchnitz volume +which she must have placed without thinking on the chair between us. I +took it up. Heavens! It was one of the volumes of Browning's Poems. And +back I sped in spirit to a green ledge overlooking the Gorner Glacier, +to think what we had said about Browning up there, but only to remember +how I had longed to be to Mrs. Lascelles what Catherine Evers had been +to me. There were some sharp edges to the reminiscence, but I turned the +pages while they did their worst, and so cut myself to the heart upon a +sharper than them all. It was in a poem I remembered, a poem whose title +pained me into glancing farther. And see what leapt to meet me from the +printed page: + + "And I,--what I seem to my friend, you see: + What I soon shall seem to his love, you guess: + What I seem to myself, do you ask of me? + No hero, I confess." + +True, too true; no hero, indeed; anything in the wide world else! But +that I should read it there by the woman's side! And yet, even that was +no such coincidence; had we not talked about the poet, had I not implied +what Catherine thought of him, what everybody ought to think? + +Of a sudden a strange thrill stirred me; sidelong I glanced at my +companion. She had turned her head away; her cheek was deeply dyed. She +knew what I was doing; she might divine my thoughts. I shut the book +lest she should see the vile title of a thing I had hitherto liked. And +the _Prizelied_ crashed back into the ear. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +NUMBER THREE + + +It was the middle of November when I was shown once more into the old +room at the old number in Elm Park Gardens. There was a fire, the +windows were shut, and the electric light was a distinct improvement +when the maid put it on; otherwise all was exactly as I had left it in +August, and so often pictured it since. There was "Hope," presiding over +the shelf of poets, and here "Paolo and Francesca," reminiscent as ever +of Melbury Road, upon a wet Sunday, years and years ago. The day's +_Times_ and the week's _Spectator_ were not less prominent than the last +new problem novel; all three lay precisely where their predecessors had +always lain; and my own dead self stood in its own old place upon the +piano which had been in St. Helena with Napoleon. It is vanity's deserts +to come across these unnecessary memorials of a decently buried +boyhood; there is always something stultifying about them, and I longed +to confiscate this one of me. + +But there was a photograph on the chimney-piece that interested me +keenly; it was evidently the very latest of Bob Evers, and I studied it +with a painful curiosity. Was the boy really altered, or did I only +imagine it from my secret knowledge of his affairs? To me he seemed +graver, more sedate, less angelically trustful in expression, and yet +something finer and manlier withal: to confirm the idea one had only to +compare this new one with the racket photograph now relegated to a rear +rank. The round-eyed look was gone. Had I here yet another memorial of +yet another buried boyhood? If so, I felt I was the sexton, and I might +be ashamed, and I was. + +"Looking at Bob? Isn't it a dear one of him? You see--he is none the +worse!" + +And Catherine Evers stood smiling as warmly, as gratefully, as she +grasped my hand; but with her warmth there was a certain nervousness of +manner, which had the odd effect of putting me perversely at my ease; +and I found myself looking critically at Catherine, really critically, +for I suppose the first time in my life. + +"He is playing foot-ball," she continued, full as ever of her boy. "I +had a letter from him only this morning. He had his colours at Eton, you +know (he had them for everything there), but he never dreamt of getting +them at Cambridge, yet now he really thinks he has a chance! They tried +him the other day, and he kicked a goal. Dear old Bob! If he does get +them he will be a Blue and a half, he says. He writes so happily, +Duncan! I have so much to be thankful for--to thank you for!" + +Yes, Catherine was good to look at; there was no doubt of it; and this +time she was not wearing any hat. Discoursing of the lad, she was +animated, eager, for once as exclamatory as her pen, with light and life +in every look of the thin intellectual face, in every glance of the +large, intellectual eyes, and in every intonation of the keen dry voice. +A sweet woman; a young woman; a woman with a full heart of love and +sympathy and tenderness--for Bob! Yet, when she thanked me at the end, +either upon an impulse, or because she thought she must, her eyes fell, +and again I detected that slight embarrassment which was none the less a +revelation, to me, in Catherine Evers, of all women in the world. + +"We won't speak of that," I said, "if you don't mind. I am not proud of +it." + +Catherine scanned me more narrowly. I knew her better with that look. +"Then tell me about yourself, and do sit down," she said, drawing a +chair near the fire, but sitting on the other side of it herself. "I +needn't ask you how you are. I never saw you looking so well. That comes +of going right away and not hurrying back. I think you were so wise! +But, Duncan, I am sorry to see both sticks still! Have you seen your man +since you came back?" + +"I have." + +"Well?" + +"I'm afraid there's no more soldiering for me." + +Catherine seemed more than sorry and disappointed; she looked quite +indignant with the eminent specialist who had finally pronounced this +opinion. Was I sure he was the very best man for that kind of thing? She +would have a second opinion, if she were me. Very well, then, a third +and fourth! If there was one man she pitied from the bottom of her +heart, it was the man without a profession or an occupation of some +kind. Catherine looked, however, as though her pity were almost akin to +horror. + +"I have a trifle, luckily," I said. "I must try something else." + +Catherine stared into the fire, as though thinking of something else for +me to try. She seemed full of apprehension on my account. + +"Don't you worry about me," I went on. "I came here to talk about +somebody else, of course." + +Catherine almost started. + +"I've told you about Bob," she said, with a suspicious upward glance +from the fire. + +"I don't mean Bob," said I, "or anything you may think I did for him or +you. I said just now that I didn't want to speak of it and no more I do. +Yet, as a matter of fact, I do want to speak to you about the lady in +that case." + +Catherine's face betrayed the mixed emotions of relief and fresh alarm. + +"You don't mean to say the creature--? But it's impossible. I heard from +Bob only this morning. He wrote so happily!" + +I could not help smiling at the nature and quality of the alarm. + +"They have seen nothing more of each other, if that's what you fear," +said I. "But what I do want to speak about is this creature, as you call +her, and no one else. She has done nothing to deserve quite so much +contempt. I want you to be just to her, Catherine." + +I was serious. I may have been ridiculous. Catherine evidently found me +so, for, after gauging me with that wry but humourous look which I knew +so well of old, for which I had been waiting this afternoon, she went +off into the decorous little fit of laughter in which it had invariably +ended. + +"Forgive me, Duncan dear! But you do look so serious, and you _are_ so +dreadfully broad! I never was. I hope you remember that? Broad minds and +easy principles--the combination is inevitable. But, really though, +Duncan, is there anything to be said for her? Was she a possible +person, in any sense of the word?" + +"Quite a probable person," I assured Catherine. + +"But I have heard all sorts of things about her!" + +"From Bob?" + +"No, he never mentioned her." + +"Nor me, perhaps?" + +"Nor you, Duncan. I am afraid there may be just a drop of bad blood +there! You see, he looked upon you as a successful rival. You wrote and +told me so, if you remember, from some place on your way down from the +mountains. Your letter and Bob arrived the same night." + +I nodded. + +"It was so clever of you!" pursued Catherine. "Quite brilliant; but I +don't quite know what to say to your letting my baby climb that awful +Matterhorn; in a fog, too!" + +And there was real though momentary reproach in the firelit face. + +"I couldn't very well stop him, you know. Besides," I added, "it was +such a chance." + +"Of what?" + +"Of getting rid of Mrs. Lascelles. I thought you would think it worth +the risk." + +"I do," declared Catherine, on due consultation with the fire. "I really +do! Bob is all I have--all I want--in this world, Duncan; and it may +seem a dreadful thing to say, and you mayn't believe it when I've said +it, but--yes!--I'd rather he had never come home at all than come home +married, at his age, and to an Indian widow, whose first husband had +divorced her! I mean it, Duncan; I do indeed!" + +"I am sure you do," said I. "It was just what I said to myself." + +"To think of my Bob being Number Three!" murmured Catherine, with that +plaintive drollery of hers which I had found irresistible in the days of +old. + +I was able to resist it now. "So those were the things you heard?" I +remarked. + +"Yes," said Catherine; "haven't you heard them?" + +"I didn't need. I knew her in India years ago." + +Catherine's eyes opened. + +"_You_ knew this Mrs. Lascelles?" + +"Before that was her name. I have also met her original husband. If you +had known him, you would be less hard on her." + +Catherine's eyes were still wide open. They were rather hard eyes, after +all. "Why did you not tell me you had known her, when you wrote?" she +asked. + +"It wouldn't have done any good. I did what you wanted done, you know. I +thought that was enough." + +"It was enough," echoed Catherine, with a quick return of grace. She +looked into the fire. "I don't want to be hard upon the poor thing, +Duncan! I know you think we women always are, upon each other. But to +have come back married--at his age--to even the nicest woman in the +world! It would have been madness ... ruination ... Duncan, T'm going to +say something else that may shock you." + +"Say away," said I. + +Her voice had fallen. She was looking at me very narrowly, as if to +measure the effect of her unspoken words. + +"I am not so very sure about marriage," she went on, "at any age! Don't +misunderstand me ... I was very happy ... but I for one could never +marry again ... and I am not sure that I ever want to see Bob...." + +Catherine had spoken very gently, looking once more in the fire; when +she ceased there was a space of utter silence in the little room. Then +her eyes came back furtively to mine; and presently they were twinkling +with their old staid merriment. + +"But to be Number Three!" she said again. "My poor old Bob!" + +And she smiled upon me, tenderly, from the depths of her alter-egoism. + +"Well," I said, "he never will be." + +"God forbid!" cried Catherine. + +"He has forbidden. It will never happen." + +"Is she dead?" asked Catherine, but not too quickly for common decency. +She was not one to pass such bounds. + +"Not that I know of." + +It was hard to repress a sneer. + +"Then what makes you so sure--that he never could?" + +"Well, he never will in my time!" + +"You are good to me," said Catherine, gratefully. + +"Not a bit good," said I, "or--only to myself ... I have been good to no +one else in this whole matter. That's what it all amounts to, and that's +what I really came to tell you. Catherine ... I am married to her +myself!" + +THE END + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of No Hero, by E.W. Hornung + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 11153 *** diff --git a/11153-h/11153-h.htm b/11153-h/11153-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..16ece91 --- /dev/null +++ b/11153-h/11153-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,5406 @@ +<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> +<html> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" + content="text/html; charset=UTF-8"> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of + No Hero, + by E.W. Hornung. +</title> +<style type="text/css"> + <!-- + * { font-family: Times;} + P { margin-top: .75em; + font-size: 12pt; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; } + H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; } + HR { width: 33%; } + PRE { font-family: Courier, monospaced; } + BODY { margin-left: 4%; margin-right: 4%; } + // --> +</style> +</head> +<body> +<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 11153 ***</div> + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<h1>No Hero</h1> +<p> </p> +<h2>By E.W. Hornung </h2> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + +<h3> +1903 +</h3> + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + +<hr> +<p> </p> +<h2> + CONTENTS +</h2> +<p> </p> +<center style="margin-bottom: 1.5em;"><a href="#CH1">CHAPTER I</a> — A Plenipotentiary</center> +<center style="margin-bottom: 1.5em;"><a href="#CH2">CHAPTER II</a> — The Theatre of War</center> +<center style="margin-bottom: 1.5em;"><a href="#CH3">CHAPTER III</a> — First Blood</center> +<center style="margin-bottom: 1.5em;"><a href="#CH4">CHAPTER IV</a> — A Little Knowledge</center> +<center style="margin-bottom: 1.5em;"><a href="#CH5">CHAPTER V</a> — A Marked Woman</center> +<center style="margin-bottom: 1.5em;"><a href="#CH6">CHAPTER VI</a> — Out of Action</center> +<center style="margin-bottom: 1.5em;"><a href="#CH7">CHAPTER VII</a> — Second Fiddle</center> +<center style="margin-bottom: 1.5em;"><a href="#CH8">CHAPTER VIII</a> — Prayers and Parables</center> +<center style="margin-bottom: 1.5em;"><a href="#CH9">CHAPTER IX</a> — Sub Judice</center> +<center style="margin-bottom: 1.5em;"><a href="#CH10">CHAPTER X</a> — The Last Word</center> +<center style="margin-bottom: 1.5em;"><a href="#CH11">CHAPTER XI</a> — The Lion's Mouth</center> +<center style="margin-bottom: 1.5em;"><a href="#CH12">CHAPTER XII</a> — A Stern Chase</center> +<center><a href="#CH13">CHAPTER XIII</a> — Number Three</center> +<p> </p> +<hr> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<h1> +No Hero +</h1> + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<a name="CH1"><!-- CH1 --></a> +<h2> + CHAPTER I +</h2> + +<h3> +A PLENIPOTENTIARY +</h3> +<p> </p> +<p> +Has no writer ever dealt with the dramatic aspect of the unopened +envelope? I cannot recall such a passage in any of my authors, and yet +to my mind there is much matter for philosophy in what is always the +expressionless shell of a boundless possibility. Your friend may run +after you in the street, and you know at a glance whether his news is to +be good, bad, or indifferent; but in his handwriting on the +breakfast-table there is never a hint as to the nature of his +communication. Whether he has sustained a loss or an addition to his +family, whether he wants you to dine with him at the club or to lend him +ten pounds, his handwriting at least will be the same, unless, indeed, +he be offended, when he will generally indite your name with a studious +precision and a distant grace quite foreign to his ordinary caligraphy. +</p> +<p> +These reflections, trite enough as I know, are nevertheless inevitable +if one is to begin one's unheroic story in the modern manner, at the +latest possible point. That is clearly the point at which a waiter +brought me the fatal letter from Catherine Evers. Apart even from its +immediate consequences, the letter had a <i>prima facie</i> interest, of no +ordinary kind, as the first for years from a once constant +correspondent. And so I sat studying the envelope with a curiosity too +piquant not to be enjoyed. What in the world could so obsolete a friend +find to say to one now? Six months earlier there had been a certain +opportunity for an advance, which at that time could not possibly have +been misconstrued; when they landed me, a few later, there was another +and perhaps a better one. But this was the last summer of the late +century, and already I was beginning to get about like a lamplighter on +my two sticks. Now, young men about town, on two walking-sticks, in the +year of grace 1900, meant only one thing. Quite a stimulating thing in +the beginning, but even as I write, in this the next winter but one, a +national irritation of which the name alone might prevent you from +reading another word. +</p> +<p> +Catherine's handwriting, on the contrary, was still stimulating, if +indeed I ever found it more so in the foolish past. It had not altered +in the least. There was the same sweet pedantry of the Attic <i>e</i>, the +same superiority to the most venial abbreviation, the same inconsistent +forest of exclamatory notes, thick as poplars across the channel. The +present plantation started after my own Christian name, to wit "Dear +Duncan!!" Yet there was nothing Germanic in Catherine's ancestry; it was +only her apologetic little way of addressing me as though nothing had +ever happened, of asking whether she might. Her own old tact and charm +were in that tentative burial of the past. In the first line she had all +but won my entire forgiveness; but the very next interfered with the +effect. +</p> +<p> +"You promised to do anything for me!" +</p> +<p> +I should be sorry to deny it, I am sure, for not to this day do I know +what I did say on the occasion to which she evidently referred. But was +it kind to break the silence of years with such a reference? Was it even +quite decent in Catherine to ignore my existence until I could be of use +to her, and then to ask the favour in her first breath? It was true, as +she went on to remind me, that we were more or less connected after all, +and at least conceivable that no one else could help her as I could, if +I would. In any case, it was a certain satisfaction to hear that +Catherine herself was of the last opinion. I read on. She was in a +difficulty; but she did not say what the difficulty was. For one +unworthy moment the thought of money entered my mind, to be ejected the +next, as the Catherine of old came more and more into the mental focus. +Pride was the last thing in which I had found her wanting, and her +letter indicated no change in that respect. +</p> +<p> +"You may wonder," she wrote just at the end, "why I have never sent you +a single word of inquiry, or sympathy, or congratulation!! +Well—suppose it was 'bad blood'!! between us when you went away! Mind, +<i>I</i> never meant it to be so, but suppose it was: could I treat the dear +old you like that, and the Great New You like somebody else? You have +your own fame to thank for my unkindness! <i>I</i> am only thankful they +haven't given you the V.C.!! <i>Then</i> I should <i>never</i> have dared—not +even now!!!" +</p> +<p> +I smoked a cigarette when I had read it all twice over, and as I crushed +the fire out of the stump I felt I could as soon think of lighting it +again as I should have expected Catherine Evers to set a fresh match to +me. That, I was resolved, she should never do; nor was I quite coxcomb +enough to suspect her of the desire for a moment. But a man who has once +made a fool of himself, especially about a woman somewhat older than +himself, does not soon get over the soreness; and mine returned with the +very fascination which made itself felt even in the shortest little +letter. +</p> +<p> +Catherine wrote from the old address in Elm Park Gardens, and she wanted +me to call as early as I could, or to make any appointment I liked. I +therefore telegraphed that I was coming at three o'clock that afternoon, +and thus made for myself one of the longest mornings that I can remember +spending in town. I was staying at the time at the Kensington Palace +Hotel, to be out of the central racket of things, and yet more or less +under the eye of the surgeon who still hoped to extract the last bullet +in time. I can remember spending half the morning gazing aimlessly over +the grand old trees, already prematurely bronzed, and the other half in +limping in their shadow to the Round Pond, where a few little townridden +boys were sailing their humble craft. It was near the middle of August, +and for the first time I was thankful that an earlier migration had not +been feasible in my case. +</p> +<p> +In spite of my telegram Mrs. Evers was not at home when I arrived, but +she had left a message which more than explained matters. She was +lunching out, but only in Brechin Place, and I was to wait in the study +if I did not mind. I did not, and yet I did, for the room in which +Catherine certainly read her books and wrote her letters was also the +scene of that which I was beginning to find it rather hard work to +forget as it was. Nor had it changed any more than her handwriting, or +than the woman herself as I confidently expected to find her now. I have +often thought that at about forty both sexes stand still to the eye, and +I did not expect Catherine Evers, who could barely have reached that +rubicon, to show much symptom of the later marches. To me, here in her +den, the other year was just the other day. My time in India was little +better than a dream to me, while as for angry shots at either end of +Africa, it was never I who had been there to hear them. I must have come +by my sticks in some less romantic fashion. Nothing could convince me +that I had ever been many days or miles away from a room that I knew by +heart, and found full as I left it of familiar trifles and poignant +associations. +</p> +<p> +That was the shelf devoted to her poets; there was no addition that I +could see. Over it hung the fine photograph of Watts's "Hope," an ironic +emblem, and elsewhere one of that intolerably sad picture, his "Paolo +and Francesca": how I remembered the wet Sunday when Catherine took me +to see the original in Melbury Road! The old piano which was never +touched, the one which had been in St. Helena with Napoleon's doctor, +there it stood to an inch where it had stood of old, a sort of +grand-stand for the photographs of Catherine's friends. I descried my +own young effigy among the rest, in a frame which I recollected giving +her at the time. Well, I looked all the idiot I must have been; and +there was the very Persian rug that I had knelt on in my idiocy! I could +afford to smile at myself to-day; yet now it all seemed yesterday, not +even the day before, until of a sudden I caught sight of that other +photograph in the place of honour on the mantelpiece. It was one by +Hills and Sanders, of a tall youth in flannels, armed with a +long-handled racket, and the sweet open countenance which Robin Evers +had worn from his cradle upward. I should have known him anywhere and at +any age. It was the same dear, honest face; but to think that this giant +was little Bob! He had not gone to Eton when I saw him last; now I knew +from the sporting papers that he was up at Cambridge; but it was left to +his photograph to bring home the flight of time. +</p> +<p> +Certainly his mother would never have done so when all at once the door +opened and she stood before me, looking about thirty in the ample shadow +of a cavalier's hat. Simply but admirably gowned, as I knew she would +be, her slender figure looked more youthful still; yet in all this there +was no intent; the dry cool smile was that of an older woman, and I was +prepared for greater cordiality than I could honestly detect in the +greeting of the small firm hand. But it was kind, as indeed her whole +reception of me was; only it had always been the way of Catherine the +correspondent to make one expect a little more than mere kindness, and +of Catherine the companion to disappoint that expectation. Her +conversation needed few exclamatory points. +</p> +<p> +"Still halt and lame," she murmured over my sticks. "You poor thing, you +are to sit down this instant." +</p> +<p> +And I obeyed her as one always had, merely remarking that I was getting +along famously now. +</p> +<p> +"You must have had an awful time," continued Catherine, seating herself +near me, her calm wise eyes on mine. +</p> +<p> +"Blood-poisoning," said I. "It nearly knocked me out, but I'm glad to +say it didn't quite." +</p> +<p> +Indeed, I had never felt quite so glad before. +</p> +<p> +"Ah! that was too hard and cruel; but I was thinking of the day itself," +explained Catherine, and paused in some sweet transparent awe of one who +had been through it. +</p> +<p> +"It was a beastly day," said I, forgetting her objection to the epithet +until it was out. But Catherine did not wince. Her fixed eyes were full +of thought. +</p> +<p> +"It was all that here," she said. "One depressing morning I had a +telegram from Bob, 'Spion Kop taken'—" +</p> +<p> +"So Bob," I nodded, "had it as badly as everybody else!" +</p> +<p> +"Worse," declared Catherine, her eye hardening; "it was all I could do +to keep him at Cambridge, though he had only just gone up. He would have +given up everything and flown to the Front if I had let him." +</p> +<p> +And she wore the inexorable face with which I could picture her standing +in his way; and in Catherine I could admire that dogged look and all it +spelt, because a great passion is always admirable. The passion of +Catherine's life was her boy, the only son of his mother, and she a +widow. It had been so when he was quite small, as I remembered it with a +pinch of jealousy startling as a twinge from an old wound. More than +ever must it be so now; that was as natural as the maternal embargo in +which Catherine seemed almost to glory. And yet, I reflected, if all the +widows had thought only of their only sons—and of themselves! +</p> +<p> +"The next depressing morning," continued Catherine, happily oblivious of +what was passing through one's mind, "the first thing I saw, the first +time I put my nose outside, was a great pink placard with 'Spion Kop +Abandoned!' Duncan, it was too awful." +</p> +<p> +"I wish we'd sat tight," I said, "I must confess." +</p> +<p> +"Tight!" cried Catherine in dry horror. "I should have abandoned it long +before. I should have run away—hard! To think that you didn't—that's +quite enough for me." +</p> +<p> +And again I sustained the full flattery of that speechless awe which was +yet unembarrassing by reason of its freedom from undue solemnity. +</p> +<p> +"There were some of us who hadn't a leg to run on," I had to say; "I was +one, Mrs. Evers." +</p> +<p> +"I beg your pardon?" +</p> +<p> +"Catherine, then." But it put me to the blush. +</p> +<p> +"Thank you. If you really wish me to call you 'Captain Clephane' you +have only to say so; but in that case I can't ask the favour I had made +up my mind to ask—of so old a friend." +</p> +<p> +Her most winning voice was as good a servant as ever; the touch of scorn +in it was enough to stimulate, but not to sting; and it was the same +with the sudden light in the steady intellectual eyes. +</p> +<p> +"Catherine," I said, "you can't indeed ask any favour of me! There you +are quite right. It is not a word to use between us." +</p> +<p> +Mrs. Evers gave me one of her deliberate looks before replying. +</p> +<p> +"And I am not so sure that it is a favour," she said softly enough at +last. "It is really your advice I want to ask, in the first place at all +events. Duncan, it's about old Bob!" +</p> +<p> +The corners of her mouth twitched, her eyes filled with a quaint +humorous concern, and as a preamble I was handed the photograph which I +had already studied on my own account. +</p> +<p> +"Isn't he a dear?" asked Bob's mother. "Would you have known him, +Duncan?" +</p> +<p> +"I did know him," said I. "Spotted him at a glance. He's the same old +Bob all over." +</p> +<p> +I was fortunate enough to meet the swift glance I got for that, for in +sheer sweetness and affection it outdid all remembered glances of the +past. In a moment it was as though I had more than regained the lost +ground of lost years. And in another moment, on the heels of the +discovery, came the still more startling one that I was glad to have +regained my ground, was thankful to be reinstated, and strangely, +acutely, yet uneasily happy, as I had never been since the old days in +this very room. +</p> +<p> +Half in a dream I heard Catherine telling of her boy, of his Eton +triumphs, how he had been one of the rackets pair two years, and in the +eleven his last, but "in Pop" before he was seventeen, and yet as simple +and unaffected and unspoilt with it all as the small boy whom I +remembered. And I did remember him, and knew his mother well enough to +believe it all; for she did not chant his praises to organ music, but +rather hummed them to the banjo; and one felt that her own demure +humour, so signal and so permanent a charm in Catherine, would have been +the saving of half-a-dozen Bobs. +</p> +<p> +"And yet," she wound up at her starting-point, "it's about poor old Bob +I want to speak to you!" +</p> +<p> +"Not in a fix, I hope?" +</p> +<p> +"I hope not, Duncan." +</p> +<p> +Catherine was serious now. +</p> +<p> +"Or mischief?" +</p> +<p> +"That depends on what you mean by mischief." +</p> +<p> +Catherine was more serious still. +</p> +<p> +"Well, there are several brands, but only one or two that really +poison—unless, of course, a man is very poor." +</p> +<p> +And my mind harked back to its first suspicion, of some financial +embarrassment, now conceivable enough; but Catherine told me her boy was +not poor, with the air of one who would have drunk ditchwater rather +than let the other want for champagne. +</p> +<p> +"It is just the opposite," she added: "in little more than a year, when +he comes of age, he will have quite as much as is good for him. You know +what he is, or rather you don't. I do. And if I were not his mother I +should fall in love with him myself!" +</p> +<p> +Catherine looked down on me as she returned from replacing Bob's +photograph on the mantelpiece. The humour had gone out of her eye; in +its place was an almost animal glitter, a far harder light than had +accompanied the significant reference to the patriotic impulse which she +had nipped in the bud. It was probably only the old, old look of the +lioness whose whelp is threatened, but it was something new to me in +Catherine Evers, something half-repellent and yet almost wholly fine. +</p> +<p> +"You don't mean to say it's that?" I asked aghast. +</p> +<p> +"No, I don't," Catherine answered, with a hard little laugh. "He's not +quite twenty, remember; but I am afraid that he is making a fool of +himself, and I want it stopped." +</p> +<p> +I waited for more, merely venturing to nod my sympathetic concern. +</p> +<p> +"Poor old Bob, as you may suppose, is not a genius. He is far too nice," +declared Catherine's old self, "to be anything so nasty. But I always +thought he had his head screwed on, and his heart screwed in, or I never +would have let him loose in a Swiss hotel. As it was, I was only too +glad for him to go with George Kennerley, who was as good at work at +Eton as Bob was at games." +</p> +<p> +In Catherine's tone, for all the books on her shelves, the pictures on +her walls, there was no doubt at all as to which of the two an Eton boy +should be good at, and I agreed sincerely with another nod. +</p> +<p> +"They were to read together for an hour or so every day. I thought it +would be a nice little change for Bob, and it was quite a chance; he +must do a certain amount of work, you see. Well, they only went at the +beginning of the month, and already they have had enough of each other's +society." +</p> +<p> +"You don't mean that they've had a row?" +</p> +<p> +Catherine inclined a mortified head. +</p> +<p> +"Bob never had such a thing in his life before, nor did I ever know +anybody who succeeded in having one with Bob. It does take two, you +know. And when one of the two has an angelic temper, and tact enough for +twenty—" +</p> +<p> +"You naturally blame the other," I put in, as she paused in visible +perplexity. +</p> +<p> +"But I don't, Duncan, and that's just the point. George is devoted to +Bob, and is as nice as he can be himself, in his own sober, honest, +plodding way. He may not have the temper, he certainly has not the tact, +but he worships Bob and has come back quite miserable." +</p> +<p> +"Then he has come back, and you have seen him?" +</p> +<p> +"He was here last night. You must know that Bob writes to me every day, +even from Cambridge, if it's only a line; and in yesterday's letter he +mentioned quite casually that George had had enough of it and was off +home. It was a little too casual to be quite natural in old Bob, and +there are other things he has been mentioning in the same way. If any +instinct is to be relied upon it is a mother's, and mine amounted almost +to second sight. I sent Master George a telegram, and he came in last +night." +</p> +<p> +"Well?"' +</p> +<p> +"Not a word! There was bad blood between them, but that was all I could +get out of him. Vulgar disagreeables between Bob, of all people, and his +greatest friend! If you could have seen the poor fellow sitting where +you are sitting now, like a prisoner in the dock! I put him in the +witness-box instead, and examined him on scraps of Bob's letters to me. +It was as unscrupulous as you please, but I felt unscrupulous; and the +poor dear was too loyal to admit, yet too honest to deny, a single +thing." +</p> +<p> +"And?" said I, as Bob's mother paused again. +</p> +<p> +"And," cried she, with conscious melodrama in the fiery twinkle of her +eye—"and, I know all! There is an odious creature at the hotel—a +widow, if you please! A 'ripping widow' Bob called her in his first +letter; then it was 'Mrs. Lascelles'; but now it is only 'some people' +whom he escorts here, there, and everywhere. <i>Some</i> people, indeed!" +</p> +<p> +Catherine smiled unmercifully. I relied upon my nod. +</p> +<p> +"I needn't tell you," she went on, "that the creature is at least twenty +years older than my baby, and not at all nice at that. George didn't +tell me, mind, but he couldn't deny a single thing. It was about her +that they fell out. Poor George remonstrated, not too diplomatically, I +daresay, but I can quite see that my Bob behaved as he was never known +to behave on land or sea. The poor child has been bewitched, neither +more nor less." +</p> +<p> +"He'll get over it," I murmured, with the somewhat shaky confidence born +of my own experience. +</p> +<p> +Catherine looked at me in mild surprise. +</p> +<p> +"But it's going on now, Duncan—it's going on still!" +</p> +<p> +"Well," I added, with all the comfort that my voice would carry, and +which an exaggerated concern seemed to demand: "well, Catherine, it +can't go very far at his age!" Nor to this hour can I yet conceive a +sounder saying, in all the circumstances of the case, and with one's +knowledge of the type of lad; but my fate was the common one of +comforters, and I was made speedily and painfully aware that I had now +indeed said the most unfortunate thing. +</p> +<p> +Catherine did not stamp her foot, but she did everything else required +by tradition of the exasperated lady. Not go far? As if it had not gone +too far already to be tolerated another instant longer than was +necessary! +</p> +<p> +"He is making a fool of himself—my boy—my Bob—before a whole +hotelful of sharp eyes and sharper tongues! Is that not far enough for +it to have gone? Duncan, it must be stopped, and stopped at once; but I +am not the one to do it. I would rather it went on," cried Catherine +tragically, as though the pit yawned before us all, "than that his +mother should fly to his rescue before all the world! But a friend might +do it, Duncan—if—" +</p> +<p> +Her voice had dropped. I bent my ear. +</p> +<p> +"If only," she sighed, "I had a friend who would!" +</p> +<p> +Catherine was still looking down when I looked up; but the droop of the +slender body, the humble angle of the cavalier hat, the faint flush +underneath, all formed together a challenge and an appeal which were the +more irresistible for their sweet shamefacedness. Acute consciousness of +the past (I thought), and (I even fancied) some penitence for a wrong by +no means past undoing, were in every sensitive inch of her, as she sat a +suppliant to the old player of that part. And there are emotions of +which the body may be yet more eloquent than the face; there was the +figure of Watts's "Hope" drooping over as she drooped, not more lissom +and speaking than her own; just then it caught my eye, and on the spot +it was as though the lute's last string of that sweet masterpiece had +vibrated aloud in Catherine's room. +</p> +<p> +My hand shook as I reached for my trusty sticks, but I cannot say that +my voice betrayed me when I inquired the name of the Swiss hotel. +</p> +<p> +"The Riffel Alp," said Catherine—"above Zermatt, you know." +</p> +<p> +"I start to-morrow morning," I rejoined, "if that will do." +</p> +<p> +Then Catherine looked up. I cannot describe her look. Transfiguration +were the idle word, but the inadequate, and yet more than one would +scatter the effect of so sudden a burst of human sunlight. +</p> +<p> +"Would you really go?" she cried. "Do you mean it, Duncan?" +</p> +<p> +"I only wish," I replied, "that it were to Australia." +</p> +<p> +"But then you would be weeks too late." +</p> +<p> +"Ah, that's another story! I may be too late as it is." +</p> +<p> +Her brightness clouded on the instant; only a gleam of annoyance pierced +the cloud. +</p> +<p> +"Too late for what, may I ask?" +</p> +<p> +"Everything except stopping the banns." +</p> +<p> +"Please don't talk nonsense, Duncan. Banns at nineteen!" +</p> +<p> +"It is nonsense, I agree; at the same time the minor consequences will +be the hardest to deal with. If they are being talked about, well, they +are being talked about. You know Bob best: suppose he is making a fool +of himself, is he the sort of fellow to stop because one tells him so? I +should say not, from what I know of him, and of you." +</p> +<p> +"I don't know," argued Catherine, looking pleased with her compliment. +"You used to have quite an influence over him, if you remember." +</p> +<p> +"That's quite possible; but then he was a small boy, now he is a grown +man." +</p> +<p> +"But you are a much older one." +</p> +<p> +"Too old to trust to that." +</p> +<p> +"And you have been wounded in the war." +</p> +<p> +"The hotel may be full of wounded officers; if not I might get a little +unworthy purchase there. In any case I'll go. I should have to go +somewhere before many days. It may as well be to that place as to +another. I have heard that the air is glorious; and I'll keep an eye on +Robin, if I can't do anything else." +</p> +<p> +"That's enough for me," cried Catherine, warmly. "I have sufficient +faith in you to leave all the rest to your own discretion and good sense +and better heart. And I never shall forget it, Duncan, never, never! You +are the one person he wouldn't instantly suspect as an emissary, besides +being the only one I ever—ever trusted well enough to—to take at your +word as I have done." +</p> +<p> +I thought myself that the sentence might have pursued a bolder course +without untruth or necessary complications. Perhaps my conceit was on a +scale with my acknowledged infirmity where Catherine was concerned. But +I did think that there was more than trust in the eyes that now melted +into mine; there was liking at least, and gratitude enough to inspire +one to win infinitely more. I went so far as to take in mine the hand to +which I had dared to aspire in the temerity of my youth; nor shall I +pretend for a moment that the old aspirations had not already mounted to +their old seat in my brain. On the contrary, I was only wondering +whether the honesty of voicing my hopes would nowise counterbalance the +caddishness of the sort of stipulation they might imply. +</p> +<p> +"All I ask," I was saying to myself, "is that you will give me another +chance, and take me seriously this time, if I prove myself worthy in the +way you want." +</p> +<p> +But I am glad to think I had not said it when tea came up, and saved a +dangerous situation by breaking an insidious spell. +</p> +<p> +I stayed another hour at least, and there are few in my memory which +passed more deliciously at the time. In writing of it now I feel that I +have made too little of Catherine Evers, in my anxiety not to make too +much, yet am about to leave her to stand or to fall in the reader's +opinion by such impression as I have already succeeded in creating in +his or her mind. Let me add one word, or two, while yet I may. A +baron's daughter (though you might have known Catherine some time +without knowing that), she had nevertheless married for mere love as a +very young girl, and had been left a widow before the birth of her boy. +I never knew her husband, though we were distant kin, nor yet herself +during the long years through which she mourned him. Catherine Evers was +beginning to recover her interest in the world when first we met; but +she never returned to that identical fold of society in which she had +been born and bred. It was, of course, despite her own performances, a +fold to which the worldly wolf was no stranger; and her trouble had +turned a light-hearted little lady into an eager, intellectual, +speculative being, with a sort of shame for her former estate, and an +undoubted reactionary dislike of dominion and of petty pomp. Of her own +high folk one neither saw nor heard a thing; her friends were the +powerful preachers of most denominations, and one or two only painted or +wrote; for she had been greatly exercised about religion, and somewhat +solaced by the arts. +</p> +<p> +Of her charm for me, a lad with a sneaking regard for the pen, even when +I buckled on the sword, I need not be too analytical. No doubt about her +kindly interest, in the first instance, in so morbid a curiosity as a +subaltern who cared for books and was prepared to extend his gracious +patronage to pictures. This subaltern had only too much money, and if +the truth be known, only too little honest interest in the career into +which he had allowed himself to drift. An early stage of that career +brought him up to London, where family pressure drove him on a day to +Elm Park Gardens. The rest is easily conceived. Here was a woman, still +young, though some years older than oneself; attractive, intellectual, +amusing, the soul of sympathy, at once a spiritual influence and the +best companion in the world; and for a time, at least, she had taken a +perhaps imprudent interest in a lad whom she so greatly interested +herself, on so many and various accounts. Must you marvel that the +young fool mistook the interest, on both sides, for a more intense +feeling, of which he for one had no experience at the time, and that he +fell by his mistake at a ridiculously early stage of his career? +</p> +<p> +It is, I grant, more surprising to find the same young man playing Harry +Esmond (at due distance) to the same Lady Castlewood after years in +India and a taste of two wars. But Catherine's room was Catherine's +room, a very haunt of the higher sirens, charged with noble promptings +and forgotten influences and impossible vows. And you will please bear +in mind that as yet I am but setting forth, from this rarefied +atmosphere, upon my invidious mission. +</p> + + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<a name="CH2"><!-- CH2 --></a> +<h2> + CHAPTER II +</h2> + +<h3> +THE THEATRE OF WAR +</h3> +<p> </p> +<p> +It is a far cry to Zermatt at the best of times, and that is not the +middle of August. The annual rush was at its height, the trains crowded, +the heat of them overpowering. I chose to sit up all night in my corner +of an ordinary compartment, as a lesser evil than the <i>wagon-lit</i> in +which you cannot sit up at all. In the morning one was in Switzerland, +with a black collar, a rusty chin, and a countenance in keeping with its +appointments. It was not as though the night had been beguiled for me by +such considerations as are only proper to the devout pilgrim in his +lady's service. +</p> +<p> +On the contrary, and to tell the honest truth, I found it quite +impossible to sustain such a serious view of the very special service to +which I was foresworn: the more I thought of it, in one sense, the less +in another, until my only chance was to go forward with grim humour in +the spirit of impersonal curiosity which that attitude induces. In a +word, and the cant one which yet happens to express my state of mind to +a nicety, I had already "weakened" on the whole business which I had +been in such a foolish hurry to undertake, though not for one +reactionary moment upon her for whom I had undertaken it. I was still +entirely eager to "do her behest in pleasure or in pain"; but this +particular enterprise I was beginning to view apart from its +inspiration, on its intrinsic demerits, and the more clearly I saw it in +its own light, the less pleasure did the prospect afford me. +</p> +<p> +A young giant, whom I had not seen since his childhood, was merely +understood to be carrying on a conspicuous, but in all probability the +most innocent, flirtation in a Swiss hotel; and here was I, on mere +second-hand hearsay, crossing half Europe to spoil his perfectly +legitimate sport! I did not examine my project from the unknown lady's +point of view; it made me quite hot enough to consider it from that of +my own sex. Yet, the day before yesterday, I had more than acquiesced +in the dubious plan. I had even volunteered for its achievement. The +train rattled out one long, maddening tune to my own incessant +marvellings at my own secret apostasy: the stuffy compartment was not +Catherine's sanctum of the quickening memorials and the olden spell. +Catherine herself was no longer before me in the vivacious flesh, with +her half playful pathos of word and look, her fascinating outward light +and shade, her deeper and steadier intellectual glow. Those, I suppose, +were the charms which had undone me, first as well as last; but the +memory of them was no solace in the train. Nor was I tempted to dream +again of ultimate reward. I could see now no further than my immediate +part, and a more distasteful mixture of the mean and of the ludicrous I +hope never to rehearse again. +</p> +<p> +One mitigation I might have set against the rest. Dining at the Rag the +night before I left, I met a man who knew a man then staying at the +Riffel Alp. My man was a sapper with whom I had had a very slight +acquaintance out in India, but he happened to be one of those +good-natured creatures who never hesitate to bestir themselves or their +friends to oblige a mere acquaintance: he asked if I had secured rooms, +and on learning that I had not, insisted on telegraphing to his friend +to do his best for me. I had not hitherto appreciated the popularity of +a resort which I happened only to know by name, nor did I even on +getting at Lausanne a telegram to say that a room was duly reserved for +me. It was only when I actually arrived, tired out with travel, toward +the second evening, and when half of those who had come up with me were +sent down again to Zermatt for their pains, that I felt as grateful as I +ought to have been from the beginning. Here upon a mere ledge of the +High Alps was a hotel with tier upon tier of windows winking in the +setting sun. On every hand were dazzling peaks piled against a turquoise +sky, yet drawn respectfully apart from the incomparable Matterhorn, that +proud grim chieftain of them all. The grand spectacle and the magic air +made me thankful to be there, if only for their sake, albeit the more +regretful that a purer purpose had not drawn me to so fine a spot. +</p> +<p> +My unknown friend at court, one Quinby, a civilian, came up and spoke +before I had been five minutes at my destination. He was a very tall and +extraordinarily thin man, with an ill-nourished red moustache, and an +easy geniality of a somewhat acid sort. He had a trick of laughing +softly through his nose, and my two sticks served to excite a sense of +humour as odd as its habitual expression. +</p> +<p> +"I'm glad you carry the outward signs," said he, "for I made the most of +your wounds and you really owe your room to them. You see, we're a very +representative crowd. That festive old boy, strutting up and down with +his cigar, in the Panama hat, is really best known in the black cap: +it's old Sankey, the hanging judge. The big man with his back turned you +will know in a moment when he looks this way: it's our celebrated friend +Belgrave Teale. He comes down in one or other of his parts every day: +to-day it's the genial squire, yesterday it was the haw-haw officer of +the Crimean school. But a real live officer from the Front we don't +happen to have had, much less a wounded one, and you limp straight into +the breach." +</p> +<p> +I should have resented these pleasantries from an ordinary stranger, but +this libertine might be held to have earned his charter, and moreover I +had further use for him. We were loitering on the steps between the +glass veranda and the terrace at the back of the hotel. The little +sunlit stage was full of vivid, trivial, transitory life, it seemed as a +foil to the vast eternal scene. The hanging judge still strutted with +his cigar, peering jocosely from under the broad brim of his Panama; the +great actor still posed aloof, the human Matterhorn of the group. I +descried no showy woman with a tall youth dancing attendance; among the +brick-red English faces there was not one that bore the least +resemblance to the latest photograph of Bob Evers. +</p> +<p> +A little consideration suggested my first move. +</p> +<p> +"I think I saw a visitors' book in the hall," I said. "I may as well +stick down my name." +</p> +<p> +But before doing so I ran my eye up and down the pages inscribed by +those who had arrived that month. +</p> +<p> +"See anybody you know?" inquired Quinby, who hovered obligingly at my +elbow. It was really necessary to be as disingenuous as possible, more +especially with a person whose own conversation was evidently quite +unguarded. +</p> +<p> +"Yes, by Jove I do! Robin Evers, of all people!" +</p> +<p> +"Do you know him?" +</p> +<p> +The question came pretty quickly. I was sorry I had said so much. +</p> +<p> +"Well, I once knew a small boy of that name; but then they are not a +small clan." +</p> +<p> +"His mother's the Honourable," said Quinby, with studious unconcern, yet +I fancied with increased interest in me. +</p> +<p> +"I used to see something of them both," I deliberately admitted, "when +the lad was little. How has he turned out?" +</p> +<p> +Quinby gave his peculiar nasal laugh. +</p> +<p> +"A nice youth," said he. "A very nice youth!" +</p> +<p> +"Do you mean nice or nasty?" I asked, inclined to bridle at his tone. +</p> +<p> +"Oh, anything but nasty," said Quinby. "Only—well—perhaps a bit rapid +for his years!" +</p> +<p> +I stooped and put my name in the book before making any further remark. +Then I handed Quinby my cigarette-case, and we sat down on the nearest +lounge. +</p> +<p> +"Rapid, is he?" said I. "That's quite interesting. And how does it take +him?" +</p> +<p> +"Oh, not in any way that's discreditable; but as a matter of fact, +there's a gay young widow here, and they're fairly going it!" +</p> +<p> +I lit my cigarette with a certain unexpected sense of downright +satisfaction. So there was something in it after all. It had seemed such +a fool's errand in the train. +</p> +<p> +"A young widow," I repeated, emphasising one of Quinby's epithets and +ignoring the other. +</p> +<p> +"I mean, of course, she's a good deal older than Evers." +</p> +<p> +"And her name?" +</p> +<p> +"A Mrs. Lascelles." +</p> +<p> +I nodded. +</p> +<p> +"Do you happen to know anything about her, Captain Clephane?" +</p> +<p> +"I can't say I do." +</p> +<p> +"No more does anybody else," said Quinby, "except that she's an Indian +widow of sorts." +</p> +<p> +"Indian!" I repeated with more interest. +</p> +<p> +Quinby looked at me. +</p> +<p> +"You've been out there yourself, perhaps?" +</p> +<p> +"It was there I knew Hamilton," said I, naming our common friend in the +Engineers. +</p> +<p> +"Yet you're sure you never came across Mrs. Lascelles there?" +</p> +<p> +"India's a large place," I said, smiling as I shook my head. +</p> +<p> +"I wonder if Hamilton did," speculated Quinby aloud. +</p> +<p> +"And the Lascelleses," I added, "are another large clan." +</p> +<p> +"Well," he went on, after a moment's further cogitation, "there's nobody +here can place this particular Mrs. Lascelles; but there are some who +say things which they can tell you themselves. I'm not going to repeat +them if you know anything about the boy. I only wish you knew him well +enough to give him a friendly word of advice!" +</p> +<p> +"Is it so bad as all that?" +</p> +<p> +"My dear sir, I don't say there's anything bad about it," returned +Quinby, who seemed to possess a pretty gift of suggestive negation. "But +you may hear another opinion from other people, for you will find that +the whole hotel is talking about it. No," he went on, watching my eyes, +"it's no use looking for them at this time of day; they disappear from +morning to night; if you want to see them you must take a stroll when +everybody else is thinking of turning in. Then you may have better luck. +But here are the letters at last." +</p> +<p> +The concierge had appeared, hugging an overflowing armful of postal +matter. In another minute there was hardly standing room in the little +hall. My companion uttered his unlovely laugh. +</p> +<p> +"And here comes the British lion roaring for his London papers! It isn't +his letters he's so keen on, if you notice, Captain Clephane; it's his +<i>Daily Mail</i>, with the latest cricket, and after that the war. Teale is +an exception, of course. He has a stack of press-cuttings every day. +You will see him gloating over them in a minute. Ah! the old judge has +got his <i>Sportsman</i>; he reads nothing else except the <i>Sporting Times</i>, +and he's going back for the Leger. Do you see the man with the blue +spectacles and the peeled nose? He was last Vice Chancellor but one at +Cambridge. No, that's not a Bishop, it's an Archdeacon. All we want is a +Cabinet Minister now; every evening there is a rumour that the Colonial +Secretary is on his way, and most mornings you will hear that he has +actually arrived under cloud of night." +</p> +<p> +The facetious Quinby did not confine his more or less caustic commentary +to the well-known folk of whom there seemed no dearth; in the ten or +twenty minutes that we sat together he further revealed himself as a +copious gossip, with a wide net alike for the big fish and for the +smallest fry. There was a sheepish gentleman with a twitching face, and +a shaven cleric in close attendance; the former a rich brand plucked +from burning by the latter, whose temporal reward was the present trip, +so Quinby assured me during the time it took them to pass before our +eyes through the now emptying hall. A delightfully boyish young American +came inquiring waggishly for his "best girl"; next moment I was given to +understand that he meant his bride, who was ten times too good for him, +with further trivialities to which the dressing-bell put a timely +period. There was no sign of my Etonian when I went upstairs. +</p> +<p> +As I dressed in my small low room, with its sloping ceiling of varnished +wood, at the top of the house, I felt that after all I had learnt +nothing really new respecting that disturbing young gentleman. Quinby +had already proved himself such an arrant gossip as to discount every +word that he had said before I placed him in his proper type: it is one +which I have encountered elsewhere, that of the middle-aged bachelor who +will and must talk, and he had confessed his celibacy almost in his +first breath; but a more pronounced specimen of the type I am in no +hurry to meet again. If, however, there was some comfort in the thought +of his more than probable exaggerations, there was none at all in the +knowledge that these would be, if they had not already been, poured into +every tolerant ear in the place, if anything more freely than into mine. +</p> +<p> +I was somewhat late for dinner, but the scandalous couple were later +still, and all the evening I saw nothing of them. That, however, was +greatly due to this fellow Quinby, whose determined offices one could +hardly disdain after once accepting favours from him. In the press after +dinner I saw his ferret's face peering this way and that, a good head +higher than any other, and the moment our eyes met he began elbowing his +way toward me. Only an ingrate would have turned and fled; and for the +next hour or two I suffered Quinby to exploit my wounds and me for a +good deal more than our intrinsic value. To do the man justice, however, +I had no fault to find with the very pleasant little circle into which +he insisted on ushering me, at one end of the glazed veranda, and should +have enjoyed my evening but for an inquisitive anxiety to get in touch +with the unsuspecting pair. Meanwhile the lilt of a waltz had mingled +with the click of billiard balls and the talking and laughing which make +a summer's night vocal in that outpost of pleasure on the silent +heights; and some of our party had gone off to dance. In the end I +followed them, sticks and all; but there was no Bob Evers among the +dancers, nor in the billiard-room, nor anywhere else indoors. +</p> +<p> +Then, last of all, I looked where Quinby had advised me to look, and +there sure enough, on the almost deserted terrace, were the couple whom +I had come several hundred miles to put asunder. Hitherto I had only +realised the distasteful character of my task; now at a glance I had my +first inkling of its difficulty; and there ended the premature +satisfaction with which I had learnt that there was "something in" the +rumour which had reached Catherine's ears. +</p> +<p> +There was no moon, but the mountain stars were the brightest I have ever +seen in Europe. The mountains themselves stood back, as it were, +darkling and unobtrusive; all that was left of the Matterhorn was a +towering gap in the stars; and in the faint cold light stood my +friends, somewhat close together, and I thought I saw the red tips of +two cigarettes. There was at least no mistaking the long loose limbs in +the light overcoat. And because a woman always looks relatively taller +than a man, this woman looked nearly as tall as this lad. +</p> +<p> +"Bob Evers? You may not remember me, but my name's Clephane—Duncan, you +know!" +</p> +<p> +I felt the veriest scoundrel, and yet the words came out as smoothly as +I have written them, as if to show me that I had been a potential +scoundrel all my life. +</p> +<p> +"Duncan Clephane? Why, of course I remember you. I should think I did! I +say, though, you must have had a shocking time!" +</p> +<p> +Bob's voice was quite quiet for all his astonishment, his manner a +miracle, though it was too dark to read the face; and his right hand +held tenderly to mine, as his eyes fell upon my sticks, while his left +poised a steady cigarette. And now I saw that there was only one red tip +after all. +</p> +<p> +"I read your name in the visitors' book," said I, feeling too big a +brute to acknowledge the boy's solicitude for me. "I—I felt certain it +must be you." +</p> +<p> +"How splendid!" cried the great fellow in his easy, soft, unconscious +voice, "By the way, may I introduce you to Mrs. Lascelles? Captain +Clephane's one of our very oldest friends, just back from the Front, and +precious nearly blown to bits!" +</p> + + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<a name="CH3"><!-- CH3 --></a> +<h2> + CHAPTER III +</h2> + +<h3> +FIRST BLOOD +</h3> +<p> </p> +<p> +Mrs. Lascelles and I exchanged our bows. For a dangerous woman there was +a rather striking want of study in her attire. Over the garment which I +believe is called a "rain-coat," the night being chilly, she had put on +her golf-cape as well, and the effect was a little heterogeneous. It +also argued qualities other than those for which I was naturally on the +watch. Of the lady's face I could see even less than of Bob's, for the +hood of the cape was upturned into a cowl, and even in Switzerland the +stars are only stars. But while I peered she let me hear her voice, and +a very rich one it was—almost deep in tone—the voice of a woman who +would sing contralto. +</p> +<p> +"Have you really been fighting?" she asked, in a way that was either put +on, or else the expression of a more understanding sympathy than one +usually provoked; for pity and admiration, and even a helpless woman's +envy, might all have been discovered by an ear less critical and more +charitable than mine. +</p> +<p> +"Like anything!" answered Bob, in his unaffected speech. +</p> +<p> +"Until they knocked me out," I felt bound to add, "and that, +unfortunately, was before very long." +</p> +<p> +"You must have been dreadfully wounded!" said Mrs. Lascelles, raising +her eyes from my sticks and gazing at me, I fancied, with some +intentness; but at her expression I could only guess. +</p> +<p> +"Bowled over on Spion Kop," said Bob, "and fairly riddled as he lay." +</p> +<p> +"But only about the legs, Mrs. Lascelles," I explained; "and you see I +didn't lose either, so I've no cause to complain. I had hardly a graze +higher up." +</p> +<p> +"Were you up there the whole of that awful day?" asked Mrs. Lascelles, +on a low but thrilling note. +</p> +<p> +"I'd got to be," said I, trying to lighten the subject with a laugh. But +Bob's tone was little better. +</p> +<p> +"So he went staggering about among his men," he must needs chime in, +with other superfluities, "for I remember reading all about it in the +papers, and boasting like anything about having known you, Duncan, but +feeling simply sick with envy all the time. I say, you'll be a +tremendous hero up here, you know! I'm awfully glad you've come. It's +quite funny, all the same. I suppose you came to get bucked up? He +couldn't have gone to a better place, could he, Mrs. Lascelles?" +</p> +<p> +"Indeed he could not. I only wish we could empty the hotel and fill +every bed with our poor wounded!" +</p> +<p> +I do not know why I should have felt so much surprised. I had made unto +myself my own image of Mrs. Lascelles, and neither her appearance, nor a +single word that had fallen from her, was in the least in keeping with +my conception. Prepared for a certain type of woman, I was quite +confounded by its unconventional embodiment, and inclined to believe +that this was not the type at all. I ought to have known life better. +The most scheming mind may well entertain an enthusiasm for arms, +genuine enough in itself, at a martial crisis, and a natural manner is +by no means incompatible with the cardinal vices. That manner and that +enthusiasm were absolutely all that I as yet knew in favour of this Mrs. +Lascelles; but they were enough to cause me irritation. I wished to be +honest with somebody; let me at least be honestly inimical to her. I +took out my cigarette-case, and when about to help myself, handed it, +with a vile pretence at impulse, to Mrs. Lascelles instead. +</p> +<p> +Mrs. Lascelles thanked me, in a higher key, but declined. +</p> +<p> +"Don't you smoke?" I asked blandly. +</p> +<p> +"Sometimes." +</p> +<p> +"Ah! then I wasn't mistaken. I thought I saw two cigarettes just now." +</p> +<p> +Indeed, I had first smelt and afterward discovered the second cigarette +smouldering on the ground. Bob was smoking his still. The chances were +that they had both been lighted at the same time; therefore the other +had been thrown away unfinished at my approach. And that was one more +variation from the type of my confident preconceptions. +</p> +<p> +Young Robin had meanwhile had a quick eye on us both, and the stump of +his own cigarette was glowing between a firmer pair of lips than I had +looked for in that boyish face. +</p> +<p> +"It's so funny," said he (but there was no fun in his voice), "the +prejudice some people have against ladies smoking. Why shouldn't they? +Where's the harm?" +</p> +<p> +Now there is no new plea to be advanced on either side of this eternal +question, nor is it one upon which I ever felt strongly, but just then I +felt tempted to speak as though I did. I will not now dissect my motive, +but it was vaguely connected with my mission, and not unrighteous from +that standpoint. I said it was not a question of harm at all, but of +what one admired in a woman, and what one did not: a man loved to look +upon a woman as something above and beyond him, and there could be no +doubt that the gap seemed a little less when both were smoking like twin +funnels. That, I thought, was the adverse point of view; I did not say +that it was mine. +</p> +<p> +"I'm glad to hear it," said Bob Evers, with the faintest coldness in his +tone, though I fancied he was fuming within, and admired both his +chivalry and his self-control. "To me it's quite funny. I call it sheer +selfishness. We enjoy a cigarette ourselves; why shouldn't they? We +don't force them to be teetotal, do we? Is it bad form for a lady to +drink a glass of wine? You mightn't bicycle once, might you, Mrs. +Lascelles? I daresay Captain Clephane doesn't approve of that yet!" +</p> +<p> +"That's hitting below the belt," said I, laughing. "I wasn't giving you +my opinion, but only the old-fashioned view of the matter. I wish you'd +take one, Mrs. Lascelles, or I shall think I've been misunderstood all +round!" +</p> +<p> +"No, thank you, Captain Clephane. That old-fashioned feeling is +infectious." +</p> +<p> +"Then I will," cried Bob, "to show there's no ill-feeling. You old +fire-eater, I believe you just put up the argument to change the +conversation. Wouldn't you like a chair for those game legs?" +</p> +<p> +"No, I've got to use them in moderation. I was going to have a stroll +when I spotted you at last." +</p> +<p> +"Then we'll all take one together," cried the genial old Bob once more. +"It's a bit cold standing here, don't you think, Mrs. Lascelles? After +you with the match!" +</p> +<p> +But I held it so long that he had to strike another, for I had looked on +Mrs. Lascelles at last. It was not an obviously interesting face, like +Catherine's, but interest there was of another kind. There was nothing +intellectual in the low brow, no enthusiasm for books and pictures in +the bold eyes, no witticism waiting on the full lips; but in the curve +of those lips and the look from those eyes, as in the deep chin and the +carriage of the hooded head, there was something perhaps not lower than +intellect in the scale of personal equipment. There was, at all events, +character and to spare. Even by the brief glimmer of a single match I +could see that (and more) for myself. Then came a moment's interval +before Bob struck his light, and in that moment her face changed. As I +saw it next, it appealed, it entreated, until the second match was +flung away. And the appeal was to such purpose that I do not think I was +five seconds silent. +</p> +<p> +"And what do you do with yourself up here all day? I mean you hale +people; of course, I can only potter in the sun." +</p> +<p> +The question, perhaps, was better in intention than in tact. I did not +mean them to take it to themselves, but Bob's answer showed that it was +open to misconstruction. +</p> +<p> +"Some people climb," said he; "you'll know them by their noses. The +glaciers are almost as bad, though, aren't they, Mrs. Lascelles? Lots of +people potter about the glaciers. It's rather sport in the serracs; +you've got to rope. But you'll find lots more loafing about the place +all day, reading Tauchnitz novels, and watching people on the Matterhorn +through the telescope. That's the sort of thing, isn't it, Mrs. +Lascelles?" +</p> +<p> +She also had misunderstood the drift of my unlucky question. But there +was nothing disingenuous in her reply. It reminded me of her eyes, as I +had seen them by the light of the first match. +</p> +<p> +"Mr. Evers doesn't say that he is a climber himself, Captain Clephane; +but he is a very keen one, and so am I. We are both beginners, so we +have begun together. It's such fun. We do some little thing every day; +to-day we did the Schwarzee. You won't be any wiser, and the real +climbers wouldn't call it climbing, but it means three thousand feet +first and last. To-morrow we are going to the Monte Rosa hut. There is +no saying where we shall end up, if this weather holds." +</p> +<p> +In this fashion Mrs. Lascelles not only made me a contemptuous present +of information which I had never sought, but tacitly rebuked poor Bob +for his gratuitous attempt at concealment. Clearly, they had nothing to +conceal; and the hotel talk was neither more nor less than hotel talk. +There was, nevertheless, a certain self-consciousness in the attitude of +either (unless I grossly misread them both) which of itself afforded +some excuse for the gossips in my own mind. +</p> +<p> +Yet I did not know; every moment gave me a new point of view. On my +remarking, genuinely enough, that I only wished I could go with them, +Bob Evers echoed the wish so heartily that I could not but believe that +he meant what he said. On his side, in that case, there could be +absolutely nothing. And yet, again, when Mrs. Lascelles had left us, as +she did ere long in the easiest and most natural manner, and when we had +started a last cigarette together, then once more I was not so sure of +him. +</p> +<p> +"That's rather a handsome woman," said I, with perhaps more than the +authority to which my years entitled me. But I fancied it would "draw" +poor Bob. And it did. +</p> +<p> +"Rather handsome!" said he, with a soft little laugh not altogether +complimentary to me. "Yes, I should almost go as far myself. Still I +don't see how <i>you</i> know; you haven't so much as seen her, my dear +fellow." +</p> +<p> +"Haven't we been walking up and down outside this lighted veranda for +the last ten minutes?" +</p> +<p> +Bob emitted a pitying puff. "Wait till you see her in the sunlight! +There's not many of them can stand it, as they get it up here. But she +can—like anything!" +</p> +<p> +"She has made an impression on you, Bob," said I, but in so sedulously +inoffensive a manner that his self-betrayal was all the greater when he +told me quite hotly not to be an ass. +</p> +<p> +Now I was more than ten years his senior, and Bob's manners were as +charming as only the manners of a nice Eton boy can be; therefore I held +my peace, but with difficulty refrained from nodding sapiently to +myself. We took a couple of steps in silence, then Bob stopped short. I +did the same. He was still a little stern; we were just within range of +the veranda lights, and I can see and hear him to this day, almost as +clearly as I did that night. +</p> +<p> +"I'm not much good at making apologies," he began, with rather less +grace than becomes an apologist; but it was more than enough for me from +Bob. +</p> +<p> +"Nor I at receiving them, my dear Bob." +</p> +<p> +"Well, you've got to receive one now, whether you accept it or not. I +was the ass myself, and I beg your pardon!" +</p> +<p> +Somehow I felt it was a good deal for a lad to say, at that age, and +with Bob's upbringing and popularity, even though he said it rather +scornfully in the fewest words. The scorn was really for himself, and I +could well understand it. Nay, I was glad to have something to forgive +in the beginning, I with my unforgivable mission, and would have laughed +the matter off without another word if Bob had let me. +</p> +<p> +"I'm a bit raw on the point," said he, taking my arm for a last turn, +"and that's the truth. There was a fellow who came out with me, quite a +good chap really, and a tremendous pal of mine at Eton, yet he behaved +like a lunatic about this very thing. Poor chap, he reads like anything, +and I suppose he'd been overdoing it, for he actually asked me to choose +between Mrs. Lascelles and himself! What could a fellow do but let the +poor old simpleton go? They seem to think you can't be pals with a woman +without wanting to make love to her. Such utter rot! I confess I lose my +hair with them; but that doesn't excuse me in the least for losing it +with you." +</p> +<p> +I assured him, on the other hand, that his very natural irritability on +the subject made all the difference in the world. "But whom," I added, +"do you mean by 'them'? Not anybody else in the hotel?" +</p> +<p> +"Good heavens, no!" cried Bob, finding a fair target for his scorn at +last. "Do you think I care twopence what's said or thought by people I +never saw in my life before and am never likely to see again? I know how +I'm behaving. What does it matter what they think? Not that they're +likely to bother their heads about us any more than we do about them." +</p> +<p> +"You don't know that." +</p> +<p> +"I certainly don't care," declared my lordly youth, with obvious +sincerity. "No, I was only thinking of poor old George Kennerley and +people like him, if there are any. I did care what he thought, that is +until I saw he was as mad as anything on the subject. It was too silly. +I tell you what, though, I'd value your opinion!" And he came to another +stop and confronted me again, but this time such a picture of boyish +impulse and of innocent trust in me (even by that faint light) that I +was myself strongly inclined to be honest with him on the spot. But I +only smiled and shook my head. +</p> +<p> +"Oh, no, you wouldn't," I assured him. +</p> +<p> +"But I tell you I would!" he cried. "Do <i>you</i> think there's any harm in +my going about with Mrs. Lascelles because I rather like her and she +rather likes me? I won't condescend to give you my word that I mean +none." +</p> +<p> +What answer could I give? His charming frankness quite disarmed me, and +the more completely because I felt that a dignified reticence would have +been yet more characteristic of this clean, sweet youth, with his noble +unconsciousness alike of evil and of evil speaking. I told him the +truth—that there could be no harm at all with such a fellow as himself. +And he wrung my hand until he hurt it; but the physical pain was a +relief. +</p> +<p> +Never can I remember going up to bed with a better opinion of another +person, or a worse one of myself. How could I go on with my thrice +detestable undertaking? Now that I was so sure of him, why should I even +think of it for another moment? Why not go back to London and tell his +mother that her early confidence had not been misplaced, that the lad +did know how to take care of himself, and better still of any woman whom +he chose to honour with his bright, pure-hearted friendship? All this I +felt as strongly as any conviction I have ever held. Why, then, could I +not write it at once to Catherine in as many words? +</p> +<p> +Strange how one forgets, how I had forgotten in half an hour! The reason +came home to me on the stairs, and for the second time. +</p> +<p> +It had come home first by the light of those two matches, struck outside +in the dark part of the deserted terrace. It was not the lad whom I +distrusted, but the woman of whose face I had then obtained my only +glimpse—that night. +</p> +<p> +I had known her, after all, in India years before. +</p> + + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<a name="CH4"><!-- CH4 --></a> +<h2> + CHAPTER IV +</h2> + +<h3> +A LITTLE KNOWLEDGE +</h3> +<p> </p> +<p> +Once in the Town Hall at Simla (the only time I was ever there) it was +my fortune to dance with a Mrs. Heymann of Lahore, a tall woman, but a +featherweight partner, and in all my dancing days I never had a better +waltz. To my delight she had one other left, though near the end, and we +were actually dancing when an excitable person came out of the +card-room, flushed with liquor and losses, and carried her off in the +most preposterous manner. It was a shock to me at the time to learn that +this outrageous little man was my partner's husband. Months later, when +I came across their case in the papers, it was, I am afraid, without +much sympathy for the injured husband. The man was quite unpresentable, +and I had seen no more of him at Simla, but of the woman just enough to +know her by matchlight on the terrace at the Riffel Alp. +</p> +<p> +And this was Bob's widow, this dashing <i>divorcée</i>! Dashing she was as I +now remembered her, fine in mould, finer in spirit, reckless and +rebellious as she well might be. I had seen her submit before a +ball-room, but with the contempt that leads captivity captive. Seldom +have I admired anything more. It was splendid even to remember, the +ready outward obedience, the not less apparent indifference and disdain. +There was a woman whom any man might admire, who had had it in her to be +all things to some man! But Bob Evers was not a man at all. And +this—and this—was his widow! +</p> +<p> +Was she one at all? How could I tell? Yes, it was Lascelles, the other +name in the case, to the best of my recollection. But had she any right +to bear it? And even supposing they had married, what had happened to +the second husband? Widow or no widow, second marriage or no second +marriage, defensible or indefensible, was this the right friend for a +lad still fresh from Eton, the only son of his mother, who had sent me +in secret to his side? +</p> +<p> +There was only one answer to the last question, whatever might be said +or urged in reply to all the rest. I could not but feel that Catherine +Evers had been justified in her instinct to an almost miraculous degree; +that her worst fears were true enough, so far as the lady was concerned; +and that Providence alone could have inspired her to call in an agent +who knew what I knew, and who therefore saw his duty as plainly as I +already saw mine. But it is one thing to recognise a painful duty and +quite another thing to know how to minimise the pain to those most +affected by its performance. The problem was no easy one to my mind, and +I lay awake upon it far into the night. +</p> +<p> +Tired out with travel, I fell asleep in the end, to awake with a start +in broad daylight. The sun was pouring through the uncurtained +dormer-window of my room under the roof. And in the sunlight, looking +his best in knickerbockers, as only thin men do, with face greased +against wind and glare, and blue spectacles in rest upon an Alpine +wideawake, stood the lad who had taken his share in keeping me awake. +</p> +<p> +"I'm awfully sorry," he began. "It's horrid cheek, but when I saw your +room full of light I thought you might have been even earlier than I +was. You must get them to give you curtains up here." +</p> +<p> +He had a note in his hand and I thought by his manner there was +something that he wished and yet hesitated to tell me. I accordingly +asked him what it was. +</p> +<p> +"It's what we were speaking about last night!" burst out Bob. "That's +why I've come to you. It's these silly fools who can't mind their own +business and think everybody else is like themselves! Here's a note from +Mrs. Lascelles which makes it plain that that old idiot George is not +the only one who has been talking about us, and some of the talk has +reached her ears. She doesn't say so in so many words, but I can see +it's that. She wants to get out of our expedition to Monte Rosa +hut—wants me to go alone. The question is, ought I to let her get out +of it? Does it matter one rap what this rabble says about us? I've come +to ask your advice—you were such a brick about it all last night—and +what you say I'll do." +</p> +<p> +I had begun to smile at Bob's notion of "a rabble": this one happened +to include a few quite eminent men, as you have seen, to say nothing of +the average quality of the crowd, of which I had been able to form some +opinion of my own. But I had already noticed in Bob the exclusiveness of +the type to which he belonged, and had welcomed it as one does welcome +the little faults of the well-night faultless. It was his last sentence +that made me feel too great a hypocrite to go on smiling. +</p> +<p> +"It may not matter to you," I said at length, "but it may to the lady." +</p> +<p> +"I suppose it does matter more to them?" +</p> +<p> +The sunburnt face, puckered with a wry wistfulness, was only comic in +its incongruous coat of grease. But I was under no temptation to smile. +I had to confine my mind pretty closely to the general principle, and +rather studiously to ignore the particular instance, before I could +bring myself to answer the almost infantile inquiry in those honest +eyes. +</p> +<p> +"My dear fellow, it must!" +</p> +<p> +Bob looked disappointed but resigned. +</p> +<p> +"Well, then, I won't press it, though I'm not sure that I agree. You +see, it's not as though there was or ever would be anything between us. +The idea's absurd. We are absolute pals and nothing else. That's what +makes all this such a silly bore. It's so unnecessary. Now she wants me +to go alone, but I don't see the fun of that." +</p> +<p> +"Does she ask you to go alone?" +</p> +<p> +"She does. That's the worst of it." +</p> +<p> +I nodded, and he asked me why. +</p> +<p> +"She probably thinks it would be the best answer to the tittle-tattlers, +Bob." +</p> +<p> +That was not a deliberate lie; not until the words were out did it occur +to me that Mrs. Lascelles might now have another object in getting rid +of her swain for the day. But Bob's eyes lighted in a way that made me +feel a deliberate liar. +</p> +<p> +"By Jove!" he said, "I never thought of that. I don't agree with her, +mind, but if that's her game I'll play it like a book. So long, Duncan! +I'm not one of those chaps who ask a man's advice without the slightest +intention of ever taking it!" +</p> +<p> +"But I haven't ventured to advise you," I reminded the boy, with a +cowardly eye to the remotest consequences. +</p> +<p> +"Perhaps not, but you've shown me what's the proper thing to do." And he +went away to do it there and then, like the blameless exception that I +found him to so many human rules. +</p> +<p> +I had my breakfast upstairs after this, and lay for some considerable +time a prey to feelings which I shall make no further effort to expound; +for this interview had not altered, but only intensified them; and in +any case they must be obvious to those who take the trouble to conceive +themselves in my unenviable position. +</p> +<p> +And it was my ironic luck to be so circumstanced in a place where I +could have enjoyed life to the hilt! Only to lie with the window open +was to breathe air of a keener purity, a finer temper, a more +exhilarating freshness, than had ever before entered my lungs; and to +get up and look out of the window was to peer into the limpid brilliance +of a gigantic crystal, where the smallest object was in startling +focus, and the very sunbeams cut with scissors. The people below trailed +shadows like running ink. The light was ultra-tropical. One looked for +drill suits and pith headgear, and was amazed to find pajamas +insufficient at the open window. +</p> +<p> +Upon the terrace on the other side, when I eventually came down, there +were cane chairs and Tauchnitz novels under the umbrella tents, and the +telescope out and trained upon a party on the Matterhorn. A group of +people were waiting turns at the telescope, my friend Quinby and the +hanging judge among them. But I searched under the umbrella tents as +well as one could from the top of the steps before hobbling down to join +the group. +</p> +<p> +"I have looked for an accident through that telescope," said the jocose +judge, "fifteen Augusts running. They usually have one the day after I +go." +</p> +<p> +"Good morning, sir!" was Quinby's greeting; and I was instantly +introduced to Sir John Sankey, with such a parade of my military history +as made me wince and Sir John's eye twinkle. I fancied he had formed an +unkind estimate of my rather overpowering friend, and lived to hear my +impression confirmed in unjudicial language. But our first conversation +was about the war, and it lasted until the judge's turn came for the +telescope. +</p> +<p> +"Black with people!" he ejaculated. "They ought to have a constable up +there to regulate the traffic." +</p> +<p> +But when I looked it was long enough before my inexperienced eye could +discern the three midges strung on the single strand of cobweb against +the sloping snow. +</p> +<p> +"They are coming down," explained the obliging Quinby. "That's one of +the most difficult places, the lower edge of the top slope. It's just a +little way along to the right where the first accident was.... By the +way, your friend Evers says he's going to do the Matterhorn before he +goes." +</p> +<p> +It was unwelcome hearing, for Quinby had paused to regale me with a +lightning sketch of the first accident, and no one had contradicted his +gruesome details. +</p> +<p> +"<i>Is</i> young Evers a friend of yours?" inquired the judge. +</p> +<p> +"He is." +</p> +<p> +The judge did not say another word. But Quinby availed himself of the +first opportunity of playing Ancient Mariner to my Wedding Guest. +</p> +<p> +"I saw you talking to them," he told me confidentially, "last night, you +know!" +</p> +<p> +"Indeed." +</p> +<p> +He took me by the sleeve. +</p> +<p> +"Of course I don't know what you said, but it's evidently had an effect. +Evers has gone off alone for the first time since he has been here." +</p> +<p> +I shifted my position. +</p> +<p> +"You evidently keep an eye on him, Mr. Quinby." +</p> +<p> +"I do, Clephane. I find him a diverting study. He is not the only one in +this hotel. There's old Teale on his balcony at the present minute, if +you look up. He has the best room in the hotel; the only trouble is that +it doesn't face the sun all day; he's not used to being in the shade, +and you'll hear him damn the limelight-man in heaps one of these fine +mornings. But your enterprising young friend is a more amusing person +than Belgrave Teale." +</p> +<p> +I had heard enough of my enterprising young friend from this quarter. +</p> +<p> +"Do you never make any expeditions yourself, Mr. Quinby?" +</p> +<p> +"Sometimes." Quinby looked puzzled. "Why do you ask?" he was constrained +to add. +</p> +<p> +"You should have volunteered instead of Mrs. Lascelles to-day. It would +have been an excellent opportunity for prosecuting your own rather +enterprising studies." +</p> +<p> +One would have thought that one's displeasure was plain enough at last; +but not a bit of it. So far from resenting the rebuff, the fellow +plucked my sleeve, and I saw at a glance that he had not even listened +to my too elaborate sarcasm. +</p> +<p> +"Talk of the—lady!" he whispered. "Here she comes." +</p> +<p> +And a second glance intercepted Mrs. Lascelles on the steps, with her +bold good looks and her fine upstanding carriage, cut clean as a +diamond in that intensifying atmosphere, and hardly less dazzling to the +eye. Yet her cotton gown was simplicity's self; it was the right setting +for such natural brilliance, a brilliance of eyes and teeth and +colouring, a more uncommon brilliance of expression. Indeed it was a +wonderful expression, brave rather than sweet, yet capable of sweetness +too, and for the moment at least nobly free from the defensive +bitterness which was to mark it later. So she stood upon the steps, the +talk of the hotel, trailing, with characteristic independence, a cane +chair behind her, while she sought a shady place for it, even as I had +stood seeking for her: before she found one I was hobbling toward her. +</p> +<p> +"Oh, thanks, Captain Clephane, but I couldn't think of allowing you! +Well, then, between us, if you insist. Here under the wall, I think, is +as good a place as any." +</p> +<p> +She pointed out a clear space in the rapidly narrowing ribbon of shade, +and there I soon saw Mrs. Lascelles settled with her book (a trashy +novel, that somehow brought Catherine Evers rather sharply before my +mind's eye) in an isolation as complete as could be found upon the +crowded terrace, and too intentional on her part to permit of an +intrusion on mine. I lingered a moment, nevertheless. +</p> +<p> +"So you didn't go to that hut after all, Mrs. Lascelles?" +</p> +<p> +"No." She waited a moment before looking up at me. "And I'm afraid Mr. +Evers will never forgive me," she added after her look, in the rich +undertone that had impressed me overnight, before the cigarette +controversy. +</p> +<p> +I was not going to say that I had seen Bob before he started, but it was +an opportunity of speaking generally of the lad. Thus I found myself +commenting on the coincidence of our meeting again—he and I—and again +lying before I realised that it was a lie. But Mrs. Lascelles sat +looking up at me with her fine and candid eyes, as though she knew as +well as I which was the real coincidence, and knew that I knew into the +bargain. It gave me the disconcerting sensation of being detected and +convicted at one blow. Bob Evers failed me as a topic, and I stood like +the fool I felt. +</p> +<p> +"I am sure you ought not to stand about so much, Captain Clephane." +</p> +<p> +Mrs. Lascelles was smiling faintly as I prepared to take her hint. +</p> +<p> +"Doesn't it really do you any harm?" she inquired in time to detain me. +</p> +<p> +"No, just the opposite. I am ordered to take all the exercise I can." +</p> +<p> +"Even walking?" +</p> +<p> +"Even hobbling, Mrs. Lascelles, if I don't overdo it." +</p> +<p> +She sat some moments in thought. I guessed what she was thinking, and I +was right. +</p> +<p> +"There are some lovely walks quite near, Captain Clephane. But you have +to climb a little, either going or coming." +</p> +<p> +"I could climb a little," said I, making up my mind. "It's within the +meaning of the act—it would do me good. Which way will you take me, +Mrs. Lascelles?" +</p> +<p> +Mrs. Lascelles looked up quickly, surprised at a boldness on which I was +already complimenting myself. But it is the only way with a bold woman. +</p> +<p> +"Did I say I would take you at all, Captain Clephane?" +</p> +<p> +"No, but I very much hope you will." +</p> +<p> +And our eyes met as fairly as they had done by matchlight the night +before. +</p> +<p> +"Then I will," said Mrs. Lascelles, "because I want to speak to you." +</p> + + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<a name="CH5"><!-- CH5 --></a> +<h2> + CHAPTER V +</h2> + +<h3> +A MARKED WOMAN +</h3> +<p> </p> +<p> +We had come farther than was wise without a rest, but all the seats on +the way were in full view of the hotel, and I had been irritated by +divers looks and whisperings as we traversed the always crowded terrace. +Bob Evers, no doubt, would have turned a deaf ear and a blind eye to +them. I myself could pretend to do so, but pretence was evidently one of +my strong points. I had not Bob's fine natural regardlessness, for all +my seniority and presumably superior knowledge of the world. +</p> +<p> +So we had climbed the zigzags to the right of the Riffelberg and +followed the footpath overlooking the glacier, in the silence enjoined +by single file, but at last we were seated on the hillside, a trifle +beyond that emerald patch which some humourist has christened the +Cricket-ground. Beneath us were the serracs of the Gorner Glacier, +teased and tousled like a fringe of frozen breakers. Beyond the serracs +was the main stream of comparatively smooth ice, with its mourning band +of moraine, and beyond that the mammoth sweep and curve of the Théodule +where these glaciers join. Peak after peak of dazzling snow dwindled +away to the left. Only the gaunt Riffelhorn reared a brown head against +the blue. And there we sat, Mrs. Lascelles and I, with all this before +us and a rock behind, while I wondered what my companion meant to say, +and how she would begin. +</p> +<p> +I had not to wonder long. +</p> +<p> +"You were very good to me last night, Captain Clephane." +</p> +<p> +There was evidently no beating about the bush for Mrs. Lascelles. I +thoroughly approved, but was nevertheless somewhat embarrassed for the +moment. +</p> +<p> +"I—really I don't know how, Mrs. Lascelles!" +</p> +<p> +"Oh, yes, you do, Captain Clephane; you recognised me at a glance, as I +did you." +</p> +<p> +"I certainly thought I did," said I, poking about with the ferrule of +one of my sticks. +</p> +<p> +"You know you did." +</p> +<p> +"You are making me know it." +</p> +<p> +"Captain Clephane, you knew it all along; but we won't argue that point. +I am not going to deny my identity. It is very good of you to give me +the chance, if rather unnecessary. I am not a criminal. Still you could +have made me feel like one, last night, and heaps of men would have done +so, either for the fun of it or from want of tact." +</p> +<p> +I looked inquiringly at Mrs. Lascelles. She could tell me what she +pleased, but I was not going to anticipate her by displaying an +independent knowledge of matters which she might still care to keep to +herself. If she chose to open up a painful subject, well, the pain be +upon her own head. Yet I must say that there was very little of it in +her face as our eyes met. There was the eager candour that one could not +help admiring, with the glowing look of gratitude which I had done so +ridiculously little to earn; but the fine flushed face betrayed neither +pain, nor shame, nor the affectation of one or the other. There was a +certain shyness with the candour. That was all. +</p> +<p> +"You know quite well what I mean," continued Mrs. Lascelles, with a +genuine smile at my disingenuous face. "When you met me before it was +under another name, which you have probably quite forgotten." +</p> +<p> +"No, I remember it." +</p> +<p> +"Do you remember my husband?" +</p> +<p> +"Perfectly." +</p> +<p> +"Did you ever hear—" +</p> +<p> +Her lip trembled. I dropped my eyes. +</p> +<p> +"Yes," I admitted, "or rather I saw it for myself in the papers. It's no +use pretending I didn't, nor yet that I was the least bit surprised +or—or anything else!" +</p> +<p> +That was not one of my tactful speeches. It was culpably, might indeed +have been wilfully, ambiguous; and yet it was the kind of clumsy and +impulsive utterance which has the ring of a good intention, and is thus +inoffensive except to such as seek excuses for offence. My instincts +about Mrs. Lascelles did not place her in this category at all. +Nevertheless, the ensuing pause was long enough to make me feel uneasy, +and my companion only broke it as I was in the act of framing an +apology. +</p> +<p> +"May I bore you, Captain Clephane?" she asked abruptly. I looked at her +once more. She had regained an equal mastery of face and voice, and the +admirable candour of her eyes was undimmed by the smallest trace of +tears. +</p> +<p> +"You may try," said I, smiling with the obvious gallantry. +</p> +<p> +"If I tell you something about myself from that time on, will you +believe what I say?" +</p> +<p> +"You are the last person whom I should think of disbelieving." +</p> +<p> +"Thank you, Captain Clephane." +</p> +<p> +"On the other hand, I would much rather you didn't say anything that +gave you pain, or that you might afterward regret." +</p> +<p> +There was a touch of weariness in Mrs. Lascelles's smile, a rather +pathetic touch to my mind, as she shook her head. +</p> +<p> +"I am not very sensitive to pain," she remarked. "That is the one thing +to be said for having to bear a good deal while you are fairly young. I +want you to know more about me, because I believe you are the only +person here who knows anything at all. And then—you didn't give me away +last night!" +</p> +<p> +I pointed to the grassy ledge in front of us, such a vivid green against +the house now a hundred feet below. +</p> +<p> +"I am not pushing you over there," I said. "I take about as much credit +for that." +</p> +<p> +"Ah," sighed Mrs. Lascelles, "but that dear boy, who turns out to be a +friend of yours, he knows less than anybody else! He doesn't even +suspect. It would have hurt me, yes, it would have hurt even me, to be +given away to him! You didn't do it while I was there, and I know you +didn't when I had turned my back." +</p> +<p> +"Of course you know I didn't," I echoed rather testily as I took out a +cigarette. The case reminded me of the night before. But I did not again +hand it to Mrs. Lascelles. +</p> +<p> +"Well, then," she continued, "since you didn't give me away, even +without thinking, I want you to know that after all there isn't quite so +much to give away as there might have been. A divorce, of course, is +always a divorce; there is no getting away from that, or from mine. But +I really did marry again. And I really am the widow they think I am." +</p> +<p> +I looked quickly up at her, in pure pity and compassion for one gone so +far in sorrow and yet such a little way in life. It was a sudden +feeling, an unpremeditated look, but I might as well have spoken aloud. +Mrs. Lascelles read me unerringly, and she shook her head, sadly but +decidedly, while her eyes gazed calmly into mine. +</p> +<p> +"<i>It</i> was not a happy marriage, either," she said, as impersonally as if +speaking of another woman. "You may think what you like of me for saying +so to a comparative stranger; but I won't have your sympathy on false +pretences, simply because Major Lascelles is dead. Did you ever meet +him, by the way?" +</p> +<p> +And she mentioned an Indian regiment. But the major and I had never met. +</p> +<p> +"Well, it was not very happy for either of us. I suppose such marriages +never are. I know they are never supposed to be. Even if the couple are +everything to each other, there is all the world to point his finger, +and all the world's wife to turn her back, and you have to care a good +deal to get over that. But you may have been desperate in the first +instance; you may have said to yourself that the fire couldn't be much +worse than the frying-pan. In that case, of course, you deserve no +sympathy, and nothing is more irritating to me than the sympathy I don't +deserve. It's a matter of temperament; I'm obliged to speak out, even if +it puts people more against me than they were already. No, you needn't +say anything, Captain Clephane; you didn't express your sympathy, I +stopped you in time.... And yet it is rather hard, when one's still +reasonably young, with almost everything before one—to be a marked +woman all one's time!" +</p> +<p> +Up to her last words, despite an inviting pause after almost every +sentence, I had succeeded in holding my tongue; though she was looking +wistfully now at the distant snow-peaks and obviously bestowing upon +herself the sympathy she did not want from me (as I had been told in so +many words, if not more plainly in the accompanying brief encounter +between our eyes), yet had I resisted every temptation to put in my +word, until these last two or three from Mrs. Lascelles. They, however, +demanded a denial, and I told her it was absurd to describe herself in +such terms. +</p> +<p> +"I am marked," she persisted, "wherever I go I may be known, as you knew +me here. If it hadn't been you it would have been somebody else, and I +should have known of it indirectly instead of directly; but even +supposing I had escaped altogether at this hotel, the next one would +probably have made up for it." +</p> +<p> +"Do you stay much in hotels?" +</p> +<p> +There had been something in the mellow voice which made such a question +only natural, yet it was scarcely asked before I would have given a good +deal to recall it. +</p> +<p> +"There is nowhere else to stay," said Mrs. Lascelles, "unless one sets +up house alone, which is costlier and far less comfortable. You see, one +does make a friend or two sometimes—before one is found out." +</p> +<p> +"But surely your people—" +</p> +<p> +This time I did check myself. +</p> +<p> +"My people," said Mrs. Lascelles, "have washed their hands of me." +</p> +<p> +"But Major Lascelles—surely <i>his</i> people—" +</p> +<p> +"They washed their hands of him! You see, they would be the first to +tell you, he had always been rather wild; but his crowning act of +madness in their eyes was his marriage. It was worse than the worst +thing he had ever done before. Still, it is not for me to say anything, +or feel anything, against his family...." +</p> +<p> +And then I knew that they were making her an allowance; it was more than +I wanted to know; the ground was too delicate, and led nowhere in +particular. Still, it was difficult not to take a certain amount of +interest in a handsome woman who had made such a wreck of her life so +young, who was so utterly alone, so proud and independent in her +loneliness, and apparently quite fine-hearted and unspoilt. But for Bob +Evers and his mother, the interest that I took might have been a little +different in kind; but even with my solicitude for them there mingled +already no small consideration for the social solitary whom I watched +now as she sat peering across the glacier, the foremost figure in a +world of high lights and great backgrounds, and whom to watch was to +admire, even against the greatest of them all. Alas! mere admiration +could not change my task or stay my hand; it could but clog me by +destroying my singleness of purpose, and giving me a double heart to +match my double face. +</p> +<p> +Since, however, a detestable duty had been undertaken, and since as a +duty it was more apparent than I had dreamt of finding it, there was +nothing for it but to go through with the thing and make immediate +enemies of my friends. So I set my teeth and talked of Bob. I was glad +Mrs. Lascelles liked him. His father was a remote connection of mine, +whom I had never met. But I had once known his mother very well. +</p> +<p> +"And what is she like?" asked Mrs. Lascelles, calling her fine eyes home +from infinity, and fixing them once more on me. +</p> + + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<a name="CH6"><!-- CH6 --></a> +<h2> + CHAPTER VI +</h2> + +<h3> +OUT OF ACTION +</h3> +<p> </p> +<p> +Now if, upon a warm, soft, summer evening, you were suddenly asked to +describe the perfect winter's day, either you would have to stop and +think a little, or your imagination is more elastic than mine. Yet you +might have a passionate preference for cold sun and bracing airs. To me, +Catherine Evers and this Mrs. Lascelles were as opposite to each other +as winter and summer, or the poles, or any other notorious antitheses. +There was no comparison between them in my mind, yet as I sat with one +among the sunlit, unfamiliar Alps, it was a distinct effort to picture +the other in the little London room I knew so well. For it was always +among her books and pictures that I thought of Catherine, and to think +was to wish myself there at her side, rather than to wish her here at +mine. Catherine's appeal, I used to think, was to the highest and the +best in me, to brain and soul, and young ambition, and withal to one's +love of wit and sense of humour. Mrs. Lascelles, on the other hand, +struck me primarily in the light of some splendid and spirited animal. I +still liked to dwell upon her dancing. She satisfied the mere eye more +and more. But I had no reason to suppose that she knew right from wrong +in art or literature, any more than she would seem to have distinguished +between them in life itself. Her Tauchnitz novel lay beside her on the +grass and I again reflected that it would not have found a place on +Catherine's loftiest shelf. Catherine would have raved about the view +and made delicious fun of Quinby and the judge, and we should have sat +together talking poetry and harmless scandal by the happy hour. Mrs. +Lascelles probably took place and people alike for granted. But she had +lived, and as an animal she was superb! I looked again into her healthy +face and speaking eyes, with their bitter knowledge of good and evil, +their scorn of scorn, their redeeming honesty and candour. The contrast +was complete in every detail except the widowhood of both women; but I +did not pursue it any farther; for once more there was but one woman in +my thoughts, and she sat near me under a red parasol—clashing so +humanly with the everlasting snows! +</p> +<p> +"You don't answer my question, Captain Clephane. How much for your +thoughts?" +</p> +<p> +"I'll make you a present of them, Mrs. Lascelles. I was beginning to +think that a lot of rot has been written about the eternal snows and the +mountain-tops and all the rest of it. There a few lines in that last +little volume of Browning—" +</p> +<p> +I stopped of my own accord, for upon reflection the lines would have +made a rather embarrassing quotation. But meanwhile Mrs. Lascelles had +taken alarm on other grounds. +</p> +<p> +"Oh, <i>don't</i> quote Browning!" +</p> +<p> +"Why not?" +</p> +<p> +"He is far too deep for me; besides, I don't care for poetry, and I was +asking you about Mrs. Evers." +</p> +<p> +"Well," I said, with some little severity, "she's a very clever woman." +</p> +<p> +"Clever enough to understand Browning?" +</p> +<p> +"Quite." +</p> +<p> +If this was irony, it was also self-restraint, for it was to Catherine's +enthusiasm that I owed my own. The debt was one of such magnitude as a +life of devotion could scarcely have repaid, for to whom do we owe so +much as to those who first lifted the scales from our eyes and awakened +within us a soul for all such things? Catherine had been to me what I +instantly desired to become to this benighted beauty; but the desire was +not worth entertaining, since I hardly expected to be many minutes +longer on speaking terms with Mrs. Lascelles. I recalled the fact that +it was I who had broached the subject of Bob Evers and his mother, +together with my unpalatable motive for so doing. And I was seeking in +my mind, against the grain, I must confess, for a short cut back to Bob, +when Mrs. Lascelles suddenly led the way. +</p> +<p> +"I don't think," said she, "that Mr. Evers takes after his mother." +</p> +<p> +"I'm afraid he doesn't," I replied, "in that respect." +</p> +<p> +"And I am glad," she said. "I do like a boy to be a boy. The only son +of his mother is always in danger of becoming something else. Tell me, +Captain Clephane, are they very devoted to each other?" +</p> +<p> +There was some new note in that expressive voice of hers. Was it merely +wistful, was it really jealous, or was either element the product of my +own imagination? I made answer while I wondered: +</p> +<p> +"Absolutely devoted, I should say; but it's years since I saw them +together. Bob was a small boy then, and one of the jolliest. Still I +never expected him to grow up the charming chap he is now." +</p> +<p> +Mrs. Lascelles sat gazing at the great curve of Théodule Glacier. I +watched her face. +</p> +<p> +"He <i>is</i> charming," she said at length. "I am not sure that I ever met +anybody quite like him, or rather I am quite sure that I never did. He +is so quiet, in a way, and yet so wonderfully confident and at ease!" +</p> +<p> +"That's Eton," said I. "He is the best type of Eton boy, and the best +type of Eton boy," I declared, airing the little condition with a +flourish, "is one of the greatest works of God." +</p> +<p> +"I daresay you're right," said Mrs. Lascelles, smiling indulgently; "but +what is it? How do you define it? It isn't 'side,' and yet I can quite +imagine people who don't know him thinking that it is. He is cocksure of +himself, but of nothing else; that seems to me to be the difference. No +one could possibly be more simple in himself. He may have the assurance +of a man of fifty, yet it isn't put on; it's neither bumptious nor +affected, but just as natural in Mr. Evers as shyness and awkwardness in +the ordinary youth one meets. And he has the <i>savoir faire</i> not to ask +questions!" +</p> +<p> +Were we all mistaken? Was this the way in which a designing woman would +speak of the object of her designs? Not that I thought so hardly of Mrs. +Lascelles myself; but I did think that she might well fall in love with +Bob Evers, at least as well as he with her. Was this, then, the way in +which a woman would be likely to speak of the young man with whom she +had fallen in love? To me the appreciation sounded too frank and +discerning and acute. Yet I could not call it dispassionate, and +frankness was this woman's outstanding merit, though I was beginning to +discover others as well. Moreover, the fact remained that they had been +greatly talked about; that at any rate must be stopped and I was there +to stop it. +</p> +<p> +I began to pick my words. +</p> +<p> +"It's all Eton, except what is in the blood, and it's all a question of +manners, or rather of manner. Don't misunderstand me, Mrs. Lascelles. I +don't say that Bob isn't independent in character as well as in his +ways, but only that when all's said he's still a boy and not a man. He +can't possibly have a man's experience of the world, or even of himself. +He has a young head on his shoulders, after all, if not a younger one +than many a boy with half the assurance that you admire in him." +</p> +<p> +Mrs. Lascelles looked at me point-blank. +</p> +<p> +"Do you mean that he can't take care of himself?" +</p> +<p> +"I don't say that." +</p> +<p> +"Then what do you say?" +</p> +<p> +The fine eyes met mine without a flicker. The full mouth was curved at +the corners in a tolerant, unsuspecting smile. It was hard to have to +make an enemy of so handsome and good-humoured a woman. And was it +necessary, was it even wise? As I hesitated she turned and glanced +downward once more toward the glacier, then rose and went to the lip of +our grassy ledge, and as she returned I caught the sound which she had +been the first to hear. It was the gritty planting of nailed boots upon +a hard, smooth rock. +</p> +<p> +"I'm afraid you can't say it now," whispered Mrs. Lascelles. "Here's Mr. +Evers himself, coming this way back from the Monte Rosa hut! I'm going +to give him a surprise!" +</p> +<p> +And it was a genuine one that she gave him, for I heard his boyish +greeting before I saw his hot brown face, and there was no mistaking the +sudden delight of both. It was sudden and spontaneous, complete, until +his eyes lit on me. Even then his smile did not disappear, but it +changed, as did his tone. +</p> +<p> +"Good heavens!" cried Bob. "How on earth did <i>you</i> get up here? By rail +to the Riffelberg, I hope?" +</p> +<p> +"On my sticks." +</p> +<p> +"It was much too far for him," added Mrs. Lascelles, "and all my fault +for showing him the way. But I'm afraid there was contributory obstinacy +in Captain Clephane, because he simply wouldn't turn back. And now tell +us about yourself, Mr. Evers; surely we were not coming back this way?" +</p> +<p> +"<i>We</i> were not," said Bob, with a something sardonic in his little +laugh, "but I thought I might as well. It's the long way, six miles on +end upon the glacier." +</p> +<p> +"But have you really been to the hut?" +</p> +<p> +"Rather!" +</p> +<p> +"And where's our guide?" +</p> +<p> +"Oh, I wouldn't be bothered with a guide all to myself." +</p> +<p> +"My dear young man, you might have stepped straight into a crevasse!" +</p> +<p> +"I precious nearly did," laughed Bob, again with something odd about his +laughter; "but I say, do you know, if you won't think me awfully rude, +I'll push on back and get changed. I'm as hot as anything and not fit +to be seen." +</p> +<p> +And he was gone after very little more than a minute from first to last, +gone with rather an elaborate salute to Mrs. Lascelles, and rather a +cavalier nod to me. But then neither of us had made any effort to detain +him and a notable omission I thought it in Mrs. Lascelles, though to the +lad himself it may well have seemed as strange in the old friend as in +the new. +</p> +<p> +"What was it," asked Mrs. Lascelles, when we were on our way home, "that +you were going to say about Mr. Evers when he appeared in the flesh in +that extraordinary way?" +</p> +<p> +"I forget," said I, immorally. +</p> +<p> +"Really? So soon? Don't you remember, I thought you meant that he +couldn't take care of himself, and you were just going to tell me what +you did mean?" +</p> +<p> +"Oh, well, it wasn't that, because he can!" +</p> +<p> +But, as a matter of fact, I had seen my way to taking care of Master Bob +without saying a word either to him or to Mrs. Lascelles, or at all +events without making enemies of them both. +</p> + + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<a name="CH7"><!-- CH7 --></a> +<h2> + CHAPTER VII +</h2> + +<h3> +SECOND FIDDLE +</h3> +<p> </p> +<p> +My plan was quite obvious in its simplicity, and not in the least +discreditable from my point of view. It was perhaps inevitable that a +boy like Bob should imagine I was trying to "cut him out," as my blunt +friend Quinby phrased it to my face. I had not, of course, the smallest +desire to do any such vulgar thing. All I wanted was to make myself, if +possible, as agreeable to Mrs. Lascelles as this youth had done before +me, and in any case to share with him all the perils of her society. In +other words I meant to squeeze into "the imminent deadly breach" beside +Bob Evers, not necessarily in front of him. But if there was nothing +dastardly in this, neither was there anything heroic, since I was proof +against that kind of deadliness if Bob was not. +</p> +<p> +On the other hand, the whole character of my mission was affected by the +decision at which I had now arrived. There was no longer a necessity to +speak plainly to anybody. That odious duty was eliminated from my plan +of campaign, and the "frontal attack" of recent history discarded for +the "turning movement" of the day. So I had learnt something in South +Africa after all. I had learnt how to avoid hard knocks which might very +well do more harm than good to the cause I had at heart. That cause was +still sharply defined before my mind. It was the first and most sacred +consideration. I wrote a reassuring despatch to Catherine Evers, and +took it myself to the little post-office opposite the hotel that very +evening before dressing for dinner. But I cannot say that I was thinking +of Catherine when I proceeded to spoil three successive ties in the +tying. +</p> +<p> +Yet I can only repeat that I felt absolutely "proof" against the real +cause of my solicitude. It is the most delightful feeling where a +handsome woman is concerned. The judgment is not warped by passion or +clouded by emotion; you see the woman as she is, not as you wish to see +her, and if she disappoint it does not matter. You are not left to +choose between systematic self-deception and a humiliating admission of +your mistake. The lady has not been placed upon an impossible pedestal, +and she has not toppled down. In this case the lady started at the most +advantageous disadvantage; every admirable quality, her candour, her +courage, her spirited independence, her evident determination to piece a +broken life together again and make the best of it, told doubly in her +favour to me with my special knowledge of her past. It would be too much +to say that I was deeply interested; but Mrs. Lascelles had inspired me +with a certain sympathy and dispassionate regard. Cultivated she was +not, in the conventional sense, but she knew more than can be imbibed +from books. She knew life at first hand, had drained the cup for +herself, and yet could savour the lees. Not that she enlarged any +further on her own past. Mrs. Lascelles was never a great talker, like +Catherine; but she was certainly a woman to whom one could talk. And +talk to her I did thenceforward, with a conscientious conviction that I +was doing my duty, and only an occasional qualm for its congenial +character, while Bob listened with a wondering eye, or went his own way +without a word. +</p> +<p> +It is easy to criticise my conduct now. It would have been difficult to +act otherwise at the time. I am speaking of the evening after my walk +with Mrs. Lascelles, of the next day when it rained, and now of my third +night at the hotel. The sky had cleared. The glass was high. There was a +finer edge than ever on the silhouetted mountains against the stars. It +appeared that Bob and Mrs. Lascelles had talked of taking their lunch to +the Findelen Glacier on the next fine day, for he came up and reminded +her of it as she sat with me in the glazed veranda after dinner. I had +seen him standing alone under the stars a few minutes before: so this +was the result of his cogitation. But in his manner there was nothing +studied, much less awkward, and his smile even included me, though he +had not spoken to me alone all day. +</p> +<p> +"Oh, no, I hadn't forgotten, Mr. Evers. I am looking forward to it," +said my companion, with a smile of her own to which the most jealous +swain could not have taken exception. +</p> +<p> +Bob Evers looked hard at me. +</p> +<p> +"You'd better come, too," he said. +</p> +<p> +"It's probably too far," said I, quite intending to play second fiddle +next day, for it was really Bob's turn. +</p> +<p> +"Not for a man who has been up to the Cricket-ground," he rejoined. +</p> +<p> +"But it's dreadfully slippery," put in Mrs. Lascelles, with a +sympathetic glance at my sticks. +</p> +<p> +"Let him get them shod like alpenstocks," quoth Bob, "and nails in his +boots; then they'll be ready when he does the Matterhorn!" +</p> +<p> +It might have passed for boyish banter, but I knew that it was something +more; the use of the third person changed from chaff to scorn as I +listened, and my sympathetic resolution went to the winds. +</p> +<p> +"Thank you," I replied; "in that case I shall be delighted to come, and +I'll take your tip at once by giving orders about my boots." +</p> +<p> +And with that I resigned my chair to Bob, not sorry for the chance; he +should not be able to say that I had monopolised Mrs. Lascelles without +intermission from the first. Nevertheless, I was annoyed with him for +what he had said, and for the moment my actions were no part of my +scheme. Consequently I was thus in the last mood for a familiarity from +Quinby, who was hanging about the door between the veranda and the hall, +and who would not let me pass. +</p> +<p> +"That's awfully nice of you," he had the impudence to whisper. +</p> +<p> +"What do you mean?" +</p> +<p> +"Giving that poor young beggar another chance!" +</p> +<p> +"I don't understand you." +</p> +<p> +"Oh, I like that! You know very well that you've gone in on the military +ticket and deliberately cut the poor youngster—" +</p> +<p> +I did not wait to hear the end of this gratuitous observation. It was +very rude of me, but in another minute I should have been guilty of a +worse affront. My annoyance had deepened into something like dismay. It +was not only Bob Evers who was misconstruing my little attentions to +Mrs. Lascelles. I was more or less prepared for that. But here were +outsiders talking about us—the three of us! So far from putting a stop +to the talk, I had given it a regular fillip: here were Quinby and his +friends as keen as possible to see what would happen next, if not +betting on a row. The situation had taken a sudden turn for the worse. I +forgot the pleasant hours that I had passed with Mrs. Lascelles, and +began to wish myself well out of the whole affair. But I had now no +intention of getting out of the glacier expedition. I would not have +missed it on any account. Bob had brought that on himself. +</p> +<p> +And I daresay we seemed a sufficiently united trio as we marched along +the pretty winding path to the Findelen next morning. Dear Bob was not +only such a gentleman, but such a man, that it was almost a pleasure to +be at secret issue with him; he would make way for me at our lady's +side, listen with interest when she made me spin my martial yarns, laugh +if there was aught to laugh at, and in a word, give me every conceivable +chance. His manners might have failed him for one heated moment +overnight; they were beyond all praise this morning; and I repeatedly +discerned a morbid sporting dread of giving the adversary less than fair +play. It was sad to me to consider myself as such to Catherine's son, +but I was determined not to let the thought depress me, and there was +much outward occasion for good cheer. The morning was a perfect one in +every way. The rain had released all the pungent aromas of the mountain +woods through which we passed. Snowy height came in dazzling contrast +with a turquoise sky. The toy town of Zermatt spattered the green hollow +far below. And before me on the narrow path went Bob Evers in a flannel +suit, followed by Mrs. Lascelles and her red parasol, though he carried +her alpenstock with his own in readiness for the glacier. +</p> +<p> +Thither we came in this order, I at least very hot from hard hobbling to +keep up; but the first breath from the glacier cooled me like a bath, +and the next like the great drink in the second stanza of the Ode to a +Nightingale. I could have shouted out for pleasure, and must have done +so but for the engrossing business of keeping a footing on the sloping +ice with its soiled margin of yet more treacherous <i>moraine</i>. Yet on the +glacier itself I was less handicapped than I had been on the way, and +hopped along finely with my two shod sticks and the sharp new nails in +my boots. Bob, however, was invariably in the van, and Mrs. Lascelles +seemed more disposed to wait for me than to hurry after him. I think he +pushed the pace unwittingly, under the prick of those emotions which +otherwise were in such excellent control. I can see him now, continually +waiting for us on the brow of some glistening ice-slope, leaning on his +alpenstock and looking back, jet-black by contrast between the blinding +hues of ice and sky. +</p> +<p> +But once he waited on the brink of some unfathomable crevasse, and then +we all three cowered together and peeped down; the sides were green and +smooth and sinister, like a crack in the sea, but so close together that +one could not have fallen out of sight; yet when Bob loosened a lump of +ice and kicked it in we heard it clattering from wall to wall in +prolonged diminuendo before the faint splash just reached our ears. Mrs. +Lascelles shuddered, and threw out a hand to prevent me from peering +farther over. The gesture was obviously impersonal and instinctive, as +an older eye would have seen, but Bob's was smouldering when mine met it +next, and in the ensuing advance he left us farther behind than ever. +But on the rock where we had our lunch he was once more himself, bright +and boyish, careless and assured. So he continued till the end of that +chapter. On the way home, moreover, he never once forged ahead, but was +always ready with a hand for Mrs. Lascelles at the awkward places; and +on the way through the woods, nothing would serve him but that I should +set the pace, that we might all keep together. Judge therefore of my +surprise when he came to my room, as I was dressing for the absurdly +early dinner which is the one blot upon Riffel Alp arrangements, with +the startling remark that we "might as well run straight with one +another." +</p> +<p> +"By all means, my dear fellow," said I, turning to him with the lather +on my chin. He was dressed already, as perfectly as usual, and his hands +were in his pockets. But his fresh brown face was as grave as any +judge's, and his mouth as stern. I went on to ask, disingenuously +enough, if we had not been "running straight with each other" as it was. +</p> +<p> +"Not quite," said Bob Evers, dryly; "and we might as well, you know!" +</p> +<p> +"To be sure; but don't mind if I go on shaving, and pray speak for +yourself." +</p> +<p> +"I will," he rejoined. "Do you remember our conversation the night you +came?" +</p> +<p> +"More or less." +</p> +<p> +"I mean when you and I were alone together, before we turned in." +</p> +<p> +"Oh, yes. I remember something about it." +</p> +<p> +"It would be too silly to expect you to remember much," he went on after +a pause, with a more delicate irony than heretofore. "But, as a matter +of fact, I believe I said it was all rot that people talked about the +impossibility of being mere pals with a woman, and all that sort of +thing." +</p> +<p> +"I believe you did.'" +</p> +<p> +"Well, then, <i>that</i> was rot. That's all." +</p> +<p> +I turned round with my razor in mid-air, +</p> +<p> +"My dear fellow!" I exclaimed. +</p> +<p> +"Quite funny, isn't it?" he laughed, but rather harshly, while his +mountain bronze deepened under my scrutiny. +</p> +<p> +"You are not in earnest, Bob!" said I; and on the word his laughter +ended, his colour went. +</p> +<p> +"<i>I</i> am," he answered through his teeth. "<i>Are you</i>?" +</p> +<p> +Never was war carried more suddenly into the enemy's country, or that +enemy's breath more completely taken away than mine. What could I say? +"As much as you are, I should hope!" was what I ultimately said. +</p> +<p> +The lad stood raking me with a steady fire from his blue eyes. +</p> +<p> +"I mean to marry her," he said, "if she will have me." +</p> +<p> +There was no laughing at him. Though barely twenty, as I knew, he was +man enough for any age as we faced each other in my room, and a man who +knew his own mind into the bargain. +</p> +<p> +"But, my dear Bob," I ventured to remonstrate, "you are years too +young—" +</p> +<p> +"That's my business. I am in earnest. What about you?" +</p> +<p> +I breathed again. +</p> +<p> +"My good fellow," said I, "you are at perfect liberty to give yourself +away to me, but you really mustn't expect me to do quite the same for +you." +</p> +<p> +"I expect precious little, I can tell you!" the lad rejoined hotly. +"Not that it matters twopence so long as you are not misled by anything +I said the other day. I prefer to run straight with you—you can run as +you like with me. I only didn't want you to think that I was saying one +thing and doing another. As a matter of fact I meant all I said at the +time, or thought I did, until you came along and made me look into +myself rather more closely than I had done before. I won't say how you +managed it. You will probably see for yourself. But I'm very much +obliged to you, whatever happens. And now that we understand each other +there's no more to be said, and I'll clear out." +</p> +<p> +There was, indeed, no more to be said, and I made no attempt to detain +him; for I did see for myself, only too clearly and precisely, how I had +managed to precipitate the very thing which I had come out from England +expressly to prevent. +</p> + + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<a name="CH8"><!-- CH8 --></a> +<h2> + CHAPTER VIII +</h2> + +<h3> +PRAYERS AND PARABLES +</h3> +<p> </p> +<p> +I had quite forgotten one element which plays its part in most affairs +of the affections. I mean, of course, the element of pique. Bob Evers, +with the field to himself, had been sensible and safe enough; it was my +intrusion, and nothing else, which had fanned his boyish flame into this +premature conflagration. Of that I felt convinced. But Bob would not +believe me if I told him so; and what else was there for me to tell him? +To betray Catherine and the secret of my presence, would simply hasten +an irrevocable step. To betray Mrs. Lascelles, and <i>her</i> secret, would +certainly not prevent one. Both courses were out of the question upon +other grounds. Yet what else was left? +</p> +<p> +To speak out boldly to Mrs. Lascelles, to betray Catherine and myself to +her? +</p> +<p> +I shrank from that; nor had I any right to reveal a secret which was +not only mine. What then was I to do? Here was this lad professedly on +the point of proposing to this woman. It was useless to speak to the +lad; it was impossible to speak to the woman. To be sure, she might not +accept him; but the mere knowledge that she was to have the chance +seemed enormously to increase my responsibility in the matter. As for +the dilemma in which I now found myself, deservedly as you please, there +was no comparing it with any former phase of this affair. +</p> +<pre> + "O, what a tangled web we weave, + When first we practise to deceive!" +</pre> +<p> +The hackneyed lines sprang unbidden, as though to augment my punishment; +then suddenly I reflected that it was not in my own interest I had begun +to practise my deceit; and the thought of Catherine braced me up, +perhaps partly because I felt that it should. I put myself back into the +fascinating little room in Elm Park Gardens. I saw the slender figure in +the picture hat, I heard the half-humorous and half-pathetic voice. +After all, it was for Catherine I had undertaken this ridiculous +mission; she was therefore my first and had much better be my only +consideration. I could not run with the hare after hunting with the +hounds. And I should like to have seen Catherine's face if I had +expressed any sympathy with the hare! +</p> +<p> +No; it was better to be unscrupulously stanch to one woman than weakly +chivalrous toward both; and my mind was made up by the end of dinner. +There was only one chance now of saving the wretched Bob, or rather one +way of setting to work to save him; and that was by actually adopting +the course with which he had already credited me. He thought I was +"trying to cut him out." Well, I would try! +</p> +<p> +But the more I thought of him, of Mrs. Lascelles, of them both, the less +sanguine I felt of success; for had I been she (I could not help +admitting it to myself), as lonely, as reckless, as unlucky, I would +have married the dear young idiot on the spot. Not that my own marriage +(with Mrs. Lascelles) was an end that I contemplated for a moment as I +took my cynical resolve. And now I trust that I have made both my +position and my intentions very plain, and have written myself down +neither more of a fool nor less of a knave than circumstances (and one's +own infirmities) combined to make me at this juncture of my career. +</p> +<p> +The design was still something bolder than its execution, and if Bob did +not propose that night it was certainly no fault of mine. I saw him with +Mrs. Lascelles on the terrace after dinner; but I had neither the heart +nor the face to thrust myself upon them. Everything was altered since +Bob had shown me his hand; there were certain rules of the game which +even I must now observe. So I left him in undisputed possession of the +perilous ground, and being in a heavy glow from the strong air of the +glacier, went early to my room; where I lay long enough without a wink, +but quite prepared for Bob, with news of his engagement, at every step +in the corridor. +</p> +<p> +Next day was Sunday, and chiefly, I am afraid, because there was neither +blind nor curtain to my dormer-window, and the morning sun streamed full +upon my pillow, I got up and went to early service in the little tin +Protestant Church. It was wonderfully well attended. Quinby was there, +a head taller than anybody else, and some sizes smaller in heads. The +American bridegroom came in late with his "best girl." The late Vice +Chancellor, with the peeled nose, and Mr. Belgrave Teale, fit for Church +Parade, or for the afternoon act in one of his own fashion-plays, took +round the offertory bags, into which Mr. Justice Sankey (in race-course +checks) dropped gold. It was not the sort of service at which one cares +to look about one, but I was among the early comers, and I could not +help it. Mrs. Lascelles, however, was there before me, whereas Bob Evers +was not there at all. Nevertheless, I did not mean to walk back with her +until I saw her walking very much alone, a sort of cynosure even on the +way from church, though humble and grave and unconscious as any country +maid. I watched her with the rest, but in a spirit of my own. Some +subtle change I seemed to detect in Mrs. Lascelles as in Bob. Had he +really declared himself overnight, and had she actually accepted him? A +new load seemed to rest upon her shoulders, a new anxiety, a new care; +and as if to confirm my idea, she started and changed colour as I came +up. +</p> +<p> +"I didn't see you in church," she remarked, in her own natural fashion, +when we had exchanged the ordinary salutations. +</p> +<p> +"I am afraid you wouldn't expect to see me, Mrs. Lascelles." +</p> +<p> +"Well, as a matter of fact, I didn't, but I suppose," added Mrs. +Lascelles, as her rich voice fell into a pensive (but not a pathetic) +key, "I suppose it is you who are much more surprised at seeing me. I +can't help it if you are, Captain Clephane. I am not really a religious +person. I have not flown to that extreme as yet. But it has been a +comfort to me, sometimes; and so, sometimes, I go." +</p> +<p> +It was very simply said, but with a sigh at the end that left me +wondering whether she was in any new need of spiritual solace. Did she +already find herself in the dilemma in which I had imagined her, and was +it really a dilemma to her? New hopes began to chase my fears, and were +gaining upon them when a flannel suit on the sunlit steps caused a +temporary check: there was Bob waiting for us, his hands in his +pockets, a smile upon his face, yet in the slope of his shoulders and +the carriage of his head a certain indefinable but very visible +attention and intent. +</p> +<p> +"Is Mrs. Evers a religious woman?" asked my companion, her step slowing +ever so slightly as we approached. +</p> +<p> +"Not exactly; but she knows all about it," I replied. +</p> +<p> +"And doesn't believe very much? Then we shouldn't hit it off," exclaimed +Mrs. Lascelles, "for I know nothing and believe all I can! Nevertheless, +I'm not going to church again to-day." +</p> +<p> +The last words were in a sort of aside, and I afterwards heard that Bob +and Mrs. Lascelles had attended the later service together on the +previous Sunday; but I guessed almost as much on the spot, and it put +out of my head both the unjust assumption of the earlier remark, +concerning Catherine, and the contrast between them which Mrs. Lascelles +could hardly afford to emphasise. +</p> +<p> +"Let's go somewhere else instead—Zermatt—or anywhere else you like," I +suggested, eagerly; but we were close to the steps, and before she +could reply Bob had taken off his straw hat to Mrs. Lascelles, and flung +me a nod. +</p> +<p> +"How very energetic!" he cried. "I only hope it's a true indication of +form, for I've got a scheme: instead of putting in another chapel I +propose we stroll down to Zermatt for lunch and come back by the train." +</p> +<p> +Bob's proposal was made pointedly to Mrs. Lascelles, and as pointedly +excluded me, but she stood between the two of us with a charming smile +of good-humoured perplexity. +</p> +<p> +"Now what am I to say? Captain Clephane was in the very act of making +the same suggestion!" +</p> +<p> +Bob glared on me for an instant in spite of Eton and all his ancestors. +</p> +<p> +"We'll all go together," I cried before he could speak. "Why not?" +</p> +<p> +Nor was this mere unreasoning or good-natured impulse, since Bob could +scarcely have pressed his suit in my presence, while I should certainly +have done my best to retard it; still, it was rather a relief to me to +see him shake his head with some return of his natural grace. +</p> +<p> +"My idea was to show Mrs. Lascelles the gorge," said Bob, "but you can +do that as well as I can; you can't miss it; besides, I've seen it, and +I really ought to stay up here, as a matter of fact, for I'm on the +track of a guide for the Matterhorn." +</p> +<p> +We looked at him narrowly with one accord, but he betrayed no signs of +desperate impulse, only those of "climbing fever," and I at least +breathed again. +</p> +<p> +"But if you want a guide," said I, "Zermatt's full of them." +</p> +<p> +"I know," said he, "but it's a particular swell I'm after, and he hangs +out up here in the season. They expect him back from a big trip any +moment, and I really ought to be on the spot to snap him up." +</p> +<p> +So Bob retired, in very fair order after all, and not without his +laughing apologies to Mrs. Lascelles; but it was sad to me to note the +spurious ring his laugh had now; it was like the death-knell of the +simple and the single heart that it had been my lot, if not my mission, +to poison and to warp. But the less said about my odious task, the +sooner to its fulfilment, which now seemed close at hand. +</p> +<p> +It was not in fact so imminent as I supposed, for the descent into +Zermatt is somewhat too steep for the conduct of a necessarily delicate +debate. Sound legs go down at a compulsory run, and my companion was +continually waiting for me to catch her up, only to shoot ahead again +perforce. Or the path was too narrow for us to walk abreast, and you +cannot become confidential in single file; or the noise of falling +waters drowned our voices, when we stood together on that precarious +platform in the cool depths of the gorge, otherwise such an admirable +setting for the scene that I foresaw. Then it was a beautiful walk in +itself, with its short tacks in the precipitous pine-woods above, its +sudden plunge into the sunken gorge below, its final sweep across the +green valley beyond; and it was all so new to us both that there were +impressions to exchange or to compare at every turn. In fine, and with +all the will in the world, it was quite impossible to get in a word +about Bob before luncheon at the Monte Rosa, and by that time I for one +was in no mood to introduce so difficult a topic. +</p> +<p> +But an opportunity there came, an opportunity such as even I could not +neglect; on the contrary, I made too much of it, as the sequel will +show. It was in the little museum which every tourist goes to see. We +had shuddered over the gruesome relics of the first and worst +catastrophe on the Matterhorn, and were looking in silence upon the +primitive portraits of the two younger Englishmen who had lost their +lives on that historic occasion. It appeared that they had both been +about the same age as Bob Evers, and I pointed this out to my companion. +It was a particularly obvious remark to make; but Mrs. Lascelles turned +her face quickly to mine, and the colour left it in the half-lit, +half-haunted little room, which we happened to have all to ourselves. +</p> +<p> +"Don't let him go up, Captain Clephane; don't let him, please!" +</p> +<p> +"Do you mean Bob Evers?" I asked, to gain time while I considered what +to say; for the intensity of her manner took me aback. +</p> +<p> +"You know I do," said Mrs. Lascelles, impatiently; "don't let him go up +the Matterhorn to-night, or to-morrow morning, or whenever it is that he +means to start." +</p> +<p> +"But, my dear Mrs. Lascelles, who am I to prevent that young gentleman +from doing what he likes?" +</p> +<p> +"I thought you were more or less related?" +</p> +<p> +"Rather less than more." +</p> +<p> +"But aren't you very intimate with his mother?" +</p> +<p> +I had to meet a pretty penetrating look. +</p> +<p> +"I was once." +</p> +<p> +"Well, then, for his mother's sake you ought to do your best to keep him +out of danger, Captain Clephane." +</p> +<p> +It was my turn to repay the look which I had just received. No doubt I +did so with only too much interest; no doubt I was equally clumsy of +speech; but it was my opportunity, and something or other must be said. +</p> +<p> +"Quite so, Mrs. Lascelles; and for his mother's sake," said I, "I not +only will do, I have already done, my best to keep the lad out of harm's +way. He is the apple of her eye; they are simply all the world to one +another. It would break her heart if anything happened to +him—anything—if she were to lose him in any sense of the word." +</p> +<p> +I waited a moment, thinking she would speak, prepared on my side to be +as explicit as she pleased; but Mrs. Lascelles only looked at me with +her mouth tight shut and her eyes wide open; and I concluded—somewhat +uneasily, I will confess—that she saw for herself what I meant. +</p> +<p> +"As for the Matterhorn," I went on, "that, I believe, is not such a very +dangerous exploit in these days. There are permanent chains and things +where there used to be polished precipices. It makes the real +mountaineers rather scornful; anyone with legs and a head, they will +tell you, can climb the Matterhorn nowadays. If I had the legs I'd go +with him, like a shot." +</p> +<p> +"To share the danger, I suppose?" +</p> +<p> +"And the sport." +</p> +<p> +"Ah," said Mrs. Lascelles, "and the sport, of course! I had forgotten +that!" +</p> +<p> +Yet I did not perceive that I had been found out, for nothing was +further from my mind than to prolong the parable to which I had stooped +in passing a few moments before. It had served its purpose, I conceived. +I had given my veiled warning; it never occurred to me that Mrs. +Lascelles might be indulging in a veiled retort. I thought she was +annoyed at the hint that I had given her. I began to repent of that +myself. It had quite spoilt our day, and so many and long were the +silences, as we wandered from little shop to little shop, and finally +with relief to the train, that I had plenty of time to remember how much +we had found to talk about all the morning. +</p> +<p> +But matters were coming to a head in spite of me, for Bob Evers waylaid +us on our return, and, with hardly a word to Mrs. Lascelles, straightway +followed me to my room. He was pale with a suppressed anger which flared +up even as he closed my door behind him, but though his honest face was +now in flames, he still kept control of his tongue. +</p> +<p> +"I want you to lend me one of those sticks of yours," he said, quietly; +"the heaviest, for choice." +</p> +<p> +"What the devil for?" I demanded, thinking for the moment of no +shoulders but my own. +</p> +<p> +"To give that bounder Quinby the licking he deserves!" cried Bob: "to +give it him now at once, when the post comes in, and there are plenty of +people about to see the fun. Do you know what he's been saying and +spreading all over the place?" +</p> +<p> +"No," I answered, my heart sinking within me. "What has he been saying?" +</p> +<p> +The colour altered on Bob's face, altered and softened to a veritable +blush, and his eyes avoided mine. +</p> +<p> +"I'm ashamed to tell you, it makes me so sick," he said, disgustedly. +"But the fact is that he's been spreading a report about Mrs. Lascelles; +it has nothing on earth to do with me. It appears he only heard it +himself this morning, by letter, but the brute has made good use of his +time! <i>I</i> only got wind of it an hour or two ago, of course quite by +accident, and I haven't seen the fellow since; but he's particularly +keen on his letters, and either he explains himself to my satisfaction +or I make an example of him before the hotel. It's a thing I never +dreamt of doing in my life, and I'm sorry the poor beast is such a +scarecrow; but it's a duty to punish that sort of crime against a woman, +and now I'm sure you'll lend me one of your sticks. I am only sorry I +didn't bring one with me." +</p> +<p> +"But wait a bit, my dear fellow," said I, for he was actually holding +out his hand: "you have still to tell me what the report was." +</p> +<p> +"Divorce!" he answered in a tragic voice. "Clephane, the fellow says she +was divorced in India, and that it was—that it was her fault!" +</p> +<p> +He turned away his face. It was in a flame. +</p> +<p> +"And you are going to thrash Quinby for saying that?" +</p> +<p> +"If he sticks to it, I most certainly am," said Bob, the fire settling +in his blue eyes. +</p> +<p> +"I should think twice about it, Bob, if I were you." +</p> +<p> +"My dear man, what else do you suppose I have been thinking of all the +afternoon?" +</p> +<p> +"It will make a fresh scandal, you see." +</p> +<p> +"I can't help that." +</p> +<p> +And Bob shut his mouth with a self-willed snap. +</p> +<p> +"But what good will it do?" +</p> +<p> +"A liar will be punished, that's all! It's no use talking, Clephane; my +mind is made up." +</p> +<p> +"But are you so sure that it's a lie?" I was obliged to say it at last, +reluctantly enough, yet with a wretched feeling that I might just as +well have said it in the beginning. +</p> +<p> +"Sure?" he echoed, his innocent eyes widening before mine. "Why, of +course I'm sure! You don't know what pals we've been. Of course I never +asked questions, but she's told me heaps and heaps of things; it would +fit in with some of them, if it were true." +</p> +<p> +Then I told him that it was true, and how I knew that it was true, and +my reason for having kept all that knowledge to myself until now. "I +could not give her away even to you, Bob, nor yet tell you that I had +known her before; for you would have been certain to ask when and how; +and it was in her first husband's time, and under his name." +</p> +<p> +It was a comfort to be quite honest for once with one of them, and it is +a relief even now to remember that I was absolutely honest with Bob +Evers about this. He said almost at once that he would have done the +same himself, and even as he spoke his whole manner changed toward me. +His face had darkened at my unexpected confirmation of the odious +rumour, but already it was beginning to lighten toward me, as though he +found my attitude the one redeeming feature in the new aspect of +affairs. He even thanked me for my late reserve, obviously from his +heart, and in a way that went to mine on more grounds than one. It was +as though a kindness to Mrs. Lascelles was already the greatest possible +kindness to him. +</p> +<p> +"But I am glad you have told me now," he added, "for it explains many +things. I was inclined to look upon you, Duncan—you won't mind my +telling you now—as a bit of a deliberate interloper! But all the time +you knew her first, and that alters everything. I hope to out you still, +but I sha'n't any longer bear you a grudge if you out me!" +</p> +<p> +I was horrified. +</p> +<p> +"My dear fellow," I cried, "do you mean to say this makes no +difference?" +</p> +<p> +"It does to Quinby. I must keep my hands off him, I suppose, though to +my mind he deserves his licking all the more." +</p> +<p> +"But does it make no difference to <i>you</i>? My good boy, can you at your +age seriously think of marrying a woman who has been married twice +already, and divorced once?" +</p> +<p> +"I didn't know that when I thought of it first," he answered, doggedly, +"and I am not going to let it make a difference now. Do you suppose I +would stand away from her because of anything that's past and over? Do +they stand away from us for—that sort of thing?" +</p> +<p> +Of course I said that was rather different, with as much conviction as +though the ancient dogma had been my own. +</p> +<p> +"But, Duncan, you know it's the very last thing you're dreaming of doing +yourself!" +</p> +<p> +And again I argued, as feebly as you please, that it was quite different +in my case—that I was a good ten years older than he, and not my +mother's only son. +</p> +<p> +Bob stiffened on the spot. +</p> +<p> +"My mother must take care of herself," said he; "and I," he added, "I +must take care of myself, if you don't mind. And I hope you won't, for +you've been most awfully good to me, you know! I never thought so until +these last few minutes; but now I sha'n't forget it, no matter how it +all turns out!" +</p> + + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<a name="CH9"><!-- CH9 --></a> +<h2> + CHAPTER IX +</h2> + +<h3> +SUB JUDICE +</h3> +<p> </p> +<p> +Well, I made a belated attempt to earn my young friend's good opinion. I +kept out of his way after dinner, and went in search of Quinby instead. +I felt I had a crow of my own to pluck with this gentleman, who owed to +my timely intervention a far greater immunity than he deserved. It was +in the little billiard-room I found him, pachydermatously applauding the +creditable attempts of Sir John Sankey at the cannon game, and as +studiously ignoring the excellent shots of an undistinguished clergyman +who was beating the judge. Quinby made room for me beside him, with a +civility which might have caused me some compunction, but I repaid him +by coming promptly to my point. +</p> +<p> +"What's this report about Mrs. Lascelles?" I asked, not angrily at all, +for naturally my feeling in the matter was not so strong as Bob's, but +with a certain contemptuous interest, if a man can judge of his own +outward manner from his inner temper at the time. +</p> +<p> +Quinby favoured me with a narrow though a sidelong look; the room was +very full, and in the general chit-chat, punctuated by the constant +clicking of the heavy balls, there was very little danger of our being +overheard. But Quinby was careful to lower his voice. +</p> +<p> +"It's perfectly true," said he, "if you mean about her being divorced." +</p> +<p> +"Yes, that was what I heard; but who started the report?" +</p> +<p> +"Who started it. You may well ask! Who starts anything in a place like +this? Ah, good shot, Sir John, good shot!" +</p> +<p> +"Never mind the good shots, Quinby. I really rather want to talk to you +about this. I sha'n't keep you long." +</p> +<p> +"Talk away, then. I am listening." +</p> +<p> +"Mrs. Lascelles and I are rather friends." +</p> +<p> +"So I can see." +</p> +<p> +"Very well, then, I want to know who started all this. It may be +perfectly true, as you say, but who found it out? If you can't tell me +I must ask somebody else." +</p> +<p> +The ruddy Alpine colouring had suddenly become accentuated in the case +of Quinby. +</p> +<p> +"As a matter of fact," said he, "it was I who first heard of it, quite +by chance. You can't blame me for that, Clephane." +</p> +<p> +"Of course not," said I encouragingly. +</p> +<p> +"Well, unfortunately I let it out; and you know how things get about in +an hotel." +</p> +<p> +"It was unfortunate," I agreed. "But how on earth did you come to hear?" +</p> +<p> +Quinby hummed and hawed; he had heard from a soldier friend, a man who +had known her in India, a man whom I knew myself, in fact Hamilton the +sapper, who had telegraphed to Quinby to secure me my room. I ought to +have been disarmed by the coincidence; but I recalled our initial +conversation, about India and Hamilton and Mrs. Lascelles, and I could +not consider it a coincidence at all. +</p> +<p> +"You don't mean to tell me," said I, aping the surprise I might have +felt, "that our friend wrote and gave Mrs. Lascelles away to you of his +own accord?" +</p> +<p> +But Quinby did not vouchsafe an answer. "Hard luck, Sir John!" cried +he, as the judge missed an easy cannon, leaving his opponent a still +easier one, which lost him the game. I proceeded to press my question in +a somewhat stronger form, though still with all the suavity at my +command. +</p> +<p> +"Surely," I urged, "you must have written to ask him about her first?" +</p> +<p> +"That's my business, I fancy," said Quinby, with a peculiarly aggressive +specimen of the nasal snigger of which enough was made in a previous +chapter, but of which Quinby himself never tired. +</p> +<p> +"Quite," I agreed; "but do you also consider it your business to inquire +deliberately into the past life of a lady whom I believe you only know +by sight, and to spread the result of your inquiries broadcast in the +hotel? Is that your idea of chivalry? I shall ask Sir John Sankey +whether it is his," I added, as the judge joined us with genial +condescension, and I recollected that his proverbial harshness toward +the male offender was redeemed by an extraordinary sympathy with the +women. Thereupon I laid a general case before Sir John, asking him +point-blank whether he considered such conduct as Quinby's (but I did +not say whose the conduct was) either justifiable in itself or conducive +to the enjoyment of a holiday community like ours. +</p> +<p> +"It depends," said the judge, cocking a critical eye on the now furious +Quinby. "I am afraid we most of us enjoy our scandal, and for my part I +always like to see a humbug catch it hot. But if the scandal's about a +woman, and if it's an old scandal, and if she's a lonely woman, that +quite alters the case, and in my opinion the author of it deserves all +he gets." +</p> +<p> +At this Quinby burst out, with an unrestrained heat that did not lower +him in my estimation, though the whole of his tirade was directed +exclusively against me. I had been talking "at" him, he declared. I +might as well have been straightforward while I was about it. He, for +his part, was not afraid to take the responsibility for anything he +might have said. It was perfectly true, to begin with. The so-called +Mrs. Lascelles, who was such a friend of mine, had been the wife of a +German Jew in Lahore, who had divorced her on her elopement with a +Major Lascelles, whom she had left in his turn, and whose name she had +not the smallest right to bear. Quinby exercised some restraint in the +utterances of these calumnies, or the whole room must have heard them, +but even as it was we had more listeners than the judge when my turn +came. +</p> +<p> +"I won't give you the lie, Quinby, because I am quite sure you don't +know you are telling one," said I; "but as a matter of fact you are +giving currency to two. In the first place, this lady is Mrs. Lascelles, +for the major did marry her; in the second place, Major Lascelles is +dead." +</p> +<p> +"And how do you know?" inquired Quinby, with a touch of genuine surprise +to mitigate an insolent disbelief. +</p> +<p> +"You forget," said I, "that it was in India I knew your own informant. I +can only say that my information in all this matter is a good deal +better than his. I knew Mrs. Lascelles herself quite well out there; I +knew the other side of her case. It doesn't seem to have struck you, +Quinby, that such a woman must have suffered a good deal before, and +after, taking such a step. Or I don't suppose you would have spread +yourself to make her suffer a little more," +</p> +<p> +And I still consider that a charitable view of his behaviour; but Quinby +was of another opinion, which he expressed with his offensive little +laugh as he lifted his long body from the settee. +</p> +<p> +"This is what one gets for securing a room for a man one doesn't know!" +said he. +</p> +<p> +"On the contrary," I retorted, "I haven't forgotten that, and I have +saved you something because of it. I happen to have saved you no less +than a severe thrashing from a stronger man than myself, who is even +more indignant with you than I am, and who wanted to borrow one of my +sticks for the purpose!" +</p> +<p> +"And it would have served him perfectly right," was the old judge's +comment, when the mischief-maker had departed without returning my +parting shot. "I suppose you meant young Evers, Captain Clephane?" +</p> +<p> +"I did indeed, Sir John. I had to tell him the truth in order to +restrain him." +</p> +<p> +The old judge raised his eyebrows. +</p> +<p> +"Then you hadn't to tell him it before? You are certainly consistent, +and I rather admire your position as regards the lady. But I am not so +sure that it was altogether fair toward the lad. It is one thing to +stand up for the poor soul, my dear sir, but it would be another thing +to let a nice boy like that go and marry her!" +</p> +<p> +So that was the opinion of this ripe old citizen of the world! It ought +not to have irritated me as it did. It would be Catherine's opinion, of +course; but a dispassionate view was not to be expected from her. I had +not hitherto thought otherwise, myself; but now I experienced a perverse +inclination to take the opposite side. Was it so utterly impossible for +a woman with this woman's record to make a good wife to some man yet? I +did not admit it for an instant; he would be a lucky man who won so +healthy and so good a heart; thus I argued to myself with Mrs. Lascelles +in my mind, and nobody else. But Bob Evers was not a man, I was not sure +that he was out of his teens, and to think of him was to think at once +with Sir John Sankey and all the rest. Yes, yes, it would be madness and +suicide in such a youth; there could be no two opinions about that; and +yet I felt indignant at the mildest expression of that which I myself +could not deny. +</p> +<p> +Such was my somewhat chaotic state of mind when I had fled the +billiard-room in my turn, and put on my overcoat and cap to commune with +myself outside. Nobody did justice to Mrs. Lascelles; it was terribly +hard to do her justice; those were perhaps the ideas that were oftenest +uppermost. I did not see how I was to be the exception and prove the +rule; my brief was for Bob, and there was an end of it. It was foolish +to worry, especially on such a night. The moon had waxed since my +arrival, and now hung almost round and altogether dazzling in the little +sky the mountains left us. Yet I had the terrace all to myself; the +magnificent voice of our latest celebrity had drawn everybody else in +doors, or under the open drawing-room windows through which it poured +out into the glorious night. And in the vivid moonlight the very +mountains seemed to have gathered about the little human hive upon their +heights, to be listening to the grand rich notes that had some right to +break their ancient silence. +</p> +<pre> + "If doughty deeds my lady please, + Right soon I'll mount my steed; + And strong his arm, and fast his seat, + That bears frae me the meed. + I'll wear thy colours in my cap, + Thy picture at my heart; + And he that bends not to thine eye + Shall rue it to his smart!" +</pre> +<p> +It was a brave new setting to brave old lines, as simple and direct as +themselves, studiously in keeping, passionate, virile, almost inspired; +and the whole so justly given that the great notes did not drown the +words as they often will, but all came clean to the ear. No wonder the +hotel held its breath! I was standing entranced myself, an outpost of +the audience underneath the windows, whose fringe I could just see round +the uttermost angle of the hotel, when Bob Evers ran down the steps, and +came toward me in such guise that I could not swear to him till the last +yard. +</p> +<p> +"Don't say a word," he whispered excitedly. "I'm just off!" +</p> +<p> +"Off where?" I gasped, for he had changed into full mountaineering garb, +and there was his greased face beaming in the moonlight, and the blue +spectacles twinkling about his hat-band, at half-past nine at night. +</p> +<p> +"Up the Matterhorn!" +</p> +<p> +"At this time of night?" +</p> +<p> +"It is a bit late, and that's why I want it kept quiet. I don't want any +fuss or advice. I've got a couple of excellent guides waiting for me +just below by the shoemaker's hut. I told you I was on their tracks. +Well, it was to-night or never as far as they were concerned, they are +so tremendously full up. So to-night it is, and don't you remind me of +my mother!" +</p> +<p> +I was thinking of her when he spoke; for the song had swung through a +worthy refrain into another verse, and now I knew it better. It was +Catherine who had introduced me to all my lyrics; it was to Catherine I +had once hymned this one in my unformed heart. +</p> +<p> +"But I thought," said I, as I forced myself to think, "that everybody +went up to the <i>Cabane</i> overnight, and started fresh from there in the +morning?" +</p> +<p> +"Most people do, but it's as broad as it's long," declared Bob, airily, +rapidly, and with the same unwonted excitement, born as I thought of +his unwonted enterprise. "You have a ripping moonlight walk instead of a +so-called night's rest in a frowsy hut. We shall get our breakfast there +instead, and I expect to start fresher than if I had slept there and +been knocked up at two o'clock in the morning. That's all settled, +anyhow, and you can look for me on top through the telescope after +breakfast. I shall be back before dark, and then—" +</p> +<p> +"Well, what then?" I asked, for Bob had made a significant and yet +irresolute pause, as though he could not quite bring himself to tell me +something that was on his mind. +</p> +<p> +"Well," he echoed nonchalantly at last, as though he had not hesitated +at all, "as a matter of fact, to-morrow night I am to know my fate. I +have asked Mrs. Lascelles to marry me, and she hasn't said no, but I am +giving her till to-morrow night. That's all, Clephane. I thought it a +fair thing to let you know. If you want to waltz in and try your luck +while I'm gone, there's nothing on earth to prevent you, and it might be +most satisfactory to everybody. As a matter of fact, I'm only going so +as to get over the time and keep out of the way." +</p> +<p> +"As a matter of fact?" I queried, waving a little stick toward the +lighted windows. "Listen a minute, and then tell me!" +</p> +<p> +And we listened together to the last and clearest rendering of the +refrain— +</p> +<pre> + "Then tell me how to woo thee, Love; + O tell me how to woo thee! + For thy dear sake, nae care I'll take, + Tho' ne'er another trow me!" +</pre> +<p> +"What tosh!" shouted Bob (his mother should have heard him) through the +applause. "Of course I'm going to take care of myself, and of course I +meant to rush the Matterhorn while I'm here, but between ourselves +that's my only reason for rushing it to-night." +</p> +<p> +Yet had he no boyish vision of quick promotion in the lady's heart, no +primitive desire to show his mettle out of hand, to set her trembling +while he did or died? He had, I thought, and he had not; that shining +face could only have reflected a single and candid heart. But it is +these very natures, so simple and sweet-hearted and transparent, that +are least to be trusted on the subject of their own motives and +emotions, for they are the soonest deceived, not only by others but in +themselves. Or so I venture to think, and even then reflected, as I +shook my dear lad's hand by the side parapet of the moonlit terrace, and +watched him run down into the shadows of the fir-trees and so out of my +sight with two dark and stalwart figures that promptly detached +themselves from the shadows of the shoemaker's hut. A third figure +mounted to where I now sat listening to the easy, swinging, confident +steps, as they fell fainter and fainter upon the ear; it was the +shoemaker himself who had shod my two sticks with spikes and my boots +with formidable nails; and we exchanged a few words in a mixture of +languages which I should be very sorry to reproduce. +</p> +<p> +"Do you know those two guides?" is what I first asked in effect. +</p> +<p> +"Very well, monsieur." +</p> +<p> +"Are they good guides?" +</p> +<p> +"The very best, monsieur." +</p> + + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<a name="CH10"><!-- CH10 --></a> +<h2> + CHAPTER X +</h2> + +<h3> +THE LAST WORD +</h3> +<p> </p> +<p> +"Is that you?" +</p> +<p> +It was an hour or so later, but still I sat ruminating upon the parapet, +within a yard or two of the spot where I had first accosted Bob Evers +and Mrs. Lascelles. I had retraced the little sequence of subsequent +events, paltry enough in themselves, yet of a certain symmetry and some +importance as a whole. I had attacked and defended my own conduct down +to that hour, when I ought to have been formulating its logical +conclusion, and during my unprofitable deliberations the night had aged +and altered (as it were) behind my back. There was no more music in the +drawing-room. There were no more people under the drawing-room windows. +The lights in all the lower windows were not what they had been; it was +the bedroom tiers that were illuminated now. But I did not realise that +there was less light outside until I awoke to the fact that Mrs. +Lascelles was peering tentatively toward me, and putting her question in +such an uncertain tone. +</p> +<p> +"That depends who I am supposed to be," I answered, laughing as I rose +to put my personality beyond doubt. +</p> +<p> +"How stupid of me!" laughed Mrs. Lascelles in her turn, though rather +nervously to my fancy. "I thought it was Mr. Evers!" +</p> +<p> +I had hard work to suppress an exclamation. So he had not told her what +he was going to do, and yet he had not forbidden me to tell her. Poor +Bob was more subtle than I had supposed, but it was a simple subtlety, a +strange chord but still in key with his character as I knew it. +</p> +<p> +"I am sorry to disappoint you," said I. "But I am afraid you won't see +any more of Bob Evers to-night." +</p> +<p> +"What do you mean?" asked Mrs. Lascelles, suspiciously. +</p> +<p> +"I wonder he didn't tell you," I replied, to gain time in which to +decide how to make the best use of such an unforeseen opportunity. +</p> +<p> +"Well, he didn't; so please will you, Captain Clephane?" +</p> +<p> +"Bob Evers," said I, with befitting gravity, "is climbing the Matterhorn +at this moment." +</p> +<p> +"Never!" +</p> +<p> +"At least he has started." +</p> +<p> +"When did he start?" +</p> +<p> +"An hour or more ago, with a couple of guides." +</p> +<p> +"He told you, then?" +</p> +<p> +"Only just as he was starting." +</p> +<p> +"Was it a sudden idea?" +</p> +<p> +"More or less, I think." +</p> +<p> +I waited for the next question, but that was the last of them. Just then +the interloping cloud floated clear of the moon, and I saw that my +companion was wrapped up as on the earlier night, in the same +unconventional combination of rain-coat and golf-cape; but now the hood +hung down, and the sudden rush of moonlight showed me a face as full of +sheer perplexity and annoyance as I could have hoped to find it, and as +free from deeper feeling. +</p> +<p> +"The silly boy!" exclaimed Mrs. Lascelles at last. "I suppose it really +is pretty safe, Captain Clephane?" +</p> +<p> +"Safer than most dangerous things, I believe; and they are the safest, +as you know, because you take most care. He has a couple of excellent +guides; the chance of getting them was partly why he went. In all human +probability we shall have him back safe and sound, and fearfully pleased +with himself, long before this time to-morrow. Meanwhile, Mrs. +Lascelles," I continued with the courage of my opportunity, "it is a +very good chance for me to speak to you about our friend Bob. I have +wanted to do so for some little time." +</p> +<p> +"Have you, indeed?" said Mrs. Lascelles, coldly. +</p> +<p> +"I have," I answered imperturbably; "and if it wasn't so late I should +ask for a hearing now." +</p> +<p> +"Oh, let us get it over, by all means!" +</p> +<p> +But as she spoke Mrs. Lascelles glanced over the shoulder that she +shrugged so contemptuously, toward the lights in the bedroom windows, +most of which were wide open. +</p> +<p> +"We could walk toward the zig-zags," I suggested. "There is a seat +within a hundred yards, if you don't think it too cold to sit, but in +any case I needn't keep you many minutes. Bob Evers," I continued, as my +suggestion was tacitly accepted, "paid me the compliment of confiding in +me somewhat freely before he started on this hare-brained expedition of +his." +</p> +<p> +"So it appears." +</p> +<p> +"Ah, but he didn't only tell me what he was going to do; he told me why +he was doing it," said I, as we sauntered on our way side by side. "It +was difficult to believe," I added, when I had waited long enough for +the question upon which I had reckoned. +</p> +<p> +"Indeed?" +</p> +<p> +"He said he had proposed to you." +</p> +<p> +And again I waited, but never a word. +</p> +<p> +"That child!" I added with deliberate scorn. +</p> +<p> +But a further pause was broken only by my companion's measured steps and +my own awkward shuffle. +</p> +<p> +"That baby!" I insisted. +</p> +<p> +"Did you tell him he was one, Captain Clephane?" asked Mrs. Lascelles, +dryly, but drawn so far at last. +</p> +<p> +"I spared his feelings. But can it be true, Mrs. Lascelles?" +</p> +<p> +"It is true." +</p> +<p> +"Is it a fact that you didn't give him a definite answer?" +</p> +<p> +"I don't know what business it is of yours," said Mrs. Lascelles, +bluntly; "and since he seems to have told you everything, neither do I +know why you should ask me. However, it is quite true that I did not +finally refuse him on the spot." +</p> +<p> +This carefully qualified confirmation should have afforded me abundant +satisfaction. I was over-eager in the matter, however, and I cried out +impetuously: +</p> +<p> +"But you will?" +</p> +<p> +"Will what?" +</p> +<p> +"Refuse the boy!" +</p> +<p> +We had reached the seat, but neither of us sat down. Mrs. Lascelles +appeared to be surveying me with equal resentment and defiance. I, on +the other hand, having shot my bolt, did my best to look conciliatory. +</p> +<p> +"Why should I refuse him?" she asked at length, with less emotion and +more dignity than her bearing had led me to expect. "You seem so sure +about it, you know!" +</p> +<p> +"He is such a boy—such an utter child—as I said just now." I was +conscious of the weakness of saying it again, and it alone, but my +strongest arguments were too strong for direct statement. +</p> +<p> +This one, however, was not unfruitful in the end. +</p> +<p> +"And I," said Mrs. Lascelles, "how old do you think I am? Thirty-five?" +</p> +<p> +"Of course not," I replied, with obvious gallantry. "But I doubt if Bob +is even twenty." +</p> +<p> +"Well, then, you won't believe me, but I was married before I was his +age, and I am just six-and-twenty now." +</p> +<p> +It was a surprise to me. I did not doubt it for a moment; one never did +doubt Mrs. Lascelles. It was indeed easy enough to believe (so much I +told her) if one looked upon the woman as she was, and only difficult in +the prejudicial light of her matrimonial record. I did not add these +things. "But you are a good deal older," I could not help saying, "in +the ways of the world, and it is there that Bob is such an absolute +infant." +</p> +<p> +"But I thought an Eton boy was a man of the world?" said Mrs. Lascelles, +quoting me against myself with the utmost readiness. +</p> +<p> +"Ah, in some things," I had to concede. "Only in some things, however." +</p> +<p> +"Well," she rejoined, "of course I know what you mean by the other +things. They matter to your mind much more than mere age, even if I had +been fifteen years older, instead of five or six. It's the old story, +from the man's point of view. You can live anything down, but you won't +let us. There is no fresh start for a woman; there never was and never +will be." +</p> +<p> +I protested that this was unfair. "I never said that, or anything like +it, Mrs. Lascellcs!" +</p> +<p> +"No, you don't say it, but you think it!" she cried back. "It is the one +thing you have in your mind. I was unhappy, I did wrong, so I can never +be happy, I can never do right! I am unfit to marry again, to marry a +good man, even if he loves me, even if I love him!" +</p> +<p> +"I neither say nor think anything of the kind," I reiterated, and with +some slight effect this time. Mrs. Lascelles put no more absurdities +into my mouth. +</p> +<p> +"Then what do you say?" she demanded, her deep voice vibrant with +scornful indignation, though there were tears in it too. +</p> +<p> +"I think he will be a lucky fellow who gets you," I said, and meant +every word, as I looked at her well in the moonlight, with her shining +eyes, and curling lip, and fighting flush. +</p> +<p> +"Thank you, Captain Clephane!" +</p> +<p> +And I thought I was to be honoured with a contemptuous courtesy; but I +was not. +</p> +<p> +"He ought to be a man, however," I went on, "and not a boy, and still +less the only child of a woman with whom you would never get on." +</p> +<p> +"So you are as sure of that," exclaimed Mrs. Lascelles, "as of +everything else!" It seemed, however, to soften her, or at least to +change the current of her thoughts. "Yet you get on with her?" she added +with a wistful intonation. +</p> +<p> +I could not deny that I got on with Catherine Evers. +</p> +<p> +"You are even fond of her?" +</p> +<p> +"Quite fond." +</p> +<p> +"Then do you find me a very disagreeable person, that she and I couldn't +possibly hit it off, in your opinion?" +</p> +<p> +"It isn't that, Mrs. Lascelles," said I, almost wearily. "You must know +what it is. You want to marry her son—" +</p> +<p> +Mrs. Lascelles smiled. +</p> +<p> +"Well, let us suppose you do. That would be quite enough for Mrs. Evers. +No matter who you were, how peerless, how incomparable in every way, she +would rather die than let you marry him at his age. I don't say she's +wrong—I don't say she's right. I give you the plain fact for what it is +worth: you would find her from the first a clever and determined +adversary, a regular little lioness with her cub, and absolutely +intolerant on that particular point." +</p> +<p> +I could see Catherine as I spoke, the Catherine I had seen last, and +liked least to remember; but the vision faded before the moonlit reality +of Mrs. Lascelles, laughing to herself like a great, naughty, pretty +child. +</p> +<p> +"I really think I must marry him," she said, "and see what happens!" +</p> +<p> +"If you do," I answered, in all seriousness, "you will begin by +separating mother and son, and end by making both their lives miserable, +and bringing the last misery into your own." +</p> +<p> +And either my tone impressed her, or the covert reminder in my last +words; for the bold smile faded from her face, and she looked longer and +more searchingly in mine than she had done as yet. +</p> +<p> +"You know Mrs. Evers exceedingly well," Mrs. Lascelles remarked. +</p> +<p> +"I did years ago," I guardedly replied. +</p> +<p> +"Do you mean to say," urged my companion, "that you have not seen her +for years?" +</p> +<p> +I did not altogether like her tone. Yet it was so downright and +straightforward, it was hard to be the very reverse in answer to it, and +I shied idiotically at the honest lie. I had quite lost sight both of +Bob and his mother, I declared, from the day I went to India until now. +</p> +<p> +"You mean until you came out here?" persisted Mrs. Lascelles. +</p> +<p> +"Until the other day," I said, relying on a carefully affirmative tone +to close the subject. There was a pause. I began to hope I had +succeeded. The flattering tale was never finished. +</p> +<p> +"I believe," said Mrs. Lascelles, "that you saw Mrs. Evers in town +before you started." +</p> +<p> +It was too late to lie. +</p> +<p> +"As a matter of fact," I answered easily, "I did." +</p> +<p> +I built no hopes on the pause which followed that. Somehow I had my face +to the moon, and Mrs. Lascelles had her back. Yet I knew that her +scrutiny of me was more critical than ever. +</p> +<p> +"How funny of Bob never to have told me!" she said. +</p> +<p> +"Told you what?" +</p> +<p> +"That you saw his mother just before you left." +</p> +<p> +"I didn't tell him," I said at length. +</p> +<p> +"That was funny of you, Captain Clephane." +</p> +<p> +"On the contrary," I argued, with the impudence which was now my only +chance, "it was only natural. Bob was rather raw with his friend +Kennerley, you see. You knew about that?" +</p> +<p> +"Oh, yes." +</p> +<p> +"And why they fell out?" +</p> +<p> +"Yes." +</p> +<p> +"Well, he might have thought the other fellow had been telling tales, +and that I had come out to have an eye on him, if he had known that I +happened to see his mother just before I started." +</p> +<p> +There was another pause; but now I was committed to an attitude, and +prepared for the worst. +</p> +<p> +"Perhaps there would have been some truth in it?" suggested Mrs. +Lascelles. +</p> +<p> +"Perhaps," I agreed, "a little." +</p> +<p> +The pause now was the longest of all. It had no terrors for me. Another +cloud had come between us and the moon. I was sorry for that. I felt +that I was missing something. Even the fine upstanding figure before me +was no longer sharp enough to be expressive. +</p> +<p> +"I have been harking back," explained Mrs. Lascelles, eventually. "Now I +begin to follow. You saw his mother, you heard a report, and you +volunteered or at least consented to come out and keep an eye on the +dear boy, as you say yourself. Am I not more or less right so far, +Captain Clephane?" +</p> +<p> +Her tone was frozen honey. +</p> +<p> +"More or less," I admitted ironically. +</p> +<p> +"Of course, I don't know what report that other miserable young man may +have carried home with him. I don't want to know. But I can guess. One +does not stay in hotel after hotel without getting a pretty shrewd idea +of the way people talk about one. I know the sort of things they have +been saying here. You would hear them yourself, no doubt, Captain +Clephane, as soon as you arrived." +</p> +<p> +I admitted that I had, but reminded Mrs. Lascelles that the first person +I had spoken to was also the greatest gossip in the hotel. She paid no +attention to the remark, but stood looking at me again, with the look +that I could never quite see to read. +</p> +<p> +"And then," she went on, "you found out who it was, and you remembered +all about me, and your worst fears were confirmed. That must have been +an interesting moment. I wonder how you felt.... Did it never occur to +you to speak plainly to anybody?" +</p> +<p> +"I wasn't going to give you away," I said, stolidly, though with no +conscious parade of virtue. +</p> +<p> +"Yet, you see, it would have made no difference if you had! Did you +seriously think it would make much difference, Captain Clephane, to a +really chivalrous young man?" I bowed my head to the well-earned taunt. +"But," she went on, "there was no need for you to speak to Mr. Evers. +You might have spoken to me. Why did you not do that?" +</p> +<p> +"Because I didn't want to quarrel with you," I answered quite honestly; +"because I enjoyed your society too much myself." +</p> +<p> +"That was very nice of you," said Mrs. Lascelles, with a sudden although +subtle return of the good-nature which had always attracted me. "If it +is sincere," she added, as an apparent afterthought. +</p> +<p> +"I am perfectly sincere now." +</p> +<p> +"Then what do you think I should do?" she asked me, in the soft new tone +which actually flattered me with the idea that she was making up her +mind to take my advice. +</p> +<p> +"Refuse this lad!" +</p> +<p> +"And then?" she almost whispered. +</p> +<p> +"And then—" +</p> +<p> +I hesitated. I found it hard to say what I thought, hard even upon +myself. We had been good friends. I admired the woman cordially; her +society was pleasant to me, as it always had been. Nevertheless, we had +just engaged in a duel of no friendly character; and now that we seemed +of a sudden to have become friends again, it was the harder to give her +the only advice which I considered compatible alike with my duty and the +varied demands of the situation. If she took it as she seemed disposed +to do, the immediate loss would be mine, and I foresaw besides a much +more disagreeable reckoning with Bob Evers than the one now approaching +an amicable conclusion. I should have to stay behind to face the music +of his wrath alone. Still, at the risk of appearing brutal I made my +proposal in plain terms; but, to minimise that risk, I ventured to take +the lady's hand and was glad to find the familiarity permitted in the +same friendly spirit in which it was indulged. +</p> +<p> +"I would have no 'and then,'" I said, "if I were you. I should refuse +him under such circumstances that he couldn't possibly bother you, or +himself about you, again. Now is your opportunity." +</p> +<p> +"Is it?" she asked, a thrilling timbre in her low voice. And I fancied +there was a kindred tremor in the firm warm hand within mine. +</p> +<p> +"The best of opportunities," I replied, "if you are not too wedded to +this place, and can tear yourself away from the rest of us." (Her hand +lay loose in mine.) "Mrs. Lascelles, I should go to-morrow morning" (her +hand fell away altogether), "while he is still up the Matterhorn and I +shouldn't let him know where I—shouldn't give him a chance of finding +out—" +</p> +<p> +A sudden peal of laughter cut me short. I could not have believed it +came from my companion. But no other soul was near us, though I looked +all ways. It was the merriest laughter imaginable, only the merriment +was harsh and hard. +</p> +<p> +"Oh, thank you, Captain Clephane! You are too delicious! I saw it +coming; I only wondered whether I could contain myself until it came. +Yet I could hardly believe that even you would commit yourself to that +finishing touch of impudence! Certainly it is an opportunity, <i>his</i> +being out of the way. <i>You</i> were not long in making use of it, were you? +It will amuse him when he comes down, though it may open his eyes. I +shall tell him everything, so I give you warning. Every single thing, +that you have had the insolence to tell me!" +</p> +<p> +She had caught up her skirts from the ground, she had half turned away +from me, toward the hotel. The false merriment had died out of her. The +true indignation remained, ringing in every accent of the deep sweet +voice, and drawn up in every inch of the tall straight figure. I do not +remember whether the moon was hid or shining at the moment. I only know +that my lady's eyes shone bright enough for me to see them then and ever +after, bright and dry with a scorn that burnt too hot for tears; and +that I admired her even while she scorned me, as I had never thought to +admire any woman but one, but this woman least of all. +</p> +<p> +So we both stood, intent, some seconds, looking our last upon each other +if I was wise. Then I lifted my hat, and offered my congratulations +(more sincere than they sounded) to her and Bob. +</p> +<p> +"Did I tell you why he is going up?" I added. "It is to pass the time +until he knows his fate. If only we could let him know it now!" +</p> +<p> +Mrs. Lascelles glanced toward the mountain, and my eyes followed hers. +A great cloud hid the grim outstanding summit. +</p> +<p> +"If only you had prevented him from going!" she cried back at me in a +last reproach; and to me her tone was conclusive, it rang so true, and +so invidiously free from the smaller emotions which it had been my own +unhappiness to inspire. It was the real woman who had spoken out once +more, suddenly, perhaps unthinkingly, but obviously from her heart. And +as she turned, I followed her very slowly and without a word; for now +was I surely and deservedly undone. +</p> + + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<a name="CH11"><!-- CH11 --></a> +<h2> + CHAPTER XI +</h2> + +<h3> +THE LION'S MOUTH +</h3> +<p> </p> +<p> +It was a chilly morning, with rather a high wind; from the haze about +the mountains of the Zermatt valley, which were all that I could see +from my bedroom window, it occurred to me that I might look in vain for +the Matterhorn from the other side of the hotel. It was still visible, +however, when I came down, a white cloud wound about its middle like a +cloth, and the hotel telescope already trained upon its summit from the +shelter of the glass veranda. +</p> +<p> +"See anybody?" I asked of a man who sat at the telescope as though his +eye was frozen to the lens. He might have been witnessing the most +exciting adventure, where the naked eye saw only rock and snow, and cold +grey sky; but he rose at last with a shake of the head, a great gaunt +man with kind keen eyes, and the skin peeled off his nose. +</p> +<p> +"No," said he, "I can't see anybody, and I'm very glad I can't. It's +about as bad a morning for it as you could possibly have; yet last night +was so fine that some fellows might have got up to the hut, and been +foolish enough not to come down again. But have a look for yourself." +</p> +<p> +"Oh, thanks," said I, considerably relieved at what I heard, "but if you +can't see anybody I'm sure I can't. You have done it yourself, I +daresay?" +</p> +<p> +The gaunt man smiled demurely, and the keen eyes twinkled in his flayed +face. He was, indeed, a palpable mountaineer. +</p> +<p> +"What, the Matterhorn?" said he, lowering his voice and looking about +him as if on the point of some discreditable admission. "Oh, yes, I've +done the Matterhorn, back and front and both sides, with and without +guides; but everybody has, in these days. It's nothing when you know the +ropes and chains and things. They've got everything up there now except +an iron staircase. Still, I should be sorry to tackle it to-day, even if +they had a lift!" +</p> +<p> +"Do you think guides would?" I asked, less reassured than I had felt at +first. +</p> +<p> +"It depends on the guides. They are not the first to turn back, as a +rule; but they like wind and mist even less than we do. The guides know +what wind and mist mean." +</p> +<p> +I now understood the special disadvantages of the day and realised the +obvious dangers. I could only hope that either Bob Evers or his guides +had shown the one kind of courage required by the occasion, the moral +courage of turning back. But I was not at all sure of Bob. His stimulus +was not that of the single-minded, level-headed mountaineer; in his +romantic exaltation he was capable of hailing the very perils as so many +more means of grace in the sight of Mrs. Lascelles; yet without doubt he +would have repudiated any such incentive, and that in all the sincerity +of his simple heart. He did not know himself as I knew him. +</p> +<p> +My fears were soon confirmed. Returning to the glass veranda, after the +stock breakfast of the Swiss hotel, with its horseshoe rolls and +fabricated honey, I found the telescope the centre of an ominous crowd, +on whose fringe hovered my new friend the mountaineer. +</p> +<p> +"We were wrong," he muttered to me. "Some fools are up there, after +all." +</p> +<p> +"How many?" I asked quickly. +</p> +<p> +"I don't know. There's no getting near the telescope now, and won't be +till the clouds blot them out altogether." +</p> +<p> +I looked out at the Matterhorn. The loincloth of cloud had shaken itself +out into a flowing robe, from which only the brown skull of the mountain +protruded in its white skull-cap. +</p> +<p> +"There are three of them," announced a nasal voice from the heart of the +little crowd. "A great long chap and two guides." +</p> +<p> +"He can't possibly know that," remarked the mountaineer to me, "but +let's hope it is so." +</p> +<p> +"They're as plain as pike-staffs," continued Quinby, whose bent blond +head I now distinguished, as he occupied the congenial post of Sister +Anne. "They seem stuck.... No, they're getting up on to the snow-slope, +and the front man's cutting steps." +</p> +<p> +"Then they're all right for the present," said the mountaineer. "It's +the getting down that's ticklish." +</p> +<p> +"You can see the rope blowing about between them ... what a wind there +must be ... it's bent out taut like a bow, you can see it against the +snow, and they're bending themselves more than forty-five degrees to +meet it." +</p> +<p> +"All very well going <i>up</i>," murmured the mountaineer: there was a +sinister innuendo in the curt comments of the practical man. +</p> +<p> +I turned into the hall. It, however, was quite deserted. I had hoped I +might see something of Mrs. Lascelles; she was not one of those in the +glass veranda. I now looked in the drawing-room, but neither was she +there. Returning to the empty hall, I passed a minute peering through +the locked glass door of the pigeon-holes in which the careful concierge +files the unclaimed letters. There was nothing for me that I could +discern, in the C pigeon-hole; but next door but one, under E, there lay +on the very top a letter which caught my eye and more. It had not been +through any post. It was a note directed to R. Evers, Esq., in a hand +that I knew instinctively to be that of Mrs. Lascelles, though I had +never seen it in my life before. It was a good hand, but large and bold +and downright as herself. +</p> +<p> +The concierge stood in the doorway, one eye on the disappearing +Matterhorn, one on the experts and others in animated conclave round the +still inaccessible telescope. I touched the concierge on the arm. +</p> +<p> +"Did you see Mrs. Lascelles this morning?" +</p> +<p> +The man's eyes opened before his lips. +</p> +<p> +"She has gone away, sir." +</p> +<p> +"I know," I said, having indeed divined no less. "What train did she +catch?" +</p> +<p> +"The first one from here. That also catches the early train from +Zermatt." +</p> +<p> +"I am sorry," I said after a pause. "I hoped to see Mrs. Lascelles +before she went; now I must write. She left you an address, I suppose?" +</p> +<p> +"Oh, yes, sir." +</p> +<p> +"I shall ask you for it later on. No letters for me, I suppose?" +</p> +<p> +"No, sir." +</p> +<p> +"Sure?" +</p> +<p> +"I will look again." +</p> +<p> +And I looked with him, over his shoulder; but there was nothing; and +the note for Bob Evers now inspired me with a tripartite blend of +curiosity, envy, and apprehension. I would have had a last word from the +same hand myself; had it been never so scornful, this silent scorn was +the harder sort to bear. Also I wanted much to know what her last word +was to Bob—and dreaded more what it might be. +</p> +<p> +There remained the unexpected triumph of having got rid of my lady after +all. That is not to be belittled even now. It is a triumph to succeed in +any undertaking, more especially when one has abandoned one's own last +hope of such success. The unpleasant character of this particular +emprise made its eventual accomplishment in some ways the greater matter +for congratulation in my eyes. At least I had done my part. I had come +to hate it, but the thing was done, and it had been a fairly difficult +thing to do. It was impossible not to plume oneself a little on the +whole, but the feeling was a superficial one, with deeper and uneasier +feelings underneath. Still, I had practically redeemed my impulsive +promise to Catherine Evers; her son and this woman once parted, it +should be easy to keep them apart, and my knowledge of the woman +forbade me to deny the fullest significance to her departure. She had +gone away to stay away—from Bob. She had listened to me the less with +her ears, because her reason and her heart had been compelled to heed. +To be sure, she saw the unsuitability, the impossibility, as clearly as +we did. But it was I who, at all events, had helped to make her see it; +wherefore I deserved well of Catherine Evers, if of no other person in +the world. +</p> +<p> +Oddly enough, this last consideration afforded me least satisfaction; it +seemed to bring home to me by force of contrast the poor figure that I +must assuredly cut in the eyes of the other two, the still poorer +opinion that they would have of me if ever they knew all. I did not care +to pursue this train of thought. It was a subject upon which I was not +prepared to examine myself; to change it, I thought of Bob's present +peril, which I had almost forgotten as I lounged abstractedly in the +empty hall. If anything were to happen to him, in the vulgar sense! What +an irony, what poetic punishment for us survivors! And yet, even as I +rehearsed the ghastly climax in my mind, I told myself that the mother +would rather see him even thus, than married to a widow who had also +been divorced; it was the younger woman who would never forgive me, or +herself. +</p> +<p> +Disappointed faces met me on my next visit to the veranda. The little +crowd there had dwindled to a group. I could have had the telescope now +for as long as I liked: the upper part of the Matterhorn was finally and +utterly effaced and swallowed up by dense white mist and cloud. My +friend the mountaineer looked grave, but his disfigured face did not +wear the baulked expression of others to which he drew my attention. +</p> +<p> +"It is like the curtain coming down with the man's head still in the +lion's mouth," said he. +</p> +<p> +"I hope," said I devoutly, "that you don't seriously think there's any +analogy?" +</p> +<p> +The climber looked at me steadily, and then smiled. +</p> +<p> +"Well, no, perhaps I don't think it quite so bad as all that. But it's +no use pretending it isn't dangerous. May I ask if you know who the +foolhardy fellow is?" +</p> +<p> +I said I did not know, but mentioned my suspicion, only begging my +climbing friend not to let the name go any farther. It was in too many +mouths already, in quite another connection, I was going on to explain; +but the mountaineer nodded, as much as to warn me that even he knew all +about that. It was Bob's office, however, to provide the hotel with its +sensation while he remained, and he was not allowed to perform +anonymously very long. His departure over night leaked out. I was asked +if it was true. The flight of Mrs. Lascelles was the next discovery; +desperate deductions were drawn at once. She had jilted the unlucky +youth and sent him in utter recklessness on his intentionally suicidal +ascent. Nobody any longer expected to see him come down alive; so much I +gathered from the fragments of conversation that reached my ears; and +never was better occupation for a bad day than appeared to be afforded +by the discussion of the supposititious tragedy in all its imaginary +details. As, however, the talk invariably abated at my approach, giving +place to uncomplimentary glances in my direction, I could not but infer +that public opinion had assigned me an unenviable part in the piece. +Perhaps I deserved it, though not from their point of view. +</p> +<p> +The afternoon was at once a dreariness and a dread. There was no ray of +sun without, no sort of warmth within. The Matterhorn never reappeared, +but seemed the grimmer monster for this sinister invisibility. I +gathered that there was real occasion for anxiety, if not for alarm, and +I nursed mine chiefly in my own room until I heard the news when I went +down for my letters. Bob Evers had walked in as though nothing had +happened, and gone straight up to his room with a note that the +concierge handed him. Some one had asked him whether it was he who had +been up the Matterhorn in the morning, and young Evers had vouchsafed +the barest affirmative compatible with civility. The sunburnt climber +was my informant. +</p> +<p> +"And I don't mind telling you it is a relief to me," he added, "and to +everybody, though I shouldn't wonder if there was a little unconscious +disappointment in the air as well. I congratulate you, for I could see +you were anxious, and I must find an opportunity of congratulating your +young friend himself." +</p> +<p> +Meanwhile no such opportunity was afforded me, though I quite expected +and was fully prepared for another visit from Bob in my room. I waited +for him there until dinner-time, but he never came, and I was beginning +to wish he would. It was like the wrapping of the Matterhorn in mist; it +only widened the field of apprehension; and yet it was not for me to go +to the boy. My unrest was further aggravated by a letter which I had +just received from the boy's mother in answer to my first to her. It was +not a very dreadful letter; but I only trusted that no evil impulse had +caused Catherine to write in anything like the same strain to Bob; for +neither was it a very charitable letter, nor one that a man could be +glad to get from the woman whom he had set out on an enduring pinnacle. +There was only this to be said for it, that years ago I had sought in +vain for a really human weakness in Catherine Evers, and now at last I +had found one. She was rather too human about Mrs. Lascelles. +</p> +<p> +I looked for Bob both at and after dinner, but we were never within +speaking distance and I fancied he avoided even my eye. What had Mrs. +Lascelles said? He looked redder and browner and rougher in the face, +but I heard that he would hardly open his lips at table, that he was +almost surly on the subject of his exploit. Everybody else appeared to +me to be speaking of it, or of Bob himself; but I had him on my nerves +and may well have formed an exaggerated impression about it all. Only I +do not forget some of the things I did overhear that day, and night; and +they now had the effect of sending me in search of Bob, since Bob would +not come near me. "I will have it out with him," I grimly decided, "and +then get out of this myself by the first train going." I had had quite +enough of the place that had enchanted me up to the last four-and-twenty +hours. I began to see myself back in Elm Park Gardens. There, at least, +if also there alone, I should get some credit for what I had done. +</p> +<p> +It was no use looking for Bob upon the terrace now; yet I did look +there, among other obvious places, before I could bring myself to knock +at his door. There was a light in his room, so I knew that he was there, +and he cried out admittance in so sharp a tone that I fancied he also +knew who knocked. I found him packing in his shirt-sleeves. He received +me with a stare in exact keeping with his tone. What on earth had Mrs. +Lascelles said? +</p> +<p> +"Going away?" I asked, as a mere preliminary, and I shut the door behind +me. Bob followed the action with raised eyebrows, then flung me the +shortest possible affirmative, as he bent once more over the suit-case on +the bed. +</p> +<p> +But in a few seconds he looked up. +</p> +<p> +"Anything I can do for you, Clephane?" +</p> +<p> +"That depends where you are going." +</p> +<p> +Bob went on packing with a smile. I guessed where he was going. "I +thought there might be something pressing," he remarked, without looking +up again. +</p> +<p> +"There is," said I. "There is something you can do for me on the spot. +You can try to believe that I have not meant to be quite such a skunk as +I may have seemed—to you," I was on the point of adding, but I stopped +short of that advisedly, as I thought of Mrs. Lascelles also. +</p> +<p> +"Oh, that's all right," said Bob, in a would-be airy tone that carried +its own contradiction. "All's fair, according to the proverb; I no more +blame you than you would have blamed me. I hope, on the contrary, that I +may congratulate you." +</p> +<p> +And he stood up with a look which, coupled with his words, made it my +turn to stare. +</p> +<p> +"Indeed you may not," said I. +</p> +<p> +"Aren't you engaged to her?" he asked. +</p> +<p> +"Good God, no!" I cried. "What made you think so?" +</p> +<p> +"Everything!" exclaimed Bob, after a moment's pause of obvious +bewilderment. "I—you see—I had a note from Mrs. Lascelles herself!" +</p> +<p> +"Yes?" said I, carefully careless, but I wanted more than ever to know +that missive's gist. +</p> +<p> +"Only a few lines," Bob went on, ruefully; "they are the first thing I +heard or saw when I got down, and they almost made me wish I'd come down +with a run! Well, it's no use talking about it, I only thought you'd +know. It was the usual smack in the eye, I suppose, only nicely put and +all that. She didn't tell me where she was going, or why; she told me I +had better ask you." +</p> +<p> +"But you wouldn't condescend." +</p> +<p> +Bob gave a rather friendly little laugh. +</p> +<p> +"I said I'd see you damned!" he admitted. "But of course I thought you +were the lucky man. I still half believe you are!" +</p> +<p> +"Well, I'm not." +</p> +<p> +"Do you mean to say that she's refused you too?" +</p> +<p> +"She hasn't had the chance." +</p> +<p> +Bob's eyes opened to an infantile width. +</p> +<p> +"But you told me you were in earnest!" he urged. +</p> +<p> +"As much in earnest as you were, I believe was what I said." +</p> +<p> +"That's the same thing," returned Bob, sharply. "You may not think it +is. I don't care what you think. But I'm very sorry you said you were in +earnest if you were not." +</p> +<p> +And his tone convinced me that he was no longer commiserating himself; +he was sorry on some new account, and the evident reality of his regret +filled me in turn with all the qualms of a guilty conscience. +</p> +<p> +"Why are you sorry?" I demanded. +</p> +<p> +"Oh, not on my own account," said Bob. "I'm delighted, personally, of +course." +</p> +<p> +"Then do you mean to say—you actually told her—I was as much in +earnest as you were?" +</p> +<p> +Bob Evers smiled openly in my face; it was the only revenge he ever +took; and even it was tempered by the inextinguishable sweetness of +expression and the childlike wide-eyed candour which were Bob's even in +the hour of his humiliation, and will be, one hopes, all his days. +</p> +<p> +"Not in so many words," he said, "but I am afraid I did tell her in +effect. You see, I took you at your word. I thought it was quite true. +I'm awfully sorry, Duncan. But it really does serve you right!" +</p> +<p> +I made no answer. I was looking at the suit-case on the bed. Bob seemed +to have lost all interest in his packing. I turned to leave him without +a word. +</p> +<p> +"I am awfully sorry!" he was the one to say again. I began to wonder +when he would see all round the point, and how it would affect his +feeling (to say nothing of his actions) when he did. Meanwhile it was +Bob who was holding out his hand. +</p> +<p> +"So am I," I said, taking it. +</p> +<p> +And for once I, too, was not thinking about myself. +</p> + + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<a name="CH12"><!-- CH12 --></a> +<h2> + CHAPTER XII +</h2> + +<h3> +A STERN CHASE +</h3> +<p> </p> +<p> +Where had Bob been going, and where was he going now? If these were not +the first questions that I asked myself on coming away from him, they +were at all events among my last thoughts that night, and as it +happened, quite my first next morning. His voice had reached me through +my bedroom window, on the head of a dream about himself. I got up and +looked out; there was Bob Evers seeing the suit-case into the tiny train +which brings your baggage (and yourself, if you like) to the very door +of the Riffel Alp Hotel. Bob did not like and I watched him out of sight +down the winding path threaded by the shining rails. He walked slowly, +head and shoulders bent, it might be with dogged resolve, it might be in +mere depression; there was never a glimpse of his face, nor a backward +glance as he swung round the final corner, with his great-coat over his +arm. +</p> +<p> +In spite of my curiosity as to his destination, I made no attempt to +discover it for myself, but on consideration I was guilty of certain +inquiries concerning that of Mrs. Lascelles. They had not to be very +exhaustive; she had made no secret of her original plans upon leaving +the Riffel Alp, and they did not appear to have undergone much change. I +myself left the same forenoon, and lay that night amid the smells of +Brigues, after a little tour of its hotels, in one of which I found the +name of Mrs. Lascelles in the register, while in every one I was +prepared to light upon Bob Evers in the flesh. But that encounter did +not occur. +</p> +<p> +In the early morning I was one of a shivering handful who awaited the +diligence for the Furka Pass; and an ominous drizzle made me thankful +that my telegram of the previous day had been too late to secure me an +outside seat. It was quite damp enough within. Nor did the day improve +as we drove, or the view attract me in the least. It was at its worst as +a sight, and I at mine as a sightseer. I have as little recollection of +my fellow-passengers; but I still see the page in the hotel register at +the Rhone Glacier, with the name I sought written boldly in its place, +just twenty-four hours earlier. +</p> +<p> +The Furka Pass has its European reputation; it would gain nothing from +my enthusiastic praises, had I any enthusiasm to draw upon, or the +descriptive powers to do it justice. But what I best remember is the +time it took us to climb those interminable zig-zags, and to shake off +the too tenacious sight of the hotel in the hollow where I had seen a +signature and eaten my lunch. Now I think of it, there were two couples +who had come so far with us, but at the Rhone Glacier they exchanged +their mutually demonstrative adieux, and I thought the couple who came +on would never have done waving to the couple who stayed behind. They +kept it up for at least an hour, and then broke out again at each of our +many last glimpses of the hotel, now hundreds of feet below. That was +the only diversion until these energetic people went to see the glacier +cave at the summit of the pass. I am glad to remember that I preferred +refreshment at the inn. After that, night fell upon a scene whose +desolation impressed me more than its grandeur, and so in the end we +rattled into Andermatt: here was a huge hotel all but empty, with a +perfect tome of a visitors' book, and in it sure enough the fine free +autograph which I was beginning to know so well. +</p> +<p> +"Yes, sare," said the concierge, "the season end suddenly mit the bad +vedder at the beginning of the veek. You know that lady? She has been +here last night; she go avay again to-day, on to Göschenen and Zürich. +Yes, sare, she shall be in Zürich to-night." +</p> +<p> +I was in Zürich myself the night after. I knew the hotel to go to, knew +it from Mrs. Lascelles herself, whose experience of continental hotels +was so pathetically extensive. This was the best in Switzerland, so she +had assured me in one of our talks: she could never pass through Zürich +without making a night of it at the Baur au Lac. But one night of it +appeared to be enough, or so it had proved on this occasion, for again I +missed her by a few hours. I was annoyed. I agreed with Mrs. Lascelles +about this hotel. Since I had made up my mind to overtake her first or +last, it might as well have been a comfortable place like this, where +there was good cooking and good music and all the comforts which I may +or may not have needed, but which I was certainly beginning to desire. +</p> +<p> +What a contrast to the place at which I found myself the following +night. It was a place called Triberg, in the Black Forest, which I had +never penetrated before, and certainly never shall again. It seemed to +me an uttermost end of the earth, but it was raining when I arrived, and +the rain never ceased for an instant while I was there. About a dozen +hotel omnibuses met the train, from which only three passengers +alighted; the other two were a young married couple at whom I would not +have looked twice, though we all boarded the same lucky 'bus, had not +the young man stared very hard at me. +</p> +<p> +"Captain Clephane," said he, "I guess you've forgotten me; but you may +remember my best gurl?" +</p> +<p> +It was our good-natured young American from the Riffel Alp, who had not +only joined in the daily laugh against himself up there, but must needs +raise it as soon as ever he met one of us again. I rather think his best +girl did not hear him, for she was staring through the streaming omnibus +windows into an absolutely deserted country street, and I feared that +her eyes would soon resemble the panes. She brightened, however, in a +very flattering way, as I thought, on finding a third soul for one or +both of them to speak to, for a change. I only wished I could have +returned the compliment in my heart. +</p> +<p> +"Captain Clephane," continued the young bridegroom, "we came down Monday +last. Say, who do you guess came down along with us?" +</p> +<p> +"A friend of yours," prompted the bride, as I put on as blank an +expression as possible. +</p> +<p> +I opened my eyes a little wider. It seemed the only thing to do. +</p> +<p> +"Captain Clephane," said the bridegroom, beaming all over his +good-humoured face, "it was a lady named Lascelles, and it's to her +advice we owe this pleasure. We travelled together as far as Loocerne. +We guess we'll put salt on her at this hotel." +</p> +<p> +"So does the Captain," announced the bride, who could not look at me +without a smile, which I altogether declined to return. But I need +hardly confess that she was right. It was from Mrs. Lascelles that I +also had heard of the dismal spot to which we were come, as her own +ultimate objective after Switzerland. It was the only address with which +she had provided the concierge at the Riffel Alp. All day I had +regretted the night wasted at Zürich, on the chance of saving a day; but +until this moment I had been sanguine of bringing my dubious quest to a +successful issue here in Triberg. Now I was no longer even anxious to do +so. I did not desire witnesses of a meeting which might well be of a +character humiliating to myself. Still less should I have chosen for +such witnesses a couple who were plainly disposed to put the usual +misconstruction upon the relations of any man with any woman. +</p> +<p> +My disappointment was consequently less than theirs when we drove up to +as gloomy a hostelry as I have ever beheld, with the blue-black forest +smoking wet behind it, to find that here also the foul weather had +brought the season to a premature and sudden end, literally emptying +this particular hotel. Nor did the landlord give us the welcome we might +have expected on a hasty consideration of the circumstances. He said +that he had been on the point of shutting up that house until next +season and hinted at less profit than loss upon three persons only. +</p> +<p> +"But there's a fourth person coming," declared the disconsolate bride. +"We figured on finding her right here!" +</p> +<p> +"A Mrs. Lascelles," her husband explained. +</p> +<p> +"Been and gone," said the landlord, grinning sardonically. "Too lonely +for the lady. She has arrived last night, and gone away again this +morning. You will find her at the Darmstaedterhof, in Baden-Baden, +unless she changes her mind on the way." +</p> +<p> +I caught his grin. It had been the same story, at every stage of my +journey; the chances were that it would be the same thing again at +Baden-Baden. There may have been something, however, of which I was +unaware in my smile; for I found myself under close observation by the +bride; and as our eyes met her hand slipped within her husband's arm. +</p> +<p> +"I guess <i>we</i> won't find her there," she said. "I guess we'll just light +out for ourselves, and wish the captain luck." +</p> +<p> +A stern chase is proverbially protracted, but on dry land it has usually +one end. Mine ended in Baden on the fifth (and first fine) day, rather +early in the afternoon. On arrival I drove straight to the +Darmstaedterhof, and asked to see no visitors' books, for the five days +had taken the edge off my finesse, but inquired at once whether a Mrs. +Lascelles was staying there or not. She was. It seemed incredible. Were +they sure she had not just left? They were sure. But she was not in; at +my request they made equally sure of that. She had probably gone to the +Conversationshaus, to listen to the band. All Baden went there in the +afternoon, to listen to that band. It was a very good band. Baden-Baden +was a very good place. There was no better hotel in Baden-Baden than the +Darmstaedterhof; there were no such baths in the other hotels, these +came straight from the spring, at their natural temperature. They were +matchless for rheumatism, especially in the legs. The old Empress, +Augusta, when in Baden, used to patronise this very hotel and no other. +They could show me the actual bath, and I myself could have pension +(baths excluded) for eight marks and fifty a day. If I would be so kind +as to step into the lift, I should see the room for myself, and then +with my permission they would bring in my luggage and pay the cab. +</p> +<p> +All this by degrees, from a pale youth in frock-coat and forage-cap, and +a more prosperous personage with <i>pince-nez</i> and a paunch (yet another +concierge and my latest landlord respectively), while I stood making up +my mind. The closing proposition was of some assistance to me. I had no +luggage on the cab, of which the cabman's hat alone was visible, at the +bottom of a flight of steps, at the far end of the flagged approach. I +had left my luggage at the station, but I only recollected the fact upon +being recalled from a mental forecast of the interview before me to +these exceedingly petty preliminaries. +</p> +<p> +There and then I paid off the cab and found my own way to this +Conversationshaus. I liked the look of the trim, fresh town in its +perfect amphitheatre of pine-clad hills, covered in by a rich blue sky +from which the last clouds were exhaling like breath from a mirror. The +well-drained streets were drying clean as in a black frost; checkered +with sharp shadows, twinkling with shop windows, and strikingly free +from the more cumbrous forms of traffic. If this was Germany, I could +dispense with certain discreditable prejudices. I had to inquire my way +of a policeman in a flaming helm; because I could not understand his +copious directions, he led me to a tiny bridge within earshot of the +band, and there refused my proferred coin with the dignity of a +Hohenzollern. Under the tiny bridge there ran the shallowest and +clearest of little rivers. Up the white walls of the houses clambered a +deal of Virginia creeper, brought on by the rain, and now almost scarlet +in the strong sunlight. Presently at some gates there was a mark to pay, +or it may have been two; immediate admittance to an avenue of +fascinating shops, with an inner avenue of trees, little tables under +them, and the crash of the band growing louder at every yard. Eventual +access to a fine, broad terrace, a fine, long façade, a bandstand, and +people listening and walking up and down, people listening and drinking +beer or coffee at more little tables, people listening and reading on +rows of chairs, people standing to listen with all their ears; but not +for a long time the person I sought. +</p> +<hr> +<p> +Not for a very long time, but yet, at last, and all alone, among the +readers on the chairs, deep in a Tauchnitz volume even here as in the +Alps; more daintily yet not less simply dressed, in pink muslin and a +big black hat; and blessed here as there with such blooming health, such +inimitable freshness, such a general air of well-being and of deep +content, as almost to disgust me after my whole week's search and my own +hourly qualms. +</p> +<p> +So I found Mrs. Lascelles in the end, and so I saw her until she looked +up and saw me; then the picture changed; but I am not going to describe +the change. +</p> +<p> +"Well, really!" she cried out. +</p> +<p> +"It has taken me all the week to find you," said I, as I replaced my +hat. +</p> +<p> +Her eyes flashed again. +</p> +<p> +"Has it, indeed! And now you have found me, aren't you satisfied? Pray +have a good look, Captain Clephane. You won't find anybody else!" +</p> +<p> +Her meaning dawned on me at last. +</p> +<p> +"I didn't expect to, Mrs. Lascelles." +</p> +<p> +"Am I to believe that?" +</p> +<p> +"You must do as you please. It is the truth. Mrs. Lascelles, I have been +all the week looking for you and you alone." +</p> +<p> +I spoke with some warmth, for not only did I speak the truth, but it had +become more and more the truth at every stage of my journey since +Brigues. Mrs. Lascelles leant back in her chair and surveyed me with +less anger, but with the purer and more pernicious scorn. +</p> +<p> +"And what business had you to do that?" she asked calmly. "How dare you, +I should like to know?" +</p> +<p> +"I dared," said I, "because I owed you a debt which, I felt, must be +paid in person, or it would never be paid at all. Mrs. Lascelles, I +owed and do owe you about the most abject apology man ever made! I have +followed you all this way for no other earthly reason than to make it, +in all sincere humility. But it has taken me more or less since Tuesday +morning; and I can't kneel here. Do you mind if I sit down?" +</p> +<p> +Mrs. Lascelles drew in the hem of her pink muslin, with an all but +insufferable gesture of unwilling resignation. I took the next chair but +one, but, leaning my elbow on the chair-back between us, was rather the +gainer by the intervening inches, which enabled me to study a perfect +profile and the most wonderful colouring as I could scarcely have done +at still closer range. She never turned to look at me, but simply +listened while the band played, and people passed, and I said my say. It +was very short: there was so little that she did not know. There was the +excitement about Bob, his subsequent reappearance, our scene in his room +and my last sight of him in the morning; but the bare facts went into +few words, and there was no demand for details. Mrs. Lascelles seemed to +have lost all interest in her latest lover; but when I tried to speak +of my own hateful hand in that affair, to explain what I could of it, +but to extenuate nothing, and to apologise from my heart for it all, +then there was a change in her, then her blood mounted, then her bosom +heaved, and I was silenced by a single flash from her eyes. +</p> +<p> +"Yes," said she, "you could let him think you were in earnest, you could +pose as his rival, you could pretend all that! Not to me, I grant you! +Even you did not go quite so far as that; or was it that you knew that I +should see through you? You made up for it, however, the other night. +That I never, never, never shall forgive. I, who had never seriously +thought of accepting him, who was only hesitating in order to refuse him +in the most deliberate and final manner imaginable—I, to have the word +put into my mouth—by you! I, who was going in any case, of my own +accord, to be told to go—by you! One thing you will never know, Captain +Clephane, and that is how nearly you drove me into marrying him just to +spite you and his miserable mother. I meant to do it, that night when I +left you. It would have served you right if I had!" +</p> +<p> +She did not rise. She did not look at me again. But I saw the tears +standing in her eyes, one I saw roll down her cheek, and the sight smote +me harder than her hardest word, though more words followed in broken +whispers. +</p> +<p> +"It wasn't because I cared ... that you hurt me as you did. I never did +care for him ... like that. It was ... because ... you seemed to think +my society contamination ... to an honest boy. I did care for him, but +not like that. I cared too much for him to let him marry me ... to +contaminate him for life!" +</p> +<p> +I repudiated the reiterated word with all my might. I had never used it, +even in my thoughts; it had never once occurred to me in connection with +her. Had I not shown as much? Had I behaved as though I feared +contamination for myself? I rapped out these questions with undue +triumph, in my heat, only to perceive their second edge as it cut me to +the quick. +</p> +<p> +"But you were playing a part," retorted Mrs. Lascelles. "You don't deny +it. Are you proud of it, that you rub it in? Or are you going to begin +denying it now?" +</p> +<p> +Unfortunately, that was impossible. Tt was too late for denials. But, +driven into my last corner, as it seemed, I relapsed for the moment into +thought, and my thoughts took the form of a rapid retrospect of all the +hours that this angry woman and I had spent together. I was introduced +to her again by poor Bob. I recognised her again by the light of a +match, and accosted her next morning in the strong sunshine. We went for +our first walk together. We sat together on the green ledge overlooking +the glaciers, and first she talked about herself, and then we both +talked about Bob, and then Bob appeared in the flesh and gave me my +disastrous idea. Then there was the day on the Findelen that we had all +three spent together. Then there was the walk home from early church +(short as it had been), the subsequent expedition to Zermatt and back, +with its bright beginning and its clouded end. Up to that point, at all +events, they had been happy hours, so many of them unburdened by a +single thought of Bob Evers and his folly, not one of them haunted by +the usual sense of a part that is played. I almost wondered as I +realised this. I supposed it would be no use attempting to express +myself to Mrs. Lascelles, but I felt I must say something before I went, +so I said: +</p> +<p> +"I deny nothing, and I'm proud of nothing, but neither am I quite so +ashamed as perhaps I ought to be. Shall I tell you why, Mrs. Lascelles? +It may have been an insolent and an infamous part, as you imply; but I +enjoyed playing it, and I used often to forget it was a part at all. So +much so that even now I'm not so sure that it was one! There—I suppose +that makes it all ten times worse. But I won't apologise again. Do you +mind giving me that stick?" +</p> +<p> +I had rested the two of them against the chair between us. Mrs. +Lascelles had taken possession of one, with which she was methodically +probing the path, for there had been no time to draw their Alpine teeth. +She did not comply with my request. She smiled instead. +</p> +<p> +"I mind very much," her old voice said. "Now we have finished fighting, +perhaps you will listen to the <i>Meistersinger</i>—for it is worth +listening to on that band—and try to appreciate Baden while you are +here. There are no more trains for hours." +</p> +<p> +The wooded hills rose over the bandstand, against the bright blue sky. +The shadow of the colonnade lay sharp and black beyond our feet, with +people passing, and the band crashing, in the sunlight beyond. That was +Baden. I should not have found it a difficult place to appreciate, a +week or so before; even now it was no hardship to sit there listening to +the one bit of Wagner that my ear welcomes as a friend, and furtively to +watch my companion as she sat and listened too. You will perceive by +what train of associations my eyes soon fell upon the Tauchnitz volume +which she must have placed without thinking on the chair between us. I +took it up. Heavens! It was one of the volumes of Browning's Poems. And +back I sped in spirit to a green ledge overlooking the Gorner Glacier, +to think what we had said about Browning up there, but only to remember +how I had longed to be to Mrs. Lascelles what Catherine Evers had been +to me. There were some sharp edges to the reminiscence, but I turned the +pages while they did their worst, and so cut myself to the heart upon a +sharper than them all. It was in a poem I remembered, a poem whose title +pained me into glancing farther. And see what leapt to meet me from the +printed page: +</p> +<pre> + "And I,—what I seem to my friend, you see: + What I soon shall seem to his love, you guess: + What I seem to myself, do you ask of me? + No hero, I confess." +</pre> +<p> +True, too true; no hero, indeed; anything in the wide world else! But +that I should read it there by the woman's side! And yet, even that was +no such coincidence; had we not talked about the poet, had I not implied +what Catherine thought of him, what everybody ought to think? +</p> +<p> +Of a sudden a strange thrill stirred me; sidelong I glanced at my +companion. She had turned her head away; her cheek was deeply dyed. She +knew what I was doing; she might divine my thoughts. I shut the book +lest she should see the vile title of a thing I had hitherto liked. And +the <i>Prizelied</i> crashed back into the ear. +</p> + + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<a name="CH13"><!-- CH13 --></a> +<h2> + CHAPTER XIII +</h2> + +<h3> +NUMBER THREE +</h3> +<p> </p> +<p> +It was the middle of November when I was shown once more into the old +room at the old number in Elm Park Gardens. There was a fire, the +windows were shut, and the electric light was a distinct improvement +when the maid put it on; otherwise all was exactly as I had left it in +August, and so often pictured it since. There was "Hope," presiding over +the shelf of poets, and here "Paolo and Francesca," reminiscent as ever +of Melbury Road, upon a wet Sunday, years and years ago. The day's +<i>Times</i> and the week's <i>Spectator</i> were not less prominent than the last +new problem novel; all three lay precisely where their predecessors had +always lain; and my own dead self stood in its own old place upon the +piano which had been in St. Helena with Napoleon. It is vanity's deserts +to come across these unnecessary memorials of a decently buried +boyhood; there is always something stultifying about them, and I longed +to confiscate this one of me. +</p> +<p> +But there was a photograph on the chimney-piece that interested me +keenly; it was evidently the very latest of Bob Evers, and I studied it +with a painful curiosity. Was the boy really altered, or did I only +imagine it from my secret knowledge of his affairs? To me he seemed +graver, more sedate, less angelically trustful in expression, and yet +something finer and manlier withal: to confirm the idea one had only to +compare this new one with the racket photograph now relegated to a rear +rank. The round-eyed look was gone. Had I here yet another memorial of +yet another buried boyhood? If so, I felt I was the sexton, and I might +be ashamed, and I was. +</p> +<p> +"Looking at Bob? Isn't it a dear one of him? You see—he is none the +worse!" +</p> +<p> +And Catherine Evers stood smiling as warmly, as gratefully, as she +grasped my hand; but with her warmth there was a certain nervousness of +manner, which had the odd effect of putting me perversely at my ease; +and I found myself looking critically at Catherine, really critically, +for I suppose the first time in my life. +</p> +<p> +"He is playing foot-ball," she continued, full as ever of her boy. "I +had a letter from him only this morning. He had his colours at Eton, you +know (he had them for everything there), but he never dreamt of getting +them at Cambridge, yet now he really thinks he has a chance! They tried +him the other day, and he kicked a goal. Dear old Bob! If he does get +them he will be a Blue and a half, he says. He writes so happily, +Duncan! I have so much to be thankful for—to thank you for!" +</p> +<p> +Yes, Catherine was good to look at; there was no doubt of it; and this +time she was not wearing any hat. Discoursing of the lad, she was +animated, eager, for once as exclamatory as her pen, with light and life +in every look of the thin intellectual face, in every glance of the +large, intellectual eyes, and in every intonation of the keen dry voice. +A sweet woman; a young woman; a woman with a full heart of love and +sympathy and tenderness—for Bob! Yet, when she thanked me at the end, +either upon an impulse, or because she thought she must, her eyes fell, +and again I detected that slight embarrassment which was none the less a +revelation, to me, in Catherine Evers, of all women in the world. +</p> +<p> +"We won't speak of that," I said, "if you don't mind. I am not proud of +it." +</p> +<p> +Catherine scanned me more narrowly. I knew her better with that look. +"Then tell me about yourself, and do sit down," she said, drawing a +chair near the fire, but sitting on the other side of it herself. "I +needn't ask you how you are. I never saw you looking so well. That comes +of going right away and not hurrying back. I think you were so wise! +But, Duncan, I am sorry to see both sticks still! Have you seen your man +since you came back?" +</p> +<p> +"I have." +</p> +<p> +"Well?" +</p> +<p> +"I'm afraid there's no more soldiering for me." +</p> +<p> +Catherine seemed more than sorry and disappointed; she looked quite +indignant with the eminent specialist who had finally pronounced this +opinion. Was I sure he was the very best man for that kind of thing? She +would have a second opinion, if she were me. Very well, then, a third +and fourth! If there was one man she pitied from the bottom of her +heart, it was the man without a profession or an occupation of some +kind. Catherine looked, however, as though her pity were almost akin to +horror. +</p> +<p> +"I have a trifle, luckily," I said. "I must try something else." +</p> +<p> +Catherine stared into the fire, as though thinking of something else for +me to try. She seemed full of apprehension on my account. +</p> +<p> +"Don't you worry about me," I went on. "I came here to talk about +somebody else, of course." +</p> +<p> +Catherine almost started. +</p> +<p> +"I've told you about Bob," she said, with a suspicious upward glance +from the fire. +</p> +<p> +"I don't mean Bob," said I, "or anything you may think I did for him or +you. I said just now that I didn't want to speak of it and no more I do. +Yet, as a matter of fact, I do want to speak to you about the lady in +that case." +</p> +<p> +Catherine's face betrayed the mixed emotions of relief and fresh alarm. +</p> +<p> +"You don't mean to say the creature—? But it's impossible. I heard from +Bob only this morning. He wrote so happily!" +</p> +<p> +I could not help smiling at the nature and quality of the alarm. +</p> +<p> +"They have seen nothing more of each other, if that's what you fear," +said I. "But what I do want to speak about is this creature, as you call +her, and no one else. She has done nothing to deserve quite so much +contempt. I want you to be just to her, Catherine." +</p> +<p> +I was serious. I may have been ridiculous. Catherine evidently found me +so, for, after gauging me with that wry but humourous look which I knew +so well of old, for which I had been waiting this afternoon, she went +off into the decorous little fit of laughter in which it had invariably +ended. +</p> +<p> +"Forgive me, Duncan dear! But you do look so serious, and you <i>are</i> so +dreadfully broad! I never was. I hope you remember that? Broad minds and +easy principles—the combination is inevitable. But, really though, +Duncan, is there anything to be said for her? Was she a possible +person, in any sense of the word?" +</p> +<p> +"Quite a probable person," I assured Catherine. +</p> +<p> +"But I have heard all sorts of things about her!" +</p> +<p> +"From Bob?" +</p> +<p> +"No, he never mentioned her." +</p> +<p> +"Nor me, perhaps?" +</p> +<p> +"Nor you, Duncan. I am afraid there may be just a drop of bad blood +there! You see, he looked upon you as a successful rival. You wrote and +told me so, if you remember, from some place on your way down from the +mountains. Your letter and Bob arrived the same night." +</p> +<p> +I nodded. +</p> +<p> +"It was so clever of you!" pursued Catherine. "Quite brilliant; but I +don't quite know what to say to your letting my baby climb that awful +Matterhorn; in a fog, too!" +</p> +<p> +And there was real though momentary reproach in the firelit face. +</p> +<p> +"I couldn't very well stop him, you know. Besides," I added, "it was +such a chance." +</p> +<p> +"Of what?" +</p> +<p> +"Of getting rid of Mrs. Lascelles. I thought you would think it worth +the risk." +</p> +<p> +"I do," declared Catherine, on due consultation with the fire. "I really +do! Bob is all I have—all I want—in this world, Duncan; and it may +seem a dreadful thing to say, and you mayn't believe it when I've said +it, but—yes!—I'd rather he had never come home at all than come home +married, at his age, and to an Indian widow, whose first husband had +divorced her! I mean it, Duncan; I do indeed!" +</p> +<p> +"I am sure you do," said I. "It was just what I said to myself." +</p> +<p> +"To think of my Bob being Number Three!" murmured Catherine, with that +plaintive drollery of hers which I had found irresistible in the days of +old. +</p> +<p> +I was able to resist it now. "So those were the things you heard?" I +remarked. +</p> +<p> +"Yes," said Catherine; "haven't you heard them?" +</p> +<p> +"I didn't need. I knew her in India years ago." +</p> +<p> +Catherine's eyes opened. +</p> +<p> +"<i>You</i> knew this Mrs. Lascelles?" +</p> +<p> +"Before that was her name. I have also met her original husband. If you +had known him, you would be less hard on her." +</p> +<p> +Catherine's eyes were still wide open. They were rather hard eyes, after +all. "Why did you not tell me you had known her, when you wrote?" she +asked. +</p> +<p> +"It wouldn't have done any good. I did what you wanted done, you know. I +thought that was enough." +</p> +<p> +"It was enough," echoed Catherine, with a quick return of grace. She +looked into the fire. "I don't want to be hard upon the poor thing, +Duncan! I know you think we women always are, upon each other. But to +have come back married—at his age—to even the nicest woman in the +world! It would have been madness ... ruination ... Duncan, T'm going to +say something else that may shock you." +</p> +<p> +"Say away," said I. +</p> +<p> +Her voice had fallen. She was looking at me very narrowly, as if to +measure the effect of her unspoken words. +</p> +<p> +"I am not so very sure about marriage," she went on, "at any age! Don't +misunderstand me ... I was very happy ... but I for one could never +marry again ... and I am not sure that I ever want to see Bob...." +</p> +<p> +Catherine had spoken very gently, looking once more in the fire; when +she ceased there was a space of utter silence in the little room. Then +her eyes came back furtively to mine; and presently they were twinkling +with their old staid merriment. +</p> +<p> +"But to be Number Three!" she said again. "My poor old Bob!" +</p> +<p> +And she smiled upon me, tenderly, from the depths of her alter-egoism. +</p> +<p> +"Well," I said, "he never will be." +</p> +<p> +"God forbid!" cried Catherine. +</p> +<p> +"He has forbidden. It will never happen." +</p> +<p> +"Is she dead?" asked Catherine, but not too quickly for common decency. +She was not one to pass such bounds. +</p> +<p> +"Not that I know of." +</p> +<p> +It was hard to repress a sneer. +</p> +<p> +"Then what makes you so sure—that he never could?" +</p> +<p> +"Well, he never will in my time!" +</p> +<p> +"You are good to me," said Catherine, gratefully. +</p> +<p> +"Not a bit good," said I, "or—only to myself ... I have been good to no +one else in this whole matter. That's what it all amounts to, and that's +what I really came to tell you. Catherine ... I am married to her +myself!" +</p> + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<center> +THE END +</center> +<p> </p> + +<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 11153 ***</div> +</body> +</html> + diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5dcb35c --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #11153 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/11153) diff --git a/old/11153-8.txt b/old/11153-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..25880cf --- /dev/null +++ b/old/11153-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4837 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of No Hero, by E.W. Hornung + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: No Hero + +Author: E.W. Hornung + +Release Date: February 18, 2004 [EBook #11153] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NO HERO *** + + + + +Produced by Steven desJardins and Distributed Proofreaders + + + + + +No Hero + +By E.W. Hornung + + +1903 + + + +CONTENTS + +Chapter + +I. A Plenipotentiary + +II. The Theatre of War + +III. First Blood + +IV. A Little Knowledge + +V. A Marked Woman + +VI. Out of Action + +VII. Second Fiddle + +VIII. Prayers and Parables + +IX. Sub Judice + +X. The Last Word + +XI. The Lion's Mouth + +XII. A Stern Chase + +XIII. Number Three + + + + +No Hero + + +CHAPTER I + +A PLENIPOTENTIARY + + +Has no writer ever dealt with the dramatic aspect of the unopened +envelope? I cannot recall such a passage in any of my authors, and yet +to my mind there is much matter for philosophy in what is always the +expressionless shell of a boundless possibility. Your friend may run +after you in the street, and you know at a glance whether his news is to +be good, bad, or indifferent; but in his handwriting on the +breakfast-table there is never a hint as to the nature of his +communication. Whether he has sustained a loss or an addition to his +family, whether he wants you to dine with him at the club or to lend him +ten pounds, his handwriting at least will be the same, unless, indeed, +he be offended, when he will generally indite your name with a studious +precision and a distant grace quite foreign to his ordinary caligraphy. + +These reflections, trite enough as I know, are nevertheless inevitable +if one is to begin one's unheroic story in the modern manner, at the +latest possible point. That is clearly the point at which a waiter +brought me the fatal letter from Catherine Evers. Apart even from its +immediate consequences, the letter had a _prima facie_ interest, of no +ordinary kind, as the first for years from a once constant +correspondent. And so I sat studying the envelope with a curiosity too +piquant not to be enjoyed. What in the world could so obsolete a friend +find to say to one now? Six months earlier there had been a certain +opportunity for an advance, which at that time could not possibly have +been misconstrued; when they landed me, a few later, there was another +and perhaps a better one. But this was the last summer of the late +century, and already I was beginning to get about like a lamplighter on +my two sticks. Now, young men about town, on two walking-sticks, in the +year of grace 1900, meant only one thing. Quite a stimulating thing in +the beginning, but even as I write, in this the next winter but one, a +national irritation of which the name alone might prevent you from +reading another word. + +Catherine's handwriting, on the contrary, was still stimulating, if +indeed I ever found it more so in the foolish past. It had not altered +in the least. There was the same sweet pedantry of the Attic _e_, the +same superiority to the most venial abbreviation, the same inconsistent +forest of exclamatory notes, thick as poplars across the channel. The +present plantation started after my own Christian name, to wit "Dear +Duncan!!" Yet there was nothing Germanic in Catherine's ancestry; it was +only her apologetic little way of addressing me as though nothing had +ever happened, of asking whether she might. Her own old tact and charm +were in that tentative burial of the past. In the first line she had all +but won my entire forgiveness; but the very next interfered with the +effect. + +"You promised to do anything for me!" + +I should be sorry to deny it, I am sure, for not to this day do I know +what I did say on the occasion to which she evidently referred. But was +it kind to break the silence of years with such a reference? Was it even +quite decent in Catherine to ignore my existence until I could be of use +to her, and then to ask the favour in her first breath? It was true, as +she went on to remind me, that we were more or less connected after all, +and at least conceivable that no one else could help her as I could, if +I would. In any case, it was a certain satisfaction to hear that +Catherine herself was of the last opinion. I read on. She was in a +difficulty; but she did not say what the difficulty was. For one +unworthy moment the thought of money entered my mind, to be ejected the +next, as the Catherine of old came more and more into the mental focus. +Pride was the last thing in which I had found her wanting, and her +letter indicated no change in that respect. + +"You may wonder," she wrote just at the end, "why I have never sent you +a single word of inquiry, or sympathy, or congratulation!! +Well--suppose it was 'bad blood'!! between us when you went away! Mind, +_I_ never meant it to be so, but suppose it was: could I treat the dear +old you like that, and the Great New You like somebody else? You have +your own fame to thank for my unkindness! _I_ am only thankful they +haven't given you the V.C.!! _Then_ I should _never_ have dared--not +even now!!!" + +I smoked a cigarette when I had read it all twice over, and as I crushed +the fire out of the stump I felt I could as soon think of lighting it +again as I should have expected Catherine Evers to set a fresh match to +me. That, I was resolved, she should never do; nor was I quite coxcomb +enough to suspect her of the desire for a moment. But a man who has once +made a fool of himself, especially about a woman somewhat older than +himself, does not soon get over the soreness; and mine returned with the +very fascination which made itself felt even in the shortest little +letter. + +Catherine wrote from the old address in Elm Park Gardens, and she wanted +me to call as early as I could, or to make any appointment I liked. I +therefore telegraphed that I was coming at three o'clock that afternoon, +and thus made for myself one of the longest mornings that I can remember +spending in town. I was staying at the time at the Kensington Palace +Hotel, to be out of the central racket of things, and yet more or less +under the eye of the surgeon who still hoped to extract the last bullet +in time. I can remember spending half the morning gazing aimlessly over +the grand old trees, already prematurely bronzed, and the other half in +limping in their shadow to the Round Pond, where a few little townridden +boys were sailing their humble craft. It was near the middle of August, +and for the first time I was thankful that an earlier migration had not +been feasible in my case. + +In spite of my telegram Mrs. Evers was not at home when I arrived, but +she had left a message which more than explained matters. She was +lunching out, but only in Brechin Place, and I was to wait in the study +if I did not mind. I did not, and yet I did, for the room in which +Catherine certainly read her books and wrote her letters was also the +scene of that which I was beginning to find it rather hard work to +forget as it was. Nor had it changed any more than her handwriting, or +than the woman herself as I confidently expected to find her now. I have +often thought that at about forty both sexes stand still to the eye, and +I did not expect Catherine Evers, who could barely have reached that +rubicon, to show much symptom of the later marches. To me, here in her +den, the other year was just the other day. My time in India was little +better than a dream to me, while as for angry shots at either end of +Africa, it was never I who had been there to hear them. I must have come +by my sticks in some less romantic fashion. Nothing could convince me +that I had ever been many days or miles away from a room that I knew by +heart, and found full as I left it of familiar trifles and poignant +associations. + +That was the shelf devoted to her poets; there was no addition that I +could see. Over it hung the fine photograph of Watts's "Hope," an ironic +emblem, and elsewhere one of that intolerably sad picture, his "Paolo +and Francesca": how I remembered the wet Sunday when Catherine took me +to see the original in Melbury Road! The old piano which was never +touched, the one which had been in St. Helena with Napoleon's doctor, +there it stood to an inch where it had stood of old, a sort of +grand-stand for the photographs of Catherine's friends. I descried my +own young effigy among the rest, in a frame which I recollected giving +her at the time. Well, I looked all the idiot I must have been; and +there was the very Persian rug that I had knelt on in my idiocy! I could +afford to smile at myself to-day; yet now it all seemed yesterday, not +even the day before, until of a sudden I caught sight of that other +photograph in the place of honour on the mantelpiece. It was one by +Hills and Sanders, of a tall youth in flannels, armed with a +long-handled racket, and the sweet open countenance which Robin Evers +had worn from his cradle upward. I should have known him anywhere and at +any age. It was the same dear, honest face; but to think that this giant +was little Bob! He had not gone to Eton when I saw him last; now I knew +from the sporting papers that he was up at Cambridge; but it was left to +his photograph to bring home the flight of time. + +Certainly his mother would never have done so when all at once the door +opened and she stood before me, looking about thirty in the ample shadow +of a cavalier's hat. Simply but admirably gowned, as I knew she would +be, her slender figure looked more youthful still; yet in all this there +was no intent; the dry cool smile was that of an older woman, and I was +prepared for greater cordiality than I could honestly detect in the +greeting of the small firm hand. But it was kind, as indeed her whole +reception of me was; only it had always been the way of Catherine the +correspondent to make one expect a little more than mere kindness, and +of Catherine the companion to disappoint that expectation. Her +conversation needed few exclamatory points. + +"Still halt and lame," she murmured over my sticks. "You poor thing, you +are to sit down this instant." + +And I obeyed her as one always had, merely remarking that I was getting +along famously now. + +"You must have had an awful time," continued Catherine, seating herself +near me, her calm wise eyes on mine. + +"Blood-poisoning," said I. "It nearly knocked me out, but I'm glad to +say it didn't quite." + +Indeed, I had never felt quite so glad before. + +"Ah! that was too hard and cruel; but I was thinking of the day itself," +explained Catherine, and paused in some sweet transparent awe of one who +had been through it. + +"It was a beastly day," said I, forgetting her objection to the epithet +until it was out. But Catherine did not wince. Her fixed eyes were full +of thought. + +"It was all that here," she said. "One depressing morning I had a +telegram from Bob, 'Spion Kop taken'--" + +"So Bob," I nodded, "had it as badly as everybody else!" + +"Worse," declared Catherine, her eye hardening; "it was all I could do +to keep him at Cambridge, though he had only just gone up. He would have +given up everything and flown to the Front if I had let him." + +And she wore the inexorable face with which I could picture her standing +in his way; and in Catherine I could admire that dogged look and all it +spelt, because a great passion is always admirable. The passion of +Catherine's life was her boy, the only son of his mother, and she a +widow. It had been so when he was quite small, as I remembered it with a +pinch of jealousy startling as a twinge from an old wound. More than +ever must it be so now; that was as natural as the maternal embargo in +which Catherine seemed almost to glory. And yet, I reflected, if all the +widows had thought only of their only sons--and of themselves! + +"The next depressing morning," continued Catherine, happily oblivious of +what was passing through one's mind, "the first thing I saw, the first +time I put my nose outside, was a great pink placard with 'Spion Kop +Abandoned!' Duncan, it was too awful." + +"I wish we'd sat tight," I said, "I must confess." + +"Tight!" cried Catherine in dry horror. "I should have abandoned it long +before. I should have run away--hard! To think that you didn't--that's +quite enough for me." + +And again I sustained the full flattery of that speechless awe which was +yet unembarrassing by reason of its freedom from undue solemnity. + +"There were some of us who hadn't a leg to run on," I had to say; "I was +one, Mrs. Evers." + +"I beg your pardon?" + +"Catherine, then." But it put me to the blush. + +"Thank you. If you really wish me to call you 'Captain Clephane' you +have only to say so; but in that case I can't ask the favour I had made +up my mind to ask--of so old a friend." + +Her most winning voice was as good a servant as ever; the touch of scorn +in it was enough to stimulate, but not to sting; and it was the same +with the sudden light in the steady intellectual eyes. + +"Catherine," I said, "you can't indeed ask any favour of me! There you +are quite right. It is not a word to use between us." + +Mrs. Evers gave me one of her deliberate looks before replying. + +"And I am not so sure that it is a favour," she said softly enough at +last. "It is really your advice I want to ask, in the first place at all +events. Duncan, it's about old Bob!" + +The corners of her mouth twitched, her eyes filled with a quaint +humorous concern, and as a preamble I was handed the photograph which I +had already studied on my own account. + +"Isn't he a dear?" asked Bob's mother. "Would you have known him, +Duncan?" + +"I did know him," said I. "Spotted him at a glance. He's the same old +Bob all over." + +I was fortunate enough to meet the swift glance I got for that, for in +sheer sweetness and affection it outdid all remembered glances of the +past. In a moment it was as though I had more than regained the lost +ground of lost years. And in another moment, on the heels of the +discovery, came the still more startling one that I was glad to have +regained my ground, was thankful to be reinstated, and strangely, +acutely, yet uneasily happy, as I had never been since the old days in +this very room. + +Half in a dream I heard Catherine telling of her boy, of his Eton +triumphs, how he had been one of the rackets pair two years, and in the +eleven his last, but "in Pop" before he was seventeen, and yet as simple +and unaffected and unspoilt with it all as the small boy whom I +remembered. And I did remember him, and knew his mother well enough to +believe it all; for she did not chant his praises to organ music, but +rather hummed them to the banjo; and one felt that her own demure +humour, so signal and so permanent a charm in Catherine, would have been +the saving of half-a-dozen Bobs. + +"And yet," she wound up at her starting-point, "it's about poor old Bob +I want to speak to you!" + +"Not in a fix, I hope?" + +"I hope not, Duncan." + +Catherine was serious now. + +"Or mischief?" + +"That depends on what you mean by mischief." + +Catherine was more serious still. + +"Well, there are several brands, but only one or two that really +poison--unless, of course, a man is very poor." + +And my mind harked back to its first suspicion, of some financial +embarrassment, now conceivable enough; but Catherine told me her boy was +not poor, with the air of one who would have drunk ditchwater rather +than let the other want for champagne. + +"It is just the opposite," she added: "in little more than a year, when +he comes of age, he will have quite as much as is good for him. You know +what he is, or rather you don't. I do. And if I were not his mother I +should fall in love with him myself!" + +Catherine looked down on me as she returned from replacing Bob's +photograph on the mantelpiece. The humour had gone out of her eye; in +its place was an almost animal glitter, a far harder light than had +accompanied the significant reference to the patriotic impulse which she +had nipped in the bud. It was probably only the old, old look of the +lioness whose whelp is threatened, but it was something new to me in +Catherine Evers, something half-repellent and yet almost wholly fine. + +"You don't mean to say it's that?" I asked aghast. + +"No, I don't," Catherine answered, with a hard little laugh. "He's not +quite twenty, remember; but I am afraid that he is making a fool of +himself, and I want it stopped." + +I waited for more, merely venturing to nod my sympathetic concern. + +"Poor old Bob, as you may suppose, is not a genius. He is far too nice," +declared Catherine's old self, "to be anything so nasty. But I always +thought he had his head screwed on, and his heart screwed in, or I never +would have let him loose in a Swiss hotel. As it was, I was only too +glad for him to go with George Kennerley, who was as good at work at +Eton as Bob was at games." + +In Catherine's tone, for all the books on her shelves, the pictures on +her walls, there was no doubt at all as to which of the two an Eton boy +should be good at, and I agreed sincerely with another nod. + +"They were to read together for an hour or so every day. I thought it +would be a nice little change for Bob, and it was quite a chance; he +must do a certain amount of work, you see. Well, they only went at the +beginning of the month, and already they have had enough of each other's +society." + +"You don't mean that they've had a row?" + +Catherine inclined a mortified head. + +"Bob never had such a thing in his life before, nor did I ever know +anybody who succeeded in having one with Bob. It does take two, you +know. And when one of the two has an angelic temper, and tact enough for +twenty--" + +"You naturally blame the other," I put in, as she paused in visible +perplexity. + +"But I don't, Duncan, and that's just the point. George is devoted to +Bob, and is as nice as he can be himself, in his own sober, honest, +plodding way. He may not have the temper, he certainly has not the tact, +but he worships Bob and has come back quite miserable." + +"Then he has come back, and you have seen him?" + +"He was here last night. You must know that Bob writes to me every day, +even from Cambridge, if it's only a line; and in yesterday's letter he +mentioned quite casually that George had had enough of it and was off +home. It was a little too casual to be quite natural in old Bob, and +there are other things he has been mentioning in the same way. If any +instinct is to be relied upon it is a mother's, and mine amounted almost +to second sight. I sent Master George a telegram, and he came in last +night." + +"Well?"' + +"Not a word! There was bad blood between them, but that was all I could +get out of him. Vulgar disagreeables between Bob, of all people, and his +greatest friend! If you could have seen the poor fellow sitting where +you are sitting now, like a prisoner in the dock! I put him in the +witness-box instead, and examined him on scraps of Bob's letters to me. +It was as unscrupulous as you please, but I felt unscrupulous; and the +poor dear was too loyal to admit, yet too honest to deny, a single +thing." + +"And?" said I, as Bob's mother paused again. + +"And," cried she, with conscious melodrama in the fiery twinkle of her +eye--"and, I know all! There is an odious creature at the hotel--a +widow, if you please! A 'ripping widow' Bob called her in his first +letter; then it was 'Mrs. Lascelles'; but now it is only 'some people' +whom he escorts here, there, and everywhere. _Some_ people, indeed!" + +Catherine smiled unmercifully. I relied upon my nod. + +"I needn't tell you," she went on, "that the creature is at least twenty +years older than my baby, and not at all nice at that. George didn't +tell me, mind, but he couldn't deny a single thing. It was about her +that they fell out. Poor George remonstrated, not too diplomatically, I +daresay, but I can quite see that my Bob behaved as he was never known +to behave on land or sea. The poor child has been bewitched, neither +more nor less." + +"He'll get over it," I murmured, with the somewhat shaky confidence born +of my own experience. + +Catherine looked at me in mild surprise. + +"But it's going on now, Duncan--it's going on still!" + +"Well," I added, with all the comfort that my voice would carry, and +which an exaggerated concern seemed to demand: "well, Catherine, it +can't go very far at his age!" Nor to this hour can I yet conceive a +sounder saying, in all the circumstances of the case, and with one's +knowledge of the type of lad; but my fate was the common one of +comforters, and I was made speedily and painfully aware that I had now +indeed said the most unfortunate thing. + +Catherine did not stamp her foot, but she did everything else required +by tradition of the exasperated lady. Not go far? As if it had not gone +too far already to be tolerated another instant longer than was +necessary! + +"He is making a fool of himself--my boy--my Bob--before a whole +hotelful of sharp eyes and sharper tongues! Is that not far enough for +it to have gone? Duncan, it must be stopped, and stopped at once; but I +am not the one to do it. I would rather it went on," cried Catherine +tragically, as though the pit yawned before us all, "than that his +mother should fly to his rescue before all the world! But a friend might +do it, Duncan--if--" + +Her voice had dropped. I bent my ear. + +"If only," she sighed, "I had a friend who would!" + +Catherine was still looking down when I looked up; but the droop of the +slender body, the humble angle of the cavalier hat, the faint flush +underneath, all formed together a challenge and an appeal which were the +more irresistible for their sweet shamefacedness. Acute consciousness of +the past (I thought), and (I even fancied) some penitence for a wrong by +no means past undoing, were in every sensitive inch of her, as she sat a +suppliant to the old player of that part. And there are emotions of +which the body may be yet more eloquent than the face; there was the +figure of Watts's "Hope" drooping over as she drooped, not more lissom +and speaking than her own; just then it caught my eye, and on the spot +it was as though the lute's last string of that sweet masterpiece had +vibrated aloud in Catherine's room. + +My hand shook as I reached for my trusty sticks, but I cannot say that +my voice betrayed me when I inquired the name of the Swiss hotel. + +"The Riffel Alp," said Catherine--"above Zermatt, you know." + +"I start to-morrow morning," I rejoined, "if that will do." + +Then Catherine looked up. I cannot describe her look. Transfiguration +were the idle word, but the inadequate, and yet more than one would +scatter the effect of so sudden a burst of human sunlight. + +"Would you really go?" she cried. "Do you mean it, Duncan?" + +"I only wish," I replied, "that it were to Australia." + +"But then you would be weeks too late." + +"Ah, that's another story! I may be too late as it is." + +Her brightness clouded on the instant; only a gleam of annoyance pierced +the cloud. + +"Too late for what, may I ask?" + +"Everything except stopping the banns." + +"Please don't talk nonsense, Duncan. Banns at nineteen!" + +"It is nonsense, I agree; at the same time the minor consequences will +be the hardest to deal with. If they are being talked about, well, they +are being talked about. You know Bob best: suppose he is making a fool +of himself, is he the sort of fellow to stop because one tells him so? I +should say not, from what I know of him, and of you." + +"I don't know," argued Catherine, looking pleased with her compliment. +"You used to have quite an influence over him, if you remember." + +"That's quite possible; but then he was a small boy, now he is a grown +man." + +"But you are a much older one." + +"Too old to trust to that." + +"And you have been wounded in the war." + +"The hotel may be full of wounded officers; if not I might get a little +unworthy purchase there. In any case I'll go. I should have to go +somewhere before many days. It may as well be to that place as to +another. I have heard that the air is glorious; and I'll keep an eye on +Robin, if I can't do anything else." + +"That's enough for me," cried Catherine, warmly. "I have sufficient +faith in you to leave all the rest to your own discretion and good sense +and better heart. And I never shall forget it, Duncan, never, never! You +are the one person he wouldn't instantly suspect as an emissary, besides +being the only one I ever--ever trusted well enough to--to take at your +word as I have done." + +I thought myself that the sentence might have pursued a bolder course +without untruth or necessary complications. Perhaps my conceit was on a +scale with my acknowledged infirmity where Catherine was concerned. But +I did think that there was more than trust in the eyes that now melted +into mine; there was liking at least, and gratitude enough to inspire +one to win infinitely more. I went so far as to take in mine the hand to +which I had dared to aspire in the temerity of my youth; nor shall I +pretend for a moment that the old aspirations had not already mounted to +their old seat in my brain. On the contrary, I was only wondering +whether the honesty of voicing my hopes would nowise counterbalance the +caddishness of the sort of stipulation they might imply. + +"All I ask," I was saying to myself, "is that you will give me another +chance, and take me seriously this time, if I prove myself worthy in the +way you want." + +But I am glad to think I had not said it when tea came up, and saved a +dangerous situation by breaking an insidious spell. + +I stayed another hour at least, and there are few in my memory which +passed more deliciously at the time. In writing of it now I feel that I +have made too little of Catherine Evers, in my anxiety not to make too +much, yet am about to leave her to stand or to fall in the reader's +opinion by such impression as I have already succeeded in creating in +his or her mind. Let me add one word, or two, while yet I may. A +baron's daughter (though you might have known Catherine some time +without knowing that), she had nevertheless married for mere love as a +very young girl, and had been left a widow before the birth of her boy. +I never knew her husband, though we were distant kin, nor yet herself +during the long years through which she mourned him. Catherine Evers was +beginning to recover her interest in the world when first we met; but +she never returned to that identical fold of society in which she had +been born and bred. It was, of course, despite her own performances, a +fold to which the worldly wolf was no stranger; and her trouble had +turned a light-hearted little lady into an eager, intellectual, +speculative being, with a sort of shame for her former estate, and an +undoubted reactionary dislike of dominion and of petty pomp. Of her own +high folk one neither saw nor heard a thing; her friends were the +powerful preachers of most denominations, and one or two only painted or +wrote; for she had been greatly exercised about religion, and somewhat +solaced by the arts. + +Of her charm for me, a lad with a sneaking regard for the pen, even when +I buckled on the sword, I need not be too analytical. No doubt about her +kindly interest, in the first instance, in so morbid a curiosity as a +subaltern who cared for books and was prepared to extend his gracious +patronage to pictures. This subaltern had only too much money, and if +the truth be known, only too little honest interest in the career into +which he had allowed himself to drift. An early stage of that career +brought him up to London, where family pressure drove him on a day to +Elm Park Gardens. The rest is easily conceived. Here was a woman, still +young, though some years older than oneself; attractive, intellectual, +amusing, the soul of sympathy, at once a spiritual influence and the +best companion in the world; and for a time, at least, she had taken a +perhaps imprudent interest in a lad whom she so greatly interested +herself, on so many and various accounts. Must you marvel that the +young fool mistook the interest, on both sides, for a more intense +feeling, of which he for one had no experience at the time, and that he +fell by his mistake at a ridiculously early stage of his career? + +It is, I grant, more surprising to find the same young man playing Harry +Esmond (at due distance) to the same Lady Castlewood after years in +India and a taste of two wars. But Catherine's room was Catherine's +room, a very haunt of the higher sirens, charged with noble promptings +and forgotten influences and impossible vows. And you will please bear +in mind that as yet I am but setting forth, from this rarefied +atmosphere, upon my invidious mission. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE THEATRE OF WAR + + +It is a far cry to Zermatt at the best of times, and that is not the +middle of August. The annual rush was at its height, the trains crowded, +the heat of them overpowering. I chose to sit up all night in my corner +of an ordinary compartment, as a lesser evil than the _wagon-lit_ in +which you cannot sit up at all. In the morning one was in Switzerland, +with a black collar, a rusty chin, and a countenance in keeping with its +appointments. It was not as though the night had been beguiled for me by +such considerations as are only proper to the devout pilgrim in his +lady's service. + +On the contrary, and to tell the honest truth, I found it quite +impossible to sustain such a serious view of the very special service to +which I was foresworn: the more I thought of it, in one sense, the less +in another, until my only chance was to go forward with grim humour in +the spirit of impersonal curiosity which that attitude induces. In a +word, and the cant one which yet happens to express my state of mind to +a nicety, I had already "weakened" on the whole business which I had +been in such a foolish hurry to undertake, though not for one +reactionary moment upon her for whom I had undertaken it. I was still +entirely eager to "do her behest in pleasure or in pain"; but this +particular enterprise I was beginning to view apart from its +inspiration, on its intrinsic demerits, and the more clearly I saw it in +its own light, the less pleasure did the prospect afford me. + +A young giant, whom I had not seen since his childhood, was merely +understood to be carrying on a conspicuous, but in all probability the +most innocent, flirtation in a Swiss hotel; and here was I, on mere +second-hand hearsay, crossing half Europe to spoil his perfectly +legitimate sport! I did not examine my project from the unknown lady's +point of view; it made me quite hot enough to consider it from that of +my own sex. Yet, the day before yesterday, I had more than acquiesced +in the dubious plan. I had even volunteered for its achievement. The +train rattled out one long, maddening tune to my own incessant +marvellings at my own secret apostasy: the stuffy compartment was not +Catherine's sanctum of the quickening memorials and the olden spell. +Catherine herself was no longer before me in the vivacious flesh, with +her half playful pathos of word and look, her fascinating outward light +and shade, her deeper and steadier intellectual glow. Those, I suppose, +were the charms which had undone me, first as well as last; but the +memory of them was no solace in the train. Nor was I tempted to dream +again of ultimate reward. I could see now no further than my immediate +part, and a more distasteful mixture of the mean and of the ludicrous I +hope never to rehearse again. + +One mitigation I might have set against the rest. Dining at the Rag the +night before I left, I met a man who knew a man then staying at the +Riffel Alp. My man was a sapper with whom I had had a very slight +acquaintance out in India, but he happened to be one of those +good-natured creatures who never hesitate to bestir themselves or their +friends to oblige a mere acquaintance: he asked if I had secured rooms, +and on learning that I had not, insisted on telegraphing to his friend +to do his best for me. I had not hitherto appreciated the popularity of +a resort which I happened only to know by name, nor did I even on +getting at Lausanne a telegram to say that a room was duly reserved for +me. It was only when I actually arrived, tired out with travel, toward +the second evening, and when half of those who had come up with me were +sent down again to Zermatt for their pains, that I felt as grateful as I +ought to have been from the beginning. Here upon a mere ledge of the +High Alps was a hotel with tier upon tier of windows winking in the +setting sun. On every hand were dazzling peaks piled against a turquoise +sky, yet drawn respectfully apart from the incomparable Matterhorn, that +proud grim chieftain of them all. The grand spectacle and the magic air +made me thankful to be there, if only for their sake, albeit the more +regretful that a purer purpose had not drawn me to so fine a spot. + +My unknown friend at court, one Quinby, a civilian, came up and spoke +before I had been five minutes at my destination. He was a very tall and +extraordinarily thin man, with an ill-nourished red moustache, and an +easy geniality of a somewhat acid sort. He had a trick of laughing +softly through his nose, and my two sticks served to excite a sense of +humour as odd as its habitual expression. + +"I'm glad you carry the outward signs," said he, "for I made the most of +your wounds and you really owe your room to them. You see, we're a very +representative crowd. That festive old boy, strutting up and down with +his cigar, in the Panama hat, is really best known in the black cap: +it's old Sankey, the hanging judge. The big man with his back turned you +will know in a moment when he looks this way: it's our celebrated friend +Belgrave Teale. He comes down in one or other of his parts every day: +to-day it's the genial squire, yesterday it was the haw-haw officer of +the Crimean school. But a real live officer from the Front we don't +happen to have had, much less a wounded one, and you limp straight into +the breach." + +I should have resented these pleasantries from an ordinary stranger, but +this libertine might be held to have earned his charter, and moreover I +had further use for him. We were loitering on the steps between the +glass veranda and the terrace at the back of the hotel. The little +sunlit stage was full of vivid, trivial, transitory life, it seemed as a +foil to the vast eternal scene. The hanging judge still strutted with +his cigar, peering jocosely from under the broad brim of his Panama; the +great actor still posed aloof, the human Matterhorn of the group. I +descried no showy woman with a tall youth dancing attendance; among the +brick-red English faces there was not one that bore the least +resemblance to the latest photograph of Bob Evers. + +A little consideration suggested my first move. + +"I think I saw a visitors' book in the hall," I said. "I may as well +stick down my name." + +But before doing so I ran my eye up and down the pages inscribed by +those who had arrived that month. + +"See anybody you know?" inquired Quinby, who hovered obligingly at my +elbow. It was really necessary to be as disingenuous as possible, more +especially with a person whose own conversation was evidently quite +unguarded. + +"Yes, by Jove I do! Robin Evers, of all people!" + +"Do you know him?" + +The question came pretty quickly. I was sorry I had said so much. + +"Well, I once knew a small boy of that name; but then they are not a +small clan." + +"His mother's the Honourable," said Quinby, with studious unconcern, yet +I fancied with increased interest in me. + +"I used to see something of them both," I deliberately admitted, "when +the lad was little. How has he turned out?" + +Quinby gave his peculiar nasal laugh. + +"A nice youth," said he. "A very nice youth!" + +"Do you mean nice or nasty?" I asked, inclined to bridle at his tone. + +"Oh, anything but nasty," said Quinby. "Only--well--perhaps a bit rapid +for his years!" + +I stooped and put my name in the book before making any further remark. +Then I handed Quinby my cigarette-case, and we sat down on the nearest +lounge. + +"Rapid, is he?" said I. "That's quite interesting. And how does it take +him?" + +"Oh, not in any way that's discreditable; but as a matter of fact, +there's a gay young widow here, and they're fairly going it!" + +I lit my cigarette with a certain unexpected sense of downright +satisfaction. So there was something in it after all. It had seemed such +a fool's errand in the train. + +"A young widow," I repeated, emphasising one of Quinby's epithets and +ignoring the other. + +"I mean, of course, she's a good deal older than Evers." + +"And her name?" + +"A Mrs. Lascelles." + +I nodded. + +"Do you happen to know anything about her, Captain Clephane?" + +"I can't say I do." + +"No more does anybody else," said Quinby, "except that she's an Indian +widow of sorts." + +"Indian!" I repeated with more interest. + +Quinby looked at me. + +"You've been out there yourself, perhaps?" + +"It was there I knew Hamilton," said I, naming our common friend in the +Engineers. + +"Yet you're sure you never came across Mrs. Lascelles there?" + +"India's a large place," I said, smiling as I shook my head. + +"I wonder if Hamilton did," speculated Quinby aloud. + +"And the Lascelleses," I added, "are another large clan." + +"Well," he went on, after a moment's further cogitation, "there's nobody +here can place this particular Mrs. Lascelles; but there are some who +say things which they can tell you themselves. I'm not going to repeat +them if you know anything about the boy. I only wish you knew him well +enough to give him a friendly word of advice!" + +"Is it so bad as all that?" + +"My dear sir, I don't say there's anything bad about it," returned +Quinby, who seemed to possess a pretty gift of suggestive negation. "But +you may hear another opinion from other people, for you will find that +the whole hotel is talking about it. No," he went on, watching my eyes, +"it's no use looking for them at this time of day; they disappear from +morning to night; if you want to see them you must take a stroll when +everybody else is thinking of turning in. Then you may have better luck. +But here are the letters at last." + +The concierge had appeared, hugging an overflowing armful of postal +matter. In another minute there was hardly standing room in the little +hall. My companion uttered his unlovely laugh. + +"And here comes the British lion roaring for his London papers! It isn't +his letters he's so keen on, if you notice, Captain Clephane; it's his +_Daily Mail_, with the latest cricket, and after that the war. Teale is +an exception, of course. He has a stack of press-cuttings every day. +You will see him gloating over them in a minute. Ah! the old judge has +got his _Sportsman_; he reads nothing else except the _Sporting Times_, +and he's going back for the Leger. Do you see the man with the blue +spectacles and the peeled nose? He was last Vice Chancellor but one at +Cambridge. No, that's not a Bishop, it's an Archdeacon. All we want is a +Cabinet Minister now; every evening there is a rumour that the Colonial +Secretary is on his way, and most mornings you will hear that he has +actually arrived under cloud of night." + +The facetious Quinby did not confine his more or less caustic commentary +to the well-known folk of whom there seemed no dearth; in the ten or +twenty minutes that we sat together he further revealed himself as a +copious gossip, with a wide net alike for the big fish and for the +smallest fry. There was a sheepish gentleman with a twitching face, and +a shaven cleric in close attendance; the former a rich brand plucked +from burning by the latter, whose temporal reward was the present trip, +so Quinby assured me during the time it took them to pass before our +eyes through the now emptying hall. A delightfully boyish young American +came inquiring waggishly for his "best girl"; next moment I was given to +understand that he meant his bride, who was ten times too good for him, +with further trivialities to which the dressing-bell put a timely +period. There was no sign of my Etonian when I went upstairs. + +As I dressed in my small low room, with its sloping ceiling of varnished +wood, at the top of the house, I felt that after all I had learnt +nothing really new respecting that disturbing young gentleman. Quinby +had already proved himself such an arrant gossip as to discount every +word that he had said before I placed him in his proper type: it is one +which I have encountered elsewhere, that of the middle-aged bachelor who +will and must talk, and he had confessed his celibacy almost in his +first breath; but a more pronounced specimen of the type I am in no +hurry to meet again. If, however, there was some comfort in the thought +of his more than probable exaggerations, there was none at all in the +knowledge that these would be, if they had not already been, poured into +every tolerant ear in the place, if anything more freely than into mine. + +I was somewhat late for dinner, but the scandalous couple were later +still, and all the evening I saw nothing of them. That, however, was +greatly due to this fellow Quinby, whose determined offices one could +hardly disdain after once accepting favours from him. In the press after +dinner I saw his ferret's face peering this way and that, a good head +higher than any other, and the moment our eyes met he began elbowing his +way toward me. Only an ingrate would have turned and fled; and for the +next hour or two I suffered Quinby to exploit my wounds and me for a +good deal more than our intrinsic value. To do the man justice, however, +I had no fault to find with the very pleasant little circle into which +he insisted on ushering me, at one end of the glazed veranda, and should +have enjoyed my evening but for an inquisitive anxiety to get in touch +with the unsuspecting pair. Meanwhile the lilt of a waltz had mingled +with the click of billiard balls and the talking and laughing which make +a summer's night vocal in that outpost of pleasure on the silent +heights; and some of our party had gone off to dance. In the end I +followed them, sticks and all; but there was no Bob Evers among the +dancers, nor in the billiard-room, nor anywhere else indoors. + +Then, last of all, I looked where Quinby had advised me to look, and +there sure enough, on the almost deserted terrace, were the couple whom +I had come several hundred miles to put asunder. Hitherto I had only +realised the distasteful character of my task; now at a glance I had my +first inkling of its difficulty; and there ended the premature +satisfaction with which I had learnt that there was "something in" the +rumour which had reached Catherine's ears. + +There was no moon, but the mountain stars were the brightest I have ever +seen in Europe. The mountains themselves stood back, as it were, +darkling and unobtrusive; all that was left of the Matterhorn was a +towering gap in the stars; and in the faint cold light stood my +friends, somewhat close together, and I thought I saw the red tips of +two cigarettes. There was at least no mistaking the long loose limbs in +the light overcoat. And because a woman always looks relatively taller +than a man, this woman looked nearly as tall as this lad. + +"Bob Evers? You may not remember me, but my name's Clephane--Duncan, you +know!" + +I felt the veriest scoundrel, and yet the words came out as smoothly as +I have written them, as if to show me that I had been a potential +scoundrel all my life. + +"Duncan Clephane? Why, of course I remember you. I should think I did! I +say, though, you must have had a shocking time!" + +Bob's voice was quite quiet for all his astonishment, his manner a +miracle, though it was too dark to read the face; and his right hand +held tenderly to mine, as his eyes fell upon my sticks, while his left +poised a steady cigarette. And now I saw that there was only one red tip +after all. + +"I read your name in the visitors' book," said I, feeling too big a +brute to acknowledge the boy's solicitude for me. "I--I felt certain it +must be you." + +"How splendid!" cried the great fellow in his easy, soft, unconscious +voice, "By the way, may I introduce you to Mrs. Lascelles? Captain +Clephane's one of our very oldest friends, just back from the Front, and +precious nearly blown to bits!" + + + + +CHAPTER III + +FIRST BLOOD + + +Mrs. Lascelles and I exchanged our bows. For a dangerous woman there was +a rather striking want of study in her attire. Over the garment which I +believe is called a "rain-coat," the night being chilly, she had put on +her golf-cape as well, and the effect was a little heterogeneous. It +also argued qualities other than those for which I was naturally on the +watch. Of the lady's face I could see even less than of Bob's, for the +hood of the cape was upturned into a cowl, and even in Switzerland the +stars are only stars. But while I peered she let me hear her voice, and +a very rich one it was--almost deep in tone--the voice of a woman who +would sing contralto. + +"Have you really been fighting?" she asked, in a way that was either put +on, or else the expression of a more understanding sympathy than one +usually provoked; for pity and admiration, and even a helpless woman's +envy, might all have been discovered by an ear less critical and more +charitable than mine. + +"Like anything!" answered Bob, in his unaffected speech. + +"Until they knocked me out," I felt bound to add, "and that, +unfortunately, was before very long." + +"You must have been dreadfully wounded!" said Mrs. Lascelles, raising +her eyes from my sticks and gazing at me, I fancied, with some +intentness; but at her expression I could only guess. + +"Bowled over on Spion Kop," said Bob, "and fairly riddled as he lay." + +"But only about the legs, Mrs. Lascelles," I explained; "and you see I +didn't lose either, so I've no cause to complain. I had hardly a graze +higher up." + +"Were you up there the whole of that awful day?" asked Mrs. Lascelles, +on a low but thrilling note. + +"I'd got to be," said I, trying to lighten the subject with a laugh. But +Bob's tone was little better. + +"So he went staggering about among his men," he must needs chime in, +with other superfluities, "for I remember reading all about it in the +papers, and boasting like anything about having known you, Duncan, but +feeling simply sick with envy all the time. I say, you'll be a +tremendous hero up here, you know! I'm awfully glad you've come. It's +quite funny, all the same. I suppose you came to get bucked up? He +couldn't have gone to a better place, could he, Mrs. Lascelles?" + +"Indeed he could not. I only wish we could empty the hotel and fill +every bed with our poor wounded!" + +I do not know why I should have felt so much surprised. I had made unto +myself my own image of Mrs. Lascelles, and neither her appearance, nor a +single word that had fallen from her, was in the least in keeping with +my conception. Prepared for a certain type of woman, I was quite +confounded by its unconventional embodiment, and inclined to believe +that this was not the type at all. I ought to have known life better. +The most scheming mind may well entertain an enthusiasm for arms, +genuine enough in itself, at a martial crisis, and a natural manner is +by no means incompatible with the cardinal vices. That manner and that +enthusiasm were absolutely all that I as yet knew in favour of this Mrs. +Lascelles; but they were enough to cause me irritation. I wished to be +honest with somebody; let me at least be honestly inimical to her. I +took out my cigarette-case, and when about to help myself, handed it, +with a vile pretence at impulse, to Mrs. Lascelles instead. + +Mrs. Lascelles thanked me, in a higher key, but declined. + +"Don't you smoke?" I asked blandly. + +"Sometimes." + +"Ah! then I wasn't mistaken. I thought I saw two cigarettes just now." + +Indeed, I had first smelt and afterward discovered the second cigarette +smouldering on the ground. Bob was smoking his still. The chances were +that they had both been lighted at the same time; therefore the other +had been thrown away unfinished at my approach. And that was one more +variation from the type of my confident preconceptions. + +Young Robin had meanwhile had a quick eye on us both, and the stump of +his own cigarette was glowing between a firmer pair of lips than I had +looked for in that boyish face. + +"It's so funny," said he (but there was no fun in his voice), "the +prejudice some people have against ladies smoking. Why shouldn't they? +Where's the harm?" + +Now there is no new plea to be advanced on either side of this eternal +question, nor is it one upon which I ever felt strongly, but just then I +felt tempted to speak as though I did. I will not now dissect my motive, +but it was vaguely connected with my mission, and not unrighteous from +that standpoint. I said it was not a question of harm at all, but of +what one admired in a woman, and what one did not: a man loved to look +upon a woman as something above and beyond him, and there could be no +doubt that the gap seemed a little less when both were smoking like twin +funnels. That, I thought, was the adverse point of view; I did not say +that it was mine. + +"I'm glad to hear it," said Bob Evers, with the faintest coldness in his +tone, though I fancied he was fuming within, and admired both his +chivalry and his self-control. "To me it's quite funny. I call it sheer +selfishness. We enjoy a cigarette ourselves; why shouldn't they? We +don't force them to be teetotal, do we? Is it bad form for a lady to +drink a glass of wine? You mightn't bicycle once, might you, Mrs. +Lascelles? I daresay Captain Clephane doesn't approve of that yet!" + +"That's hitting below the belt," said I, laughing. "I wasn't giving you +my opinion, but only the old-fashioned view of the matter. I wish you'd +take one, Mrs. Lascelles, or I shall think I've been misunderstood all +round!" + +"No, thank you, Captain Clephane. That old-fashioned feeling is +infectious." + +"Then I will," cried Bob, "to show there's no ill-feeling. You old +fire-eater, I believe you just put up the argument to change the +conversation. Wouldn't you like a chair for those game legs?" + +"No, I've got to use them in moderation. I was going to have a stroll +when I spotted you at last." + +"Then we'll all take one together," cried the genial old Bob once more. +"It's a bit cold standing here, don't you think, Mrs. Lascelles? After +you with the match!" + +But I held it so long that he had to strike another, for I had looked on +Mrs. Lascelles at last. It was not an obviously interesting face, like +Catherine's, but interest there was of another kind. There was nothing +intellectual in the low brow, no enthusiasm for books and pictures in +the bold eyes, no witticism waiting on the full lips; but in the curve +of those lips and the look from those eyes, as in the deep chin and the +carriage of the hooded head, there was something perhaps not lower than +intellect in the scale of personal equipment. There was, at all events, +character and to spare. Even by the brief glimmer of a single match I +could see that (and more) for myself. Then came a moment's interval +before Bob struck his light, and in that moment her face changed. As I +saw it next, it appealed, it entreated, until the second match was +flung away. And the appeal was to such purpose that I do not think I was +five seconds silent. + +"And what do you do with yourself up here all day? I mean you hale +people; of course, I can only potter in the sun." + +The question, perhaps, was better in intention than in tact. I did not +mean them to take it to themselves, but Bob's answer showed that it was +open to misconstruction. + +"Some people climb," said he; "you'll know them by their noses. The +glaciers are almost as bad, though, aren't they, Mrs. Lascelles? Lots of +people potter about the glaciers. It's rather sport in the serracs; +you've got to rope. But you'll find lots more loafing about the place +all day, reading Tauchnitz novels, and watching people on the Matterhorn +through the telescope. That's the sort of thing, isn't it, Mrs. +Lascelles?" + +She also had misunderstood the drift of my unlucky question. But there +was nothing disingenuous in her reply. It reminded me of her eyes, as I +had seen them by the light of the first match. + +"Mr. Evers doesn't say that he is a climber himself, Captain Clephane; +but he is a very keen one, and so am I. We are both beginners, so we +have begun together. It's such fun. We do some little thing every day; +to-day we did the Schwarzee. You won't be any wiser, and the real +climbers wouldn't call it climbing, but it means three thousand feet +first and last. To-morrow we are going to the Monte Rosa hut. There is +no saying where we shall end up, if this weather holds." + +In this fashion Mrs. Lascelles not only made me a contemptuous present +of information which I had never sought, but tacitly rebuked poor Bob +for his gratuitous attempt at concealment. Clearly, they had nothing to +conceal; and the hotel talk was neither more nor less than hotel talk. +There was, nevertheless, a certain self-consciousness in the attitude of +either (unless I grossly misread them both) which of itself afforded +some excuse for the gossips in my own mind. + +Yet I did not know; every moment gave me a new point of view. On my +remarking, genuinely enough, that I only wished I could go with them, +Bob Evers echoed the wish so heartily that I could not but believe that +he meant what he said. On his side, in that case, there could be +absolutely nothing. And yet, again, when Mrs. Lascelles had left us, as +she did ere long in the easiest and most natural manner, and when we had +started a last cigarette together, then once more I was not so sure of +him. + +"That's rather a handsome woman," said I, with perhaps more than the +authority to which my years entitled me. But I fancied it would "draw" +poor Bob. And it did. + +"Rather handsome!" said he, with a soft little laugh not altogether +complimentary to me. "Yes, I should almost go as far myself. Still I +don't see how _you_ know; you haven't so much as seen her, my dear +fellow." + +"Haven't we been walking up and down outside this lighted veranda for +the last ten minutes?" + +Bob emitted a pitying puff. "Wait till you see her in the sunlight! +There's not many of them can stand it, as they get it up here. But she +can--like anything!" + +"She has made an impression on you, Bob," said I, but in so sedulously +inoffensive a manner that his self-betrayal was all the greater when he +told me quite hotly not to be an ass. + +Now I was more than ten years his senior, and Bob's manners were as +charming as only the manners of a nice Eton boy can be; therefore I held +my peace, but with difficulty refrained from nodding sapiently to +myself. We took a couple of steps in silence, then Bob stopped short. I +did the same. He was still a little stern; we were just within range of +the veranda lights, and I can see and hear him to this day, almost as +clearly as I did that night. + +"I'm not much good at making apologies," he began, with rather less +grace than becomes an apologist; but it was more than enough for me from +Bob. + +"Nor I at receiving them, my dear Bob." + +"Well, you've got to receive one now, whether you accept it or not. I +was the ass myself, and I beg your pardon!" + +Somehow I felt it was a good deal for a lad to say, at that age, and +with Bob's upbringing and popularity, even though he said it rather +scornfully in the fewest words. The scorn was really for himself, and I +could well understand it. Nay, I was glad to have something to forgive +in the beginning, I with my unforgivable mission, and would have laughed +the matter off without another word if Bob had let me. + +"I'm a bit raw on the point," said he, taking my arm for a last turn, +"and that's the truth. There was a fellow who came out with me, quite a +good chap really, and a tremendous pal of mine at Eton, yet he behaved +like a lunatic about this very thing. Poor chap, he reads like anything, +and I suppose he'd been overdoing it, for he actually asked me to choose +between Mrs. Lascelles and himself! What could a fellow do but let the +poor old simpleton go? They seem to think you can't be pals with a woman +without wanting to make love to her. Such utter rot! I confess I lose my +hair with them; but that doesn't excuse me in the least for losing it +with you." + +I assured him, on the other hand, that his very natural irritability on +the subject made all the difference in the world. "But whom," I added, +"do you mean by 'them'? Not anybody else in the hotel?" + +"Good heavens, no!" cried Bob, finding a fair target for his scorn at +last. "Do you think I care twopence what's said or thought by people I +never saw in my life before and am never likely to see again? I know how +I'm behaving. What does it matter what they think? Not that they're +likely to bother their heads about us any more than we do about them." + +"You don't know that." + +"I certainly don't care," declared my lordly youth, with obvious +sincerity. "No, I was only thinking of poor old George Kennerley and +people like him, if there are any. I did care what he thought, that is +until I saw he was as mad as anything on the subject. It was too silly. +I tell you what, though, I'd value your opinion!" And he came to another +stop and confronted me again, but this time such a picture of boyish +impulse and of innocent trust in me (even by that faint light) that I +was myself strongly inclined to be honest with him on the spot. But I +only smiled and shook my head. + +"Oh, no, you wouldn't," I assured him. + +"But I tell you I would!" he cried. "Do _you_ think there's any harm in +my going about with Mrs. Lascelles because I rather like her and she +rather likes me? I won't condescend to give you my word that I mean +none." + +What answer could I give? His charming frankness quite disarmed me, and +the more completely because I felt that a dignified reticence would have +been yet more characteristic of this clean, sweet youth, with his noble +unconsciousness alike of evil and of evil speaking. I told him the +truth--that there could be no harm at all with such a fellow as himself. +And he wrung my hand until he hurt it; but the physical pain was a +relief. + +Never can I remember going up to bed with a better opinion of another +person, or a worse one of myself. How could I go on with my thrice +detestable undertaking? Now that I was so sure of him, why should I even +think of it for another moment? Why not go back to London and tell his +mother that her early confidence had not been misplaced, that the lad +did know how to take care of himself, and better still of any woman whom +he chose to honour with his bright, pure-hearted friendship? All this I +felt as strongly as any conviction I have ever held. Why, then, could I +not write it at once to Catherine in as many words? + +Strange how one forgets, how I had forgotten in half an hour! The reason +came home to me on the stairs, and for the second time. + +It had come home first by the light of those two matches, struck outside +in the dark part of the deserted terrace. It was not the lad whom I +distrusted, but the woman of whose face I had then obtained my only +glimpse--that night. + +I had known her, after all, in India years before. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +A LITTLE KNOWLEDGE + + +Once in the Town Hall at Simla (the only time I was ever there) it was +my fortune to dance with a Mrs. Heymann of Lahore, a tall woman, but a +featherweight partner, and in all my dancing days I never had a better +waltz. To my delight she had one other left, though near the end, and we +were actually dancing when an excitable person came out of the +card-room, flushed with liquor and losses, and carried her off in the +most preposterous manner. It was a shock to me at the time to learn that +this outrageous little man was my partner's husband. Months later, when +I came across their case in the papers, it was, I am afraid, without +much sympathy for the injured husband. The man was quite unpresentable, +and I had seen no more of him at Simla, but of the woman just enough to +know her by matchlight on the terrace at the Riffel Alp. + +And this was Bob's widow, this dashing _divorcée_! Dashing she was as I +now remembered her, fine in mould, finer in spirit, reckless and +rebellious as she well might be. I had seen her submit before a +ball-room, but with the contempt that leads captivity captive. Seldom +have I admired anything more. It was splendid even to remember, the +ready outward obedience, the not less apparent indifference and disdain. +There was a woman whom any man might admire, who had had it in her to be +all things to some man! But Bob Evers was not a man at all. And +this--and this--was his widow! + +Was she one at all? How could I tell? Yes, it was Lascelles, the other +name in the case, to the best of my recollection. But had she any right +to bear it? And even supposing they had married, what had happened to +the second husband? Widow or no widow, second marriage or no second +marriage, defensible or indefensible, was this the right friend for a +lad still fresh from Eton, the only son of his mother, who had sent me +in secret to his side? + +There was only one answer to the last question, whatever might be said +or urged in reply to all the rest. I could not but feel that Catherine +Evers had been justified in her instinct to an almost miraculous degree; +that her worst fears were true enough, so far as the lady was concerned; +and that Providence alone could have inspired her to call in an agent +who knew what I knew, and who therefore saw his duty as plainly as I +already saw mine. But it is one thing to recognise a painful duty and +quite another thing to know how to minimise the pain to those most +affected by its performance. The problem was no easy one to my mind, and +I lay awake upon it far into the night. + +Tired out with travel, I fell asleep in the end, to awake with a start +in broad daylight. The sun was pouring through the uncurtained +dormer-window of my room under the roof. And in the sunlight, looking +his best in knickerbockers, as only thin men do, with face greased +against wind and glare, and blue spectacles in rest upon an Alpine +wideawake, stood the lad who had taken his share in keeping me awake. + +"I'm awfully sorry," he began. "It's horrid cheek, but when I saw your +room full of light I thought you might have been even earlier than I +was. You must get them to give you curtains up here." + +He had a note in his hand and I thought by his manner there was +something that he wished and yet hesitated to tell me. I accordingly +asked him what it was. + +"It's what we were speaking about last night!" burst out Bob. "That's +why I've come to you. It's these silly fools who can't mind their own +business and think everybody else is like themselves! Here's a note from +Mrs. Lascelles which makes it plain that that old idiot George is not +the only one who has been talking about us, and some of the talk has +reached her ears. She doesn't say so in so many words, but I can see +it's that. She wants to get out of our expedition to Monte Rosa +hut--wants me to go alone. The question is, ought I to let her get out +of it? Does it matter one rap what this rabble says about us? I've come +to ask your advice--you were such a brick about it all last night--and +what you say I'll do." + +I had begun to smile at Bob's notion of "a rabble": this one happened +to include a few quite eminent men, as you have seen, to say nothing of +the average quality of the crowd, of which I had been able to form some +opinion of my own. But I had already noticed in Bob the exclusiveness of +the type to which he belonged, and had welcomed it as one does welcome +the little faults of the well-night faultless. It was his last sentence +that made me feel too great a hypocrite to go on smiling. + +"It may not matter to you," I said at length, "but it may to the lady." + +"I suppose it does matter more to them?" + +The sunburnt face, puckered with a wry wistfulness, was only comic in +its incongruous coat of grease. But I was under no temptation to smile. +I had to confine my mind pretty closely to the general principle, and +rather studiously to ignore the particular instance, before I could +bring myself to answer the almost infantile inquiry in those honest +eyes. + +"My dear fellow, it must!" + +Bob looked disappointed but resigned. + +"Well, then, I won't press it, though I'm not sure that I agree. You +see, it's not as though there was or ever would be anything between us. +The idea's absurd. We are absolute pals and nothing else. That's what +makes all this such a silly bore. It's so unnecessary. Now she wants me +to go alone, but I don't see the fun of that." + +"Does she ask you to go alone?" + +"She does. That's the worst of it." + +I nodded, and he asked me why. + +"She probably thinks it would be the best answer to the tittle-tattlers, +Bob." + +That was not a deliberate lie; not until the words were out did it occur +to me that Mrs. Lascelles might now have another object in getting rid +of her swain for the day. But Bob's eyes lighted in a way that made me +feel a deliberate liar. + +"By Jove!" he said, "I never thought of that. I don't agree with her, +mind, but if that's her game I'll play it like a book. So long, Duncan! +I'm not one of those chaps who ask a man's advice without the slightest +intention of ever taking it!" + +"But I haven't ventured to advise you," I reminded the boy, with a +cowardly eye to the remotest consequences. + +"Perhaps not, but you've shown me what's the proper thing to do." And he +went away to do it there and then, like the blameless exception that I +found him to so many human rules. + +I had my breakfast upstairs after this, and lay for some considerable +time a prey to feelings which I shall make no further effort to expound; +for this interview had not altered, but only intensified them; and in +any case they must be obvious to those who take the trouble to conceive +themselves in my unenviable position. + +And it was my ironic luck to be so circumstanced in a place where I +could have enjoyed life to the hilt! Only to lie with the window open +was to breathe air of a keener purity, a finer temper, a more +exhilarating freshness, than had ever before entered my lungs; and to +get up and look out of the window was to peer into the limpid brilliance +of a gigantic crystal, where the smallest object was in startling +focus, and the very sunbeams cut with scissors. The people below trailed +shadows like running ink. The light was ultra-tropical. One looked for +drill suits and pith headgear, and was amazed to find pajamas +insufficient at the open window. + +Upon the terrace on the other side, when I eventually came down, there +were cane chairs and Tauchnitz novels under the umbrella tents, and the +telescope out and trained upon a party on the Matterhorn. A group of +people were waiting turns at the telescope, my friend Quinby and the +hanging judge among them. But I searched under the umbrella tents as +well as one could from the top of the steps before hobbling down to join +the group. + +"I have looked for an accident through that telescope," said the jocose +judge, "fifteen Augusts running. They usually have one the day after I +go." + +"Good morning, sir!" was Quinby's greeting; and I was instantly +introduced to Sir John Sankey, with such a parade of my military history +as made me wince and Sir John's eye twinkle. I fancied he had formed an +unkind estimate of my rather overpowering friend, and lived to hear my +impression confirmed in unjudicial language. But our first conversation +was about the war, and it lasted until the judge's turn came for the +telescope. + +"Black with people!" he ejaculated. "They ought to have a constable up +there to regulate the traffic." + +But when I looked it was long enough before my inexperienced eye could +discern the three midges strung on the single strand of cobweb against +the sloping snow. + +"They are coming down," explained the obliging Quinby. "That's one of +the most difficult places, the lower edge of the top slope. It's just a +little way along to the right where the first accident was.... By the +way, your friend Evers says he's going to do the Matterhorn before he +goes." + +It was unwelcome hearing, for Quinby had paused to regale me with a +lightning sketch of the first accident, and no one had contradicted his +gruesome details. + +"_Is_ young Evers a friend of yours?" inquired the judge. + +"He is." + +The judge did not say another word. But Quinby availed himself of the +first opportunity of playing Ancient Mariner to my Wedding Guest. + +"I saw you talking to them," he told me confidentially, "last night, you +know!" + +"Indeed." + +He took me by the sleeve. + +"Of course I don't know what you said, but it's evidently had an effect. +Evers has gone off alone for the first time since he has been here." + +I shifted my position. + +"You evidently keep an eye on him, Mr. Quinby." + +"I do, Clephane. I find him a diverting study. He is not the only one in +this hotel. There's old Teale on his balcony at the present minute, if +you look up. He has the best room in the hotel; the only trouble is that +it doesn't face the sun all day; he's not used to being in the shade, +and you'll hear him damn the limelight-man in heaps one of these fine +mornings. But your enterprising young friend is a more amusing person +than Belgrave Teale." + +I had heard enough of my enterprising young friend from this quarter. + +"Do you never make any expeditions yourself, Mr. Quinby?" + +"Sometimes." Quinby looked puzzled. "Why do you ask?" he was constrained +to add. + +"You should have volunteered instead of Mrs. Lascelles to-day. It would +have been an excellent opportunity for prosecuting your own rather +enterprising studies." + +One would have thought that one's displeasure was plain enough at last; +but not a bit of it. So far from resenting the rebuff, the fellow +plucked my sleeve, and I saw at a glance that he had not even listened +to my too elaborate sarcasm. + +"Talk of the--lady!" he whispered. "Here she comes." + +And a second glance intercepted Mrs. Lascelles on the steps, with her +bold good looks and her fine upstanding carriage, cut clean as a +diamond in that intensifying atmosphere, and hardly less dazzling to the +eye. Yet her cotton gown was simplicity's self; it was the right setting +for such natural brilliance, a brilliance of eyes and teeth and +colouring, a more uncommon brilliance of expression. Indeed it was a +wonderful expression, brave rather than sweet, yet capable of sweetness +too, and for the moment at least nobly free from the defensive +bitterness which was to mark it later. So she stood upon the steps, the +talk of the hotel, trailing, with characteristic independence, a cane +chair behind her, while she sought a shady place for it, even as I had +stood seeking for her: before she found one I was hobbling toward her. + +"Oh, thanks, Captain Clephane, but I couldn't think of allowing you! +Well, then, between us, if you insist. Here under the wall, I think, is +as good a place as any." + +She pointed out a clear space in the rapidly narrowing ribbon of shade, +and there I soon saw Mrs. Lascelles settled with her book (a trashy +novel, that somehow brought Catherine Evers rather sharply before my +mind's eye) in an isolation as complete as could be found upon the +crowded terrace, and too intentional on her part to permit of an +intrusion on mine. I lingered a moment, nevertheless. + +"So you didn't go to that hut after all, Mrs. Lascelles?" + +"No." She waited a moment before looking up at me. "And I'm afraid Mr. +Evers will never forgive me," she added after her look, in the rich +undertone that had impressed me overnight, before the cigarette +controversy. + +I was not going to say that I had seen Bob before he started, but it was +an opportunity of speaking generally of the lad. Thus I found myself +commenting on the coincidence of our meeting again--he and I--and again +lying before I realised that it was a lie. But Mrs. Lascelles sat +looking up at me with her fine and candid eyes, as though she knew as +well as I which was the real coincidence, and knew that I knew into the +bargain. It gave me the disconcerting sensation of being detected and +convicted at one blow. Bob Evers failed me as a topic, and I stood like +the fool I felt. + +"I am sure you ought not to stand about so much, Captain Clephane." + +Mrs. Lascelles was smiling faintly as I prepared to take her hint. + +"Doesn't it really do you any harm?" she inquired in time to detain me. + +"No, just the opposite. I am ordered to take all the exercise I can." + +"Even walking?" + +"Even hobbling, Mrs. Lascelles, if I don't overdo it." + +She sat some moments in thought. I guessed what she was thinking, and I +was right. + +"There are some lovely walks quite near, Captain Clephane. But you have +to climb a little, either going or coming." + +"I could climb a little," said I, making up my mind. "It's within the +meaning of the act--it would do me good. Which way will you take me, +Mrs. Lascelles?" + +Mrs. Lascelles looked up quickly, surprised at a boldness on which I was +already complimenting myself. But it is the only way with a bold woman. + +"Did I say I would take you at all, Captain Clephane?" + +"No, but I very much hope you will." + +And our eyes met as fairly as they had done by matchlight the night +before. + +"Then I will," said Mrs. Lascelles, "because I want to speak to you." + + + + +CHAPTER V + +A MARKED WOMAN + + +We had come farther than was wise without a rest, but all the seats on +the way were in full view of the hotel, and I had been irritated by +divers looks and whisperings as we traversed the always crowded terrace. +Bob Evers, no doubt, would have turned a deaf ear and a blind eye to +them. I myself could pretend to do so, but pretence was evidently one of +my strong points. I had not Bob's fine natural regardlessness, for all +my seniority and presumably superior knowledge of the world. + +So we had climbed the zigzags to the right of the Riffelberg and +followed the footpath overlooking the glacier, in the silence enjoined +by single file, but at last we were seated on the hillside, a trifle +beyond that emerald patch which some humourist has christened the +Cricket-ground. Beneath us were the serracs of the Gorner Glacier, +teased and tousled like a fringe of frozen breakers. Beyond the serracs +was the main stream of comparatively smooth ice, with its mourning band +of moraine, and beyond that the mammoth sweep and curve of the Théodule +where these glaciers join. Peak after peak of dazzling snow dwindled +away to the left. Only the gaunt Riffelhorn reared a brown head against +the blue. And there we sat, Mrs. Lascelles and I, with all this before +us and a rock behind, while I wondered what my companion meant to say, +and how she would begin. + +I had not to wonder long. + +"You were very good to me last night, Captain Clephane." + +There was evidently no beating about the bush for Mrs. Lascelles. I +thoroughly approved, but was nevertheless somewhat embarrassed for the +moment. + +"I--really I don't know how, Mrs. Lascelles!" + +"Oh, yes, you do, Captain Clephane; you recognised me at a glance, as I +did you." + +"I certainly thought I did," said I, poking about with the ferrule of +one of my sticks. + +"You know you did." + +"You are making me know it." + +"Captain Clephane, you knew it all along; but we won't argue that point. +I am not going to deny my identity. It is very good of you to give me +the chance, if rather unnecessary. I am not a criminal. Still you could +have made me feel like one, last night, and heaps of men would have done +so, either for the fun of it or from want of tact." + +I looked inquiringly at Mrs. Lascelles. She could tell me what she +pleased, but I was not going to anticipate her by displaying an +independent knowledge of matters which she might still care to keep to +herself. If she chose to open up a painful subject, well, the pain be +upon her own head. Yet I must say that there was very little of it in +her face as our eyes met. There was the eager candour that one could not +help admiring, with the glowing look of gratitude which I had done so +ridiculously little to earn; but the fine flushed face betrayed neither +pain, nor shame, nor the affectation of one or the other. There was a +certain shyness with the candour. That was all. + +"You know quite well what I mean," continued Mrs. Lascelles, with a +genuine smile at my disingenuous face. "When you met me before it was +under another name, which you have probably quite forgotten." + +"No, I remember it." + +"Do you remember my husband?" + +"Perfectly." + +"Did you ever hear--" + +Her lip trembled. I dropped my eyes. + +"Yes," I admitted, "or rather I saw it for myself in the papers. It's no +use pretending I didn't, nor yet that I was the least bit surprised +or--or anything else!" + +That was not one of my tactful speeches. It was culpably, might indeed +have been wilfully, ambiguous; and yet it was the kind of clumsy and +impulsive utterance which has the ring of a good intention, and is thus +inoffensive except to such as seek excuses for offence. My instincts +about Mrs. Lascelles did not place her in this category at all. +Nevertheless, the ensuing pause was long enough to make me feel uneasy, +and my companion only broke it as I was in the act of framing an +apology. + +"May I bore you, Captain Clephane?" she asked abruptly. I looked at her +once more. She had regained an equal mastery of face and voice, and the +admirable candour of her eyes was undimmed by the smallest trace of +tears. + +"You may try," said I, smiling with the obvious gallantry. + +"If I tell you something about myself from that time on, will you +believe what I say?" + +"You are the last person whom I should think of disbelieving." + +"Thank you, Captain Clephane." + +"On the other hand, I would much rather you didn't say anything that +gave you pain, or that you might afterward regret." + +There was a touch of weariness in Mrs. Lascelles's smile, a rather +pathetic touch to my mind, as she shook her head. + +"I am not very sensitive to pain," she remarked. "That is the one thing +to be said for having to bear a good deal while you are fairly young. I +want you to know more about me, because I believe you are the only +person here who knows anything at all. And then--you didn't give me away +last night!" + +I pointed to the grassy ledge in front of us, such a vivid green against +the house now a hundred feet below. + +"I am not pushing you over there," I said. "I take about as much credit +for that." + +"Ah," sighed Mrs. Lascelles, "but that dear boy, who turns out to be a +friend of yours, he knows less than anybody else! He doesn't even +suspect. It would have hurt me, yes, it would have hurt even me, to be +given away to him! You didn't do it while I was there, and I know you +didn't when I had turned my back." + +"Of course you know I didn't," I echoed rather testily as I took out a +cigarette. The case reminded me of the night before. But I did not again +hand it to Mrs. Lascelles. + +"Well, then," she continued, "since you didn't give me away, even +without thinking, I want you to know that after all there isn't quite so +much to give away as there might have been. A divorce, of course, is +always a divorce; there is no getting away from that, or from mine. But +I really did marry again. And I really am the widow they think I am." + +I looked quickly up at her, in pure pity and compassion for one gone so +far in sorrow and yet such a little way in life. It was a sudden +feeling, an unpremeditated look, but I might as well have spoken aloud. +Mrs. Lascelles read me unerringly, and she shook her head, sadly but +decidedly, while her eyes gazed calmly into mine. + +"_It_ was not a happy marriage, either," she said, as impersonally as if +speaking of another woman. "You may think what you like of me for saying +so to a comparative stranger; but I won't have your sympathy on false +pretences, simply because Major Lascelles is dead. Did you ever meet +him, by the way?" + +And she mentioned an Indian regiment. But the major and I had never met. + +"Well, it was not very happy for either of us. I suppose such marriages +never are. I know they are never supposed to be. Even if the couple are +everything to each other, there is all the world to point his finger, +and all the world's wife to turn her back, and you have to care a good +deal to get over that. But you may have been desperate in the first +instance; you may have said to yourself that the fire couldn't be much +worse than the frying-pan. In that case, of course, you deserve no +sympathy, and nothing is more irritating to me than the sympathy I don't +deserve. It's a matter of temperament; I'm obliged to speak out, even if +it puts people more against me than they were already. No, you needn't +say anything, Captain Clephane; you didn't express your sympathy, I +stopped you in time.... And yet it is rather hard, when one's still +reasonably young, with almost everything before one--to be a marked +woman all one's time!" + +Up to her last words, despite an inviting pause after almost every +sentence, I had succeeded in holding my tongue; though she was looking +wistfully now at the distant snow-peaks and obviously bestowing upon +herself the sympathy she did not want from me (as I had been told in so +many words, if not more plainly in the accompanying brief encounter +between our eyes), yet had I resisted every temptation to put in my +word, until these last two or three from Mrs. Lascelles. They, however, +demanded a denial, and I told her it was absurd to describe herself in +such terms. + +"I am marked," she persisted, "wherever I go I may be known, as you knew +me here. If it hadn't been you it would have been somebody else, and I +should have known of it indirectly instead of directly; but even +supposing I had escaped altogether at this hotel, the next one would +probably have made up for it." + +"Do you stay much in hotels?" + +There had been something in the mellow voice which made such a question +only natural, yet it was scarcely asked before I would have given a good +deal to recall it. + +"There is nowhere else to stay," said Mrs. Lascelles, "unless one sets +up house alone, which is costlier and far less comfortable. You see, one +does make a friend or two sometimes--before one is found out." + +"But surely your people--" + +This time I did check myself. + +"My people," said Mrs. Lascelles, "have washed their hands of me." + +"But Major Lascelles--surely _his_ people--" + +"They washed their hands of him! You see, they would be the first to +tell you, he had always been rather wild; but his crowning act of +madness in their eyes was his marriage. It was worse than the worst +thing he had ever done before. Still, it is not for me to say anything, +or feel anything, against his family...." + +And then I knew that they were making her an allowance; it was more than +I wanted to know; the ground was too delicate, and led nowhere in +particular. Still, it was difficult not to take a certain amount of +interest in a handsome woman who had made such a wreck of her life so +young, who was so utterly alone, so proud and independent in her +loneliness, and apparently quite fine-hearted and unspoilt. But for Bob +Evers and his mother, the interest that I took might have been a little +different in kind; but even with my solicitude for them there mingled +already no small consideration for the social solitary whom I watched +now as she sat peering across the glacier, the foremost figure in a +world of high lights and great backgrounds, and whom to watch was to +admire, even against the greatest of them all. Alas! mere admiration +could not change my task or stay my hand; it could but clog me by +destroying my singleness of purpose, and giving me a double heart to +match my double face. + +Since, however, a detestable duty had been undertaken, and since as a +duty it was more apparent than I had dreamt of finding it, there was +nothing for it but to go through with the thing and make immediate +enemies of my friends. So I set my teeth and talked of Bob. I was glad +Mrs. Lascelles liked him. His father was a remote connection of mine, +whom I had never met. But I had once known his mother very well. + +"And what is she like?" asked Mrs. Lascelles, calling her fine eyes home +from infinity, and fixing them once more on me. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +OUT OF ACTION + + +Now if, upon a warm, soft, summer evening, you were suddenly asked to +describe the perfect winter's day, either you would have to stop and +think a little, or your imagination is more elastic than mine. Yet you +might have a passionate preference for cold sun and bracing airs. To me, +Catherine Evers and this Mrs. Lascelles were as opposite to each other +as winter and summer, or the poles, or any other notorious antitheses. +There was no comparison between them in my mind, yet as I sat with one +among the sunlit, unfamiliar Alps, it was a distinct effort to picture +the other in the little London room I knew so well. For it was always +among her books and pictures that I thought of Catherine, and to think +was to wish myself there at her side, rather than to wish her here at +mine. Catherine's appeal, I used to think, was to the highest and the +best in me, to brain and soul, and young ambition, and withal to one's +love of wit and sense of humour. Mrs. Lascelles, on the other hand, +struck me primarily in the light of some splendid and spirited animal. I +still liked to dwell upon her dancing. She satisfied the mere eye more +and more. But I had no reason to suppose that she knew right from wrong +in art or literature, any more than she would seem to have distinguished +between them in life itself. Her Tauchnitz novel lay beside her on the +grass and I again reflected that it would not have found a place on +Catherine's loftiest shelf. Catherine would have raved about the view +and made delicious fun of Quinby and the judge, and we should have sat +together talking poetry and harmless scandal by the happy hour. Mrs. +Lascelles probably took place and people alike for granted. But she had +lived, and as an animal she was superb! I looked again into her healthy +face and speaking eyes, with their bitter knowledge of good and evil, +their scorn of scorn, their redeeming honesty and candour. The contrast +was complete in every detail except the widowhood of both women; but I +did not pursue it any farther; for once more there was but one woman in +my thoughts, and she sat near me under a red parasol--clashing so +humanly with the everlasting snows! + +"You don't answer my question, Captain Clephane. How much for your +thoughts?" + +"I'll make you a present of them, Mrs. Lascelles. I was beginning to +think that a lot of rot has been written about the eternal snows and the +mountain-tops and all the rest of it. There a few lines in that last +little volume of Browning--" + +I stopped of my own accord, for upon reflection the lines would have +made a rather embarrassing quotation. But meanwhile Mrs. Lascelles had +taken alarm on other grounds. + +"Oh, _don't_ quote Browning!" + +"Why not?" + +"He is far too deep for me; besides, I don't care for poetry, and I was +asking you about Mrs. Evers." + +"Well," I said, with some little severity, "she's a very clever woman." + +"Clever enough to understand Browning?" + +"Quite." + +If this was irony, it was also self-restraint, for it was to Catherine's +enthusiasm that I owed my own. The debt was one of such magnitude as a +life of devotion could scarcely have repaid, for to whom do we owe so +much as to those who first lifted the scales from our eyes and awakened +within us a soul for all such things? Catherine had been to me what I +instantly desired to become to this benighted beauty; but the desire was +not worth entertaining, since I hardly expected to be many minutes +longer on speaking terms with Mrs. Lascelles. I recalled the fact that +it was I who had broached the subject of Bob Evers and his mother, +together with my unpalatable motive for so doing. And I was seeking in +my mind, against the grain, I must confess, for a short cut back to Bob, +when Mrs. Lascelles suddenly led the way. + +"I don't think," said she, "that Mr. Evers takes after his mother." + +"I'm afraid he doesn't," I replied, "in that respect." + +"And I am glad," she said. "I do like a boy to be a boy. The only son +of his mother is always in danger of becoming something else. Tell me, +Captain Clephane, are they very devoted to each other?" + +There was some new note in that expressive voice of hers. Was it merely +wistful, was it really jealous, or was either element the product of my +own imagination? I made answer while I wondered: + +"Absolutely devoted, I should say; but it's years since I saw them +together. Bob was a small boy then, and one of the jolliest. Still I +never expected him to grow up the charming chap he is now." + +Mrs. Lascelles sat gazing at the great curve of Théodule Glacier. I +watched her face. + +"He _is_ charming," she said at length. "I am not sure that I ever met +anybody quite like him, or rather I am quite sure that I never did. He +is so quiet, in a way, and yet so wonderfully confident and at ease!" + +"That's Eton," said I. "He is the best type of Eton boy, and the best +type of Eton boy," I declared, airing the little condition with a +flourish, "is one of the greatest works of God." + +"I daresay you're right," said Mrs. Lascelles, smiling indulgently; "but +what is it? How do you define it? It isn't 'side,' and yet I can quite +imagine people who don't know him thinking that it is. He is cocksure of +himself, but of nothing else; that seems to me to be the difference. No +one could possibly be more simple in himself. He may have the assurance +of a man of fifty, yet it isn't put on; it's neither bumptious nor +affected, but just as natural in Mr. Evers as shyness and awkwardness in +the ordinary youth one meets. And he has the _savoir faire_ not to ask +questions!" + +Were we all mistaken? Was this the way in which a designing woman would +speak of the object of her designs? Not that I thought so hardly of Mrs. +Lascelles myself; but I did think that she might well fall in love with +Bob Evers, at least as well as he with her. Was this, then, the way in +which a woman would be likely to speak of the young man with whom she +had fallen in love? To me the appreciation sounded too frank and +discerning and acute. Yet I could not call it dispassionate, and +frankness was this woman's outstanding merit, though I was beginning to +discover others as well. Moreover, the fact remained that they had been +greatly talked about; that at any rate must be stopped and I was there +to stop it. + +I began to pick my words. + +"It's all Eton, except what is in the blood, and it's all a question of +manners, or rather of manner. Don't misunderstand me, Mrs. Lascelles. I +don't say that Bob isn't independent in character as well as in his +ways, but only that when all's said he's still a boy and not a man. He +can't possibly have a man's experience of the world, or even of himself. +He has a young head on his shoulders, after all, if not a younger one +than many a boy with half the assurance that you admire in him." + +Mrs. Lascelles looked at me point-blank. + +"Do you mean that he can't take care of himself?" + +"I don't say that." + +"Then what do you say?" + +The fine eyes met mine without a flicker. The full mouth was curved at +the corners in a tolerant, unsuspecting smile. It was hard to have to +make an enemy of so handsome and good-humoured a woman. And was it +necessary, was it even wise? As I hesitated she turned and glanced +downward once more toward the glacier, then rose and went to the lip of +our grassy ledge, and as she returned I caught the sound which she had +been the first to hear. It was the gritty planting of nailed boots upon +a hard, smooth rock. + +"I'm afraid you can't say it now," whispered Mrs. Lascelles. "Here's Mr. +Evers himself, coming this way back from the Monte Rosa hut! I'm going +to give him a surprise!" + +And it was a genuine one that she gave him, for I heard his boyish +greeting before I saw his hot brown face, and there was no mistaking the +sudden delight of both. It was sudden and spontaneous, complete, until +his eyes lit on me. Even then his smile did not disappear, but it +changed, as did his tone. + +"Good heavens!" cried Bob. "How on earth did _you_ get up here? By rail +to the Riffelberg, I hope?" + +"On my sticks." + +"It was much too far for him," added Mrs. Lascelles, "and all my fault +for showing him the way. But I'm afraid there was contributory obstinacy +in Captain Clephane, because he simply wouldn't turn back. And now tell +us about yourself, Mr. Evers; surely we were not coming back this way?" + +"_We_ were not," said Bob, with a something sardonic in his little +laugh, "but I thought I might as well. It's the long way, six miles on +end upon the glacier." + +"But have you really been to the hut?" + +"Rather!" + +"And where's our guide?" + +"Oh, I wouldn't be bothered with a guide all to myself." + +"My dear young man, you might have stepped straight into a crevasse!" + +"I precious nearly did," laughed Bob, again with something odd about his +laughter; "but I say, do you know, if you won't think me awfully rude, +I'll push on back and get changed. I'm as hot as anything and not fit +to be seen." + +And he was gone after very little more than a minute from first to last, +gone with rather an elaborate salute to Mrs. Lascelles, and rather a +cavalier nod to me. But then neither of us had made any effort to detain +him and a notable omission I thought it in Mrs. Lascelles, though to the +lad himself it may well have seemed as strange in the old friend as in +the new. + +"What was it," asked Mrs. Lascelles, when we were on our way home, "that +you were going to say about Mr. Evers when he appeared in the flesh in +that extraordinary way?" + +"I forget," said I, immorally. + +"Really? So soon? Don't you remember, I thought you meant that he +couldn't take care of himself, and you were just going to tell me what +you did mean?" + +"Oh, well, it wasn't that, because he can!" + +But, as a matter of fact, I had seen my way to taking care of Master Bob +without saying a word either to him or to Mrs. Lascelles, or at all +events without making enemies of them both. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +SECOND FIDDLE + + +My plan was quite obvious in its simplicity, and not in the least +discreditable from my point of view. It was perhaps inevitable that a +boy like Bob should imagine I was trying to "cut him out," as my blunt +friend Quinby phrased it to my face. I had not, of course, the smallest +desire to do any such vulgar thing. All I wanted was to make myself, if +possible, as agreeable to Mrs. Lascelles as this youth had done before +me, and in any case to share with him all the perils of her society. In +other words I meant to squeeze into "the imminent deadly breach" beside +Bob Evers, not necessarily in front of him. But if there was nothing +dastardly in this, neither was there anything heroic, since I was proof +against that kind of deadliness if Bob was not. + +On the other hand, the whole character of my mission was affected by the +decision at which I had now arrived. There was no longer a necessity to +speak plainly to anybody. That odious duty was eliminated from my plan +of campaign, and the "frontal attack" of recent history discarded for +the "turning movement" of the day. So I had learnt something in South +Africa after all. I had learnt how to avoid hard knocks which might very +well do more harm than good to the cause I had at heart. That cause was +still sharply defined before my mind. It was the first and most sacred +consideration. I wrote a reassuring despatch to Catherine Evers, and +took it myself to the little post-office opposite the hotel that very +evening before dressing for dinner. But I cannot say that I was thinking +of Catherine when I proceeded to spoil three successive ties in the +tying. + +Yet I can only repeat that I felt absolutely "proof" against the real +cause of my solicitude. It is the most delightful feeling where a +handsome woman is concerned. The judgment is not warped by passion or +clouded by emotion; you see the woman as she is, not as you wish to see +her, and if she disappoint it does not matter. You are not left to +choose between systematic self-deception and a humiliating admission of +your mistake. The lady has not been placed upon an impossible pedestal, +and she has not toppled down. In this case the lady started at the most +advantageous disadvantage; every admirable quality, her candour, her +courage, her spirited independence, her evident determination to piece a +broken life together again and make the best of it, told doubly in her +favour to me with my special knowledge of her past. It would be too much +to say that I was deeply interested; but Mrs. Lascelles had inspired me +with a certain sympathy and dispassionate regard. Cultivated she was +not, in the conventional sense, but she knew more than can be imbibed +from books. She knew life at first hand, had drained the cup for +herself, and yet could savour the lees. Not that she enlarged any +further on her own past. Mrs. Lascelles was never a great talker, like +Catherine; but she was certainly a woman to whom one could talk. And +talk to her I did thenceforward, with a conscientious conviction that I +was doing my duty, and only an occasional qualm for its congenial +character, while Bob listened with a wondering eye, or went his own way +without a word. + +It is easy to criticise my conduct now. It would have been difficult to +act otherwise at the time. I am speaking of the evening after my walk +with Mrs. Lascelles, of the next day when it rained, and now of my third +night at the hotel. The sky had cleared. The glass was high. There was a +finer edge than ever on the silhouetted mountains against the stars. It +appeared that Bob and Mrs. Lascelles had talked of taking their lunch to +the Findelen Glacier on the next fine day, for he came up and reminded +her of it as she sat with me in the glazed veranda after dinner. I had +seen him standing alone under the stars a few minutes before: so this +was the result of his cogitation. But in his manner there was nothing +studied, much less awkward, and his smile even included me, though he +had not spoken to me alone all day. + +"Oh, no, I hadn't forgotten, Mr. Evers. I am looking forward to it," +said my companion, with a smile of her own to which the most jealous +swain could not have taken exception. + +Bob Evers looked hard at me. + +"You'd better come, too," he said. + +"It's probably too far," said I, quite intending to play second fiddle +next day, for it was really Bob's turn. + +"Not for a man who has been up to the Cricket-ground," he rejoined. + +"But it's dreadfully slippery," put in Mrs. Lascelles, with a +sympathetic glance at my sticks. + +"Let him get them shod like alpenstocks," quoth Bob, "and nails in his +boots; then they'll be ready when he does the Matterhorn!" + +It might have passed for boyish banter, but I knew that it was something +more; the use of the third person changed from chaff to scorn as I +listened, and my sympathetic resolution went to the winds. + +"Thank you," I replied; "in that case I shall be delighted to come, and +I'll take your tip at once by giving orders about my boots." + +And with that I resigned my chair to Bob, not sorry for the chance; he +should not be able to say that I had monopolised Mrs. Lascelles without +intermission from the first. Nevertheless, I was annoyed with him for +what he had said, and for the moment my actions were no part of my +scheme. Consequently I was thus in the last mood for a familiarity from +Quinby, who was hanging about the door between the veranda and the hall, +and who would not let me pass. + +"That's awfully nice of you," he had the impudence to whisper. + +"What do you mean?" + +"Giving that poor young beggar another chance!" + +"I don't understand you." + +"Oh, I like that! You know very well that you've gone in on the military +ticket and deliberately cut the poor youngster--" + +I did not wait to hear the end of this gratuitous observation. It was +very rude of me, but in another minute I should have been guilty of a +worse affront. My annoyance had deepened into something like dismay. It +was not only Bob Evers who was misconstruing my little attentions to +Mrs. Lascelles. I was more or less prepared for that. But here were +outsiders talking about us--the three of us! So far from putting a stop +to the talk, I had given it a regular fillip: here were Quinby and his +friends as keen as possible to see what would happen next, if not +betting on a row. The situation had taken a sudden turn for the worse. I +forgot the pleasant hours that I had passed with Mrs. Lascelles, and +began to wish myself well out of the whole affair. But I had now no +intention of getting out of the glacier expedition. I would not have +missed it on any account. Bob had brought that on himself. + +And I daresay we seemed a sufficiently united trio as we marched along +the pretty winding path to the Findelen next morning. Dear Bob was not +only such a gentleman, but such a man, that it was almost a pleasure to +be at secret issue with him; he would make way for me at our lady's +side, listen with interest when she made me spin my martial yarns, laugh +if there was aught to laugh at, and in a word, give me every conceivable +chance. His manners might have failed him for one heated moment +overnight; they were beyond all praise this morning; and I repeatedly +discerned a morbid sporting dread of giving the adversary less than fair +play. It was sad to me to consider myself as such to Catherine's son, +but I was determined not to let the thought depress me, and there was +much outward occasion for good cheer. The morning was a perfect one in +every way. The rain had released all the pungent aromas of the mountain +woods through which we passed. Snowy height came in dazzling contrast +with a turquoise sky. The toy town of Zermatt spattered the green hollow +far below. And before me on the narrow path went Bob Evers in a flannel +suit, followed by Mrs. Lascelles and her red parasol, though he carried +her alpenstock with his own in readiness for the glacier. + +Thither we came in this order, I at least very hot from hard hobbling to +keep up; but the first breath from the glacier cooled me like a bath, +and the next like the great drink in the second stanza of the Ode to a +Nightingale. I could have shouted out for pleasure, and must have done +so but for the engrossing business of keeping a footing on the sloping +ice with its soiled margin of yet more treacherous _moraine_. Yet on the +glacier itself I was less handicapped than I had been on the way, and +hopped along finely with my two shod sticks and the sharp new nails in +my boots. Bob, however, was invariably in the van, and Mrs. Lascelles +seemed more disposed to wait for me than to hurry after him. I think he +pushed the pace unwittingly, under the prick of those emotions which +otherwise were in such excellent control. I can see him now, continually +waiting for us on the brow of some glistening ice-slope, leaning on his +alpenstock and looking back, jet-black by contrast between the blinding +hues of ice and sky. + +But once he waited on the brink of some unfathomable crevasse, and then +we all three cowered together and peeped down; the sides were green and +smooth and sinister, like a crack in the sea, but so close together that +one could not have fallen out of sight; yet when Bob loosened a lump of +ice and kicked it in we heard it clattering from wall to wall in +prolonged diminuendo before the faint splash just reached our ears. Mrs. +Lascelles shuddered, and threw out a hand to prevent me from peering +farther over. The gesture was obviously impersonal and instinctive, as +an older eye would have seen, but Bob's was smouldering when mine met it +next, and in the ensuing advance he left us farther behind than ever. +But on the rock where we had our lunch he was once more himself, bright +and boyish, careless and assured. So he continued till the end of that +chapter. On the way home, moreover, he never once forged ahead, but was +always ready with a hand for Mrs. Lascelles at the awkward places; and +on the way through the woods, nothing would serve him but that I should +set the pace, that we might all keep together. Judge therefore of my +surprise when he came to my room, as I was dressing for the absurdly +early dinner which is the one blot upon Riffel Alp arrangements, with +the startling remark that we "might as well run straight with one +another." + +"By all means, my dear fellow," said I, turning to him with the lather +on my chin. He was dressed already, as perfectly as usual, and his hands +were in his pockets. But his fresh brown face was as grave as any +judge's, and his mouth as stern. I went on to ask, disingenuously +enough, if we had not been "running straight with each other" as it was. + +"Not quite," said Bob Evers, dryly; "and we might as well, you know!" + +"To be sure; but don't mind if I go on shaving, and pray speak for +yourself." + +"I will," he rejoined. "Do you remember our conversation the night you +came?" + +"More or less." + +"I mean when you and I were alone together, before we turned in." + +"Oh, yes. I remember something about it." + +"It would be too silly to expect you to remember much," he went on after +a pause, with a more delicate irony than heretofore. "But, as a matter +of fact, I believe I said it was all rot that people talked about the +impossibility of being mere pals with a woman, and all that sort of +thing." + +"I believe you did.'" + +"Well, then, _that_ was rot. That's all." + +I turned round with my razor in mid-air, + +"My dear fellow!" I exclaimed. + +"Quite funny, isn't it?" he laughed, but rather harshly, while his +mountain bronze deepened under my scrutiny. + +"You are not in earnest, Bob!" said I; and on the word his laughter +ended, his colour went. + +"_I_ am," he answered through his teeth. "_Are you_?" + +Never was war carried more suddenly into the enemy's country, or that +enemy's breath more completely taken away than mine. What could I say? +"As much as you are, I should hope!" was what I ultimately said. + +The lad stood raking me with a steady fire from his blue eyes. + +"I mean to marry her," he said, "if she will have me." + +There was no laughing at him. Though barely twenty, as I knew, he was +man enough for any age as we faced each other in my room, and a man who +knew his own mind into the bargain. + +"But, my dear Bob," I ventured to remonstrate, "you are years too +young--" + +"That's my business. I am in earnest. What about you?" + +I breathed again. + +"My good fellow," said I, "you are at perfect liberty to give yourself +away to me, but you really mustn't expect me to do quite the same for +you." + +"I expect precious little, I can tell you!" the lad rejoined hotly. +"Not that it matters twopence so long as you are not misled by anything +I said the other day. I prefer to run straight with you--you can run as +you like with me. I only didn't want you to think that I was saying one +thing and doing another. As a matter of fact I meant all I said at the +time, or thought I did, until you came along and made me look into +myself rather more closely than I had done before. I won't say how you +managed it. You will probably see for yourself. But I'm very much +obliged to you, whatever happens. And now that we understand each other +there's no more to be said, and I'll clear out." + +There was, indeed, no more to be said, and I made no attempt to detain +him; for I did see for myself, only too clearly and precisely, how I had +managed to precipitate the very thing which I had come out from England +expressly to prevent. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +PRAYERS AND PARABLES + + +I had quite forgotten one element which plays its part in most affairs +of the affections. I mean, of course, the element of pique. Bob Evers, +with the field to himself, had been sensible and safe enough; it was my +intrusion, and nothing else, which had fanned his boyish flame into this +premature conflagration. Of that I felt convinced. But Bob would not +believe me if I told him so; and what else was there for me to tell him? +To betray Catherine and the secret of my presence, would simply hasten +an irrevocable step. To betray Mrs. Lascelles, and _her_ secret, would +certainly not prevent one. Both courses were out of the question upon +other grounds. Yet what else was left? + +To speak out boldly to Mrs. Lascelles, to betray Catherine and myself to +her? + +I shrank from that; nor had I any right to reveal a secret which was +not only mine. What then was I to do? Here was this lad professedly on +the point of proposing to this woman. It was useless to speak to the +lad; it was impossible to speak to the woman. To be sure, she might not +accept him; but the mere knowledge that she was to have the chance +seemed enormously to increase my responsibility in the matter. As for +the dilemma in which I now found myself, deservedly as you please, there +was no comparing it with any former phase of this affair. + + "O, what a tangled web we weave, + When first we practise to deceive!" + +The hackneyed lines sprang unbidden, as though to augment my punishment; +then suddenly I reflected that it was not in my own interest I had begun +to practise my deceit; and the thought of Catherine braced me up, +perhaps partly because I felt that it should. I put myself back into the +fascinating little room in Elm Park Gardens. I saw the slender figure in +the picture hat, I heard the half-humorous and half-pathetic voice. +After all, it was for Catherine I had undertaken this ridiculous +mission; she was therefore my first and had much better be my only +consideration. I could not run with the hare after hunting with the +hounds. And I should like to have seen Catherine's face if I had +expressed any sympathy with the hare! + +No; it was better to be unscrupulously stanch to one woman than weakly +chivalrous toward both; and my mind was made up by the end of dinner. +There was only one chance now of saving the wretched Bob, or rather one +way of setting to work to save him; and that was by actually adopting +the course with which he had already credited me. He thought I was +"trying to cut him out." Well, I would try! + +But the more I thought of him, of Mrs. Lascelles, of them both, the less +sanguine I felt of success; for had I been she (I could not help +admitting it to myself), as lonely, as reckless, as unlucky, I would +have married the dear young idiot on the spot. Not that my own marriage +(with Mrs. Lascelles) was an end that I contemplated for a moment as I +took my cynical resolve. And now I trust that I have made both my +position and my intentions very plain, and have written myself down +neither more of a fool nor less of a knave than circumstances (and one's +own infirmities) combined to make me at this juncture of my career. + +The design was still something bolder than its execution, and if Bob did +not propose that night it was certainly no fault of mine. I saw him with +Mrs. Lascelles on the terrace after dinner; but I had neither the heart +nor the face to thrust myself upon them. Everything was altered since +Bob had shown me his hand; there were certain rules of the game which +even I must now observe. So I left him in undisputed possession of the +perilous ground, and being in a heavy glow from the strong air of the +glacier, went early to my room; where I lay long enough without a wink, +but quite prepared for Bob, with news of his engagement, at every step +in the corridor. + +Next day was Sunday, and chiefly, I am afraid, because there was neither +blind nor curtain to my dormer-window, and the morning sun streamed full +upon my pillow, I got up and went to early service in the little tin +Protestant Church. It was wonderfully well attended. Quinby was there, +a head taller than anybody else, and some sizes smaller in heads. The +American bridegroom came in late with his "best girl." The late Vice +Chancellor, with the peeled nose, and Mr. Belgrave Teale, fit for Church +Parade, or for the afternoon act in one of his own fashion-plays, took +round the offertory bags, into which Mr. Justice Sankey (in race-course +checks) dropped gold. It was not the sort of service at which one cares +to look about one, but I was among the early comers, and I could not +help it. Mrs. Lascelles, however, was there before me, whereas Bob Evers +was not there at all. Nevertheless, I did not mean to walk back with her +until I saw her walking very much alone, a sort of cynosure even on the +way from church, though humble and grave and unconscious as any country +maid. I watched her with the rest, but in a spirit of my own. Some +subtle change I seemed to detect in Mrs. Lascelles as in Bob. Had he +really declared himself overnight, and had she actually accepted him? A +new load seemed to rest upon her shoulders, a new anxiety, a new care; +and as if to confirm my idea, she started and changed colour as I came +up. + +"I didn't see you in church," she remarked, in her own natural fashion, +when we had exchanged the ordinary salutations. + +"I am afraid you wouldn't expect to see me, Mrs. Lascelles." + +"Well, as a matter of fact, I didn't, but I suppose," added Mrs. +Lascelles, as her rich voice fell into a pensive (but not a pathetic) +key, "I suppose it is you who are much more surprised at seeing me. I +can't help it if you are, Captain Clephane. I am not really a religious +person. I have not flown to that extreme as yet. But it has been a +comfort to me, sometimes; and so, sometimes, I go." + +It was very simply said, but with a sigh at the end that left me +wondering whether she was in any new need of spiritual solace. Did she +already find herself in the dilemma in which I had imagined her, and was +it really a dilemma to her? New hopes began to chase my fears, and were +gaining upon them when a flannel suit on the sunlit steps caused a +temporary check: there was Bob waiting for us, his hands in his +pockets, a smile upon his face, yet in the slope of his shoulders and +the carriage of his head a certain indefinable but very visible +attention and intent. + +"Is Mrs. Evers a religious woman?" asked my companion, her step slowing +ever so slightly as we approached. + +"Not exactly; but she knows all about it," I replied. + +"And doesn't believe very much? Then we shouldn't hit it off," exclaimed +Mrs. Lascelles, "for I know nothing and believe all I can! Nevertheless, +I'm not going to church again to-day." + +The last words were in a sort of aside, and I afterwards heard that Bob +and Mrs. Lascelles had attended the later service together on the +previous Sunday; but I guessed almost as much on the spot, and it put +out of my head both the unjust assumption of the earlier remark, +concerning Catherine, and the contrast between them which Mrs. Lascelles +could hardly afford to emphasise. + +"Let's go somewhere else instead--Zermatt--or anywhere else you like," I +suggested, eagerly; but we were close to the steps, and before she +could reply Bob had taken off his straw hat to Mrs. Lascelles, and flung +me a nod. + +"How very energetic!" he cried. "I only hope it's a true indication of +form, for I've got a scheme: instead of putting in another chapel I +propose we stroll down to Zermatt for lunch and come back by the train." + +Bob's proposal was made pointedly to Mrs. Lascelles, and as pointedly +excluded me, but she stood between the two of us with a charming smile +of good-humoured perplexity. + +"Now what am I to say? Captain Clephane was in the very act of making +the same suggestion!" + +Bob glared on me for an instant in spite of Eton and all his ancestors. + +"We'll all go together," I cried before he could speak. "Why not?" + +Nor was this mere unreasoning or good-natured impulse, since Bob could +scarcely have pressed his suit in my presence, while I should certainly +have done my best to retard it; still, it was rather a relief to me to +see him shake his head with some return of his natural grace. + +"My idea was to show Mrs. Lascelles the gorge," said Bob, "but you can +do that as well as I can; you can't miss it; besides, I've seen it, and +I really ought to stay up here, as a matter of fact, for I'm on the +track of a guide for the Matterhorn." + +We looked at him narrowly with one accord, but he betrayed no signs of +desperate impulse, only those of "climbing fever," and I at least +breathed again. + +"But if you want a guide," said I, "Zermatt's full of them." + +"I know," said he, "but it's a particular swell I'm after, and he hangs +out up here in the season. They expect him back from a big trip any +moment, and I really ought to be on the spot to snap him up." + +So Bob retired, in very fair order after all, and not without his +laughing apologies to Mrs. Lascelles; but it was sad to me to note the +spurious ring his laugh had now; it was like the death-knell of the +simple and the single heart that it had been my lot, if not my mission, +to poison and to warp. But the less said about my odious task, the +sooner to its fulfilment, which now seemed close at hand. + +It was not in fact so imminent as I supposed, for the descent into +Zermatt is somewhat too steep for the conduct of a necessarily delicate +debate. Sound legs go down at a compulsory run, and my companion was +continually waiting for me to catch her up, only to shoot ahead again +perforce. Or the path was too narrow for us to walk abreast, and you +cannot become confidential in single file; or the noise of falling +waters drowned our voices, when we stood together on that precarious +platform in the cool depths of the gorge, otherwise such an admirable +setting for the scene that I foresaw. Then it was a beautiful walk in +itself, with its short tacks in the precipitous pine-woods above, its +sudden plunge into the sunken gorge below, its final sweep across the +green valley beyond; and it was all so new to us both that there were +impressions to exchange or to compare at every turn. In fine, and with +all the will in the world, it was quite impossible to get in a word +about Bob before luncheon at the Monte Rosa, and by that time I for one +was in no mood to introduce so difficult a topic. + +But an opportunity there came, an opportunity such as even I could not +neglect; on the contrary, I made too much of it, as the sequel will +show. It was in the little museum which every tourist goes to see. We +had shuddered over the gruesome relics of the first and worst +catastrophe on the Matterhorn, and were looking in silence upon the +primitive portraits of the two younger Englishmen who had lost their +lives on that historic occasion. It appeared that they had both been +about the same age as Bob Evers, and I pointed this out to my companion. +It was a particularly obvious remark to make; but Mrs. Lascelles turned +her face quickly to mine, and the colour left it in the half-lit, +half-haunted little room, which we happened to have all to ourselves. + +"Don't let him go up, Captain Clephane; don't let him, please!" + +"Do you mean Bob Evers?" I asked, to gain time while I considered what +to say; for the intensity of her manner took me aback. + +"You know I do," said Mrs. Lascelles, impatiently; "don't let him go up +the Matterhorn to-night, or to-morrow morning, or whenever it is that he +means to start." + +"But, my dear Mrs. Lascelles, who am I to prevent that young gentleman +from doing what he likes?" + +"I thought you were more or less related?" + +"Rather less than more." + +"But aren't you very intimate with his mother?" + +I had to meet a pretty penetrating look. + +"I was once." + +"Well, then, for his mother's sake you ought to do your best to keep him +out of danger, Captain Clephane." + +It was my turn to repay the look which I had just received. No doubt I +did so with only too much interest; no doubt I was equally clumsy of +speech; but it was my opportunity, and something or other must be said. + +"Quite so, Mrs. Lascelles; and for his mother's sake," said I, "I not +only will do, I have already done, my best to keep the lad out of harm's +way. He is the apple of her eye; they are simply all the world to one +another. It would break her heart if anything happened to +him--anything--if she were to lose him in any sense of the word." + +I waited a moment, thinking she would speak, prepared on my side to be +as explicit as she pleased; but Mrs. Lascelles only looked at me with +her mouth tight shut and her eyes wide open; and I concluded--somewhat +uneasily, I will confess--that she saw for herself what I meant. + +"As for the Matterhorn," I went on, "that, I believe, is not such a very +dangerous exploit in these days. There are permanent chains and things +where there used to be polished precipices. It makes the real +mountaineers rather scornful; anyone with legs and a head, they will +tell you, can climb the Matterhorn nowadays. If I had the legs I'd go +with him, like a shot." + +"To share the danger, I suppose?" + +"And the sport." + +"Ah," said Mrs. Lascelles, "and the sport, of course! I had forgotten +that!" + +Yet I did not perceive that I had been found out, for nothing was +further from my mind than to prolong the parable to which I had stooped +in passing a few moments before. It had served its purpose, I conceived. +I had given my veiled warning; it never occurred to me that Mrs. +Lascelles might be indulging in a veiled retort. I thought she was +annoyed at the hint that I had given her. I began to repent of that +myself. It had quite spoilt our day, and so many and long were the +silences, as we wandered from little shop to little shop, and finally +with relief to the train, that I had plenty of time to remember how much +we had found to talk about all the morning. + +But matters were coming to a head in spite of me, for Bob Evers waylaid +us on our return, and, with hardly a word to Mrs. Lascelles, straightway +followed me to my room. He was pale with a suppressed anger which flared +up even as he closed my door behind him, but though his honest face was +now in flames, he still kept control of his tongue. + +"I want you to lend me one of those sticks of yours," he said, quietly; +"the heaviest, for choice." + +"What the devil for?" I demanded, thinking for the moment of no +shoulders but my own. + +"To give that bounder Quinby the licking he deserves!" cried Bob: "to +give it him now at once, when the post comes in, and there are plenty of +people about to see the fun. Do you know what he's been saying and +spreading all over the place?" + +"No," I answered, my heart sinking within me. "What has he been saying?" + +The colour altered on Bob's face, altered and softened to a veritable +blush, and his eyes avoided mine. + +"I'm ashamed to tell you, it makes me so sick," he said, disgustedly. +"But the fact is that he's been spreading a report about Mrs. Lascelles; +it has nothing on earth to do with me. It appears he only heard it +himself this morning, by letter, but the brute has made good use of his +time! _I_ only got wind of it an hour or two ago, of course quite by +accident, and I haven't seen the fellow since; but he's particularly +keen on his letters, and either he explains himself to my satisfaction +or I make an example of him before the hotel. It's a thing I never +dreamt of doing in my life, and I'm sorry the poor beast is such a +scarecrow; but it's a duty to punish that sort of crime against a woman, +and now I'm sure you'll lend me one of your sticks. I am only sorry I +didn't bring one with me." + +"But wait a bit, my dear fellow," said I, for he was actually holding +out his hand: "you have still to tell me what the report was." + +"Divorce!" he answered in a tragic voice. "Clephane, the fellow says she +was divorced in India, and that it was--that it was her fault!" + +He turned away his face. It was in a flame. + +"And you are going to thrash Quinby for saying that?" + +"If he sticks to it, I most certainly am," said Bob, the fire settling +in his blue eyes. + +"I should think twice about it, Bob, if I were you." + +"My dear man, what else do you suppose I have been thinking of all the +afternoon?" + +"It will make a fresh scandal, you see." + +"I can't help that." + +And Bob shut his mouth with a self-willed snap. + +"But what good will it do?" + +"A liar will be punished, that's all! It's no use talking, Clephane; my +mind is made up." + +"But are you so sure that it's a lie?" I was obliged to say it at last, +reluctantly enough, yet with a wretched feeling that I might just as +well have said it in the beginning. + +"Sure?" he echoed, his innocent eyes widening before mine. "Why, of +course I'm sure! You don't know what pals we've been. Of course I never +asked questions, but she's told me heaps and heaps of things; it would +fit in with some of them, if it were true." + +Then I told him that it was true, and how I knew that it was true, and +my reason for having kept all that knowledge to myself until now. "I +could not give her away even to you, Bob, nor yet tell you that I had +known her before; for you would have been certain to ask when and how; +and it was in her first husband's time, and under his name." + +It was a comfort to be quite honest for once with one of them, and it is +a relief even now to remember that I was absolutely honest with Bob +Evers about this. He said almost at once that he would have done the +same himself, and even as he spoke his whole manner changed toward me. +His face had darkened at my unexpected confirmation of the odious +rumour, but already it was beginning to lighten toward me, as though he +found my attitude the one redeeming feature in the new aspect of +affairs. He even thanked me for my late reserve, obviously from his +heart, and in a way that went to mine on more grounds than one. It was +as though a kindness to Mrs. Lascelles was already the greatest possible +kindness to him. + +"But I am glad you have told me now," he added, "for it explains many +things. I was inclined to look upon you, Duncan--you won't mind my +telling you now--as a bit of a deliberate interloper! But all the time +you knew her first, and that alters everything. I hope to out you still, +but I sha'n't any longer bear you a grudge if you out me!" + +I was horrified. + +"My dear fellow," I cried, "do you mean to say this makes no +difference?" + +"It does to Quinby. I must keep my hands off him, I suppose, though to +my mind he deserves his licking all the more." + +"But does it make no difference to _you_? My good boy, can you at your +age seriously think of marrying a woman who has been married twice +already, and divorced once?" + +"I didn't know that when I thought of it first," he answered, doggedly, +"and I am not going to let it make a difference now. Do you suppose I +would stand away from her because of anything that's past and over? Do +they stand away from us for--that sort of thing?" + +Of course I said that was rather different, with as much conviction as +though the ancient dogma had been my own. + +"But, Duncan, you know it's the very last thing you're dreaming of doing +yourself!" + +And again I argued, as feebly as you please, that it was quite different +in my case--that I was a good ten years older than he, and not my +mother's only son. + +Bob stiffened on the spot. + +"My mother must take care of herself," said he; "and I," he added, "I +must take care of myself, if you don't mind. And I hope you won't, for +you've been most awfully good to me, you know! I never thought so until +these last few minutes; but now I sha'n't forget it, no matter how it +all turns out!" + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +SUB JUDICE + + +Well, I made a belated attempt to earn my young friend's good opinion. I +kept out of his way after dinner, and went in search of Quinby instead. +I felt I had a crow of my own to pluck with this gentleman, who owed to +my timely intervention a far greater immunity than he deserved. It was +in the little billiard-room I found him, pachydermatously applauding the +creditable attempts of Sir John Sankey at the cannon game, and as +studiously ignoring the excellent shots of an undistinguished clergyman +who was beating the judge. Quinby made room for me beside him, with a +civility which might have caused me some compunction, but I repaid him +by coming promptly to my point. + +"What's this report about Mrs. Lascelles?" I asked, not angrily at all, +for naturally my feeling in the matter was not so strong as Bob's, but +with a certain contemptuous interest, if a man can judge of his own +outward manner from his inner temper at the time. + +Quinby favoured me with a narrow though a sidelong look; the room was +very full, and in the general chit-chat, punctuated by the constant +clicking of the heavy balls, there was very little danger of our being +overheard. But Quinby was careful to lower his voice. + +"It's perfectly true," said he, "if you mean about her being divorced." + +"Yes, that was what I heard; but who started the report?" + +"Who started it. You may well ask! Who starts anything in a place like +this? Ah, good shot, Sir John, good shot!" + +"Never mind the good shots, Quinby. I really rather want to talk to you +about this. I sha'n't keep you long." + +"Talk away, then. I am listening." + +"Mrs. Lascelles and I are rather friends." + +"So I can see." + +"Very well, then, I want to know who started all this. It may be +perfectly true, as you say, but who found it out? If you can't tell me +I must ask somebody else." + +The ruddy Alpine colouring had suddenly become accentuated in the case +of Quinby. + +"As a matter of fact," said he, "it was I who first heard of it, quite +by chance. You can't blame me for that, Clephane." + +"Of course not," said I encouragingly. + +"Well, unfortunately I let it out; and you know how things get about in +an hotel." + +"It was unfortunate," I agreed. "But how on earth did you come to hear?" + +Quinby hummed and hawed; he had heard from a soldier friend, a man who +had known her in India, a man whom I knew myself, in fact Hamilton the +sapper, who had telegraphed to Quinby to secure me my room. I ought to +have been disarmed by the coincidence; but I recalled our initial +conversation, about India and Hamilton and Mrs. Lascelles, and I could +not consider it a coincidence at all. + +"You don't mean to tell me," said I, aping the surprise I might have +felt, "that our friend wrote and gave Mrs. Lascelles away to you of his +own accord?" + +But Quinby did not vouchsafe an answer. "Hard luck, Sir John!" cried +he, as the judge missed an easy cannon, leaving his opponent a still +easier one, which lost him the game. I proceeded to press my question in +a somewhat stronger form, though still with all the suavity at my +command. + +"Surely," I urged, "you must have written to ask him about her first?" + +"That's my business, I fancy," said Quinby, with a peculiarly aggressive +specimen of the nasal snigger of which enough was made in a previous +chapter, but of which Quinby himself never tired. + +"Quite," I agreed; "but do you also consider it your business to inquire +deliberately into the past life of a lady whom I believe you only know +by sight, and to spread the result of your inquiries broadcast in the +hotel? Is that your idea of chivalry? I shall ask Sir John Sankey +whether it is his," I added, as the judge joined us with genial +condescension, and I recollected that his proverbial harshness toward +the male offender was redeemed by an extraordinary sympathy with the +women. Thereupon I laid a general case before Sir John, asking him +point-blank whether he considered such conduct as Quinby's (but I did +not say whose the conduct was) either justifiable in itself or conducive +to the enjoyment of a holiday community like ours. + +"It depends," said the judge, cocking a critical eye on the now furious +Quinby. "I am afraid we most of us enjoy our scandal, and for my part I +always like to see a humbug catch it hot. But if the scandal's about a +woman, and if it's an old scandal, and if she's a lonely woman, that +quite alters the case, and in my opinion the author of it deserves all +he gets." + +At this Quinby burst out, with an unrestrained heat that did not lower +him in my estimation, though the whole of his tirade was directed +exclusively against me. I had been talking "at" him, he declared. I +might as well have been straightforward while I was about it. He, for +his part, was not afraid to take the responsibility for anything he +might have said. It was perfectly true, to begin with. The so-called +Mrs. Lascelles, who was such a friend of mine, had been the wife of a +German Jew in Lahore, who had divorced her on her elopement with a +Major Lascelles, whom she had left in his turn, and whose name she had +not the smallest right to bear. Quinby exercised some restraint in the +utterances of these calumnies, or the whole room must have heard them, +but even as it was we had more listeners than the judge when my turn +came. + +"I won't give you the lie, Quinby, because I am quite sure you don't +know you are telling one," said I; "but as a matter of fact you are +giving currency to two. In the first place, this lady is Mrs. Lascelles, +for the major did marry her; in the second place, Major Lascelles is +dead." + +"And how do you know?" inquired Quinby, with a touch of genuine surprise +to mitigate an insolent disbelief. + +"You forget," said I, "that it was in India I knew your own informant. I +can only say that my information in all this matter is a good deal +better than his. I knew Mrs. Lascelles herself quite well out there; I +knew the other side of her case. It doesn't seem to have struck you, +Quinby, that such a woman must have suffered a good deal before, and +after, taking such a step. Or I don't suppose you would have spread +yourself to make her suffer a little more," + +And I still consider that a charitable view of his behaviour; but Quinby +was of another opinion, which he expressed with his offensive little +laugh as he lifted his long body from the settee. + +"This is what one gets for securing a room for a man one doesn't know!" +said he. + +"On the contrary," I retorted, "I haven't forgotten that, and I have +saved you something because of it. I happen to have saved you no less +than a severe thrashing from a stronger man than myself, who is even +more indignant with you than I am, and who wanted to borrow one of my +sticks for the purpose!" + +"And it would have served him perfectly right," was the old judge's +comment, when the mischief-maker had departed without returning my +parting shot. "I suppose you meant young Evers, Captain Clephane?" + +"I did indeed, Sir John. I had to tell him the truth in order to +restrain him." + +The old judge raised his eyebrows. + +"Then you hadn't to tell him it before? You are certainly consistent, +and I rather admire your position as regards the lady. But I am not so +sure that it was altogether fair toward the lad. It is one thing to +stand up for the poor soul, my dear sir, but it would be another thing +to let a nice boy like that go and marry her!" + +So that was the opinion of this ripe old citizen of the world! It ought +not to have irritated me as it did. It would be Catherine's opinion, of +course; but a dispassionate view was not to be expected from her. I had +not hitherto thought otherwise, myself; but now I experienced a perverse +inclination to take the opposite side. Was it so utterly impossible for +a woman with this woman's record to make a good wife to some man yet? I +did not admit it for an instant; he would be a lucky man who won so +healthy and so good a heart; thus I argued to myself with Mrs. Lascelles +in my mind, and nobody else. But Bob Evers was not a man, I was not sure +that he was out of his teens, and to think of him was to think at once +with Sir John Sankey and all the rest. Yes, yes, it would be madness and +suicide in such a youth; there could be no two opinions about that; and +yet I felt indignant at the mildest expression of that which I myself +could not deny. + +Such was my somewhat chaotic state of mind when I had fled the +billiard-room in my turn, and put on my overcoat and cap to commune with +myself outside. Nobody did justice to Mrs. Lascelles; it was terribly +hard to do her justice; those were perhaps the ideas that were oftenest +uppermost. I did not see how I was to be the exception and prove the +rule; my brief was for Bob, and there was an end of it. It was foolish +to worry, especially on such a night. The moon had waxed since my +arrival, and now hung almost round and altogether dazzling in the little +sky the mountains left us. Yet I had the terrace all to myself; the +magnificent voice of our latest celebrity had drawn everybody else in +doors, or under the open drawing-room windows through which it poured +out into the glorious night. And in the vivid moonlight the very +mountains seemed to have gathered about the little human hive upon their +heights, to be listening to the grand rich notes that had some right to +break their ancient silence. + + "If doughty deeds my lady please, + Right soon I'll mount my steed; + And strong his arm, and fast his seat, + That bears frae me the meed. + I'll wear thy colours in my cap, + Thy picture at my heart; + And he that bends not to thine eye + Shall rue it to his smart!" + +It was a brave new setting to brave old lines, as simple and direct as +themselves, studiously in keeping, passionate, virile, almost inspired; +and the whole so justly given that the great notes did not drown the +words as they often will, but all came clean to the ear. No wonder the +hotel held its breath! I was standing entranced myself, an outpost of +the audience underneath the windows, whose fringe I could just see round +the uttermost angle of the hotel, when Bob Evers ran down the steps, and +came toward me in such guise that I could not swear to him till the last +yard. + +"Don't say a word," he whispered excitedly. "I'm just off!" + +"Off where?" I gasped, for he had changed into full mountaineering garb, +and there was his greased face beaming in the moonlight, and the blue +spectacles twinkling about his hat-band, at half-past nine at night. + +"Up the Matterhorn!" + +"At this time of night?" + +"It is a bit late, and that's why I want it kept quiet. I don't want any +fuss or advice. I've got a couple of excellent guides waiting for me +just below by the shoemaker's hut. I told you I was on their tracks. +Well, it was to-night or never as far as they were concerned, they are +so tremendously full up. So to-night it is, and don't you remind me of +my mother!" + +I was thinking of her when he spoke; for the song had swung through a +worthy refrain into another verse, and now I knew it better. It was +Catherine who had introduced me to all my lyrics; it was to Catherine I +had once hymned this one in my unformed heart. + +"But I thought," said I, as I forced myself to think, "that everybody +went up to the _Cabane_ overnight, and started fresh from there in the +morning?" + +"Most people do, but it's as broad as it's long," declared Bob, airily, +rapidly, and with the same unwonted excitement, born as I thought of +his unwonted enterprise. "You have a ripping moonlight walk instead of a +so-called night's rest in a frowsy hut. We shall get our breakfast there +instead, and I expect to start fresher than if I had slept there and +been knocked up at two o'clock in the morning. That's all settled, +anyhow, and you can look for me on top through the telescope after +breakfast. I shall be back before dark, and then--" + +"Well, what then?" I asked, for Bob had made a significant and yet +irresolute pause, as though he could not quite bring himself to tell me +something that was on his mind. + +"Well," he echoed nonchalantly at last, as though he had not hesitated +at all, "as a matter of fact, to-morrow night I am to know my fate. I +have asked Mrs. Lascelles to marry me, and she hasn't said no, but I am +giving her till to-morrow night. That's all, Clephane. I thought it a +fair thing to let you know. If you want to waltz in and try your luck +while I'm gone, there's nothing on earth to prevent you, and it might be +most satisfactory to everybody. As a matter of fact, I'm only going so +as to get over the time and keep out of the way." + +"As a matter of fact?" I queried, waving a little stick toward the +lighted windows. "Listen a minute, and then tell me!" + +And we listened together to the last and clearest rendering of the +refrain-- + + "Then tell me how to woo thee, Love; + O tell me how to woo thee! + For thy dear sake, nae care I'll take, + Tho' ne'er another trow me!" + +"What tosh!" shouted Bob (his mother should have heard him) through the +applause. "Of course I'm going to take care of myself, and of course I +meant to rush the Matterhorn while I'm here, but between ourselves +that's my only reason for rushing it to-night." + +Yet had he no boyish vision of quick promotion in the lady's heart, no +primitive desire to show his mettle out of hand, to set her trembling +while he did or died? He had, I thought, and he had not; that shining +face could only have reflected a single and candid heart. But it is +these very natures, so simple and sweet-hearted and transparent, that +are least to be trusted on the subject of their own motives and +emotions, for they are the soonest deceived, not only by others but in +themselves. Or so I venture to think, and even then reflected, as I +shook my dear lad's hand by the side parapet of the moonlit terrace, and +watched him run down into the shadows of the fir-trees and so out of my +sight with two dark and stalwart figures that promptly detached +themselves from the shadows of the shoemaker's hut. A third figure +mounted to where I now sat listening to the easy, swinging, confident +steps, as they fell fainter and fainter upon the ear; it was the +shoemaker himself who had shod my two sticks with spikes and my boots +with formidable nails; and we exchanged a few words in a mixture of +languages which I should be very sorry to reproduce. + +"Do you know those two guides?" is what I first asked in effect. + +"Very well, monsieur." + +"Are they good guides?" + +"The very best, monsieur." + + + + +CHAPTER X + +THE LAST WORD + + +"Is that you?" + +It was an hour or so later, but still I sat ruminating upon the parapet, +within a yard or two of the spot where I had first accosted Bob Evers +and Mrs. Lascelles. I had retraced the little sequence of subsequent +events, paltry enough in themselves, yet of a certain symmetry and some +importance as a whole. I had attacked and defended my own conduct down +to that hour, when I ought to have been formulating its logical +conclusion, and during my unprofitable deliberations the night had aged +and altered (as it were) behind my back. There was no more music in the +drawing-room. There were no more people under the drawing-room windows. +The lights in all the lower windows were not what they had been; it was +the bedroom tiers that were illuminated now. But I did not realise that +there was less light outside until I awoke to the fact that Mrs. +Lascelles was peering tentatively toward me, and putting her question in +such an uncertain tone. + +"That depends who I am supposed to be," I answered, laughing as I rose +to put my personality beyond doubt. + +"How stupid of me!" laughed Mrs. Lascelles in her turn, though rather +nervously to my fancy. "I thought it was Mr. Evers!" + +I had hard work to suppress an exclamation. So he had not told her what +he was going to do, and yet he had not forbidden me to tell her. Poor +Bob was more subtle than I had supposed, but it was a simple subtlety, a +strange chord but still in key with his character as I knew it. + +"I am sorry to disappoint you," said I. "But I am afraid you won't see +any more of Bob Evers to-night." + +"What do you mean?" asked Mrs. Lascelles, suspiciously. + +"I wonder he didn't tell you," I replied, to gain time in which to +decide how to make the best use of such an unforeseen opportunity. + +"Well, he didn't; so please will you, Captain Clephane?" + +"Bob Evers," said I, with befitting gravity, "is climbing the Matterhorn +at this moment." + +"Never!" + +"At least he has started." + +"When did he start?" + +"An hour or more ago, with a couple of guides." + +"He told you, then?" + +"Only just as he was starting." + +"Was it a sudden idea?" + +"More or less, I think." + +I waited for the next question, but that was the last of them. Just then +the interloping cloud floated clear of the moon, and I saw that my +companion was wrapped up as on the earlier night, in the same +unconventional combination of rain-coat and golf-cape; but now the hood +hung down, and the sudden rush of moonlight showed me a face as full of +sheer perplexity and annoyance as I could have hoped to find it, and as +free from deeper feeling. + +"The silly boy!" exclaimed Mrs. Lascelles at last. "I suppose it really +is pretty safe, Captain Clephane?" + +"Safer than most dangerous things, I believe; and they are the safest, +as you know, because you take most care. He has a couple of excellent +guides; the chance of getting them was partly why he went. In all human +probability we shall have him back safe and sound, and fearfully pleased +with himself, long before this time to-morrow. Meanwhile, Mrs. +Lascelles," I continued with the courage of my opportunity, "it is a +very good chance for me to speak to you about our friend Bob. I have +wanted to do so for some little time." + +"Have you, indeed?" said Mrs. Lascelles, coldly. + +"I have," I answered imperturbably; "and if it wasn't so late I should +ask for a hearing now." + +"Oh, let us get it over, by all means!" + +But as she spoke Mrs. Lascelles glanced over the shoulder that she +shrugged so contemptuously, toward the lights in the bedroom windows, +most of which were wide open. + +"We could walk toward the zig-zags," I suggested. "There is a seat +within a hundred yards, if you don't think it too cold to sit, but in +any case I needn't keep you many minutes. Bob Evers," I continued, as my +suggestion was tacitly accepted, "paid me the compliment of confiding in +me somewhat freely before he started on this hare-brained expedition of +his." + +"So it appears." + +"Ah, but he didn't only tell me what he was going to do; he told me why +he was doing it," said I, as we sauntered on our way side by side. "It +was difficult to believe," I added, when I had waited long enough for +the question upon which I had reckoned. + +"Indeed?" + +"He said he had proposed to you." + +And again I waited, but never a word. + +"That child!" I added with deliberate scorn. + +But a further pause was broken only by my companion's measured steps and +my own awkward shuffle. + +"That baby!" I insisted. + +"Did you tell him he was one, Captain Clephane?" asked Mrs. Lascelles, +dryly, but drawn so far at last. + +"I spared his feelings. But can it be true, Mrs. Lascelles?" + +"It is true." + +"Is it a fact that you didn't give him a definite answer?" + +"I don't know what business it is of yours," said Mrs. Lascelles, +bluntly; "and since he seems to have told you everything, neither do I +know why you should ask me. However, it is quite true that I did not +finally refuse him on the spot." + +This carefully qualified confirmation should have afforded me abundant +satisfaction. I was over-eager in the matter, however, and I cried out +impetuously: + +"But you will?" + +"Will what?" + +"Refuse the boy!" + +We had reached the seat, but neither of us sat down. Mrs. Lascelles +appeared to be surveying me with equal resentment and defiance. I, on +the other hand, having shot my bolt, did my best to look conciliatory. + +"Why should I refuse him?" she asked at length, with less emotion and +more dignity than her bearing had led me to expect. "You seem so sure +about it, you know!" + +"He is such a boy--such an utter child--as I said just now." I was +conscious of the weakness of saying it again, and it alone, but my +strongest arguments were too strong for direct statement. + +This one, however, was not unfruitful in the end. + +"And I," said Mrs. Lascelles, "how old do you think I am? Thirty-five?" + +"Of course not," I replied, with obvious gallantry. "But I doubt if Bob +is even twenty." + +"Well, then, you won't believe me, but I was married before I was his +age, and I am just six-and-twenty now." + +It was a surprise to me. I did not doubt it for a moment; one never did +doubt Mrs. Lascelles. It was indeed easy enough to believe (so much I +told her) if one looked upon the woman as she was, and only difficult in +the prejudicial light of her matrimonial record. I did not add these +things. "But you are a good deal older," I could not help saying, "in +the ways of the world, and it is there that Bob is such an absolute +infant." + +"But I thought an Eton boy was a man of the world?" said Mrs. Lascelles, +quoting me against myself with the utmost readiness. + +"Ah, in some things," I had to concede. "Only in some things, however." + +"Well," she rejoined, "of course I know what you mean by the other +things. They matter to your mind much more than mere age, even if I had +been fifteen years older, instead of five or six. It's the old story, +from the man's point of view. You can live anything down, but you won't +let us. There is no fresh start for a woman; there never was and never +will be." + +I protested that this was unfair. "I never said that, or anything like +it, Mrs. Lascellcs!" + +"No, you don't say it, but you think it!" she cried back. "It is the one +thing you have in your mind. I was unhappy, I did wrong, so I can never +be happy, I can never do right! I am unfit to marry again, to marry a +good man, even if he loves me, even if I love him!" + +"I neither say nor think anything of the kind," I reiterated, and with +some slight effect this time. Mrs. Lascelles put no more absurdities +into my mouth. + +"Then what do you say?" she demanded, her deep voice vibrant with +scornful indignation, though there were tears in it too. + +"I think he will be a lucky fellow who gets you," I said, and meant +every word, as I looked at her well in the moonlight, with her shining +eyes, and curling lip, and fighting flush. + +"Thank you, Captain Clephane!" + +And I thought I was to be honoured with a contemptuous courtesy; but I +was not. + +"He ought to be a man, however," I went on, "and not a boy, and still +less the only child of a woman with whom you would never get on." + +"So you are as sure of that," exclaimed Mrs. Lascelles, "as of +everything else!" It seemed, however, to soften her, or at least to +change the current of her thoughts. "Yet you get on with her?" she added +with a wistful intonation. + +I could not deny that I got on with Catherine Evers. + +"You are even fond of her?" + +"Quite fond." + +"Then do you find me a very disagreeable person, that she and I couldn't +possibly hit it off, in your opinion?" + +"It isn't that, Mrs. Lascelles," said I, almost wearily. "You must know +what it is. You want to marry her son--" + +Mrs. Lascelles smiled. + +"Well, let us suppose you do. That would be quite enough for Mrs. Evers. +No matter who you were, how peerless, how incomparable in every way, she +would rather die than let you marry him at his age. I don't say she's +wrong--I don't say she's right. I give you the plain fact for what it is +worth: you would find her from the first a clever and determined +adversary, a regular little lioness with her cub, and absolutely +intolerant on that particular point." + +I could see Catherine as I spoke, the Catherine I had seen last, and +liked least to remember; but the vision faded before the moonlit reality +of Mrs. Lascelles, laughing to herself like a great, naughty, pretty +child. + +"I really think I must marry him," she said, "and see what happens!" + +"If you do," I answered, in all seriousness, "you will begin by +separating mother and son, and end by making both their lives miserable, +and bringing the last misery into your own." + +And either my tone impressed her, or the covert reminder in my last +words; for the bold smile faded from her face, and she looked longer and +more searchingly in mine than she had done as yet. + +"You know Mrs. Evers exceedingly well," Mrs. Lascelles remarked. + +"I did years ago," I guardedly replied. + +"Do you mean to say," urged my companion, "that you have not seen her +for years?" + +I did not altogether like her tone. Yet it was so downright and +straightforward, it was hard to be the very reverse in answer to it, and +I shied idiotically at the honest lie. I had quite lost sight both of +Bob and his mother, I declared, from the day I went to India until now. + +"You mean until you came out here?" persisted Mrs. Lascelles. + +"Until the other day," I said, relying on a carefully affirmative tone +to close the subject. There was a pause. I began to hope I had +succeeded. The flattering tale was never finished. + +"I believe," said Mrs. Lascelles, "that you saw Mrs. Evers in town +before you started." + +It was too late to lie. + +"As a matter of fact," I answered easily, "I did." + +I built no hopes on the pause which followed that. Somehow I had my face +to the moon, and Mrs. Lascelles had her back. Yet I knew that her +scrutiny of me was more critical than ever. + +"How funny of Bob never to have told me!" she said. + +"Told you what?" + +"That you saw his mother just before you left." + +"I didn't tell him," I said at length. + +"That was funny of you, Captain Clephane." + +"On the contrary," I argued, with the impudence which was now my only +chance, "it was only natural. Bob was rather raw with his friend +Kennerley, you see. You knew about that?" + +"Oh, yes." + +"And why they fell out?" + +"Yes." + +"Well, he might have thought the other fellow had been telling tales, +and that I had come out to have an eye on him, if he had known that I +happened to see his mother just before I started." + +There was another pause; but now I was committed to an attitude, and +prepared for the worst. + +"Perhaps there would have been some truth in it?" suggested Mrs. +Lascelles. + +"Perhaps," I agreed, "a little." + +The pause now was the longest of all. It had no terrors for me. Another +cloud had come between us and the moon. I was sorry for that. I felt +that I was missing something. Even the fine upstanding figure before me +was no longer sharp enough to be expressive. + +"I have been harking back," explained Mrs. Lascelles, eventually. "Now I +begin to follow. You saw his mother, you heard a report, and you +volunteered or at least consented to come out and keep an eye on the +dear boy, as you say yourself. Am I not more or less right so far, +Captain Clephane?" + +Her tone was frozen honey. + +"More or less," I admitted ironically. + +"Of course, I don't know what report that other miserable young man may +have carried home with him. I don't want to know. But I can guess. One +does not stay in hotel after hotel without getting a pretty shrewd idea +of the way people talk about one. I know the sort of things they have +been saying here. You would hear them yourself, no doubt, Captain +Clephane, as soon as you arrived." + +I admitted that I had, but reminded Mrs. Lascelles that the first person +I had spoken to was also the greatest gossip in the hotel. She paid no +attention to the remark, but stood looking at me again, with the look +that I could never quite see to read. + +"And then," she went on, "you found out who it was, and you remembered +all about me, and your worst fears were confirmed. That must have been +an interesting moment. I wonder how you felt.... Did it never occur to +you to speak plainly to anybody?" + +"I wasn't going to give you away," I said, stolidly, though with no +conscious parade of virtue. + +"Yet, you see, it would have made no difference if you had! Did you +seriously think it would make much difference, Captain Clephane, to a +really chivalrous young man?" I bowed my head to the well-earned taunt. +"But," she went on, "there was no need for you to speak to Mr. Evers. +You might have spoken to me. Why did you not do that?" + +"Because I didn't want to quarrel with you," I answered quite honestly; +"because I enjoyed your society too much myself." + +"That was very nice of you," said Mrs. Lascelles, with a sudden although +subtle return of the good-nature which had always attracted me. "If it +is sincere," she added, as an apparent afterthought. + +"I am perfectly sincere now." + +"Then what do you think I should do?" she asked me, in the soft new tone +which actually flattered me with the idea that she was making up her +mind to take my advice. + +"Refuse this lad!" + +"And then?" she almost whispered. + +"And then--" + +I hesitated. I found it hard to say what I thought, hard even upon +myself. We had been good friends. I admired the woman cordially; her +society was pleasant to me, as it always had been. Nevertheless, we had +just engaged in a duel of no friendly character; and now that we seemed +of a sudden to have become friends again, it was the harder to give her +the only advice which I considered compatible alike with my duty and the +varied demands of the situation. If she took it as she seemed disposed +to do, the immediate loss would be mine, and I foresaw besides a much +more disagreeable reckoning with Bob Evers than the one now approaching +an amicable conclusion. I should have to stay behind to face the music +of his wrath alone. Still, at the risk of appearing brutal I made my +proposal in plain terms; but, to minimise that risk, I ventured to take +the lady's hand and was glad to find the familiarity permitted in the +same friendly spirit in which it was indulged. + +"I would have no 'and then,'" I said, "if I were you. I should refuse +him under such circumstances that he couldn't possibly bother you, or +himself about you, again. Now is your opportunity." + +"Is it?" she asked, a thrilling timbre in her low voice. And I fancied +there was a kindred tremor in the firm warm hand within mine. + +"The best of opportunities," I replied, "if you are not too wedded to +this place, and can tear yourself away from the rest of us." (Her hand +lay loose in mine.) "Mrs. Lascelles, I should go to-morrow morning" (her +hand fell away altogether), "while he is still up the Matterhorn and I +shouldn't let him know where I--shouldn't give him a chance of finding +out--" + +A sudden peal of laughter cut me short. I could not have believed it +came from my companion. But no other soul was near us, though I looked +all ways. It was the merriest laughter imaginable, only the merriment +was harsh and hard. + +"Oh, thank you, Captain Clephane! You are too delicious! I saw it +coming; I only wondered whether I could contain myself until it came. +Yet I could hardly believe that even you would commit yourself to that +finishing touch of impudence! Certainly it is an opportunity, _his_ +being out of the way. _You_ were not long in making use of it, were you? +It will amuse him when he comes down, though it may open his eyes. I +shall tell him everything, so I give you warning. Every single thing, +that you have had the insolence to tell me!" + +She had caught up her skirts from the ground, she had half turned away +from me, toward the hotel. The false merriment had died out of her. The +true indignation remained, ringing in every accent of the deep sweet +voice, and drawn up in every inch of the tall straight figure. I do not +remember whether the moon was hid or shining at the moment. I only know +that my lady's eyes shone bright enough for me to see them then and ever +after, bright and dry with a scorn that burnt too hot for tears; and +that I admired her even while she scorned me, as I had never thought to +admire any woman but one, but this woman least of all. + +So we both stood, intent, some seconds, looking our last upon each other +if I was wise. Then I lifted my hat, and offered my congratulations +(more sincere than they sounded) to her and Bob. + +"Did I tell you why he is going up?" I added. "It is to pass the time +until he knows his fate. If only we could let him know it now!" + +Mrs. Lascelles glanced toward the mountain, and my eyes followed hers. +A great cloud hid the grim outstanding summit. + +"If only you had prevented him from going!" she cried back at me in a +last reproach; and to me her tone was conclusive, it rang so true, and +so invidiously free from the smaller emotions which it had been my own +unhappiness to inspire. It was the real woman who had spoken out once +more, suddenly, perhaps unthinkingly, but obviously from her heart. And +as she turned, I followed her very slowly and without a word; for now +was I surely and deservedly undone. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +THE LION'S MOUTH + + +It was a chilly morning, with rather a high wind; from the haze about +the mountains of the Zermatt valley, which were all that I could see +from my bedroom window, it occurred to me that I might look in vain for +the Matterhorn from the other side of the hotel. It was still visible, +however, when I came down, a white cloud wound about its middle like a +cloth, and the hotel telescope already trained upon its summit from the +shelter of the glass veranda. + +"See anybody?" I asked of a man who sat at the telescope as though his +eye was frozen to the lens. He might have been witnessing the most +exciting adventure, where the naked eye saw only rock and snow, and cold +grey sky; but he rose at last with a shake of the head, a great gaunt +man with kind keen eyes, and the skin peeled off his nose. + +"No," said he, "I can't see anybody, and I'm very glad I can't. It's +about as bad a morning for it as you could possibly have; yet last night +was so fine that some fellows might have got up to the hut, and been +foolish enough not to come down again. But have a look for yourself." + +"Oh, thanks," said I, considerably relieved at what I heard, "but if you +can't see anybody I'm sure I can't. You have done it yourself, I +daresay?" + +The gaunt man smiled demurely, and the keen eyes twinkled in his flayed +face. He was, indeed, a palpable mountaineer. + +"What, the Matterhorn?" said he, lowering his voice and looking about +him as if on the point of some discreditable admission. "Oh, yes, I've +done the Matterhorn, back and front and both sides, with and without +guides; but everybody has, in these days. It's nothing when you know the +ropes and chains and things. They've got everything up there now except +an iron staircase. Still, I should be sorry to tackle it to-day, even if +they had a lift!" + +"Do you think guides would?" I asked, less reassured than I had felt at +first. + +"It depends on the guides. They are not the first to turn back, as a +rule; but they like wind and mist even less than we do. The guides know +what wind and mist mean." + +I now understood the special disadvantages of the day and realised the +obvious dangers. I could only hope that either Bob Evers or his guides +had shown the one kind of courage required by the occasion, the moral +courage of turning back. But I was not at all sure of Bob. His stimulus +was not that of the single-minded, level-headed mountaineer; in his +romantic exaltation he was capable of hailing the very perils as so many +more means of grace in the sight of Mrs. Lascelles; yet without doubt he +would have repudiated any such incentive, and that in all the sincerity +of his simple heart. He did not know himself as I knew him. + +My fears were soon confirmed. Returning to the glass veranda, after the +stock breakfast of the Swiss hotel, with its horseshoe rolls and +fabricated honey, I found the telescope the centre of an ominous crowd, +on whose fringe hovered my new friend the mountaineer. + +"We were wrong," he muttered to me. "Some fools are up there, after +all." + +"How many?" I asked quickly. + +"I don't know. There's no getting near the telescope now, and won't be +till the clouds blot them out altogether." + +I looked out at the Matterhorn. The loincloth of cloud had shaken itself +out into a flowing robe, from which only the brown skull of the mountain +protruded in its white skull-cap. + +"There are three of them," announced a nasal voice from the heart of the +little crowd. "A great long chap and two guides." + +"He can't possibly know that," remarked the mountaineer to me, "but +let's hope it is so." + +"They're as plain as pike-staffs," continued Quinby, whose bent blond +head I now distinguished, as he occupied the congenial post of Sister +Anne. "They seem stuck.... No, they're getting up on to the snow-slope, +and the front man's cutting steps." + +"Then they're all right for the present," said the mountaineer. "It's +the getting down that's ticklish." + +"You can see the rope blowing about between them ... what a wind there +must be ... it's bent out taut like a bow, you can see it against the +snow, and they're bending themselves more than forty-five degrees to +meet it." + +"All very well going _up_," murmured the mountaineer: there was a +sinister innuendo in the curt comments of the practical man. + +I turned into the hall. It, however, was quite deserted. I had hoped I +might see something of Mrs. Lascelles; she was not one of those in the +glass veranda. I now looked in the drawing-room, but neither was she +there. Returning to the empty hall, I passed a minute peering through +the locked glass door of the pigeon-holes in which the careful concierge +files the unclaimed letters. There was nothing for me that I could +discern, in the C pigeon-hole; but next door but one, under E, there lay +on the very top a letter which caught my eye and more. It had not been +through any post. It was a note directed to R. Evers, Esq., in a hand +that I knew instinctively to be that of Mrs. Lascelles, though I had +never seen it in my life before. It was a good hand, but large and bold +and downright as herself. + +The concierge stood in the doorway, one eye on the disappearing +Matterhorn, one on the experts and others in animated conclave round the +still inaccessible telescope. I touched the concierge on the arm. + +"Did you see Mrs. Lascelles this morning?" + +The man's eyes opened before his lips. + +"She has gone away, sir." + +"I know," I said, having indeed divined no less. "What train did she +catch?" + +"The first one from here. That also catches the early train from +Zermatt." + +"I am sorry," I said after a pause. "I hoped to see Mrs. Lascelles +before she went; now I must write. She left you an address, I suppose?" + +"Oh, yes, sir." + +"I shall ask you for it later on. No letters for me, I suppose?" + +"No, sir." + +"Sure?" + +"I will look again." + +And I looked with him, over his shoulder; but there was nothing; and +the note for Bob Evers now inspired me with a tripartite blend of +curiosity, envy, and apprehension. I would have had a last word from the +same hand myself; had it been never so scornful, this silent scorn was +the harder sort to bear. Also I wanted much to know what her last word +was to Bob--and dreaded more what it might be. + +There remained the unexpected triumph of having got rid of my lady after +all. That is not to be belittled even now. It is a triumph to succeed in +any undertaking, more especially when one has abandoned one's own last +hope of such success. The unpleasant character of this particular +emprise made its eventual accomplishment in some ways the greater matter +for congratulation in my eyes. At least I had done my part. I had come +to hate it, but the thing was done, and it had been a fairly difficult +thing to do. It was impossible not to plume oneself a little on the +whole, but the feeling was a superficial one, with deeper and uneasier +feelings underneath. Still, I had practically redeemed my impulsive +promise to Catherine Evers; her son and this woman once parted, it +should be easy to keep them apart, and my knowledge of the woman +forbade me to deny the fullest significance to her departure. She had +gone away to stay away--from Bob. She had listened to me the less with +her ears, because her reason and her heart had been compelled to heed. +To be sure, she saw the unsuitability, the impossibility, as clearly as +we did. But it was I who, at all events, had helped to make her see it; +wherefore I deserved well of Catherine Evers, if of no other person in +the world. + +Oddly enough, this last consideration afforded me least satisfaction; it +seemed to bring home to me by force of contrast the poor figure that I +must assuredly cut in the eyes of the other two, the still poorer +opinion that they would have of me if ever they knew all. I did not care +to pursue this train of thought. It was a subject upon which I was not +prepared to examine myself; to change it, I thought of Bob's present +peril, which I had almost forgotten as I lounged abstractedly in the +empty hall. If anything were to happen to him, in the vulgar sense! What +an irony, what poetic punishment for us survivors! And yet, even as I +rehearsed the ghastly climax in my mind, I told myself that the mother +would rather see him even thus, than married to a widow who had also +been divorced; it was the younger woman who would never forgive me, or +herself. + +Disappointed faces met me on my next visit to the veranda. The little +crowd there had dwindled to a group. I could have had the telescope now +for as long as I liked: the upper part of the Matterhorn was finally and +utterly effaced and swallowed up by dense white mist and cloud. My +friend the mountaineer looked grave, but his disfigured face did not +wear the baulked expression of others to which he drew my attention. + +"It is like the curtain coming down with the man's head still in the +lion's mouth," said he. + +"I hope," said I devoutly, "that you don't seriously think there's any +analogy?" + +The climber looked at me steadily, and then smiled. + +"Well, no, perhaps I don't think it quite so bad as all that. But it's +no use pretending it isn't dangerous. May I ask if you know who the +foolhardy fellow is?" + +I said I did not know, but mentioned my suspicion, only begging my +climbing friend not to let the name go any farther. It was in too many +mouths already, in quite another connection, I was going on to explain; +but the mountaineer nodded, as much as to warn me that even he knew all +about that. It was Bob's office, however, to provide the hotel with its +sensation while he remained, and he was not allowed to perform +anonymously very long. His departure over night leaked out. I was asked +if it was true. The flight of Mrs. Lascelles was the next discovery; +desperate deductions were drawn at once. She had jilted the unlucky +youth and sent him in utter recklessness on his intentionally suicidal +ascent. Nobody any longer expected to see him come down alive; so much I +gathered from the fragments of conversation that reached my ears; and +never was better occupation for a bad day than appeared to be afforded +by the discussion of the supposititious tragedy in all its imaginary +details. As, however, the talk invariably abated at my approach, giving +place to uncomplimentary glances in my direction, I could not but infer +that public opinion had assigned me an unenviable part in the piece. +Perhaps I deserved it, though not from their point of view. + +The afternoon was at once a dreariness and a dread. There was no ray of +sun without, no sort of warmth within. The Matterhorn never reappeared, +but seemed the grimmer monster for this sinister invisibility. I +gathered that there was real occasion for anxiety, if not for alarm, and +I nursed mine chiefly in my own room until I heard the news when I went +down for my letters. Bob Evers had walked in as though nothing had +happened, and gone straight up to his room with a note that the +concierge handed him. Some one had asked him whether it was he who had +been up the Matterhorn in the morning, and young Evers had vouchsafed +the barest affirmative compatible with civility. The sunburnt climber +was my informant. + +"And I don't mind telling you it is a relief to me," he added, "and to +everybody, though I shouldn't wonder if there was a little unconscious +disappointment in the air as well. I congratulate you, for I could see +you were anxious, and I must find an opportunity of congratulating your +young friend himself." + +Meanwhile no such opportunity was afforded me, though I quite expected +and was fully prepared for another visit from Bob in my room. I waited +for him there until dinner-time, but he never came, and I was beginning +to wish he would. It was like the wrapping of the Matterhorn in mist; it +only widened the field of apprehension; and yet it was not for me to go +to the boy. My unrest was further aggravated by a letter which I had +just received from the boy's mother in answer to my first to her. It was +not a very dreadful letter; but I only trusted that no evil impulse had +caused Catherine to write in anything like the same strain to Bob; for +neither was it a very charitable letter, nor one that a man could be +glad to get from the woman whom he had set out on an enduring pinnacle. +There was only this to be said for it, that years ago I had sought in +vain for a really human weakness in Catherine Evers, and now at last I +had found one. She was rather too human about Mrs. Lascelles. + +I looked for Bob both at and after dinner, but we were never within +speaking distance and I fancied he avoided even my eye. What had Mrs. +Lascelles said? He looked redder and browner and rougher in the face, +but I heard that he would hardly open his lips at table, that he was +almost surly on the subject of his exploit. Everybody else appeared to +me to be speaking of it, or of Bob himself; but I had him on my nerves +and may well have formed an exaggerated impression about it all. Only I +do not forget some of the things I did overhear that day, and night; and +they now had the effect of sending me in search of Bob, since Bob would +not come near me. "I will have it out with him," I grimly decided, "and +then get out of this myself by the first train going." I had had quite +enough of the place that had enchanted me up to the last four-and-twenty +hours. I began to see myself back in Elm Park Gardens. There, at least, +if also there alone, I should get some credit for what I had done. + +It was no use looking for Bob upon the terrace now; yet I did look +there, among other obvious places, before I could bring myself to knock +at his door. There was a light in his room, so I knew that he was there, +and he cried out admittance in so sharp a tone that I fancied he also +knew who knocked. I found him packing in his shirt-sleeves. He received +me with a stare in exact keeping with his tone. What on earth had Mrs. +Lascelles said? + +"Going away?" I asked, as a mere preliminary, and I shut the door behind +me. Bob followed the action with raised eyebrows, then flung me the +shortest possible affirmative, as he bent once more over the suit-case on +the bed. + +But in a few seconds he looked up. + +"Anything I can do for you, Clephane?" + +"That depends where you are going." + +Bob went on packing with a smile. I guessed where he was going. "I +thought there might be something pressing," he remarked, without looking +up again. + +"There is," said I. "There is something you can do for me on the spot. +You can try to believe that I have not meant to be quite such a skunk as +I may have seemed--to you," I was on the point of adding, but I stopped +short of that advisedly, as I thought of Mrs. Lascelles also. + +"Oh, that's all right," said Bob, in a would-be airy tone that carried +its own contradiction. "All's fair, according to the proverb; I no more +blame you than you would have blamed me. I hope, on the contrary, that I +may congratulate you." + +And he stood up with a look which, coupled with his words, made it my +turn to stare. + +"Indeed you may not," said I. + +"Aren't you engaged to her?" he asked. + +"Good God, no!" I cried. "What made you think so?" + +"Everything!" exclaimed Bob, after a moment's pause of obvious +bewilderment. "I--you see--I had a note from Mrs. Lascelles herself!" + +"Yes?" said I, carefully careless, but I wanted more than ever to know +that missive's gist. + +"Only a few lines," Bob went on, ruefully; "they are the first thing I +heard or saw when I got down, and they almost made me wish I'd come down +with a run! Well, it's no use talking about it, I only thought you'd +know. It was the usual smack in the eye, I suppose, only nicely put and +all that. She didn't tell me where she was going, or why; she told me I +had better ask you." + +"But you wouldn't condescend." + +Bob gave a rather friendly little laugh. + +"I said I'd see you damned!" he admitted. "But of course I thought you +were the lucky man. I still half believe you are!" + +"Well, I'm not." + +"Do you mean to say that she's refused you too?" + +"She hasn't had the chance." + +Bob's eyes opened to an infantile width. + +"But you told me you were in earnest!" he urged. + +"As much in earnest as you were, I believe was what I said." + +"That's the same thing," returned Bob, sharply. "You may not think it +is. I don't care what you think. But I'm very sorry you said you were in +earnest if you were not." + +And his tone convinced me that he was no longer commiserating himself; +he was sorry on some new account, and the evident reality of his regret +filled me in turn with all the qualms of a guilty conscience. + +"Why are you sorry?" I demanded. + +"Oh, not on my own account," said Bob. "I'm delighted, personally, of +course." + +"Then do you mean to say--you actually told her--I was as much in +earnest as you were?" + +Bob Evers smiled openly in my face; it was the only revenge he ever +took; and even it was tempered by the inextinguishable sweetness of +expression and the childlike wide-eyed candour which were Bob's even in +the hour of his humiliation, and will be, one hopes, all his days. + +"Not in so many words," he said, "but I am afraid I did tell her in +effect. You see, I took you at your word. I thought it was quite true. +I'm awfully sorry, Duncan. But it really does serve you right!" + +I made no answer. I was looking at the suit-case on the bed. Bob seemed +to have lost all interest in his packing. I turned to leave him without +a word. + +"I am awfully sorry!" he was the one to say again. I began to wonder +when he would see all round the point, and how it would affect his +feeling (to say nothing of his actions) when he did. Meanwhile it was +Bob who was holding out his hand. + +"So am I," I said, taking it. + +And for once I, too, was not thinking about myself. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +A STERN CHASE + + +Where had Bob been going, and where was he going now? If these were not +the first questions that I asked myself on coming away from him, they +were at all events among my last thoughts that night, and as it +happened, quite my first next morning. His voice had reached me through +my bedroom window, on the head of a dream about himself. I got up and +looked out; there was Bob Evers seeing the suit-case into the tiny train +which brings your baggage (and yourself, if you like) to the very door +of the Riffel Alp Hotel. Bob did not like and I watched him out of sight +down the winding path threaded by the shining rails. He walked slowly, +head and shoulders bent, it might be with dogged resolve, it might be in +mere depression; there was never a glimpse of his face, nor a backward +glance as he swung round the final corner, with his great-coat over his +arm. + +In spite of my curiosity as to his destination, I made no attempt to +discover it for myself, but on consideration I was guilty of certain +inquiries concerning that of Mrs. Lascelles. They had not to be very +exhaustive; she had made no secret of her original plans upon leaving +the Riffel Alp, and they did not appear to have undergone much change. I +myself left the same forenoon, and lay that night amid the smells of +Brigues, after a little tour of its hotels, in one of which I found the +name of Mrs. Lascelles in the register, while in every one I was +prepared to light upon Bob Evers in the flesh. But that encounter did +not occur. + +In the early morning I was one of a shivering handful who awaited the +diligence for the Furka Pass; and an ominous drizzle made me thankful +that my telegram of the previous day had been too late to secure me an +outside seat. It was quite damp enough within. Nor did the day improve +as we drove, or the view attract me in the least. It was at its worst as +a sight, and I at mine as a sightseer. I have as little recollection of +my fellow-passengers; but I still see the page in the hotel register at +the Rhone Glacier, with the name I sought written boldly in its place, +just twenty-four hours earlier. + +The Furka Pass has its European reputation; it would gain nothing from +my enthusiastic praises, had I any enthusiasm to draw upon, or the +descriptive powers to do it justice. But what I best remember is the +time it took us to climb those interminable zig-zags, and to shake off +the too tenacious sight of the hotel in the hollow where I had seen a +signature and eaten my lunch. Now I think of it, there were two couples +who had come so far with us, but at the Rhone Glacier they exchanged +their mutually demonstrative adieux, and I thought the couple who came +on would never have done waving to the couple who stayed behind. They +kept it up for at least an hour, and then broke out again at each of our +many last glimpses of the hotel, now hundreds of feet below. That was +the only diversion until these energetic people went to see the glacier +cave at the summit of the pass. I am glad to remember that I preferred +refreshment at the inn. After that, night fell upon a scene whose +desolation impressed me more than its grandeur, and so in the end we +rattled into Andermatt: here was a huge hotel all but empty, with a +perfect tome of a visitors' book, and in it sure enough the fine free +autograph which I was beginning to know so well. + +"Yes, sare," said the concierge, "the season end suddenly mit the bad +vedder at the beginning of the veek. You know that lady? She has been +here last night; she go avay again to-day, on to Göschenen and Zürich. +Yes, sare, she shall be in Zürich to-night." + +I was in Zürich myself the night after. I knew the hotel to go to, knew +it from Mrs. Lascelles herself, whose experience of continental hotels +was so pathetically extensive. This was the best in Switzerland, so she +had assured me in one of our talks: she could never pass through Zürich +without making a night of it at the Baur au Lac. But one night of it +appeared to be enough, or so it had proved on this occasion, for again I +missed her by a few hours. I was annoyed. I agreed with Mrs. Lascelles +about this hotel. Since I had made up my mind to overtake her first or +last, it might as well have been a comfortable place like this, where +there was good cooking and good music and all the comforts which I may +or may not have needed, but which I was certainly beginning to desire. + +What a contrast to the place at which I found myself the following +night. It was a place called Triberg, in the Black Forest, which I had +never penetrated before, and certainly never shall again. It seemed to +me an uttermost end of the earth, but it was raining when I arrived, and +the rain never ceased for an instant while I was there. About a dozen +hotel omnibuses met the train, from which only three passengers +alighted; the other two were a young married couple at whom I would not +have looked twice, though we all boarded the same lucky 'bus, had not +the young man stared very hard at me. + +"Captain Clephane," said he, "I guess you've forgotten me; but you may +remember my best gurl?" + +It was our good-natured young American from the Riffel Alp, who had not +only joined in the daily laugh against himself up there, but must needs +raise it as soon as ever he met one of us again. I rather think his best +girl did not hear him, for she was staring through the streaming omnibus +windows into an absolutely deserted country street, and I feared that +her eyes would soon resemble the panes. She brightened, however, in a +very flattering way, as I thought, on finding a third soul for one or +both of them to speak to, for a change. I only wished I could have +returned the compliment in my heart. + +"Captain Clephane," continued the young bridegroom, "we came down Monday +last. Say, who do you guess came down along with us?" + +"A friend of yours," prompted the bride, as I put on as blank an +expression as possible. + +I opened my eyes a little wider. It seemed the only thing to do. + +"Captain Clephane," said the bridegroom, beaming all over his +good-humoured face, "it was a lady named Lascelles, and it's to her +advice we owe this pleasure. We travelled together as far as Loocerne. +We guess we'll put salt on her at this hotel." + +"So does the Captain," announced the bride, who could not look at me +without a smile, which I altogether declined to return. But I need +hardly confess that she was right. It was from Mrs. Lascelles that I +also had heard of the dismal spot to which we were come, as her own +ultimate objective after Switzerland. It was the only address with which +she had provided the concierge at the Riffel Alp. All day I had +regretted the night wasted at Zürich, on the chance of saving a day; but +until this moment I had been sanguine of bringing my dubious quest to a +successful issue here in Triberg. Now I was no longer even anxious to do +so. I did not desire witnesses of a meeting which might well be of a +character humiliating to myself. Still less should I have chosen for +such witnesses a couple who were plainly disposed to put the usual +misconstruction upon the relations of any man with any woman. + +My disappointment was consequently less than theirs when we drove up to +as gloomy a hostelry as I have ever beheld, with the blue-black forest +smoking wet behind it, to find that here also the foul weather had +brought the season to a premature and sudden end, literally emptying +this particular hotel. Nor did the landlord give us the welcome we might +have expected on a hasty consideration of the circumstances. He said +that he had been on the point of shutting up that house until next +season and hinted at less profit than loss upon three persons only. + +"But there's a fourth person coming," declared the disconsolate bride. +"We figured on finding her right here!" + +"A Mrs. Lascelles," her husband explained. + +"Been and gone," said the landlord, grinning sardonically. "Too lonely +for the lady. She has arrived last night, and gone away again this +morning. You will find her at the Darmstaedterhof, in Baden-Baden, +unless she changes her mind on the way." + +I caught his grin. It had been the same story, at every stage of my +journey; the chances were that it would be the same thing again at +Baden-Baden. There may have been something, however, of which I was +unaware in my smile; for I found myself under close observation by the +bride; and as our eyes met her hand slipped within her husband's arm. + +"I guess _we_ won't find her there," she said. "I guess we'll just light +out for ourselves, and wish the captain luck." + +A stern chase is proverbially protracted, but on dry land it has usually +one end. Mine ended in Baden on the fifth (and first fine) day, rather +early in the afternoon. On arrival I drove straight to the +Darmstaedterhof, and asked to see no visitors' books, for the five days +had taken the edge off my finesse, but inquired at once whether a Mrs. +Lascelles was staying there or not. She was. It seemed incredible. Were +they sure she had not just left? They were sure. But she was not in; at +my request they made equally sure of that. She had probably gone to the +Conversationshaus, to listen to the band. All Baden went there in the +afternoon, to listen to that band. It was a very good band. Baden-Baden +was a very good place. There was no better hotel in Baden-Baden than the +Darmstaedterhof; there were no such baths in the other hotels, these +came straight from the spring, at their natural temperature. They were +matchless for rheumatism, especially in the legs. The old Empress, +Augusta, when in Baden, used to patronise this very hotel and no other. +They could show me the actual bath, and I myself could have pension +(baths excluded) for eight marks and fifty a day. If I would be so kind +as to step into the lift, I should see the room for myself, and then +with my permission they would bring in my luggage and pay the cab. + +All this by degrees, from a pale youth in frock-coat and forage-cap, and +a more prosperous personage with _pince-nez_ and a paunch (yet another +concierge and my latest landlord respectively), while I stood making up +my mind. The closing proposition was of some assistance to me. I had no +luggage on the cab, of which the cabman's hat alone was visible, at the +bottom of a flight of steps, at the far end of the flagged approach. I +had left my luggage at the station, but I only recollected the fact upon +being recalled from a mental forecast of the interview before me to +these exceedingly petty preliminaries. + +There and then I paid off the cab and found my own way to this +Conversationshaus. I liked the look of the trim, fresh town in its +perfect amphitheatre of pine-clad hills, covered in by a rich blue sky +from which the last clouds were exhaling like breath from a mirror. The +well-drained streets were drying clean as in a black frost; checkered +with sharp shadows, twinkling with shop windows, and strikingly free +from the more cumbrous forms of traffic. If this was Germany, I could +dispense with certain discreditable prejudices. I had to inquire my way +of a policeman in a flaming helm; because I could not understand his +copious directions, he led me to a tiny bridge within earshot of the +band, and there refused my proferred coin with the dignity of a +Hohenzollern. Under the tiny bridge there ran the shallowest and +clearest of little rivers. Up the white walls of the houses clambered a +deal of Virginia creeper, brought on by the rain, and now almost scarlet +in the strong sunlight. Presently at some gates there was a mark to pay, +or it may have been two; immediate admittance to an avenue of +fascinating shops, with an inner avenue of trees, little tables under +them, and the crash of the band growing louder at every yard. Eventual +access to a fine, broad terrace, a fine, long façade, a bandstand, and +people listening and walking up and down, people listening and drinking +beer or coffee at more little tables, people listening and reading on +rows of chairs, people standing to listen with all their ears; but not +for a long time the person I sought. + + * * * * * + +Not for a very long time, but yet, at last, and all alone, among the +readers on the chairs, deep in a Tauchnitz volume even here as in the +Alps; more daintily yet not less simply dressed, in pink muslin and a +big black hat; and blessed here as there with such blooming health, such +inimitable freshness, such a general air of well-being and of deep +content, as almost to disgust me after my whole week's search and my own +hourly qualms. + +So I found Mrs. Lascelles in the end, and so I saw her until she looked +up and saw me; then the picture changed; but I am not going to describe +the change. + +"Well, really!" she cried out. + +"It has taken me all the week to find you," said I, as I replaced my +hat. + +Her eyes flashed again. + +"Has it, indeed! And now you have found me, aren't you satisfied? Pray +have a good look, Captain Clephane. You won't find anybody else!" + +Her meaning dawned on me at last. + +"I didn't expect to, Mrs. Lascelles." + +"Am I to believe that?" + +"You must do as you please. It is the truth. Mrs. Lascelles, I have been +all the week looking for you and you alone." + +I spoke with some warmth, for not only did I speak the truth, but it had +become more and more the truth at every stage of my journey since +Brigues. Mrs. Lascelles leant back in her chair and surveyed me with +less anger, but with the purer and more pernicious scorn. + +"And what business had you to do that?" she asked calmly. "How dare you, +I should like to know?" + +"I dared," said I, "because I owed you a debt which, I felt, must be +paid in person, or it would never be paid at all. Mrs. Lascelles, I +owed and do owe you about the most abject apology man ever made! I have +followed you all this way for no other earthly reason than to make it, +in all sincere humility. But it has taken me more or less since Tuesday +morning; and I can't kneel here. Do you mind if I sit down?" + +Mrs. Lascelles drew in the hem of her pink muslin, with an all but +insufferable gesture of unwilling resignation. I took the next chair but +one, but, leaning my elbow on the chair-back between us, was rather the +gainer by the intervening inches, which enabled me to study a perfect +profile and the most wonderful colouring as I could scarcely have done +at still closer range. She never turned to look at me, but simply +listened while the band played, and people passed, and I said my say. It +was very short: there was so little that she did not know. There was the +excitement about Bob, his subsequent reappearance, our scene in his room +and my last sight of him in the morning; but the bare facts went into +few words, and there was no demand for details. Mrs. Lascelles seemed to +have lost all interest in her latest lover; but when I tried to speak +of my own hateful hand in that affair, to explain what I could of it, +but to extenuate nothing, and to apologise from my heart for it all, +then there was a change in her, then her blood mounted, then her bosom +heaved, and I was silenced by a single flash from her eyes. + +"Yes," said she, "you could let him think you were in earnest, you could +pose as his rival, you could pretend all that! Not to me, I grant you! +Even you did not go quite so far as that; or was it that you knew that I +should see through you? You made up for it, however, the other night. +That I never, never, never shall forgive. I, who had never seriously +thought of accepting him, who was only hesitating in order to refuse him +in the most deliberate and final manner imaginable--I, to have the word +put into my mouth--by you! I, who was going in any case, of my own +accord, to be told to go--by you! One thing you will never know, Captain +Clephane, and that is how nearly you drove me into marrying him just to +spite you and his miserable mother. I meant to do it, that night when I +left you. It would have served you right if I had!" + +She did not rise. She did not look at me again. But I saw the tears +standing in her eyes, one I saw roll down her cheek, and the sight smote +me harder than her hardest word, though more words followed in broken +whispers. + +"It wasn't because I cared ... that you hurt me as you did. I never did +care for him ... like that. It was ... because ... you seemed to think +my society contamination ... to an honest boy. I did care for him, but +not like that. I cared too much for him to let him marry me ... to +contaminate him for life!" + +I repudiated the reiterated word with all my might. I had never used it, +even in my thoughts; it had never once occurred to me in connection with +her. Had I not shown as much? Had I behaved as though I feared +contamination for myself? I rapped out these questions with undue +triumph, in my heat, only to perceive their second edge as it cut me to +the quick. + +"But you were playing a part," retorted Mrs. Lascelles. "You don't deny +it. Are you proud of it, that you rub it in? Or are you going to begin +denying it now?" + +Unfortunately, that was impossible. Tt was too late for denials. But, +driven into my last corner, as it seemed, I relapsed for the moment into +thought, and my thoughts took the form of a rapid retrospect of all the +hours that this angry woman and I had spent together. I was introduced +to her again by poor Bob. I recognised her again by the light of a +match, and accosted her next morning in the strong sunshine. We went for +our first walk together. We sat together on the green ledge overlooking +the glaciers, and first she talked about herself, and then we both +talked about Bob, and then Bob appeared in the flesh and gave me my +disastrous idea. Then there was the day on the Findelen that we had all +three spent together. Then there was the walk home from early church +(short as it had been), the subsequent expedition to Zermatt and back, +with its bright beginning and its clouded end. Up to that point, at all +events, they had been happy hours, so many of them unburdened by a +single thought of Bob Evers and his folly, not one of them haunted by +the usual sense of a part that is played. I almost wondered as I +realised this. I supposed it would be no use attempting to express +myself to Mrs. Lascelles, but I felt I must say something before I went, +so I said: + +"I deny nothing, and I'm proud of nothing, but neither am I quite so +ashamed as perhaps I ought to be. Shall I tell you why, Mrs. Lascelles? +It may have been an insolent and an infamous part, as you imply; but I +enjoyed playing it, and I used often to forget it was a part at all. So +much so that even now I'm not so sure that it was one! There--I suppose +that makes it all ten times worse. But I won't apologise again. Do you +mind giving me that stick?" + +I had rested the two of them against the chair between us. Mrs. +Lascelles had taken possession of one, with which she was methodically +probing the path, for there had been no time to draw their Alpine teeth. +She did not comply with my request. She smiled instead. + +"I mind very much," her old voice said. "Now we have finished fighting, +perhaps you will listen to the _Meistersinger_--for it is worth +listening to on that band--and try to appreciate Baden while you are +here. There are no more trains for hours." + +The wooded hills rose over the bandstand, against the bright blue sky. +The shadow of the colonnade lay sharp and black beyond our feet, with +people passing, and the band crashing, in the sunlight beyond. That was +Baden. I should not have found it a difficult place to appreciate, a +week or so before; even now it was no hardship to sit there listening to +the one bit of Wagner that my ear welcomes as a friend, and furtively to +watch my companion as she sat and listened too. You will perceive by +what train of associations my eyes soon fell upon the Tauchnitz volume +which she must have placed without thinking on the chair between us. I +took it up. Heavens! It was one of the volumes of Browning's Poems. And +back I sped in spirit to a green ledge overlooking the Gorner Glacier, +to think what we had said about Browning up there, but only to remember +how I had longed to be to Mrs. Lascelles what Catherine Evers had been +to me. There were some sharp edges to the reminiscence, but I turned the +pages while they did their worst, and so cut myself to the heart upon a +sharper than them all. It was in a poem I remembered, a poem whose title +pained me into glancing farther. And see what leapt to meet me from the +printed page: + + "And I,--what I seem to my friend, you see: + What I soon shall seem to his love, you guess: + What I seem to myself, do you ask of me? + No hero, I confess." + +True, too true; no hero, indeed; anything in the wide world else! But +that I should read it there by the woman's side! And yet, even that was +no such coincidence; had we not talked about the poet, had I not implied +what Catherine thought of him, what everybody ought to think? + +Of a sudden a strange thrill stirred me; sidelong I glanced at my +companion. She had turned her head away; her cheek was deeply dyed. She +knew what I was doing; she might divine my thoughts. I shut the book +lest she should see the vile title of a thing I had hitherto liked. And +the _Prizelied_ crashed back into the ear. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +NUMBER THREE + + +It was the middle of November when I was shown once more into the old +room at the old number in Elm Park Gardens. There was a fire, the +windows were shut, and the electric light was a distinct improvement +when the maid put it on; otherwise all was exactly as I had left it in +August, and so often pictured it since. There was "Hope," presiding over +the shelf of poets, and here "Paolo and Francesca," reminiscent as ever +of Melbury Road, upon a wet Sunday, years and years ago. The day's +_Times_ and the week's _Spectator_ were not less prominent than the last +new problem novel; all three lay precisely where their predecessors had +always lain; and my own dead self stood in its own old place upon the +piano which had been in St. Helena with Napoleon. It is vanity's deserts +to come across these unnecessary memorials of a decently buried +boyhood; there is always something stultifying about them, and I longed +to confiscate this one of me. + +But there was a photograph on the chimney-piece that interested me +keenly; it was evidently the very latest of Bob Evers, and I studied it +with a painful curiosity. Was the boy really altered, or did I only +imagine it from my secret knowledge of his affairs? To me he seemed +graver, more sedate, less angelically trustful in expression, and yet +something finer and manlier withal: to confirm the idea one had only to +compare this new one with the racket photograph now relegated to a rear +rank. The round-eyed look was gone. Had I here yet another memorial of +yet another buried boyhood? If so, I felt I was the sexton, and I might +be ashamed, and I was. + +"Looking at Bob? Isn't it a dear one of him? You see--he is none the +worse!" + +And Catherine Evers stood smiling as warmly, as gratefully, as she +grasped my hand; but with her warmth there was a certain nervousness of +manner, which had the odd effect of putting me perversely at my ease; +and I found myself looking critically at Catherine, really critically, +for I suppose the first time in my life. + +"He is playing foot-ball," she continued, full as ever of her boy. "I +had a letter from him only this morning. He had his colours at Eton, you +know (he had them for everything there), but he never dreamt of getting +them at Cambridge, yet now he really thinks he has a chance! They tried +him the other day, and he kicked a goal. Dear old Bob! If he does get +them he will be a Blue and a half, he says. He writes so happily, +Duncan! I have so much to be thankful for--to thank you for!" + +Yes, Catherine was good to look at; there was no doubt of it; and this +time she was not wearing any hat. Discoursing of the lad, she was +animated, eager, for once as exclamatory as her pen, with light and life +in every look of the thin intellectual face, in every glance of the +large, intellectual eyes, and in every intonation of the keen dry voice. +A sweet woman; a young woman; a woman with a full heart of love and +sympathy and tenderness--for Bob! Yet, when she thanked me at the end, +either upon an impulse, or because she thought she must, her eyes fell, +and again I detected that slight embarrassment which was none the less a +revelation, to me, in Catherine Evers, of all women in the world. + +"We won't speak of that," I said, "if you don't mind. I am not proud of +it." + +Catherine scanned me more narrowly. I knew her better with that look. +"Then tell me about yourself, and do sit down," she said, drawing a +chair near the fire, but sitting on the other side of it herself. "I +needn't ask you how you are. I never saw you looking so well. That comes +of going right away and not hurrying back. I think you were so wise! +But, Duncan, I am sorry to see both sticks still! Have you seen your man +since you came back?" + +"I have." + +"Well?" + +"I'm afraid there's no more soldiering for me." + +Catherine seemed more than sorry and disappointed; she looked quite +indignant with the eminent specialist who had finally pronounced this +opinion. Was I sure he was the very best man for that kind of thing? She +would have a second opinion, if she were me. Very well, then, a third +and fourth! If there was one man she pitied from the bottom of her +heart, it was the man without a profession or an occupation of some +kind. Catherine looked, however, as though her pity were almost akin to +horror. + +"I have a trifle, luckily," I said. "I must try something else." + +Catherine stared into the fire, as though thinking of something else for +me to try. She seemed full of apprehension on my account. + +"Don't you worry about me," I went on. "I came here to talk about +somebody else, of course." + +Catherine almost started. + +"I've told you about Bob," she said, with a suspicious upward glance +from the fire. + +"I don't mean Bob," said I, "or anything you may think I did for him or +you. I said just now that I didn't want to speak of it and no more I do. +Yet, as a matter of fact, I do want to speak to you about the lady in +that case." + +Catherine's face betrayed the mixed emotions of relief and fresh alarm. + +"You don't mean to say the creature--? But it's impossible. I heard from +Bob only this morning. He wrote so happily!" + +I could not help smiling at the nature and quality of the alarm. + +"They have seen nothing more of each other, if that's what you fear," +said I. "But what I do want to speak about is this creature, as you call +her, and no one else. She has done nothing to deserve quite so much +contempt. I want you to be just to her, Catherine." + +I was serious. I may have been ridiculous. Catherine evidently found me +so, for, after gauging me with that wry but humourous look which I knew +so well of old, for which I had been waiting this afternoon, she went +off into the decorous little fit of laughter in which it had invariably +ended. + +"Forgive me, Duncan dear! But you do look so serious, and you _are_ so +dreadfully broad! I never was. I hope you remember that? Broad minds and +easy principles--the combination is inevitable. But, really though, +Duncan, is there anything to be said for her? Was she a possible +person, in any sense of the word?" + +"Quite a probable person," I assured Catherine. + +"But I have heard all sorts of things about her!" + +"From Bob?" + +"No, he never mentioned her." + +"Nor me, perhaps?" + +"Nor you, Duncan. I am afraid there may be just a drop of bad blood +there! You see, he looked upon you as a successful rival. You wrote and +told me so, if you remember, from some place on your way down from the +mountains. Your letter and Bob arrived the same night." + +I nodded. + +"It was so clever of you!" pursued Catherine. "Quite brilliant; but I +don't quite know what to say to your letting my baby climb that awful +Matterhorn; in a fog, too!" + +And there was real though momentary reproach in the firelit face. + +"I couldn't very well stop him, you know. Besides," I added, "it was +such a chance." + +"Of what?" + +"Of getting rid of Mrs. Lascelles. I thought you would think it worth +the risk." + +"I do," declared Catherine, on due consultation with the fire. "I really +do! Bob is all I have--all I want--in this world, Duncan; and it may +seem a dreadful thing to say, and you mayn't believe it when I've said +it, but--yes!--I'd rather he had never come home at all than come home +married, at his age, and to an Indian widow, whose first husband had +divorced her! I mean it, Duncan; I do indeed!" + +"I am sure you do," said I. "It was just what I said to myself." + +"To think of my Bob being Number Three!" murmured Catherine, with that +plaintive drollery of hers which I had found irresistible in the days of +old. + +I was able to resist it now. "So those were the things you heard?" I +remarked. + +"Yes," said Catherine; "haven't you heard them?" + +"I didn't need. I knew her in India years ago." + +Catherine's eyes opened. + +"_You_ knew this Mrs. Lascelles?" + +"Before that was her name. I have also met her original husband. If you +had known him, you would be less hard on her." + +Catherine's eyes were still wide open. They were rather hard eyes, after +all. "Why did you not tell me you had known her, when you wrote?" she +asked. + +"It wouldn't have done any good. I did what you wanted done, you know. I +thought that was enough." + +"It was enough," echoed Catherine, with a quick return of grace. She +looked into the fire. "I don't want to be hard upon the poor thing, +Duncan! I know you think we women always are, upon each other. But to +have come back married--at his age--to even the nicest woman in the +world! It would have been madness ... ruination ... Duncan, T'm going to +say something else that may shock you." + +"Say away," said I. + +Her voice had fallen. She was looking at me very narrowly, as if to +measure the effect of her unspoken words. + +"I am not so very sure about marriage," she went on, "at any age! Don't +misunderstand me ... I was very happy ... but I for one could never +marry again ... and I am not sure that I ever want to see Bob...." + +Catherine had spoken very gently, looking once more in the fire; when +she ceased there was a space of utter silence in the little room. Then +her eyes came back furtively to mine; and presently they were twinkling +with their old staid merriment. + +"But to be Number Three!" she said again. "My poor old Bob!" + +And she smiled upon me, tenderly, from the depths of her alter-egoism. + +"Well," I said, "he never will be." + +"God forbid!" cried Catherine. + +"He has forbidden. It will never happen." + +"Is she dead?" asked Catherine, but not too quickly for common decency. +She was not one to pass such bounds. + +"Not that I know of." + +It was hard to repress a sneer. + +"Then what makes you so sure--that he never could?" + +"Well, he never will in my time!" + +"You are good to me," said Catherine, gratefully. + +"Not a bit good," said I, "or--only to myself ... I have been good to no +one else in this whole matter. That's what it all amounts to, and that's +what I really came to tell you. Catherine ... I am married to her +myself!" + +THE END + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of No Hero, by E.W. 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Hornung. +</title> +<style type="text/css"> + <!-- + * { font-family: Times;} + P { margin-top: .75em; + font-size: 12pt; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; } + H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; } + HR { width: 33%; } + PRE { font-family: Courier, monospaced; } + BODY { margin-left: 4%; margin-right: 4%; } + // --> +</style> +</head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of No Hero, by E.W. Hornung + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: No Hero + +Author: E.W. Hornung + +Release Date: February 18, 2004 [EBook #11153] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NO HERO *** + + + + +Produced by Steven desJardins and Distributed Proofreaders + + + + + +</pre> + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<h1>No Hero</h1> +<p> </p> +<h2>By E.W. Hornung </h2> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + +<h3> +1903 +</h3> + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + +<hr> +<p> </p> +<h2> + CONTENTS +</h2> +<p> </p> +<center style="margin-bottom: 1.5em;"><a href="#CH1">CHAPTER I</a> — A Plenipotentiary</center> +<center style="margin-bottom: 1.5em;"><a href="#CH2">CHAPTER II</a> — The Theatre of War</center> +<center style="margin-bottom: 1.5em;"><a href="#CH3">CHAPTER III</a> — First Blood</center> +<center style="margin-bottom: 1.5em;"><a href="#CH4">CHAPTER IV</a> — A Little Knowledge</center> +<center style="margin-bottom: 1.5em;"><a href="#CH5">CHAPTER V</a> — A Marked Woman</center> +<center style="margin-bottom: 1.5em;"><a href="#CH6">CHAPTER VI</a> — Out of Action</center> +<center style="margin-bottom: 1.5em;"><a href="#CH7">CHAPTER VII</a> — Second Fiddle</center> +<center style="margin-bottom: 1.5em;"><a href="#CH8">CHAPTER VIII</a> — Prayers and Parables</center> +<center style="margin-bottom: 1.5em;"><a href="#CH9">CHAPTER IX</a> — Sub Judice</center> +<center style="margin-bottom: 1.5em;"><a href="#CH10">CHAPTER X</a> — The Last Word</center> +<center style="margin-bottom: 1.5em;"><a href="#CH11">CHAPTER XI</a> — The Lion's Mouth</center> +<center style="margin-bottom: 1.5em;"><a href="#CH12">CHAPTER XII</a> — A Stern Chase</center> +<center><a href="#CH13">CHAPTER XIII</a> — Number Three</center> +<p> </p> +<hr> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<h1> +No Hero +</h1> + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<a name="CH1"><!-- CH1 --></a> +<h2> + CHAPTER I +</h2> + +<h3> +A PLENIPOTENTIARY +</h3> +<p> </p> +<p> +Has no writer ever dealt with the dramatic aspect of the unopened +envelope? I cannot recall such a passage in any of my authors, and yet +to my mind there is much matter for philosophy in what is always the +expressionless shell of a boundless possibility. Your friend may run +after you in the street, and you know at a glance whether his news is to +be good, bad, or indifferent; but in his handwriting on the +breakfast-table there is never a hint as to the nature of his +communication. Whether he has sustained a loss or an addition to his +family, whether he wants you to dine with him at the club or to lend him +ten pounds, his handwriting at least will be the same, unless, indeed, +he be offended, when he will generally indite your name with a studious +precision and a distant grace quite foreign to his ordinary caligraphy. +</p> +<p> +These reflections, trite enough as I know, are nevertheless inevitable +if one is to begin one's unheroic story in the modern manner, at the +latest possible point. That is clearly the point at which a waiter +brought me the fatal letter from Catherine Evers. Apart even from its +immediate consequences, the letter had a <i>prima facie</i> interest, of no +ordinary kind, as the first for years from a once constant +correspondent. And so I sat studying the envelope with a curiosity too +piquant not to be enjoyed. What in the world could so obsolete a friend +find to say to one now? Six months earlier there had been a certain +opportunity for an advance, which at that time could not possibly have +been misconstrued; when they landed me, a few later, there was another +and perhaps a better one. But this was the last summer of the late +century, and already I was beginning to get about like a lamplighter on +my two sticks. Now, young men about town, on two walking-sticks, in the +year of grace 1900, meant only one thing. Quite a stimulating thing in +the beginning, but even as I write, in this the next winter but one, a +national irritation of which the name alone might prevent you from +reading another word. +</p> +<p> +Catherine's handwriting, on the contrary, was still stimulating, if +indeed I ever found it more so in the foolish past. It had not altered +in the least. There was the same sweet pedantry of the Attic <i>e</i>, the +same superiority to the most venial abbreviation, the same inconsistent +forest of exclamatory notes, thick as poplars across the channel. The +present plantation started after my own Christian name, to wit "Dear +Duncan!!" Yet there was nothing Germanic in Catherine's ancestry; it was +only her apologetic little way of addressing me as though nothing had +ever happened, of asking whether she might. Her own old tact and charm +were in that tentative burial of the past. In the first line she had all +but won my entire forgiveness; but the very next interfered with the +effect. +</p> +<p> +"You promised to do anything for me!" +</p> +<p> +I should be sorry to deny it, I am sure, for not to this day do I know +what I did say on the occasion to which she evidently referred. But was +it kind to break the silence of years with such a reference? Was it even +quite decent in Catherine to ignore my existence until I could be of use +to her, and then to ask the favour in her first breath? It was true, as +she went on to remind me, that we were more or less connected after all, +and at least conceivable that no one else could help her as I could, if +I would. In any case, it was a certain satisfaction to hear that +Catherine herself was of the last opinion. I read on. She was in a +difficulty; but she did not say what the difficulty was. For one +unworthy moment the thought of money entered my mind, to be ejected the +next, as the Catherine of old came more and more into the mental focus. +Pride was the last thing in which I had found her wanting, and her +letter indicated no change in that respect. +</p> +<p> +"You may wonder," she wrote just at the end, "why I have never sent you +a single word of inquiry, or sympathy, or congratulation!! +Well—suppose it was 'bad blood'!! between us when you went away! Mind, +<i>I</i> never meant it to be so, but suppose it was: could I treat the dear +old you like that, and the Great New You like somebody else? You have +your own fame to thank for my unkindness! <i>I</i> am only thankful they +haven't given you the V.C.!! <i>Then</i> I should <i>never</i> have dared—not +even now!!!" +</p> +<p> +I smoked a cigarette when I had read it all twice over, and as I crushed +the fire out of the stump I felt I could as soon think of lighting it +again as I should have expected Catherine Evers to set a fresh match to +me. That, I was resolved, she should never do; nor was I quite coxcomb +enough to suspect her of the desire for a moment. But a man who has once +made a fool of himself, especially about a woman somewhat older than +himself, does not soon get over the soreness; and mine returned with the +very fascination which made itself felt even in the shortest little +letter. +</p> +<p> +Catherine wrote from the old address in Elm Park Gardens, and she wanted +me to call as early as I could, or to make any appointment I liked. I +therefore telegraphed that I was coming at three o'clock that afternoon, +and thus made for myself one of the longest mornings that I can remember +spending in town. I was staying at the time at the Kensington Palace +Hotel, to be out of the central racket of things, and yet more or less +under the eye of the surgeon who still hoped to extract the last bullet +in time. I can remember spending half the morning gazing aimlessly over +the grand old trees, already prematurely bronzed, and the other half in +limping in their shadow to the Round Pond, where a few little townridden +boys were sailing their humble craft. It was near the middle of August, +and for the first time I was thankful that an earlier migration had not +been feasible in my case. +</p> +<p> +In spite of my telegram Mrs. Evers was not at home when I arrived, but +she had left a message which more than explained matters. She was +lunching out, but only in Brechin Place, and I was to wait in the study +if I did not mind. I did not, and yet I did, for the room in which +Catherine certainly read her books and wrote her letters was also the +scene of that which I was beginning to find it rather hard work to +forget as it was. Nor had it changed any more than her handwriting, or +than the woman herself as I confidently expected to find her now. I have +often thought that at about forty both sexes stand still to the eye, and +I did not expect Catherine Evers, who could barely have reached that +rubicon, to show much symptom of the later marches. To me, here in her +den, the other year was just the other day. My time in India was little +better than a dream to me, while as for angry shots at either end of +Africa, it was never I who had been there to hear them. I must have come +by my sticks in some less romantic fashion. Nothing could convince me +that I had ever been many days or miles away from a room that I knew by +heart, and found full as I left it of familiar trifles and poignant +associations. +</p> +<p> +That was the shelf devoted to her poets; there was no addition that I +could see. Over it hung the fine photograph of Watts's "Hope," an ironic +emblem, and elsewhere one of that intolerably sad picture, his "Paolo +and Francesca": how I remembered the wet Sunday when Catherine took me +to see the original in Melbury Road! The old piano which was never +touched, the one which had been in St. Helena with Napoleon's doctor, +there it stood to an inch where it had stood of old, a sort of +grand-stand for the photographs of Catherine's friends. I descried my +own young effigy among the rest, in a frame which I recollected giving +her at the time. Well, I looked all the idiot I must have been; and +there was the very Persian rug that I had knelt on in my idiocy! I could +afford to smile at myself to-day; yet now it all seemed yesterday, not +even the day before, until of a sudden I caught sight of that other +photograph in the place of honour on the mantelpiece. It was one by +Hills and Sanders, of a tall youth in flannels, armed with a +long-handled racket, and the sweet open countenance which Robin Evers +had worn from his cradle upward. I should have known him anywhere and at +any age. It was the same dear, honest face; but to think that this giant +was little Bob! He had not gone to Eton when I saw him last; now I knew +from the sporting papers that he was up at Cambridge; but it was left to +his photograph to bring home the flight of time. +</p> +<p> +Certainly his mother would never have done so when all at once the door +opened and she stood before me, looking about thirty in the ample shadow +of a cavalier's hat. Simply but admirably gowned, as I knew she would +be, her slender figure looked more youthful still; yet in all this there +was no intent; the dry cool smile was that of an older woman, and I was +prepared for greater cordiality than I could honestly detect in the +greeting of the small firm hand. But it was kind, as indeed her whole +reception of me was; only it had always been the way of Catherine the +correspondent to make one expect a little more than mere kindness, and +of Catherine the companion to disappoint that expectation. Her +conversation needed few exclamatory points. +</p> +<p> +"Still halt and lame," she murmured over my sticks. "You poor thing, you +are to sit down this instant." +</p> +<p> +And I obeyed her as one always had, merely remarking that I was getting +along famously now. +</p> +<p> +"You must have had an awful time," continued Catherine, seating herself +near me, her calm wise eyes on mine. +</p> +<p> +"Blood-poisoning," said I. "It nearly knocked me out, but I'm glad to +say it didn't quite." +</p> +<p> +Indeed, I had never felt quite so glad before. +</p> +<p> +"Ah! that was too hard and cruel; but I was thinking of the day itself," +explained Catherine, and paused in some sweet transparent awe of one who +had been through it. +</p> +<p> +"It was a beastly day," said I, forgetting her objection to the epithet +until it was out. But Catherine did not wince. Her fixed eyes were full +of thought. +</p> +<p> +"It was all that here," she said. "One depressing morning I had a +telegram from Bob, 'Spion Kop taken'—" +</p> +<p> +"So Bob," I nodded, "had it as badly as everybody else!" +</p> +<p> +"Worse," declared Catherine, her eye hardening; "it was all I could do +to keep him at Cambridge, though he had only just gone up. He would have +given up everything and flown to the Front if I had let him." +</p> +<p> +And she wore the inexorable face with which I could picture her standing +in his way; and in Catherine I could admire that dogged look and all it +spelt, because a great passion is always admirable. The passion of +Catherine's life was her boy, the only son of his mother, and she a +widow. It had been so when he was quite small, as I remembered it with a +pinch of jealousy startling as a twinge from an old wound. More than +ever must it be so now; that was as natural as the maternal embargo in +which Catherine seemed almost to glory. And yet, I reflected, if all the +widows had thought only of their only sons—and of themselves! +</p> +<p> +"The next depressing morning," continued Catherine, happily oblivious of +what was passing through one's mind, "the first thing I saw, the first +time I put my nose outside, was a great pink placard with 'Spion Kop +Abandoned!' Duncan, it was too awful." +</p> +<p> +"I wish we'd sat tight," I said, "I must confess." +</p> +<p> +"Tight!" cried Catherine in dry horror. "I should have abandoned it long +before. I should have run away—hard! To think that you didn't—that's +quite enough for me." +</p> +<p> +And again I sustained the full flattery of that speechless awe which was +yet unembarrassing by reason of its freedom from undue solemnity. +</p> +<p> +"There were some of us who hadn't a leg to run on," I had to say; "I was +one, Mrs. Evers." +</p> +<p> +"I beg your pardon?" +</p> +<p> +"Catherine, then." But it put me to the blush. +</p> +<p> +"Thank you. If you really wish me to call you 'Captain Clephane' you +have only to say so; but in that case I can't ask the favour I had made +up my mind to ask—of so old a friend." +</p> +<p> +Her most winning voice was as good a servant as ever; the touch of scorn +in it was enough to stimulate, but not to sting; and it was the same +with the sudden light in the steady intellectual eyes. +</p> +<p> +"Catherine," I said, "you can't indeed ask any favour of me! There you +are quite right. It is not a word to use between us." +</p> +<p> +Mrs. Evers gave me one of her deliberate looks before replying. +</p> +<p> +"And I am not so sure that it is a favour," she said softly enough at +last. "It is really your advice I want to ask, in the first place at all +events. Duncan, it's about old Bob!" +</p> +<p> +The corners of her mouth twitched, her eyes filled with a quaint +humorous concern, and as a preamble I was handed the photograph which I +had already studied on my own account. +</p> +<p> +"Isn't he a dear?" asked Bob's mother. "Would you have known him, +Duncan?" +</p> +<p> +"I did know him," said I. "Spotted him at a glance. He's the same old +Bob all over." +</p> +<p> +I was fortunate enough to meet the swift glance I got for that, for in +sheer sweetness and affection it outdid all remembered glances of the +past. In a moment it was as though I had more than regained the lost +ground of lost years. And in another moment, on the heels of the +discovery, came the still more startling one that I was glad to have +regained my ground, was thankful to be reinstated, and strangely, +acutely, yet uneasily happy, as I had never been since the old days in +this very room. +</p> +<p> +Half in a dream I heard Catherine telling of her boy, of his Eton +triumphs, how he had been one of the rackets pair two years, and in the +eleven his last, but "in Pop" before he was seventeen, and yet as simple +and unaffected and unspoilt with it all as the small boy whom I +remembered. And I did remember him, and knew his mother well enough to +believe it all; for she did not chant his praises to organ music, but +rather hummed them to the banjo; and one felt that her own demure +humour, so signal and so permanent a charm in Catherine, would have been +the saving of half-a-dozen Bobs. +</p> +<p> +"And yet," she wound up at her starting-point, "it's about poor old Bob +I want to speak to you!" +</p> +<p> +"Not in a fix, I hope?" +</p> +<p> +"I hope not, Duncan." +</p> +<p> +Catherine was serious now. +</p> +<p> +"Or mischief?" +</p> +<p> +"That depends on what you mean by mischief." +</p> +<p> +Catherine was more serious still. +</p> +<p> +"Well, there are several brands, but only one or two that really +poison—unless, of course, a man is very poor." +</p> +<p> +And my mind harked back to its first suspicion, of some financial +embarrassment, now conceivable enough; but Catherine told me her boy was +not poor, with the air of one who would have drunk ditchwater rather +than let the other want for champagne. +</p> +<p> +"It is just the opposite," she added: "in little more than a year, when +he comes of age, he will have quite as much as is good for him. You know +what he is, or rather you don't. I do. And if I were not his mother I +should fall in love with him myself!" +</p> +<p> +Catherine looked down on me as she returned from replacing Bob's +photograph on the mantelpiece. The humour had gone out of her eye; in +its place was an almost animal glitter, a far harder light than had +accompanied the significant reference to the patriotic impulse which she +had nipped in the bud. It was probably only the old, old look of the +lioness whose whelp is threatened, but it was something new to me in +Catherine Evers, something half-repellent and yet almost wholly fine. +</p> +<p> +"You don't mean to say it's that?" I asked aghast. +</p> +<p> +"No, I don't," Catherine answered, with a hard little laugh. "He's not +quite twenty, remember; but I am afraid that he is making a fool of +himself, and I want it stopped." +</p> +<p> +I waited for more, merely venturing to nod my sympathetic concern. +</p> +<p> +"Poor old Bob, as you may suppose, is not a genius. He is far too nice," +declared Catherine's old self, "to be anything so nasty. But I always +thought he had his head screwed on, and his heart screwed in, or I never +would have let him loose in a Swiss hotel. As it was, I was only too +glad for him to go with George Kennerley, who was as good at work at +Eton as Bob was at games." +</p> +<p> +In Catherine's tone, for all the books on her shelves, the pictures on +her walls, there was no doubt at all as to which of the two an Eton boy +should be good at, and I agreed sincerely with another nod. +</p> +<p> +"They were to read together for an hour or so every day. I thought it +would be a nice little change for Bob, and it was quite a chance; he +must do a certain amount of work, you see. Well, they only went at the +beginning of the month, and already they have had enough of each other's +society." +</p> +<p> +"You don't mean that they've had a row?" +</p> +<p> +Catherine inclined a mortified head. +</p> +<p> +"Bob never had such a thing in his life before, nor did I ever know +anybody who succeeded in having one with Bob. It does take two, you +know. And when one of the two has an angelic temper, and tact enough for +twenty—" +</p> +<p> +"You naturally blame the other," I put in, as she paused in visible +perplexity. +</p> +<p> +"But I don't, Duncan, and that's just the point. George is devoted to +Bob, and is as nice as he can be himself, in his own sober, honest, +plodding way. He may not have the temper, he certainly has not the tact, +but he worships Bob and has come back quite miserable." +</p> +<p> +"Then he has come back, and you have seen him?" +</p> +<p> +"He was here last night. You must know that Bob writes to me every day, +even from Cambridge, if it's only a line; and in yesterday's letter he +mentioned quite casually that George had had enough of it and was off +home. It was a little too casual to be quite natural in old Bob, and +there are other things he has been mentioning in the same way. If any +instinct is to be relied upon it is a mother's, and mine amounted almost +to second sight. I sent Master George a telegram, and he came in last +night." +</p> +<p> +"Well?"' +</p> +<p> +"Not a word! There was bad blood between them, but that was all I could +get out of him. Vulgar disagreeables between Bob, of all people, and his +greatest friend! If you could have seen the poor fellow sitting where +you are sitting now, like a prisoner in the dock! I put him in the +witness-box instead, and examined him on scraps of Bob's letters to me. +It was as unscrupulous as you please, but I felt unscrupulous; and the +poor dear was too loyal to admit, yet too honest to deny, a single +thing." +</p> +<p> +"And?" said I, as Bob's mother paused again. +</p> +<p> +"And," cried she, with conscious melodrama in the fiery twinkle of her +eye—"and, I know all! There is an odious creature at the hotel—a +widow, if you please! A 'ripping widow' Bob called her in his first +letter; then it was 'Mrs. Lascelles'; but now it is only 'some people' +whom he escorts here, there, and everywhere. <i>Some</i> people, indeed!" +</p> +<p> +Catherine smiled unmercifully. I relied upon my nod. +</p> +<p> +"I needn't tell you," she went on, "that the creature is at least twenty +years older than my baby, and not at all nice at that. George didn't +tell me, mind, but he couldn't deny a single thing. It was about her +that they fell out. Poor George remonstrated, not too diplomatically, I +daresay, but I can quite see that my Bob behaved as he was never known +to behave on land or sea. The poor child has been bewitched, neither +more nor less." +</p> +<p> +"He'll get over it," I murmured, with the somewhat shaky confidence born +of my own experience. +</p> +<p> +Catherine looked at me in mild surprise. +</p> +<p> +"But it's going on now, Duncan—it's going on still!" +</p> +<p> +"Well," I added, with all the comfort that my voice would carry, and +which an exaggerated concern seemed to demand: "well, Catherine, it +can't go very far at his age!" Nor to this hour can I yet conceive a +sounder saying, in all the circumstances of the case, and with one's +knowledge of the type of lad; but my fate was the common one of +comforters, and I was made speedily and painfully aware that I had now +indeed said the most unfortunate thing. +</p> +<p> +Catherine did not stamp her foot, but she did everything else required +by tradition of the exasperated lady. Not go far? As if it had not gone +too far already to be tolerated another instant longer than was +necessary! +</p> +<p> +"He is making a fool of himself—my boy—my Bob—before a whole +hotelful of sharp eyes and sharper tongues! Is that not far enough for +it to have gone? Duncan, it must be stopped, and stopped at once; but I +am not the one to do it. I would rather it went on," cried Catherine +tragically, as though the pit yawned before us all, "than that his +mother should fly to his rescue before all the world! But a friend might +do it, Duncan—if—" +</p> +<p> +Her voice had dropped. I bent my ear. +</p> +<p> +"If only," she sighed, "I had a friend who would!" +</p> +<p> +Catherine was still looking down when I looked up; but the droop of the +slender body, the humble angle of the cavalier hat, the faint flush +underneath, all formed together a challenge and an appeal which were the +more irresistible for their sweet shamefacedness. Acute consciousness of +the past (I thought), and (I even fancied) some penitence for a wrong by +no means past undoing, were in every sensitive inch of her, as she sat a +suppliant to the old player of that part. And there are emotions of +which the body may be yet more eloquent than the face; there was the +figure of Watts's "Hope" drooping over as she drooped, not more lissom +and speaking than her own; just then it caught my eye, and on the spot +it was as though the lute's last string of that sweet masterpiece had +vibrated aloud in Catherine's room. +</p> +<p> +My hand shook as I reached for my trusty sticks, but I cannot say that +my voice betrayed me when I inquired the name of the Swiss hotel. +</p> +<p> +"The Riffel Alp," said Catherine—"above Zermatt, you know." +</p> +<p> +"I start to-morrow morning," I rejoined, "if that will do." +</p> +<p> +Then Catherine looked up. I cannot describe her look. Transfiguration +were the idle word, but the inadequate, and yet more than one would +scatter the effect of so sudden a burst of human sunlight. +</p> +<p> +"Would you really go?" she cried. "Do you mean it, Duncan?" +</p> +<p> +"I only wish," I replied, "that it were to Australia." +</p> +<p> +"But then you would be weeks too late." +</p> +<p> +"Ah, that's another story! I may be too late as it is." +</p> +<p> +Her brightness clouded on the instant; only a gleam of annoyance pierced +the cloud. +</p> +<p> +"Too late for what, may I ask?" +</p> +<p> +"Everything except stopping the banns." +</p> +<p> +"Please don't talk nonsense, Duncan. Banns at nineteen!" +</p> +<p> +"It is nonsense, I agree; at the same time the minor consequences will +be the hardest to deal with. If they are being talked about, well, they +are being talked about. You know Bob best: suppose he is making a fool +of himself, is he the sort of fellow to stop because one tells him so? I +should say not, from what I know of him, and of you." +</p> +<p> +"I don't know," argued Catherine, looking pleased with her compliment. +"You used to have quite an influence over him, if you remember." +</p> +<p> +"That's quite possible; but then he was a small boy, now he is a grown +man." +</p> +<p> +"But you are a much older one." +</p> +<p> +"Too old to trust to that." +</p> +<p> +"And you have been wounded in the war." +</p> +<p> +"The hotel may be full of wounded officers; if not I might get a little +unworthy purchase there. In any case I'll go. I should have to go +somewhere before many days. It may as well be to that place as to +another. I have heard that the air is glorious; and I'll keep an eye on +Robin, if I can't do anything else." +</p> +<p> +"That's enough for me," cried Catherine, warmly. "I have sufficient +faith in you to leave all the rest to your own discretion and good sense +and better heart. And I never shall forget it, Duncan, never, never! You +are the one person he wouldn't instantly suspect as an emissary, besides +being the only one I ever—ever trusted well enough to—to take at your +word as I have done." +</p> +<p> +I thought myself that the sentence might have pursued a bolder course +without untruth or necessary complications. Perhaps my conceit was on a +scale with my acknowledged infirmity where Catherine was concerned. But +I did think that there was more than trust in the eyes that now melted +into mine; there was liking at least, and gratitude enough to inspire +one to win infinitely more. I went so far as to take in mine the hand to +which I had dared to aspire in the temerity of my youth; nor shall I +pretend for a moment that the old aspirations had not already mounted to +their old seat in my brain. On the contrary, I was only wondering +whether the honesty of voicing my hopes would nowise counterbalance the +caddishness of the sort of stipulation they might imply. +</p> +<p> +"All I ask," I was saying to myself, "is that you will give me another +chance, and take me seriously this time, if I prove myself worthy in the +way you want." +</p> +<p> +But I am glad to think I had not said it when tea came up, and saved a +dangerous situation by breaking an insidious spell. +</p> +<p> +I stayed another hour at least, and there are few in my memory which +passed more deliciously at the time. In writing of it now I feel that I +have made too little of Catherine Evers, in my anxiety not to make too +much, yet am about to leave her to stand or to fall in the reader's +opinion by such impression as I have already succeeded in creating in +his or her mind. Let me add one word, or two, while yet I may. A +baron's daughter (though you might have known Catherine some time +without knowing that), she had nevertheless married for mere love as a +very young girl, and had been left a widow before the birth of her boy. +I never knew her husband, though we were distant kin, nor yet herself +during the long years through which she mourned him. Catherine Evers was +beginning to recover her interest in the world when first we met; but +she never returned to that identical fold of society in which she had +been born and bred. It was, of course, despite her own performances, a +fold to which the worldly wolf was no stranger; and her trouble had +turned a light-hearted little lady into an eager, intellectual, +speculative being, with a sort of shame for her former estate, and an +undoubted reactionary dislike of dominion and of petty pomp. Of her own +high folk one neither saw nor heard a thing; her friends were the +powerful preachers of most denominations, and one or two only painted or +wrote; for she had been greatly exercised about religion, and somewhat +solaced by the arts. +</p> +<p> +Of her charm for me, a lad with a sneaking regard for the pen, even when +I buckled on the sword, I need not be too analytical. No doubt about her +kindly interest, in the first instance, in so morbid a curiosity as a +subaltern who cared for books and was prepared to extend his gracious +patronage to pictures. This subaltern had only too much money, and if +the truth be known, only too little honest interest in the career into +which he had allowed himself to drift. An early stage of that career +brought him up to London, where family pressure drove him on a day to +Elm Park Gardens. The rest is easily conceived. Here was a woman, still +young, though some years older than oneself; attractive, intellectual, +amusing, the soul of sympathy, at once a spiritual influence and the +best companion in the world; and for a time, at least, she had taken a +perhaps imprudent interest in a lad whom she so greatly interested +herself, on so many and various accounts. Must you marvel that the +young fool mistook the interest, on both sides, for a more intense +feeling, of which he for one had no experience at the time, and that he +fell by his mistake at a ridiculously early stage of his career? +</p> +<p> +It is, I grant, more surprising to find the same young man playing Harry +Esmond (at due distance) to the same Lady Castlewood after years in +India and a taste of two wars. But Catherine's room was Catherine's +room, a very haunt of the higher sirens, charged with noble promptings +and forgotten influences and impossible vows. And you will please bear +in mind that as yet I am but setting forth, from this rarefied +atmosphere, upon my invidious mission. +</p> + + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<a name="CH2"><!-- CH2 --></a> +<h2> + CHAPTER II +</h2> + +<h3> +THE THEATRE OF WAR +</h3> +<p> </p> +<p> +It is a far cry to Zermatt at the best of times, and that is not the +middle of August. The annual rush was at its height, the trains crowded, +the heat of them overpowering. I chose to sit up all night in my corner +of an ordinary compartment, as a lesser evil than the <i>wagon-lit</i> in +which you cannot sit up at all. In the morning one was in Switzerland, +with a black collar, a rusty chin, and a countenance in keeping with its +appointments. It was not as though the night had been beguiled for me by +such considerations as are only proper to the devout pilgrim in his +lady's service. +</p> +<p> +On the contrary, and to tell the honest truth, I found it quite +impossible to sustain such a serious view of the very special service to +which I was foresworn: the more I thought of it, in one sense, the less +in another, until my only chance was to go forward with grim humour in +the spirit of impersonal curiosity which that attitude induces. In a +word, and the cant one which yet happens to express my state of mind to +a nicety, I had already "weakened" on the whole business which I had +been in such a foolish hurry to undertake, though not for one +reactionary moment upon her for whom I had undertaken it. I was still +entirely eager to "do her behest in pleasure or in pain"; but this +particular enterprise I was beginning to view apart from its +inspiration, on its intrinsic demerits, and the more clearly I saw it in +its own light, the less pleasure did the prospect afford me. +</p> +<p> +A young giant, whom I had not seen since his childhood, was merely +understood to be carrying on a conspicuous, but in all probability the +most innocent, flirtation in a Swiss hotel; and here was I, on mere +second-hand hearsay, crossing half Europe to spoil his perfectly +legitimate sport! I did not examine my project from the unknown lady's +point of view; it made me quite hot enough to consider it from that of +my own sex. Yet, the day before yesterday, I had more than acquiesced +in the dubious plan. I had even volunteered for its achievement. The +train rattled out one long, maddening tune to my own incessant +marvellings at my own secret apostasy: the stuffy compartment was not +Catherine's sanctum of the quickening memorials and the olden spell. +Catherine herself was no longer before me in the vivacious flesh, with +her half playful pathos of word and look, her fascinating outward light +and shade, her deeper and steadier intellectual glow. Those, I suppose, +were the charms which had undone me, first as well as last; but the +memory of them was no solace in the train. Nor was I tempted to dream +again of ultimate reward. I could see now no further than my immediate +part, and a more distasteful mixture of the mean and of the ludicrous I +hope never to rehearse again. +</p> +<p> +One mitigation I might have set against the rest. Dining at the Rag the +night before I left, I met a man who knew a man then staying at the +Riffel Alp. My man was a sapper with whom I had had a very slight +acquaintance out in India, but he happened to be one of those +good-natured creatures who never hesitate to bestir themselves or their +friends to oblige a mere acquaintance: he asked if I had secured rooms, +and on learning that I had not, insisted on telegraphing to his friend +to do his best for me. I had not hitherto appreciated the popularity of +a resort which I happened only to know by name, nor did I even on +getting at Lausanne a telegram to say that a room was duly reserved for +me. It was only when I actually arrived, tired out with travel, toward +the second evening, and when half of those who had come up with me were +sent down again to Zermatt for their pains, that I felt as grateful as I +ought to have been from the beginning. Here upon a mere ledge of the +High Alps was a hotel with tier upon tier of windows winking in the +setting sun. On every hand were dazzling peaks piled against a turquoise +sky, yet drawn respectfully apart from the incomparable Matterhorn, that +proud grim chieftain of them all. The grand spectacle and the magic air +made me thankful to be there, if only for their sake, albeit the more +regretful that a purer purpose had not drawn me to so fine a spot. +</p> +<p> +My unknown friend at court, one Quinby, a civilian, came up and spoke +before I had been five minutes at my destination. He was a very tall and +extraordinarily thin man, with an ill-nourished red moustache, and an +easy geniality of a somewhat acid sort. He had a trick of laughing +softly through his nose, and my two sticks served to excite a sense of +humour as odd as its habitual expression. +</p> +<p> +"I'm glad you carry the outward signs," said he, "for I made the most of +your wounds and you really owe your room to them. You see, we're a very +representative crowd. That festive old boy, strutting up and down with +his cigar, in the Panama hat, is really best known in the black cap: +it's old Sankey, the hanging judge. The big man with his back turned you +will know in a moment when he looks this way: it's our celebrated friend +Belgrave Teale. He comes down in one or other of his parts every day: +to-day it's the genial squire, yesterday it was the haw-haw officer of +the Crimean school. But a real live officer from the Front we don't +happen to have had, much less a wounded one, and you limp straight into +the breach." +</p> +<p> +I should have resented these pleasantries from an ordinary stranger, but +this libertine might be held to have earned his charter, and moreover I +had further use for him. We were loitering on the steps between the +glass veranda and the terrace at the back of the hotel. The little +sunlit stage was full of vivid, trivial, transitory life, it seemed as a +foil to the vast eternal scene. The hanging judge still strutted with +his cigar, peering jocosely from under the broad brim of his Panama; the +great actor still posed aloof, the human Matterhorn of the group. I +descried no showy woman with a tall youth dancing attendance; among the +brick-red English faces there was not one that bore the least +resemblance to the latest photograph of Bob Evers. +</p> +<p> +A little consideration suggested my first move. +</p> +<p> +"I think I saw a visitors' book in the hall," I said. "I may as well +stick down my name." +</p> +<p> +But before doing so I ran my eye up and down the pages inscribed by +those who had arrived that month. +</p> +<p> +"See anybody you know?" inquired Quinby, who hovered obligingly at my +elbow. It was really necessary to be as disingenuous as possible, more +especially with a person whose own conversation was evidently quite +unguarded. +</p> +<p> +"Yes, by Jove I do! Robin Evers, of all people!" +</p> +<p> +"Do you know him?" +</p> +<p> +The question came pretty quickly. I was sorry I had said so much. +</p> +<p> +"Well, I once knew a small boy of that name; but then they are not a +small clan." +</p> +<p> +"His mother's the Honourable," said Quinby, with studious unconcern, yet +I fancied with increased interest in me. +</p> +<p> +"I used to see something of them both," I deliberately admitted, "when +the lad was little. How has he turned out?" +</p> +<p> +Quinby gave his peculiar nasal laugh. +</p> +<p> +"A nice youth," said he. "A very nice youth!" +</p> +<p> +"Do you mean nice or nasty?" I asked, inclined to bridle at his tone. +</p> +<p> +"Oh, anything but nasty," said Quinby. "Only—well—perhaps a bit rapid +for his years!" +</p> +<p> +I stooped and put my name in the book before making any further remark. +Then I handed Quinby my cigarette-case, and we sat down on the nearest +lounge. +</p> +<p> +"Rapid, is he?" said I. "That's quite interesting. And how does it take +him?" +</p> +<p> +"Oh, not in any way that's discreditable; but as a matter of fact, +there's a gay young widow here, and they're fairly going it!" +</p> +<p> +I lit my cigarette with a certain unexpected sense of downright +satisfaction. So there was something in it after all. It had seemed such +a fool's errand in the train. +</p> +<p> +"A young widow," I repeated, emphasising one of Quinby's epithets and +ignoring the other. +</p> +<p> +"I mean, of course, she's a good deal older than Evers." +</p> +<p> +"And her name?" +</p> +<p> +"A Mrs. Lascelles." +</p> +<p> +I nodded. +</p> +<p> +"Do you happen to know anything about her, Captain Clephane?" +</p> +<p> +"I can't say I do." +</p> +<p> +"No more does anybody else," said Quinby, "except that she's an Indian +widow of sorts." +</p> +<p> +"Indian!" I repeated with more interest. +</p> +<p> +Quinby looked at me. +</p> +<p> +"You've been out there yourself, perhaps?" +</p> +<p> +"It was there I knew Hamilton," said I, naming our common friend in the +Engineers. +</p> +<p> +"Yet you're sure you never came across Mrs. Lascelles there?" +</p> +<p> +"India's a large place," I said, smiling as I shook my head. +</p> +<p> +"I wonder if Hamilton did," speculated Quinby aloud. +</p> +<p> +"And the Lascelleses," I added, "are another large clan." +</p> +<p> +"Well," he went on, after a moment's further cogitation, "there's nobody +here can place this particular Mrs. Lascelles; but there are some who +say things which they can tell you themselves. I'm not going to repeat +them if you know anything about the boy. I only wish you knew him well +enough to give him a friendly word of advice!" +</p> +<p> +"Is it so bad as all that?" +</p> +<p> +"My dear sir, I don't say there's anything bad about it," returned +Quinby, who seemed to possess a pretty gift of suggestive negation. "But +you may hear another opinion from other people, for you will find that +the whole hotel is talking about it. No," he went on, watching my eyes, +"it's no use looking for them at this time of day; they disappear from +morning to night; if you want to see them you must take a stroll when +everybody else is thinking of turning in. Then you may have better luck. +But here are the letters at last." +</p> +<p> +The concierge had appeared, hugging an overflowing armful of postal +matter. In another minute there was hardly standing room in the little +hall. My companion uttered his unlovely laugh. +</p> +<p> +"And here comes the British lion roaring for his London papers! It isn't +his letters he's so keen on, if you notice, Captain Clephane; it's his +<i>Daily Mail</i>, with the latest cricket, and after that the war. Teale is +an exception, of course. He has a stack of press-cuttings every day. +You will see him gloating over them in a minute. Ah! the old judge has +got his <i>Sportsman</i>; he reads nothing else except the <i>Sporting Times</i>, +and he's going back for the Leger. Do you see the man with the blue +spectacles and the peeled nose? He was last Vice Chancellor but one at +Cambridge. No, that's not a Bishop, it's an Archdeacon. All we want is a +Cabinet Minister now; every evening there is a rumour that the Colonial +Secretary is on his way, and most mornings you will hear that he has +actually arrived under cloud of night." +</p> +<p> +The facetious Quinby did not confine his more or less caustic commentary +to the well-known folk of whom there seemed no dearth; in the ten or +twenty minutes that we sat together he further revealed himself as a +copious gossip, with a wide net alike for the big fish and for the +smallest fry. There was a sheepish gentleman with a twitching face, and +a shaven cleric in close attendance; the former a rich brand plucked +from burning by the latter, whose temporal reward was the present trip, +so Quinby assured me during the time it took them to pass before our +eyes through the now emptying hall. A delightfully boyish young American +came inquiring waggishly for his "best girl"; next moment I was given to +understand that he meant his bride, who was ten times too good for him, +with further trivialities to which the dressing-bell put a timely +period. There was no sign of my Etonian when I went upstairs. +</p> +<p> +As I dressed in my small low room, with its sloping ceiling of varnished +wood, at the top of the house, I felt that after all I had learnt +nothing really new respecting that disturbing young gentleman. Quinby +had already proved himself such an arrant gossip as to discount every +word that he had said before I placed him in his proper type: it is one +which I have encountered elsewhere, that of the middle-aged bachelor who +will and must talk, and he had confessed his celibacy almost in his +first breath; but a more pronounced specimen of the type I am in no +hurry to meet again. If, however, there was some comfort in the thought +of his more than probable exaggerations, there was none at all in the +knowledge that these would be, if they had not already been, poured into +every tolerant ear in the place, if anything more freely than into mine. +</p> +<p> +I was somewhat late for dinner, but the scandalous couple were later +still, and all the evening I saw nothing of them. That, however, was +greatly due to this fellow Quinby, whose determined offices one could +hardly disdain after once accepting favours from him. In the press after +dinner I saw his ferret's face peering this way and that, a good head +higher than any other, and the moment our eyes met he began elbowing his +way toward me. Only an ingrate would have turned and fled; and for the +next hour or two I suffered Quinby to exploit my wounds and me for a +good deal more than our intrinsic value. To do the man justice, however, +I had no fault to find with the very pleasant little circle into which +he insisted on ushering me, at one end of the glazed veranda, and should +have enjoyed my evening but for an inquisitive anxiety to get in touch +with the unsuspecting pair. Meanwhile the lilt of a waltz had mingled +with the click of billiard balls and the talking and laughing which make +a summer's night vocal in that outpost of pleasure on the silent +heights; and some of our party had gone off to dance. In the end I +followed them, sticks and all; but there was no Bob Evers among the +dancers, nor in the billiard-room, nor anywhere else indoors. +</p> +<p> +Then, last of all, I looked where Quinby had advised me to look, and +there sure enough, on the almost deserted terrace, were the couple whom +I had come several hundred miles to put asunder. Hitherto I had only +realised the distasteful character of my task; now at a glance I had my +first inkling of its difficulty; and there ended the premature +satisfaction with which I had learnt that there was "something in" the +rumour which had reached Catherine's ears. +</p> +<p> +There was no moon, but the mountain stars were the brightest I have ever +seen in Europe. The mountains themselves stood back, as it were, +darkling and unobtrusive; all that was left of the Matterhorn was a +towering gap in the stars; and in the faint cold light stood my +friends, somewhat close together, and I thought I saw the red tips of +two cigarettes. There was at least no mistaking the long loose limbs in +the light overcoat. And because a woman always looks relatively taller +than a man, this woman looked nearly as tall as this lad. +</p> +<p> +"Bob Evers? You may not remember me, but my name's Clephane—Duncan, you +know!" +</p> +<p> +I felt the veriest scoundrel, and yet the words came out as smoothly as +I have written them, as if to show me that I had been a potential +scoundrel all my life. +</p> +<p> +"Duncan Clephane? Why, of course I remember you. I should think I did! I +say, though, you must have had a shocking time!" +</p> +<p> +Bob's voice was quite quiet for all his astonishment, his manner a +miracle, though it was too dark to read the face; and his right hand +held tenderly to mine, as his eyes fell upon my sticks, while his left +poised a steady cigarette. And now I saw that there was only one red tip +after all. +</p> +<p> +"I read your name in the visitors' book," said I, feeling too big a +brute to acknowledge the boy's solicitude for me. "I—I felt certain it +must be you." +</p> +<p> +"How splendid!" cried the great fellow in his easy, soft, unconscious +voice, "By the way, may I introduce you to Mrs. Lascelles? Captain +Clephane's one of our very oldest friends, just back from the Front, and +precious nearly blown to bits!" +</p> + + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<a name="CH3"><!-- CH3 --></a> +<h2> + CHAPTER III +</h2> + +<h3> +FIRST BLOOD +</h3> +<p> </p> +<p> +Mrs. Lascelles and I exchanged our bows. For a dangerous woman there was +a rather striking want of study in her attire. Over the garment which I +believe is called a "rain-coat," the night being chilly, she had put on +her golf-cape as well, and the effect was a little heterogeneous. It +also argued qualities other than those for which I was naturally on the +watch. Of the lady's face I could see even less than of Bob's, for the +hood of the cape was upturned into a cowl, and even in Switzerland the +stars are only stars. But while I peered she let me hear her voice, and +a very rich one it was—almost deep in tone—the voice of a woman who +would sing contralto. +</p> +<p> +"Have you really been fighting?" she asked, in a way that was either put +on, or else the expression of a more understanding sympathy than one +usually provoked; for pity and admiration, and even a helpless woman's +envy, might all have been discovered by an ear less critical and more +charitable than mine. +</p> +<p> +"Like anything!" answered Bob, in his unaffected speech. +</p> +<p> +"Until they knocked me out," I felt bound to add, "and that, +unfortunately, was before very long." +</p> +<p> +"You must have been dreadfully wounded!" said Mrs. Lascelles, raising +her eyes from my sticks and gazing at me, I fancied, with some +intentness; but at her expression I could only guess. +</p> +<p> +"Bowled over on Spion Kop," said Bob, "and fairly riddled as he lay." +</p> +<p> +"But only about the legs, Mrs. Lascelles," I explained; "and you see I +didn't lose either, so I've no cause to complain. I had hardly a graze +higher up." +</p> +<p> +"Were you up there the whole of that awful day?" asked Mrs. Lascelles, +on a low but thrilling note. +</p> +<p> +"I'd got to be," said I, trying to lighten the subject with a laugh. But +Bob's tone was little better. +</p> +<p> +"So he went staggering about among his men," he must needs chime in, +with other superfluities, "for I remember reading all about it in the +papers, and boasting like anything about having known you, Duncan, but +feeling simply sick with envy all the time. I say, you'll be a +tremendous hero up here, you know! I'm awfully glad you've come. It's +quite funny, all the same. I suppose you came to get bucked up? He +couldn't have gone to a better place, could he, Mrs. Lascelles?" +</p> +<p> +"Indeed he could not. I only wish we could empty the hotel and fill +every bed with our poor wounded!" +</p> +<p> +I do not know why I should have felt so much surprised. I had made unto +myself my own image of Mrs. Lascelles, and neither her appearance, nor a +single word that had fallen from her, was in the least in keeping with +my conception. Prepared for a certain type of woman, I was quite +confounded by its unconventional embodiment, and inclined to believe +that this was not the type at all. I ought to have known life better. +The most scheming mind may well entertain an enthusiasm for arms, +genuine enough in itself, at a martial crisis, and a natural manner is +by no means incompatible with the cardinal vices. That manner and that +enthusiasm were absolutely all that I as yet knew in favour of this Mrs. +Lascelles; but they were enough to cause me irritation. I wished to be +honest with somebody; let me at least be honestly inimical to her. I +took out my cigarette-case, and when about to help myself, handed it, +with a vile pretence at impulse, to Mrs. Lascelles instead. +</p> +<p> +Mrs. Lascelles thanked me, in a higher key, but declined. +</p> +<p> +"Don't you smoke?" I asked blandly. +</p> +<p> +"Sometimes." +</p> +<p> +"Ah! then I wasn't mistaken. I thought I saw two cigarettes just now." +</p> +<p> +Indeed, I had first smelt and afterward discovered the second cigarette +smouldering on the ground. Bob was smoking his still. The chances were +that they had both been lighted at the same time; therefore the other +had been thrown away unfinished at my approach. And that was one more +variation from the type of my confident preconceptions. +</p> +<p> +Young Robin had meanwhile had a quick eye on us both, and the stump of +his own cigarette was glowing between a firmer pair of lips than I had +looked for in that boyish face. +</p> +<p> +"It's so funny," said he (but there was no fun in his voice), "the +prejudice some people have against ladies smoking. Why shouldn't they? +Where's the harm?" +</p> +<p> +Now there is no new plea to be advanced on either side of this eternal +question, nor is it one upon which I ever felt strongly, but just then I +felt tempted to speak as though I did. I will not now dissect my motive, +but it was vaguely connected with my mission, and not unrighteous from +that standpoint. I said it was not a question of harm at all, but of +what one admired in a woman, and what one did not: a man loved to look +upon a woman as something above and beyond him, and there could be no +doubt that the gap seemed a little less when both were smoking like twin +funnels. That, I thought, was the adverse point of view; I did not say +that it was mine. +</p> +<p> +"I'm glad to hear it," said Bob Evers, with the faintest coldness in his +tone, though I fancied he was fuming within, and admired both his +chivalry and his self-control. "To me it's quite funny. I call it sheer +selfishness. We enjoy a cigarette ourselves; why shouldn't they? We +don't force them to be teetotal, do we? Is it bad form for a lady to +drink a glass of wine? You mightn't bicycle once, might you, Mrs. +Lascelles? I daresay Captain Clephane doesn't approve of that yet!" +</p> +<p> +"That's hitting below the belt," said I, laughing. "I wasn't giving you +my opinion, but only the old-fashioned view of the matter. I wish you'd +take one, Mrs. Lascelles, or I shall think I've been misunderstood all +round!" +</p> +<p> +"No, thank you, Captain Clephane. That old-fashioned feeling is +infectious." +</p> +<p> +"Then I will," cried Bob, "to show there's no ill-feeling. You old +fire-eater, I believe you just put up the argument to change the +conversation. Wouldn't you like a chair for those game legs?" +</p> +<p> +"No, I've got to use them in moderation. I was going to have a stroll +when I spotted you at last." +</p> +<p> +"Then we'll all take one together," cried the genial old Bob once more. +"It's a bit cold standing here, don't you think, Mrs. Lascelles? After +you with the match!" +</p> +<p> +But I held it so long that he had to strike another, for I had looked on +Mrs. Lascelles at last. It was not an obviously interesting face, like +Catherine's, but interest there was of another kind. There was nothing +intellectual in the low brow, no enthusiasm for books and pictures in +the bold eyes, no witticism waiting on the full lips; but in the curve +of those lips and the look from those eyes, as in the deep chin and the +carriage of the hooded head, there was something perhaps not lower than +intellect in the scale of personal equipment. There was, at all events, +character and to spare. Even by the brief glimmer of a single match I +could see that (and more) for myself. Then came a moment's interval +before Bob struck his light, and in that moment her face changed. As I +saw it next, it appealed, it entreated, until the second match was +flung away. And the appeal was to such purpose that I do not think I was +five seconds silent. +</p> +<p> +"And what do you do with yourself up here all day? I mean you hale +people; of course, I can only potter in the sun." +</p> +<p> +The question, perhaps, was better in intention than in tact. I did not +mean them to take it to themselves, but Bob's answer showed that it was +open to misconstruction. +</p> +<p> +"Some people climb," said he; "you'll know them by their noses. The +glaciers are almost as bad, though, aren't they, Mrs. Lascelles? Lots of +people potter about the glaciers. It's rather sport in the serracs; +you've got to rope. But you'll find lots more loafing about the place +all day, reading Tauchnitz novels, and watching people on the Matterhorn +through the telescope. That's the sort of thing, isn't it, Mrs. +Lascelles?" +</p> +<p> +She also had misunderstood the drift of my unlucky question. But there +was nothing disingenuous in her reply. It reminded me of her eyes, as I +had seen them by the light of the first match. +</p> +<p> +"Mr. Evers doesn't say that he is a climber himself, Captain Clephane; +but he is a very keen one, and so am I. We are both beginners, so we +have begun together. It's such fun. We do some little thing every day; +to-day we did the Schwarzee. You won't be any wiser, and the real +climbers wouldn't call it climbing, but it means three thousand feet +first and last. To-morrow we are going to the Monte Rosa hut. There is +no saying where we shall end up, if this weather holds." +</p> +<p> +In this fashion Mrs. Lascelles not only made me a contemptuous present +of information which I had never sought, but tacitly rebuked poor Bob +for his gratuitous attempt at concealment. Clearly, they had nothing to +conceal; and the hotel talk was neither more nor less than hotel talk. +There was, nevertheless, a certain self-consciousness in the attitude of +either (unless I grossly misread them both) which of itself afforded +some excuse for the gossips in my own mind. +</p> +<p> +Yet I did not know; every moment gave me a new point of view. On my +remarking, genuinely enough, that I only wished I could go with them, +Bob Evers echoed the wish so heartily that I could not but believe that +he meant what he said. On his side, in that case, there could be +absolutely nothing. And yet, again, when Mrs. Lascelles had left us, as +she did ere long in the easiest and most natural manner, and when we had +started a last cigarette together, then once more I was not so sure of +him. +</p> +<p> +"That's rather a handsome woman," said I, with perhaps more than the +authority to which my years entitled me. But I fancied it would "draw" +poor Bob. And it did. +</p> +<p> +"Rather handsome!" said he, with a soft little laugh not altogether +complimentary to me. "Yes, I should almost go as far myself. Still I +don't see how <i>you</i> know; you haven't so much as seen her, my dear +fellow." +</p> +<p> +"Haven't we been walking up and down outside this lighted veranda for +the last ten minutes?" +</p> +<p> +Bob emitted a pitying puff. "Wait till you see her in the sunlight! +There's not many of them can stand it, as they get it up here. But she +can—like anything!" +</p> +<p> +"She has made an impression on you, Bob," said I, but in so sedulously +inoffensive a manner that his self-betrayal was all the greater when he +told me quite hotly not to be an ass. +</p> +<p> +Now I was more than ten years his senior, and Bob's manners were as +charming as only the manners of a nice Eton boy can be; therefore I held +my peace, but with difficulty refrained from nodding sapiently to +myself. We took a couple of steps in silence, then Bob stopped short. I +did the same. He was still a little stern; we were just within range of +the veranda lights, and I can see and hear him to this day, almost as +clearly as I did that night. +</p> +<p> +"I'm not much good at making apologies," he began, with rather less +grace than becomes an apologist; but it was more than enough for me from +Bob. +</p> +<p> +"Nor I at receiving them, my dear Bob." +</p> +<p> +"Well, you've got to receive one now, whether you accept it or not. I +was the ass myself, and I beg your pardon!" +</p> +<p> +Somehow I felt it was a good deal for a lad to say, at that age, and +with Bob's upbringing and popularity, even though he said it rather +scornfully in the fewest words. The scorn was really for himself, and I +could well understand it. Nay, I was glad to have something to forgive +in the beginning, I with my unforgivable mission, and would have laughed +the matter off without another word if Bob had let me. +</p> +<p> +"I'm a bit raw on the point," said he, taking my arm for a last turn, +"and that's the truth. There was a fellow who came out with me, quite a +good chap really, and a tremendous pal of mine at Eton, yet he behaved +like a lunatic about this very thing. Poor chap, he reads like anything, +and I suppose he'd been overdoing it, for he actually asked me to choose +between Mrs. Lascelles and himself! What could a fellow do but let the +poor old simpleton go? They seem to think you can't be pals with a woman +without wanting to make love to her. Such utter rot! I confess I lose my +hair with them; but that doesn't excuse me in the least for losing it +with you." +</p> +<p> +I assured him, on the other hand, that his very natural irritability on +the subject made all the difference in the world. "But whom," I added, +"do you mean by 'them'? Not anybody else in the hotel?" +</p> +<p> +"Good heavens, no!" cried Bob, finding a fair target for his scorn at +last. "Do you think I care twopence what's said or thought by people I +never saw in my life before and am never likely to see again? I know how +I'm behaving. What does it matter what they think? Not that they're +likely to bother their heads about us any more than we do about them." +</p> +<p> +"You don't know that." +</p> +<p> +"I certainly don't care," declared my lordly youth, with obvious +sincerity. "No, I was only thinking of poor old George Kennerley and +people like him, if there are any. I did care what he thought, that is +until I saw he was as mad as anything on the subject. It was too silly. +I tell you what, though, I'd value your opinion!" And he came to another +stop and confronted me again, but this time such a picture of boyish +impulse and of innocent trust in me (even by that faint light) that I +was myself strongly inclined to be honest with him on the spot. But I +only smiled and shook my head. +</p> +<p> +"Oh, no, you wouldn't," I assured him. +</p> +<p> +"But I tell you I would!" he cried. "Do <i>you</i> think there's any harm in +my going about with Mrs. Lascelles because I rather like her and she +rather likes me? I won't condescend to give you my word that I mean +none." +</p> +<p> +What answer could I give? His charming frankness quite disarmed me, and +the more completely because I felt that a dignified reticence would have +been yet more characteristic of this clean, sweet youth, with his noble +unconsciousness alike of evil and of evil speaking. I told him the +truth—that there could be no harm at all with such a fellow as himself. +And he wrung my hand until he hurt it; but the physical pain was a +relief. +</p> +<p> +Never can I remember going up to bed with a better opinion of another +person, or a worse one of myself. How could I go on with my thrice +detestable undertaking? Now that I was so sure of him, why should I even +think of it for another moment? Why not go back to London and tell his +mother that her early confidence had not been misplaced, that the lad +did know how to take care of himself, and better still of any woman whom +he chose to honour with his bright, pure-hearted friendship? All this I +felt as strongly as any conviction I have ever held. Why, then, could I +not write it at once to Catherine in as many words? +</p> +<p> +Strange how one forgets, how I had forgotten in half an hour! The reason +came home to me on the stairs, and for the second time. +</p> +<p> +It had come home first by the light of those two matches, struck outside +in the dark part of the deserted terrace. It was not the lad whom I +distrusted, but the woman of whose face I had then obtained my only +glimpse—that night. +</p> +<p> +I had known her, after all, in India years before. +</p> + + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<a name="CH4"><!-- CH4 --></a> +<h2> + CHAPTER IV +</h2> + +<h3> +A LITTLE KNOWLEDGE +</h3> +<p> </p> +<p> +Once in the Town Hall at Simla (the only time I was ever there) it was +my fortune to dance with a Mrs. Heymann of Lahore, a tall woman, but a +featherweight partner, and in all my dancing days I never had a better +waltz. To my delight she had one other left, though near the end, and we +were actually dancing when an excitable person came out of the +card-room, flushed with liquor and losses, and carried her off in the +most preposterous manner. It was a shock to me at the time to learn that +this outrageous little man was my partner's husband. Months later, when +I came across their case in the papers, it was, I am afraid, without +much sympathy for the injured husband. The man was quite unpresentable, +and I had seen no more of him at Simla, but of the woman just enough to +know her by matchlight on the terrace at the Riffel Alp. +</p> +<p> +And this was Bob's widow, this dashing <i>divorcée</i>! Dashing she was as I +now remembered her, fine in mould, finer in spirit, reckless and +rebellious as she well might be. I had seen her submit before a +ball-room, but with the contempt that leads captivity captive. Seldom +have I admired anything more. It was splendid even to remember, the +ready outward obedience, the not less apparent indifference and disdain. +There was a woman whom any man might admire, who had had it in her to be +all things to some man! But Bob Evers was not a man at all. And +this—and this—was his widow! +</p> +<p> +Was she one at all? How could I tell? Yes, it was Lascelles, the other +name in the case, to the best of my recollection. But had she any right +to bear it? And even supposing they had married, what had happened to +the second husband? Widow or no widow, second marriage or no second +marriage, defensible or indefensible, was this the right friend for a +lad still fresh from Eton, the only son of his mother, who had sent me +in secret to his side? +</p> +<p> +There was only one answer to the last question, whatever might be said +or urged in reply to all the rest. I could not but feel that Catherine +Evers had been justified in her instinct to an almost miraculous degree; +that her worst fears were true enough, so far as the lady was concerned; +and that Providence alone could have inspired her to call in an agent +who knew what I knew, and who therefore saw his duty as plainly as I +already saw mine. But it is one thing to recognise a painful duty and +quite another thing to know how to minimise the pain to those most +affected by its performance. The problem was no easy one to my mind, and +I lay awake upon it far into the night. +</p> +<p> +Tired out with travel, I fell asleep in the end, to awake with a start +in broad daylight. The sun was pouring through the uncurtained +dormer-window of my room under the roof. And in the sunlight, looking +his best in knickerbockers, as only thin men do, with face greased +against wind and glare, and blue spectacles in rest upon an Alpine +wideawake, stood the lad who had taken his share in keeping me awake. +</p> +<p> +"I'm awfully sorry," he began. "It's horrid cheek, but when I saw your +room full of light I thought you might have been even earlier than I +was. You must get them to give you curtains up here." +</p> +<p> +He had a note in his hand and I thought by his manner there was +something that he wished and yet hesitated to tell me. I accordingly +asked him what it was. +</p> +<p> +"It's what we were speaking about last night!" burst out Bob. "That's +why I've come to you. It's these silly fools who can't mind their own +business and think everybody else is like themselves! Here's a note from +Mrs. Lascelles which makes it plain that that old idiot George is not +the only one who has been talking about us, and some of the talk has +reached her ears. She doesn't say so in so many words, but I can see +it's that. She wants to get out of our expedition to Monte Rosa +hut—wants me to go alone. The question is, ought I to let her get out +of it? Does it matter one rap what this rabble says about us? I've come +to ask your advice—you were such a brick about it all last night—and +what you say I'll do." +</p> +<p> +I had begun to smile at Bob's notion of "a rabble": this one happened +to include a few quite eminent men, as you have seen, to say nothing of +the average quality of the crowd, of which I had been able to form some +opinion of my own. But I had already noticed in Bob the exclusiveness of +the type to which he belonged, and had welcomed it as one does welcome +the little faults of the well-night faultless. It was his last sentence +that made me feel too great a hypocrite to go on smiling. +</p> +<p> +"It may not matter to you," I said at length, "but it may to the lady." +</p> +<p> +"I suppose it does matter more to them?" +</p> +<p> +The sunburnt face, puckered with a wry wistfulness, was only comic in +its incongruous coat of grease. But I was under no temptation to smile. +I had to confine my mind pretty closely to the general principle, and +rather studiously to ignore the particular instance, before I could +bring myself to answer the almost infantile inquiry in those honest +eyes. +</p> +<p> +"My dear fellow, it must!" +</p> +<p> +Bob looked disappointed but resigned. +</p> +<p> +"Well, then, I won't press it, though I'm not sure that I agree. You +see, it's not as though there was or ever would be anything between us. +The idea's absurd. We are absolute pals and nothing else. That's what +makes all this such a silly bore. It's so unnecessary. Now she wants me +to go alone, but I don't see the fun of that." +</p> +<p> +"Does she ask you to go alone?" +</p> +<p> +"She does. That's the worst of it." +</p> +<p> +I nodded, and he asked me why. +</p> +<p> +"She probably thinks it would be the best answer to the tittle-tattlers, +Bob." +</p> +<p> +That was not a deliberate lie; not until the words were out did it occur +to me that Mrs. Lascelles might now have another object in getting rid +of her swain for the day. But Bob's eyes lighted in a way that made me +feel a deliberate liar. +</p> +<p> +"By Jove!" he said, "I never thought of that. I don't agree with her, +mind, but if that's her game I'll play it like a book. So long, Duncan! +I'm not one of those chaps who ask a man's advice without the slightest +intention of ever taking it!" +</p> +<p> +"But I haven't ventured to advise you," I reminded the boy, with a +cowardly eye to the remotest consequences. +</p> +<p> +"Perhaps not, but you've shown me what's the proper thing to do." And he +went away to do it there and then, like the blameless exception that I +found him to so many human rules. +</p> +<p> +I had my breakfast upstairs after this, and lay for some considerable +time a prey to feelings which I shall make no further effort to expound; +for this interview had not altered, but only intensified them; and in +any case they must be obvious to those who take the trouble to conceive +themselves in my unenviable position. +</p> +<p> +And it was my ironic luck to be so circumstanced in a place where I +could have enjoyed life to the hilt! Only to lie with the window open +was to breathe air of a keener purity, a finer temper, a more +exhilarating freshness, than had ever before entered my lungs; and to +get up and look out of the window was to peer into the limpid brilliance +of a gigantic crystal, where the smallest object was in startling +focus, and the very sunbeams cut with scissors. The people below trailed +shadows like running ink. The light was ultra-tropical. One looked for +drill suits and pith headgear, and was amazed to find pajamas +insufficient at the open window. +</p> +<p> +Upon the terrace on the other side, when I eventually came down, there +were cane chairs and Tauchnitz novels under the umbrella tents, and the +telescope out and trained upon a party on the Matterhorn. A group of +people were waiting turns at the telescope, my friend Quinby and the +hanging judge among them. But I searched under the umbrella tents as +well as one could from the top of the steps before hobbling down to join +the group. +</p> +<p> +"I have looked for an accident through that telescope," said the jocose +judge, "fifteen Augusts running. They usually have one the day after I +go." +</p> +<p> +"Good morning, sir!" was Quinby's greeting; and I was instantly +introduced to Sir John Sankey, with such a parade of my military history +as made me wince and Sir John's eye twinkle. I fancied he had formed an +unkind estimate of my rather overpowering friend, and lived to hear my +impression confirmed in unjudicial language. But our first conversation +was about the war, and it lasted until the judge's turn came for the +telescope. +</p> +<p> +"Black with people!" he ejaculated. "They ought to have a constable up +there to regulate the traffic." +</p> +<p> +But when I looked it was long enough before my inexperienced eye could +discern the three midges strung on the single strand of cobweb against +the sloping snow. +</p> +<p> +"They are coming down," explained the obliging Quinby. "That's one of +the most difficult places, the lower edge of the top slope. It's just a +little way along to the right where the first accident was.... By the +way, your friend Evers says he's going to do the Matterhorn before he +goes." +</p> +<p> +It was unwelcome hearing, for Quinby had paused to regale me with a +lightning sketch of the first accident, and no one had contradicted his +gruesome details. +</p> +<p> +"<i>Is</i> young Evers a friend of yours?" inquired the judge. +</p> +<p> +"He is." +</p> +<p> +The judge did not say another word. But Quinby availed himself of the +first opportunity of playing Ancient Mariner to my Wedding Guest. +</p> +<p> +"I saw you talking to them," he told me confidentially, "last night, you +know!" +</p> +<p> +"Indeed." +</p> +<p> +He took me by the sleeve. +</p> +<p> +"Of course I don't know what you said, but it's evidently had an effect. +Evers has gone off alone for the first time since he has been here." +</p> +<p> +I shifted my position. +</p> +<p> +"You evidently keep an eye on him, Mr. Quinby." +</p> +<p> +"I do, Clephane. I find him a diverting study. He is not the only one in +this hotel. There's old Teale on his balcony at the present minute, if +you look up. He has the best room in the hotel; the only trouble is that +it doesn't face the sun all day; he's not used to being in the shade, +and you'll hear him damn the limelight-man in heaps one of these fine +mornings. But your enterprising young friend is a more amusing person +than Belgrave Teale." +</p> +<p> +I had heard enough of my enterprising young friend from this quarter. +</p> +<p> +"Do you never make any expeditions yourself, Mr. Quinby?" +</p> +<p> +"Sometimes." Quinby looked puzzled. "Why do you ask?" he was constrained +to add. +</p> +<p> +"You should have volunteered instead of Mrs. Lascelles to-day. It would +have been an excellent opportunity for prosecuting your own rather +enterprising studies." +</p> +<p> +One would have thought that one's displeasure was plain enough at last; +but not a bit of it. So far from resenting the rebuff, the fellow +plucked my sleeve, and I saw at a glance that he had not even listened +to my too elaborate sarcasm. +</p> +<p> +"Talk of the—lady!" he whispered. "Here she comes." +</p> +<p> +And a second glance intercepted Mrs. Lascelles on the steps, with her +bold good looks and her fine upstanding carriage, cut clean as a +diamond in that intensifying atmosphere, and hardly less dazzling to the +eye. Yet her cotton gown was simplicity's self; it was the right setting +for such natural brilliance, a brilliance of eyes and teeth and +colouring, a more uncommon brilliance of expression. Indeed it was a +wonderful expression, brave rather than sweet, yet capable of sweetness +too, and for the moment at least nobly free from the defensive +bitterness which was to mark it later. So she stood upon the steps, the +talk of the hotel, trailing, with characteristic independence, a cane +chair behind her, while she sought a shady place for it, even as I had +stood seeking for her: before she found one I was hobbling toward her. +</p> +<p> +"Oh, thanks, Captain Clephane, but I couldn't think of allowing you! +Well, then, between us, if you insist. Here under the wall, I think, is +as good a place as any." +</p> +<p> +She pointed out a clear space in the rapidly narrowing ribbon of shade, +and there I soon saw Mrs. Lascelles settled with her book (a trashy +novel, that somehow brought Catherine Evers rather sharply before my +mind's eye) in an isolation as complete as could be found upon the +crowded terrace, and too intentional on her part to permit of an +intrusion on mine. I lingered a moment, nevertheless. +</p> +<p> +"So you didn't go to that hut after all, Mrs. Lascelles?" +</p> +<p> +"No." She waited a moment before looking up at me. "And I'm afraid Mr. +Evers will never forgive me," she added after her look, in the rich +undertone that had impressed me overnight, before the cigarette +controversy. +</p> +<p> +I was not going to say that I had seen Bob before he started, but it was +an opportunity of speaking generally of the lad. Thus I found myself +commenting on the coincidence of our meeting again—he and I—and again +lying before I realised that it was a lie. But Mrs. Lascelles sat +looking up at me with her fine and candid eyes, as though she knew as +well as I which was the real coincidence, and knew that I knew into the +bargain. It gave me the disconcerting sensation of being detected and +convicted at one blow. Bob Evers failed me as a topic, and I stood like +the fool I felt. +</p> +<p> +"I am sure you ought not to stand about so much, Captain Clephane." +</p> +<p> +Mrs. Lascelles was smiling faintly as I prepared to take her hint. +</p> +<p> +"Doesn't it really do you any harm?" she inquired in time to detain me. +</p> +<p> +"No, just the opposite. I am ordered to take all the exercise I can." +</p> +<p> +"Even walking?" +</p> +<p> +"Even hobbling, Mrs. Lascelles, if I don't overdo it." +</p> +<p> +She sat some moments in thought. I guessed what she was thinking, and I +was right. +</p> +<p> +"There are some lovely walks quite near, Captain Clephane. But you have +to climb a little, either going or coming." +</p> +<p> +"I could climb a little," said I, making up my mind. "It's within the +meaning of the act—it would do me good. Which way will you take me, +Mrs. Lascelles?" +</p> +<p> +Mrs. Lascelles looked up quickly, surprised at a boldness on which I was +already complimenting myself. But it is the only way with a bold woman. +</p> +<p> +"Did I say I would take you at all, Captain Clephane?" +</p> +<p> +"No, but I very much hope you will." +</p> +<p> +And our eyes met as fairly as they had done by matchlight the night +before. +</p> +<p> +"Then I will," said Mrs. Lascelles, "because I want to speak to you." +</p> + + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<a name="CH5"><!-- CH5 --></a> +<h2> + CHAPTER V +</h2> + +<h3> +A MARKED WOMAN +</h3> +<p> </p> +<p> +We had come farther than was wise without a rest, but all the seats on +the way were in full view of the hotel, and I had been irritated by +divers looks and whisperings as we traversed the always crowded terrace. +Bob Evers, no doubt, would have turned a deaf ear and a blind eye to +them. I myself could pretend to do so, but pretence was evidently one of +my strong points. I had not Bob's fine natural regardlessness, for all +my seniority and presumably superior knowledge of the world. +</p> +<p> +So we had climbed the zigzags to the right of the Riffelberg and +followed the footpath overlooking the glacier, in the silence enjoined +by single file, but at last we were seated on the hillside, a trifle +beyond that emerald patch which some humourist has christened the +Cricket-ground. Beneath us were the serracs of the Gorner Glacier, +teased and tousled like a fringe of frozen breakers. Beyond the serracs +was the main stream of comparatively smooth ice, with its mourning band +of moraine, and beyond that the mammoth sweep and curve of the Théodule +where these glaciers join. Peak after peak of dazzling snow dwindled +away to the left. Only the gaunt Riffelhorn reared a brown head against +the blue. And there we sat, Mrs. Lascelles and I, with all this before +us and a rock behind, while I wondered what my companion meant to say, +and how she would begin. +</p> +<p> +I had not to wonder long. +</p> +<p> +"You were very good to me last night, Captain Clephane." +</p> +<p> +There was evidently no beating about the bush for Mrs. Lascelles. I +thoroughly approved, but was nevertheless somewhat embarrassed for the +moment. +</p> +<p> +"I—really I don't know how, Mrs. Lascelles!" +</p> +<p> +"Oh, yes, you do, Captain Clephane; you recognised me at a glance, as I +did you." +</p> +<p> +"I certainly thought I did," said I, poking about with the ferrule of +one of my sticks. +</p> +<p> +"You know you did." +</p> +<p> +"You are making me know it." +</p> +<p> +"Captain Clephane, you knew it all along; but we won't argue that point. +I am not going to deny my identity. It is very good of you to give me +the chance, if rather unnecessary. I am not a criminal. Still you could +have made me feel like one, last night, and heaps of men would have done +so, either for the fun of it or from want of tact." +</p> +<p> +I looked inquiringly at Mrs. Lascelles. She could tell me what she +pleased, but I was not going to anticipate her by displaying an +independent knowledge of matters which she might still care to keep to +herself. If she chose to open up a painful subject, well, the pain be +upon her own head. Yet I must say that there was very little of it in +her face as our eyes met. There was the eager candour that one could not +help admiring, with the glowing look of gratitude which I had done so +ridiculously little to earn; but the fine flushed face betrayed neither +pain, nor shame, nor the affectation of one or the other. There was a +certain shyness with the candour. That was all. +</p> +<p> +"You know quite well what I mean," continued Mrs. Lascelles, with a +genuine smile at my disingenuous face. "When you met me before it was +under another name, which you have probably quite forgotten." +</p> +<p> +"No, I remember it." +</p> +<p> +"Do you remember my husband?" +</p> +<p> +"Perfectly." +</p> +<p> +"Did you ever hear—" +</p> +<p> +Her lip trembled. I dropped my eyes. +</p> +<p> +"Yes," I admitted, "or rather I saw it for myself in the papers. It's no +use pretending I didn't, nor yet that I was the least bit surprised +or—or anything else!" +</p> +<p> +That was not one of my tactful speeches. It was culpably, might indeed +have been wilfully, ambiguous; and yet it was the kind of clumsy and +impulsive utterance which has the ring of a good intention, and is thus +inoffensive except to such as seek excuses for offence. My instincts +about Mrs. Lascelles did not place her in this category at all. +Nevertheless, the ensuing pause was long enough to make me feel uneasy, +and my companion only broke it as I was in the act of framing an +apology. +</p> +<p> +"May I bore you, Captain Clephane?" she asked abruptly. I looked at her +once more. She had regained an equal mastery of face and voice, and the +admirable candour of her eyes was undimmed by the smallest trace of +tears. +</p> +<p> +"You may try," said I, smiling with the obvious gallantry. +</p> +<p> +"If I tell you something about myself from that time on, will you +believe what I say?" +</p> +<p> +"You are the last person whom I should think of disbelieving." +</p> +<p> +"Thank you, Captain Clephane." +</p> +<p> +"On the other hand, I would much rather you didn't say anything that +gave you pain, or that you might afterward regret." +</p> +<p> +There was a touch of weariness in Mrs. Lascelles's smile, a rather +pathetic touch to my mind, as she shook her head. +</p> +<p> +"I am not very sensitive to pain," she remarked. "That is the one thing +to be said for having to bear a good deal while you are fairly young. I +want you to know more about me, because I believe you are the only +person here who knows anything at all. And then—you didn't give me away +last night!" +</p> +<p> +I pointed to the grassy ledge in front of us, such a vivid green against +the house now a hundred feet below. +</p> +<p> +"I am not pushing you over there," I said. "I take about as much credit +for that." +</p> +<p> +"Ah," sighed Mrs. Lascelles, "but that dear boy, who turns out to be a +friend of yours, he knows less than anybody else! He doesn't even +suspect. It would have hurt me, yes, it would have hurt even me, to be +given away to him! You didn't do it while I was there, and I know you +didn't when I had turned my back." +</p> +<p> +"Of course you know I didn't," I echoed rather testily as I took out a +cigarette. The case reminded me of the night before. But I did not again +hand it to Mrs. Lascelles. +</p> +<p> +"Well, then," she continued, "since you didn't give me away, even +without thinking, I want you to know that after all there isn't quite so +much to give away as there might have been. A divorce, of course, is +always a divorce; there is no getting away from that, or from mine. But +I really did marry again. And I really am the widow they think I am." +</p> +<p> +I looked quickly up at her, in pure pity and compassion for one gone so +far in sorrow and yet such a little way in life. It was a sudden +feeling, an unpremeditated look, but I might as well have spoken aloud. +Mrs. Lascelles read me unerringly, and she shook her head, sadly but +decidedly, while her eyes gazed calmly into mine. +</p> +<p> +"<i>It</i> was not a happy marriage, either," she said, as impersonally as if +speaking of another woman. "You may think what you like of me for saying +so to a comparative stranger; but I won't have your sympathy on false +pretences, simply because Major Lascelles is dead. Did you ever meet +him, by the way?" +</p> +<p> +And she mentioned an Indian regiment. But the major and I had never met. +</p> +<p> +"Well, it was not very happy for either of us. I suppose such marriages +never are. I know they are never supposed to be. Even if the couple are +everything to each other, there is all the world to point his finger, +and all the world's wife to turn her back, and you have to care a good +deal to get over that. But you may have been desperate in the first +instance; you may have said to yourself that the fire couldn't be much +worse than the frying-pan. In that case, of course, you deserve no +sympathy, and nothing is more irritating to me than the sympathy I don't +deserve. It's a matter of temperament; I'm obliged to speak out, even if +it puts people more against me than they were already. No, you needn't +say anything, Captain Clephane; you didn't express your sympathy, I +stopped you in time.... And yet it is rather hard, when one's still +reasonably young, with almost everything before one—to be a marked +woman all one's time!" +</p> +<p> +Up to her last words, despite an inviting pause after almost every +sentence, I had succeeded in holding my tongue; though she was looking +wistfully now at the distant snow-peaks and obviously bestowing upon +herself the sympathy she did not want from me (as I had been told in so +many words, if not more plainly in the accompanying brief encounter +between our eyes), yet had I resisted every temptation to put in my +word, until these last two or three from Mrs. Lascelles. They, however, +demanded a denial, and I told her it was absurd to describe herself in +such terms. +</p> +<p> +"I am marked," she persisted, "wherever I go I may be known, as you knew +me here. If it hadn't been you it would have been somebody else, and I +should have known of it indirectly instead of directly; but even +supposing I had escaped altogether at this hotel, the next one would +probably have made up for it." +</p> +<p> +"Do you stay much in hotels?" +</p> +<p> +There had been something in the mellow voice which made such a question +only natural, yet it was scarcely asked before I would have given a good +deal to recall it. +</p> +<p> +"There is nowhere else to stay," said Mrs. Lascelles, "unless one sets +up house alone, which is costlier and far less comfortable. You see, one +does make a friend or two sometimes—before one is found out." +</p> +<p> +"But surely your people—" +</p> +<p> +This time I did check myself. +</p> +<p> +"My people," said Mrs. Lascelles, "have washed their hands of me." +</p> +<p> +"But Major Lascelles—surely <i>his</i> people—" +</p> +<p> +"They washed their hands of him! You see, they would be the first to +tell you, he had always been rather wild; but his crowning act of +madness in their eyes was his marriage. It was worse than the worst +thing he had ever done before. Still, it is not for me to say anything, +or feel anything, against his family...." +</p> +<p> +And then I knew that they were making her an allowance; it was more than +I wanted to know; the ground was too delicate, and led nowhere in +particular. Still, it was difficult not to take a certain amount of +interest in a handsome woman who had made such a wreck of her life so +young, who was so utterly alone, so proud and independent in her +loneliness, and apparently quite fine-hearted and unspoilt. But for Bob +Evers and his mother, the interest that I took might have been a little +different in kind; but even with my solicitude for them there mingled +already no small consideration for the social solitary whom I watched +now as she sat peering across the glacier, the foremost figure in a +world of high lights and great backgrounds, and whom to watch was to +admire, even against the greatest of them all. Alas! mere admiration +could not change my task or stay my hand; it could but clog me by +destroying my singleness of purpose, and giving me a double heart to +match my double face. +</p> +<p> +Since, however, a detestable duty had been undertaken, and since as a +duty it was more apparent than I had dreamt of finding it, there was +nothing for it but to go through with the thing and make immediate +enemies of my friends. So I set my teeth and talked of Bob. I was glad +Mrs. Lascelles liked him. His father was a remote connection of mine, +whom I had never met. But I had once known his mother very well. +</p> +<p> +"And what is she like?" asked Mrs. Lascelles, calling her fine eyes home +from infinity, and fixing them once more on me. +</p> + + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<a name="CH6"><!-- CH6 --></a> +<h2> + CHAPTER VI +</h2> + +<h3> +OUT OF ACTION +</h3> +<p> </p> +<p> +Now if, upon a warm, soft, summer evening, you were suddenly asked to +describe the perfect winter's day, either you would have to stop and +think a little, or your imagination is more elastic than mine. Yet you +might have a passionate preference for cold sun and bracing airs. To me, +Catherine Evers and this Mrs. Lascelles were as opposite to each other +as winter and summer, or the poles, or any other notorious antitheses. +There was no comparison between them in my mind, yet as I sat with one +among the sunlit, unfamiliar Alps, it was a distinct effort to picture +the other in the little London room I knew so well. For it was always +among her books and pictures that I thought of Catherine, and to think +was to wish myself there at her side, rather than to wish her here at +mine. Catherine's appeal, I used to think, was to the highest and the +best in me, to brain and soul, and young ambition, and withal to one's +love of wit and sense of humour. Mrs. Lascelles, on the other hand, +struck me primarily in the light of some splendid and spirited animal. I +still liked to dwell upon her dancing. She satisfied the mere eye more +and more. But I had no reason to suppose that she knew right from wrong +in art or literature, any more than she would seem to have distinguished +between them in life itself. Her Tauchnitz novel lay beside her on the +grass and I again reflected that it would not have found a place on +Catherine's loftiest shelf. Catherine would have raved about the view +and made delicious fun of Quinby and the judge, and we should have sat +together talking poetry and harmless scandal by the happy hour. Mrs. +Lascelles probably took place and people alike for granted. But she had +lived, and as an animal she was superb! I looked again into her healthy +face and speaking eyes, with their bitter knowledge of good and evil, +their scorn of scorn, their redeeming honesty and candour. The contrast +was complete in every detail except the widowhood of both women; but I +did not pursue it any farther; for once more there was but one woman in +my thoughts, and she sat near me under a red parasol—clashing so +humanly with the everlasting snows! +</p> +<p> +"You don't answer my question, Captain Clephane. How much for your +thoughts?" +</p> +<p> +"I'll make you a present of them, Mrs. Lascelles. I was beginning to +think that a lot of rot has been written about the eternal snows and the +mountain-tops and all the rest of it. There a few lines in that last +little volume of Browning—" +</p> +<p> +I stopped of my own accord, for upon reflection the lines would have +made a rather embarrassing quotation. But meanwhile Mrs. Lascelles had +taken alarm on other grounds. +</p> +<p> +"Oh, <i>don't</i> quote Browning!" +</p> +<p> +"Why not?" +</p> +<p> +"He is far too deep for me; besides, I don't care for poetry, and I was +asking you about Mrs. Evers." +</p> +<p> +"Well," I said, with some little severity, "she's a very clever woman." +</p> +<p> +"Clever enough to understand Browning?" +</p> +<p> +"Quite." +</p> +<p> +If this was irony, it was also self-restraint, for it was to Catherine's +enthusiasm that I owed my own. The debt was one of such magnitude as a +life of devotion could scarcely have repaid, for to whom do we owe so +much as to those who first lifted the scales from our eyes and awakened +within us a soul for all such things? Catherine had been to me what I +instantly desired to become to this benighted beauty; but the desire was +not worth entertaining, since I hardly expected to be many minutes +longer on speaking terms with Mrs. Lascelles. I recalled the fact that +it was I who had broached the subject of Bob Evers and his mother, +together with my unpalatable motive for so doing. And I was seeking in +my mind, against the grain, I must confess, for a short cut back to Bob, +when Mrs. Lascelles suddenly led the way. +</p> +<p> +"I don't think," said she, "that Mr. Evers takes after his mother." +</p> +<p> +"I'm afraid he doesn't," I replied, "in that respect." +</p> +<p> +"And I am glad," she said. "I do like a boy to be a boy. The only son +of his mother is always in danger of becoming something else. Tell me, +Captain Clephane, are they very devoted to each other?" +</p> +<p> +There was some new note in that expressive voice of hers. Was it merely +wistful, was it really jealous, or was either element the product of my +own imagination? I made answer while I wondered: +</p> +<p> +"Absolutely devoted, I should say; but it's years since I saw them +together. Bob was a small boy then, and one of the jolliest. Still I +never expected him to grow up the charming chap he is now." +</p> +<p> +Mrs. Lascelles sat gazing at the great curve of Théodule Glacier. I +watched her face. +</p> +<p> +"He <i>is</i> charming," she said at length. "I am not sure that I ever met +anybody quite like him, or rather I am quite sure that I never did. He +is so quiet, in a way, and yet so wonderfully confident and at ease!" +</p> +<p> +"That's Eton," said I. "He is the best type of Eton boy, and the best +type of Eton boy," I declared, airing the little condition with a +flourish, "is one of the greatest works of God." +</p> +<p> +"I daresay you're right," said Mrs. Lascelles, smiling indulgently; "but +what is it? How do you define it? It isn't 'side,' and yet I can quite +imagine people who don't know him thinking that it is. He is cocksure of +himself, but of nothing else; that seems to me to be the difference. No +one could possibly be more simple in himself. He may have the assurance +of a man of fifty, yet it isn't put on; it's neither bumptious nor +affected, but just as natural in Mr. Evers as shyness and awkwardness in +the ordinary youth one meets. And he has the <i>savoir faire</i> not to ask +questions!" +</p> +<p> +Were we all mistaken? Was this the way in which a designing woman would +speak of the object of her designs? Not that I thought so hardly of Mrs. +Lascelles myself; but I did think that she might well fall in love with +Bob Evers, at least as well as he with her. Was this, then, the way in +which a woman would be likely to speak of the young man with whom she +had fallen in love? To me the appreciation sounded too frank and +discerning and acute. Yet I could not call it dispassionate, and +frankness was this woman's outstanding merit, though I was beginning to +discover others as well. Moreover, the fact remained that they had been +greatly talked about; that at any rate must be stopped and I was there +to stop it. +</p> +<p> +I began to pick my words. +</p> +<p> +"It's all Eton, except what is in the blood, and it's all a question of +manners, or rather of manner. Don't misunderstand me, Mrs. Lascelles. I +don't say that Bob isn't independent in character as well as in his +ways, but only that when all's said he's still a boy and not a man. He +can't possibly have a man's experience of the world, or even of himself. +He has a young head on his shoulders, after all, if not a younger one +than many a boy with half the assurance that you admire in him." +</p> +<p> +Mrs. Lascelles looked at me point-blank. +</p> +<p> +"Do you mean that he can't take care of himself?" +</p> +<p> +"I don't say that." +</p> +<p> +"Then what do you say?" +</p> +<p> +The fine eyes met mine without a flicker. The full mouth was curved at +the corners in a tolerant, unsuspecting smile. It was hard to have to +make an enemy of so handsome and good-humoured a woman. And was it +necessary, was it even wise? As I hesitated she turned and glanced +downward once more toward the glacier, then rose and went to the lip of +our grassy ledge, and as she returned I caught the sound which she had +been the first to hear. It was the gritty planting of nailed boots upon +a hard, smooth rock. +</p> +<p> +"I'm afraid you can't say it now," whispered Mrs. Lascelles. "Here's Mr. +Evers himself, coming this way back from the Monte Rosa hut! I'm going +to give him a surprise!" +</p> +<p> +And it was a genuine one that she gave him, for I heard his boyish +greeting before I saw his hot brown face, and there was no mistaking the +sudden delight of both. It was sudden and spontaneous, complete, until +his eyes lit on me. Even then his smile did not disappear, but it +changed, as did his tone. +</p> +<p> +"Good heavens!" cried Bob. "How on earth did <i>you</i> get up here? By rail +to the Riffelberg, I hope?" +</p> +<p> +"On my sticks." +</p> +<p> +"It was much too far for him," added Mrs. Lascelles, "and all my fault +for showing him the way. But I'm afraid there was contributory obstinacy +in Captain Clephane, because he simply wouldn't turn back. And now tell +us about yourself, Mr. Evers; surely we were not coming back this way?" +</p> +<p> +"<i>We</i> were not," said Bob, with a something sardonic in his little +laugh, "but I thought I might as well. It's the long way, six miles on +end upon the glacier." +</p> +<p> +"But have you really been to the hut?" +</p> +<p> +"Rather!" +</p> +<p> +"And where's our guide?" +</p> +<p> +"Oh, I wouldn't be bothered with a guide all to myself." +</p> +<p> +"My dear young man, you might have stepped straight into a crevasse!" +</p> +<p> +"I precious nearly did," laughed Bob, again with something odd about his +laughter; "but I say, do you know, if you won't think me awfully rude, +I'll push on back and get changed. I'm as hot as anything and not fit +to be seen." +</p> +<p> +And he was gone after very little more than a minute from first to last, +gone with rather an elaborate salute to Mrs. Lascelles, and rather a +cavalier nod to me. But then neither of us had made any effort to detain +him and a notable omission I thought it in Mrs. Lascelles, though to the +lad himself it may well have seemed as strange in the old friend as in +the new. +</p> +<p> +"What was it," asked Mrs. Lascelles, when we were on our way home, "that +you were going to say about Mr. Evers when he appeared in the flesh in +that extraordinary way?" +</p> +<p> +"I forget," said I, immorally. +</p> +<p> +"Really? So soon? Don't you remember, I thought you meant that he +couldn't take care of himself, and you were just going to tell me what +you did mean?" +</p> +<p> +"Oh, well, it wasn't that, because he can!" +</p> +<p> +But, as a matter of fact, I had seen my way to taking care of Master Bob +without saying a word either to him or to Mrs. Lascelles, or at all +events without making enemies of them both. +</p> + + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<a name="CH7"><!-- CH7 --></a> +<h2> + CHAPTER VII +</h2> + +<h3> +SECOND FIDDLE +</h3> +<p> </p> +<p> +My plan was quite obvious in its simplicity, and not in the least +discreditable from my point of view. It was perhaps inevitable that a +boy like Bob should imagine I was trying to "cut him out," as my blunt +friend Quinby phrased it to my face. I had not, of course, the smallest +desire to do any such vulgar thing. All I wanted was to make myself, if +possible, as agreeable to Mrs. Lascelles as this youth had done before +me, and in any case to share with him all the perils of her society. In +other words I meant to squeeze into "the imminent deadly breach" beside +Bob Evers, not necessarily in front of him. But if there was nothing +dastardly in this, neither was there anything heroic, since I was proof +against that kind of deadliness if Bob was not. +</p> +<p> +On the other hand, the whole character of my mission was affected by the +decision at which I had now arrived. There was no longer a necessity to +speak plainly to anybody. That odious duty was eliminated from my plan +of campaign, and the "frontal attack" of recent history discarded for +the "turning movement" of the day. So I had learnt something in South +Africa after all. I had learnt how to avoid hard knocks which might very +well do more harm than good to the cause I had at heart. That cause was +still sharply defined before my mind. It was the first and most sacred +consideration. I wrote a reassuring despatch to Catherine Evers, and +took it myself to the little post-office opposite the hotel that very +evening before dressing for dinner. But I cannot say that I was thinking +of Catherine when I proceeded to spoil three successive ties in the +tying. +</p> +<p> +Yet I can only repeat that I felt absolutely "proof" against the real +cause of my solicitude. It is the most delightful feeling where a +handsome woman is concerned. The judgment is not warped by passion or +clouded by emotion; you see the woman as she is, not as you wish to see +her, and if she disappoint it does not matter. You are not left to +choose between systematic self-deception and a humiliating admission of +your mistake. The lady has not been placed upon an impossible pedestal, +and she has not toppled down. In this case the lady started at the most +advantageous disadvantage; every admirable quality, her candour, her +courage, her spirited independence, her evident determination to piece a +broken life together again and make the best of it, told doubly in her +favour to me with my special knowledge of her past. It would be too much +to say that I was deeply interested; but Mrs. Lascelles had inspired me +with a certain sympathy and dispassionate regard. Cultivated she was +not, in the conventional sense, but she knew more than can be imbibed +from books. She knew life at first hand, had drained the cup for +herself, and yet could savour the lees. Not that she enlarged any +further on her own past. Mrs. Lascelles was never a great talker, like +Catherine; but she was certainly a woman to whom one could talk. And +talk to her I did thenceforward, with a conscientious conviction that I +was doing my duty, and only an occasional qualm for its congenial +character, while Bob listened with a wondering eye, or went his own way +without a word. +</p> +<p> +It is easy to criticise my conduct now. It would have been difficult to +act otherwise at the time. I am speaking of the evening after my walk +with Mrs. Lascelles, of the next day when it rained, and now of my third +night at the hotel. The sky had cleared. The glass was high. There was a +finer edge than ever on the silhouetted mountains against the stars. It +appeared that Bob and Mrs. Lascelles had talked of taking their lunch to +the Findelen Glacier on the next fine day, for he came up and reminded +her of it as she sat with me in the glazed veranda after dinner. I had +seen him standing alone under the stars a few minutes before: so this +was the result of his cogitation. But in his manner there was nothing +studied, much less awkward, and his smile even included me, though he +had not spoken to me alone all day. +</p> +<p> +"Oh, no, I hadn't forgotten, Mr. Evers. I am looking forward to it," +said my companion, with a smile of her own to which the most jealous +swain could not have taken exception. +</p> +<p> +Bob Evers looked hard at me. +</p> +<p> +"You'd better come, too," he said. +</p> +<p> +"It's probably too far," said I, quite intending to play second fiddle +next day, for it was really Bob's turn. +</p> +<p> +"Not for a man who has been up to the Cricket-ground," he rejoined. +</p> +<p> +"But it's dreadfully slippery," put in Mrs. Lascelles, with a +sympathetic glance at my sticks. +</p> +<p> +"Let him get them shod like alpenstocks," quoth Bob, "and nails in his +boots; then they'll be ready when he does the Matterhorn!" +</p> +<p> +It might have passed for boyish banter, but I knew that it was something +more; the use of the third person changed from chaff to scorn as I +listened, and my sympathetic resolution went to the winds. +</p> +<p> +"Thank you," I replied; "in that case I shall be delighted to come, and +I'll take your tip at once by giving orders about my boots." +</p> +<p> +And with that I resigned my chair to Bob, not sorry for the chance; he +should not be able to say that I had monopolised Mrs. Lascelles without +intermission from the first. Nevertheless, I was annoyed with him for +what he had said, and for the moment my actions were no part of my +scheme. Consequently I was thus in the last mood for a familiarity from +Quinby, who was hanging about the door between the veranda and the hall, +and who would not let me pass. +</p> +<p> +"That's awfully nice of you," he had the impudence to whisper. +</p> +<p> +"What do you mean?" +</p> +<p> +"Giving that poor young beggar another chance!" +</p> +<p> +"I don't understand you." +</p> +<p> +"Oh, I like that! You know very well that you've gone in on the military +ticket and deliberately cut the poor youngster—" +</p> +<p> +I did not wait to hear the end of this gratuitous observation. It was +very rude of me, but in another minute I should have been guilty of a +worse affront. My annoyance had deepened into something like dismay. It +was not only Bob Evers who was misconstruing my little attentions to +Mrs. Lascelles. I was more or less prepared for that. But here were +outsiders talking about us—the three of us! So far from putting a stop +to the talk, I had given it a regular fillip: here were Quinby and his +friends as keen as possible to see what would happen next, if not +betting on a row. The situation had taken a sudden turn for the worse. I +forgot the pleasant hours that I had passed with Mrs. Lascelles, and +began to wish myself well out of the whole affair. But I had now no +intention of getting out of the glacier expedition. I would not have +missed it on any account. Bob had brought that on himself. +</p> +<p> +And I daresay we seemed a sufficiently united trio as we marched along +the pretty winding path to the Findelen next morning. Dear Bob was not +only such a gentleman, but such a man, that it was almost a pleasure to +be at secret issue with him; he would make way for me at our lady's +side, listen with interest when she made me spin my martial yarns, laugh +if there was aught to laugh at, and in a word, give me every conceivable +chance. His manners might have failed him for one heated moment +overnight; they were beyond all praise this morning; and I repeatedly +discerned a morbid sporting dread of giving the adversary less than fair +play. It was sad to me to consider myself as such to Catherine's son, +but I was determined not to let the thought depress me, and there was +much outward occasion for good cheer. The morning was a perfect one in +every way. The rain had released all the pungent aromas of the mountain +woods through which we passed. Snowy height came in dazzling contrast +with a turquoise sky. The toy town of Zermatt spattered the green hollow +far below. And before me on the narrow path went Bob Evers in a flannel +suit, followed by Mrs. Lascelles and her red parasol, though he carried +her alpenstock with his own in readiness for the glacier. +</p> +<p> +Thither we came in this order, I at least very hot from hard hobbling to +keep up; but the first breath from the glacier cooled me like a bath, +and the next like the great drink in the second stanza of the Ode to a +Nightingale. I could have shouted out for pleasure, and must have done +so but for the engrossing business of keeping a footing on the sloping +ice with its soiled margin of yet more treacherous <i>moraine</i>. Yet on the +glacier itself I was less handicapped than I had been on the way, and +hopped along finely with my two shod sticks and the sharp new nails in +my boots. Bob, however, was invariably in the van, and Mrs. Lascelles +seemed more disposed to wait for me than to hurry after him. I think he +pushed the pace unwittingly, under the prick of those emotions which +otherwise were in such excellent control. I can see him now, continually +waiting for us on the brow of some glistening ice-slope, leaning on his +alpenstock and looking back, jet-black by contrast between the blinding +hues of ice and sky. +</p> +<p> +But once he waited on the brink of some unfathomable crevasse, and then +we all three cowered together and peeped down; the sides were green and +smooth and sinister, like a crack in the sea, but so close together that +one could not have fallen out of sight; yet when Bob loosened a lump of +ice and kicked it in we heard it clattering from wall to wall in +prolonged diminuendo before the faint splash just reached our ears. Mrs. +Lascelles shuddered, and threw out a hand to prevent me from peering +farther over. The gesture was obviously impersonal and instinctive, as +an older eye would have seen, but Bob's was smouldering when mine met it +next, and in the ensuing advance he left us farther behind than ever. +But on the rock where we had our lunch he was once more himself, bright +and boyish, careless and assured. So he continued till the end of that +chapter. On the way home, moreover, he never once forged ahead, but was +always ready with a hand for Mrs. Lascelles at the awkward places; and +on the way through the woods, nothing would serve him but that I should +set the pace, that we might all keep together. Judge therefore of my +surprise when he came to my room, as I was dressing for the absurdly +early dinner which is the one blot upon Riffel Alp arrangements, with +the startling remark that we "might as well run straight with one +another." +</p> +<p> +"By all means, my dear fellow," said I, turning to him with the lather +on my chin. He was dressed already, as perfectly as usual, and his hands +were in his pockets. But his fresh brown face was as grave as any +judge's, and his mouth as stern. I went on to ask, disingenuously +enough, if we had not been "running straight with each other" as it was. +</p> +<p> +"Not quite," said Bob Evers, dryly; "and we might as well, you know!" +</p> +<p> +"To be sure; but don't mind if I go on shaving, and pray speak for +yourself." +</p> +<p> +"I will," he rejoined. "Do you remember our conversation the night you +came?" +</p> +<p> +"More or less." +</p> +<p> +"I mean when you and I were alone together, before we turned in." +</p> +<p> +"Oh, yes. I remember something about it." +</p> +<p> +"It would be too silly to expect you to remember much," he went on after +a pause, with a more delicate irony than heretofore. "But, as a matter +of fact, I believe I said it was all rot that people talked about the +impossibility of being mere pals with a woman, and all that sort of +thing." +</p> +<p> +"I believe you did.'" +</p> +<p> +"Well, then, <i>that</i> was rot. That's all." +</p> +<p> +I turned round with my razor in mid-air, +</p> +<p> +"My dear fellow!" I exclaimed. +</p> +<p> +"Quite funny, isn't it?" he laughed, but rather harshly, while his +mountain bronze deepened under my scrutiny. +</p> +<p> +"You are not in earnest, Bob!" said I; and on the word his laughter +ended, his colour went. +</p> +<p> +"<i>I</i> am," he answered through his teeth. "<i>Are you</i>?" +</p> +<p> +Never was war carried more suddenly into the enemy's country, or that +enemy's breath more completely taken away than mine. What could I say? +"As much as you are, I should hope!" was what I ultimately said. +</p> +<p> +The lad stood raking me with a steady fire from his blue eyes. +</p> +<p> +"I mean to marry her," he said, "if she will have me." +</p> +<p> +There was no laughing at him. Though barely twenty, as I knew, he was +man enough for any age as we faced each other in my room, and a man who +knew his own mind into the bargain. +</p> +<p> +"But, my dear Bob," I ventured to remonstrate, "you are years too +young—" +</p> +<p> +"That's my business. I am in earnest. What about you?" +</p> +<p> +I breathed again. +</p> +<p> +"My good fellow," said I, "you are at perfect liberty to give yourself +away to me, but you really mustn't expect me to do quite the same for +you." +</p> +<p> +"I expect precious little, I can tell you!" the lad rejoined hotly. +"Not that it matters twopence so long as you are not misled by anything +I said the other day. I prefer to run straight with you—you can run as +you like with me. I only didn't want you to think that I was saying one +thing and doing another. As a matter of fact I meant all I said at the +time, or thought I did, until you came along and made me look into +myself rather more closely than I had done before. I won't say how you +managed it. You will probably see for yourself. But I'm very much +obliged to you, whatever happens. And now that we understand each other +there's no more to be said, and I'll clear out." +</p> +<p> +There was, indeed, no more to be said, and I made no attempt to detain +him; for I did see for myself, only too clearly and precisely, how I had +managed to precipitate the very thing which I had come out from England +expressly to prevent. +</p> + + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<a name="CH8"><!-- CH8 --></a> +<h2> + CHAPTER VIII +</h2> + +<h3> +PRAYERS AND PARABLES +</h3> +<p> </p> +<p> +I had quite forgotten one element which plays its part in most affairs +of the affections. I mean, of course, the element of pique. Bob Evers, +with the field to himself, had been sensible and safe enough; it was my +intrusion, and nothing else, which had fanned his boyish flame into this +premature conflagration. Of that I felt convinced. But Bob would not +believe me if I told him so; and what else was there for me to tell him? +To betray Catherine and the secret of my presence, would simply hasten +an irrevocable step. To betray Mrs. Lascelles, and <i>her</i> secret, would +certainly not prevent one. Both courses were out of the question upon +other grounds. Yet what else was left? +</p> +<p> +To speak out boldly to Mrs. Lascelles, to betray Catherine and myself to +her? +</p> +<p> +I shrank from that; nor had I any right to reveal a secret which was +not only mine. What then was I to do? Here was this lad professedly on +the point of proposing to this woman. It was useless to speak to the +lad; it was impossible to speak to the woman. To be sure, she might not +accept him; but the mere knowledge that she was to have the chance +seemed enormously to increase my responsibility in the matter. As for +the dilemma in which I now found myself, deservedly as you please, there +was no comparing it with any former phase of this affair. +</p> +<pre> + "O, what a tangled web we weave, + When first we practise to deceive!" +</pre> +<p> +The hackneyed lines sprang unbidden, as though to augment my punishment; +then suddenly I reflected that it was not in my own interest I had begun +to practise my deceit; and the thought of Catherine braced me up, +perhaps partly because I felt that it should. I put myself back into the +fascinating little room in Elm Park Gardens. I saw the slender figure in +the picture hat, I heard the half-humorous and half-pathetic voice. +After all, it was for Catherine I had undertaken this ridiculous +mission; she was therefore my first and had much better be my only +consideration. I could not run with the hare after hunting with the +hounds. And I should like to have seen Catherine's face if I had +expressed any sympathy with the hare! +</p> +<p> +No; it was better to be unscrupulously stanch to one woman than weakly +chivalrous toward both; and my mind was made up by the end of dinner. +There was only one chance now of saving the wretched Bob, or rather one +way of setting to work to save him; and that was by actually adopting +the course with which he had already credited me. He thought I was +"trying to cut him out." Well, I would try! +</p> +<p> +But the more I thought of him, of Mrs. Lascelles, of them both, the less +sanguine I felt of success; for had I been she (I could not help +admitting it to myself), as lonely, as reckless, as unlucky, I would +have married the dear young idiot on the spot. Not that my own marriage +(with Mrs. Lascelles) was an end that I contemplated for a moment as I +took my cynical resolve. And now I trust that I have made both my +position and my intentions very plain, and have written myself down +neither more of a fool nor less of a knave than circumstances (and one's +own infirmities) combined to make me at this juncture of my career. +</p> +<p> +The design was still something bolder than its execution, and if Bob did +not propose that night it was certainly no fault of mine. I saw him with +Mrs. Lascelles on the terrace after dinner; but I had neither the heart +nor the face to thrust myself upon them. Everything was altered since +Bob had shown me his hand; there were certain rules of the game which +even I must now observe. So I left him in undisputed possession of the +perilous ground, and being in a heavy glow from the strong air of the +glacier, went early to my room; where I lay long enough without a wink, +but quite prepared for Bob, with news of his engagement, at every step +in the corridor. +</p> +<p> +Next day was Sunday, and chiefly, I am afraid, because there was neither +blind nor curtain to my dormer-window, and the morning sun streamed full +upon my pillow, I got up and went to early service in the little tin +Protestant Church. It was wonderfully well attended. Quinby was there, +a head taller than anybody else, and some sizes smaller in heads. The +American bridegroom came in late with his "best girl." The late Vice +Chancellor, with the peeled nose, and Mr. Belgrave Teale, fit for Church +Parade, or for the afternoon act in one of his own fashion-plays, took +round the offertory bags, into which Mr. Justice Sankey (in race-course +checks) dropped gold. It was not the sort of service at which one cares +to look about one, but I was among the early comers, and I could not +help it. Mrs. Lascelles, however, was there before me, whereas Bob Evers +was not there at all. Nevertheless, I did not mean to walk back with her +until I saw her walking very much alone, a sort of cynosure even on the +way from church, though humble and grave and unconscious as any country +maid. I watched her with the rest, but in a spirit of my own. Some +subtle change I seemed to detect in Mrs. Lascelles as in Bob. Had he +really declared himself overnight, and had she actually accepted him? A +new load seemed to rest upon her shoulders, a new anxiety, a new care; +and as if to confirm my idea, she started and changed colour as I came +up. +</p> +<p> +"I didn't see you in church," she remarked, in her own natural fashion, +when we had exchanged the ordinary salutations. +</p> +<p> +"I am afraid you wouldn't expect to see me, Mrs. Lascelles." +</p> +<p> +"Well, as a matter of fact, I didn't, but I suppose," added Mrs. +Lascelles, as her rich voice fell into a pensive (but not a pathetic) +key, "I suppose it is you who are much more surprised at seeing me. I +can't help it if you are, Captain Clephane. I am not really a religious +person. I have not flown to that extreme as yet. But it has been a +comfort to me, sometimes; and so, sometimes, I go." +</p> +<p> +It was very simply said, but with a sigh at the end that left me +wondering whether she was in any new need of spiritual solace. Did she +already find herself in the dilemma in which I had imagined her, and was +it really a dilemma to her? New hopes began to chase my fears, and were +gaining upon them when a flannel suit on the sunlit steps caused a +temporary check: there was Bob waiting for us, his hands in his +pockets, a smile upon his face, yet in the slope of his shoulders and +the carriage of his head a certain indefinable but very visible +attention and intent. +</p> +<p> +"Is Mrs. Evers a religious woman?" asked my companion, her step slowing +ever so slightly as we approached. +</p> +<p> +"Not exactly; but she knows all about it," I replied. +</p> +<p> +"And doesn't believe very much? Then we shouldn't hit it off," exclaimed +Mrs. Lascelles, "for I know nothing and believe all I can! Nevertheless, +I'm not going to church again to-day." +</p> +<p> +The last words were in a sort of aside, and I afterwards heard that Bob +and Mrs. Lascelles had attended the later service together on the +previous Sunday; but I guessed almost as much on the spot, and it put +out of my head both the unjust assumption of the earlier remark, +concerning Catherine, and the contrast between them which Mrs. Lascelles +could hardly afford to emphasise. +</p> +<p> +"Let's go somewhere else instead—Zermatt—or anywhere else you like," I +suggested, eagerly; but we were close to the steps, and before she +could reply Bob had taken off his straw hat to Mrs. Lascelles, and flung +me a nod. +</p> +<p> +"How very energetic!" he cried. "I only hope it's a true indication of +form, for I've got a scheme: instead of putting in another chapel I +propose we stroll down to Zermatt for lunch and come back by the train." +</p> +<p> +Bob's proposal was made pointedly to Mrs. Lascelles, and as pointedly +excluded me, but she stood between the two of us with a charming smile +of good-humoured perplexity. +</p> +<p> +"Now what am I to say? Captain Clephane was in the very act of making +the same suggestion!" +</p> +<p> +Bob glared on me for an instant in spite of Eton and all his ancestors. +</p> +<p> +"We'll all go together," I cried before he could speak. "Why not?" +</p> +<p> +Nor was this mere unreasoning or good-natured impulse, since Bob could +scarcely have pressed his suit in my presence, while I should certainly +have done my best to retard it; still, it was rather a relief to me to +see him shake his head with some return of his natural grace. +</p> +<p> +"My idea was to show Mrs. Lascelles the gorge," said Bob, "but you can +do that as well as I can; you can't miss it; besides, I've seen it, and +I really ought to stay up here, as a matter of fact, for I'm on the +track of a guide for the Matterhorn." +</p> +<p> +We looked at him narrowly with one accord, but he betrayed no signs of +desperate impulse, only those of "climbing fever," and I at least +breathed again. +</p> +<p> +"But if you want a guide," said I, "Zermatt's full of them." +</p> +<p> +"I know," said he, "but it's a particular swell I'm after, and he hangs +out up here in the season. They expect him back from a big trip any +moment, and I really ought to be on the spot to snap him up." +</p> +<p> +So Bob retired, in very fair order after all, and not without his +laughing apologies to Mrs. Lascelles; but it was sad to me to note the +spurious ring his laugh had now; it was like the death-knell of the +simple and the single heart that it had been my lot, if not my mission, +to poison and to warp. But the less said about my odious task, the +sooner to its fulfilment, which now seemed close at hand. +</p> +<p> +It was not in fact so imminent as I supposed, for the descent into +Zermatt is somewhat too steep for the conduct of a necessarily delicate +debate. Sound legs go down at a compulsory run, and my companion was +continually waiting for me to catch her up, only to shoot ahead again +perforce. Or the path was too narrow for us to walk abreast, and you +cannot become confidential in single file; or the noise of falling +waters drowned our voices, when we stood together on that precarious +platform in the cool depths of the gorge, otherwise such an admirable +setting for the scene that I foresaw. Then it was a beautiful walk in +itself, with its short tacks in the precipitous pine-woods above, its +sudden plunge into the sunken gorge below, its final sweep across the +green valley beyond; and it was all so new to us both that there were +impressions to exchange or to compare at every turn. In fine, and with +all the will in the world, it was quite impossible to get in a word +about Bob before luncheon at the Monte Rosa, and by that time I for one +was in no mood to introduce so difficult a topic. +</p> +<p> +But an opportunity there came, an opportunity such as even I could not +neglect; on the contrary, I made too much of it, as the sequel will +show. It was in the little museum which every tourist goes to see. We +had shuddered over the gruesome relics of the first and worst +catastrophe on the Matterhorn, and were looking in silence upon the +primitive portraits of the two younger Englishmen who had lost their +lives on that historic occasion. It appeared that they had both been +about the same age as Bob Evers, and I pointed this out to my companion. +It was a particularly obvious remark to make; but Mrs. Lascelles turned +her face quickly to mine, and the colour left it in the half-lit, +half-haunted little room, which we happened to have all to ourselves. +</p> +<p> +"Don't let him go up, Captain Clephane; don't let him, please!" +</p> +<p> +"Do you mean Bob Evers?" I asked, to gain time while I considered what +to say; for the intensity of her manner took me aback. +</p> +<p> +"You know I do," said Mrs. Lascelles, impatiently; "don't let him go up +the Matterhorn to-night, or to-morrow morning, or whenever it is that he +means to start." +</p> +<p> +"But, my dear Mrs. Lascelles, who am I to prevent that young gentleman +from doing what he likes?" +</p> +<p> +"I thought you were more or less related?" +</p> +<p> +"Rather less than more." +</p> +<p> +"But aren't you very intimate with his mother?" +</p> +<p> +I had to meet a pretty penetrating look. +</p> +<p> +"I was once." +</p> +<p> +"Well, then, for his mother's sake you ought to do your best to keep him +out of danger, Captain Clephane." +</p> +<p> +It was my turn to repay the look which I had just received. No doubt I +did so with only too much interest; no doubt I was equally clumsy of +speech; but it was my opportunity, and something or other must be said. +</p> +<p> +"Quite so, Mrs. Lascelles; and for his mother's sake," said I, "I not +only will do, I have already done, my best to keep the lad out of harm's +way. He is the apple of her eye; they are simply all the world to one +another. It would break her heart if anything happened to +him—anything—if she were to lose him in any sense of the word." +</p> +<p> +I waited a moment, thinking she would speak, prepared on my side to be +as explicit as she pleased; but Mrs. Lascelles only looked at me with +her mouth tight shut and her eyes wide open; and I concluded—somewhat +uneasily, I will confess—that she saw for herself what I meant. +</p> +<p> +"As for the Matterhorn," I went on, "that, I believe, is not such a very +dangerous exploit in these days. There are permanent chains and things +where there used to be polished precipices. It makes the real +mountaineers rather scornful; anyone with legs and a head, they will +tell you, can climb the Matterhorn nowadays. If I had the legs I'd go +with him, like a shot." +</p> +<p> +"To share the danger, I suppose?" +</p> +<p> +"And the sport." +</p> +<p> +"Ah," said Mrs. Lascelles, "and the sport, of course! I had forgotten +that!" +</p> +<p> +Yet I did not perceive that I had been found out, for nothing was +further from my mind than to prolong the parable to which I had stooped +in passing a few moments before. It had served its purpose, I conceived. +I had given my veiled warning; it never occurred to me that Mrs. +Lascelles might be indulging in a veiled retort. I thought she was +annoyed at the hint that I had given her. I began to repent of that +myself. It had quite spoilt our day, and so many and long were the +silences, as we wandered from little shop to little shop, and finally +with relief to the train, that I had plenty of time to remember how much +we had found to talk about all the morning. +</p> +<p> +But matters were coming to a head in spite of me, for Bob Evers waylaid +us on our return, and, with hardly a word to Mrs. Lascelles, straightway +followed me to my room. He was pale with a suppressed anger which flared +up even as he closed my door behind him, but though his honest face was +now in flames, he still kept control of his tongue. +</p> +<p> +"I want you to lend me one of those sticks of yours," he said, quietly; +"the heaviest, for choice." +</p> +<p> +"What the devil for?" I demanded, thinking for the moment of no +shoulders but my own. +</p> +<p> +"To give that bounder Quinby the licking he deserves!" cried Bob: "to +give it him now at once, when the post comes in, and there are plenty of +people about to see the fun. Do you know what he's been saying and +spreading all over the place?" +</p> +<p> +"No," I answered, my heart sinking within me. "What has he been saying?" +</p> +<p> +The colour altered on Bob's face, altered and softened to a veritable +blush, and his eyes avoided mine. +</p> +<p> +"I'm ashamed to tell you, it makes me so sick," he said, disgustedly. +"But the fact is that he's been spreading a report about Mrs. Lascelles; +it has nothing on earth to do with me. It appears he only heard it +himself this morning, by letter, but the brute has made good use of his +time! <i>I</i> only got wind of it an hour or two ago, of course quite by +accident, and I haven't seen the fellow since; but he's particularly +keen on his letters, and either he explains himself to my satisfaction +or I make an example of him before the hotel. It's a thing I never +dreamt of doing in my life, and I'm sorry the poor beast is such a +scarecrow; but it's a duty to punish that sort of crime against a woman, +and now I'm sure you'll lend me one of your sticks. I am only sorry I +didn't bring one with me." +</p> +<p> +"But wait a bit, my dear fellow," said I, for he was actually holding +out his hand: "you have still to tell me what the report was." +</p> +<p> +"Divorce!" he answered in a tragic voice. "Clephane, the fellow says she +was divorced in India, and that it was—that it was her fault!" +</p> +<p> +He turned away his face. It was in a flame. +</p> +<p> +"And you are going to thrash Quinby for saying that?" +</p> +<p> +"If he sticks to it, I most certainly am," said Bob, the fire settling +in his blue eyes. +</p> +<p> +"I should think twice about it, Bob, if I were you." +</p> +<p> +"My dear man, what else do you suppose I have been thinking of all the +afternoon?" +</p> +<p> +"It will make a fresh scandal, you see." +</p> +<p> +"I can't help that." +</p> +<p> +And Bob shut his mouth with a self-willed snap. +</p> +<p> +"But what good will it do?" +</p> +<p> +"A liar will be punished, that's all! It's no use talking, Clephane; my +mind is made up." +</p> +<p> +"But are you so sure that it's a lie?" I was obliged to say it at last, +reluctantly enough, yet with a wretched feeling that I might just as +well have said it in the beginning. +</p> +<p> +"Sure?" he echoed, his innocent eyes widening before mine. "Why, of +course I'm sure! You don't know what pals we've been. Of course I never +asked questions, but she's told me heaps and heaps of things; it would +fit in with some of them, if it were true." +</p> +<p> +Then I told him that it was true, and how I knew that it was true, and +my reason for having kept all that knowledge to myself until now. "I +could not give her away even to you, Bob, nor yet tell you that I had +known her before; for you would have been certain to ask when and how; +and it was in her first husband's time, and under his name." +</p> +<p> +It was a comfort to be quite honest for once with one of them, and it is +a relief even now to remember that I was absolutely honest with Bob +Evers about this. He said almost at once that he would have done the +same himself, and even as he spoke his whole manner changed toward me. +His face had darkened at my unexpected confirmation of the odious +rumour, but already it was beginning to lighten toward me, as though he +found my attitude the one redeeming feature in the new aspect of +affairs. He even thanked me for my late reserve, obviously from his +heart, and in a way that went to mine on more grounds than one. It was +as though a kindness to Mrs. Lascelles was already the greatest possible +kindness to him. +</p> +<p> +"But I am glad you have told me now," he added, "for it explains many +things. I was inclined to look upon you, Duncan—you won't mind my +telling you now—as a bit of a deliberate interloper! But all the time +you knew her first, and that alters everything. I hope to out you still, +but I sha'n't any longer bear you a grudge if you out me!" +</p> +<p> +I was horrified. +</p> +<p> +"My dear fellow," I cried, "do you mean to say this makes no +difference?" +</p> +<p> +"It does to Quinby. I must keep my hands off him, I suppose, though to +my mind he deserves his licking all the more." +</p> +<p> +"But does it make no difference to <i>you</i>? My good boy, can you at your +age seriously think of marrying a woman who has been married twice +already, and divorced once?" +</p> +<p> +"I didn't know that when I thought of it first," he answered, doggedly, +"and I am not going to let it make a difference now. Do you suppose I +would stand away from her because of anything that's past and over? Do +they stand away from us for—that sort of thing?" +</p> +<p> +Of course I said that was rather different, with as much conviction as +though the ancient dogma had been my own. +</p> +<p> +"But, Duncan, you know it's the very last thing you're dreaming of doing +yourself!" +</p> +<p> +And again I argued, as feebly as you please, that it was quite different +in my case—that I was a good ten years older than he, and not my +mother's only son. +</p> +<p> +Bob stiffened on the spot. +</p> +<p> +"My mother must take care of herself," said he; "and I," he added, "I +must take care of myself, if you don't mind. And I hope you won't, for +you've been most awfully good to me, you know! I never thought so until +these last few minutes; but now I sha'n't forget it, no matter how it +all turns out!" +</p> + + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<a name="CH9"><!-- CH9 --></a> +<h2> + CHAPTER IX +</h2> + +<h3> +SUB JUDICE +</h3> +<p> </p> +<p> +Well, I made a belated attempt to earn my young friend's good opinion. I +kept out of his way after dinner, and went in search of Quinby instead. +I felt I had a crow of my own to pluck with this gentleman, who owed to +my timely intervention a far greater immunity than he deserved. It was +in the little billiard-room I found him, pachydermatously applauding the +creditable attempts of Sir John Sankey at the cannon game, and as +studiously ignoring the excellent shots of an undistinguished clergyman +who was beating the judge. Quinby made room for me beside him, with a +civility which might have caused me some compunction, but I repaid him +by coming promptly to my point. +</p> +<p> +"What's this report about Mrs. Lascelles?" I asked, not angrily at all, +for naturally my feeling in the matter was not so strong as Bob's, but +with a certain contemptuous interest, if a man can judge of his own +outward manner from his inner temper at the time. +</p> +<p> +Quinby favoured me with a narrow though a sidelong look; the room was +very full, and in the general chit-chat, punctuated by the constant +clicking of the heavy balls, there was very little danger of our being +overheard. But Quinby was careful to lower his voice. +</p> +<p> +"It's perfectly true," said he, "if you mean about her being divorced." +</p> +<p> +"Yes, that was what I heard; but who started the report?" +</p> +<p> +"Who started it. You may well ask! Who starts anything in a place like +this? Ah, good shot, Sir John, good shot!" +</p> +<p> +"Never mind the good shots, Quinby. I really rather want to talk to you +about this. I sha'n't keep you long." +</p> +<p> +"Talk away, then. I am listening." +</p> +<p> +"Mrs. Lascelles and I are rather friends." +</p> +<p> +"So I can see." +</p> +<p> +"Very well, then, I want to know who started all this. It may be +perfectly true, as you say, but who found it out? If you can't tell me +I must ask somebody else." +</p> +<p> +The ruddy Alpine colouring had suddenly become accentuated in the case +of Quinby. +</p> +<p> +"As a matter of fact," said he, "it was I who first heard of it, quite +by chance. You can't blame me for that, Clephane." +</p> +<p> +"Of course not," said I encouragingly. +</p> +<p> +"Well, unfortunately I let it out; and you know how things get about in +an hotel." +</p> +<p> +"It was unfortunate," I agreed. "But how on earth did you come to hear?" +</p> +<p> +Quinby hummed and hawed; he had heard from a soldier friend, a man who +had known her in India, a man whom I knew myself, in fact Hamilton the +sapper, who had telegraphed to Quinby to secure me my room. I ought to +have been disarmed by the coincidence; but I recalled our initial +conversation, about India and Hamilton and Mrs. Lascelles, and I could +not consider it a coincidence at all. +</p> +<p> +"You don't mean to tell me," said I, aping the surprise I might have +felt, "that our friend wrote and gave Mrs. Lascelles away to you of his +own accord?" +</p> +<p> +But Quinby did not vouchsafe an answer. "Hard luck, Sir John!" cried +he, as the judge missed an easy cannon, leaving his opponent a still +easier one, which lost him the game. I proceeded to press my question in +a somewhat stronger form, though still with all the suavity at my +command. +</p> +<p> +"Surely," I urged, "you must have written to ask him about her first?" +</p> +<p> +"That's my business, I fancy," said Quinby, with a peculiarly aggressive +specimen of the nasal snigger of which enough was made in a previous +chapter, but of which Quinby himself never tired. +</p> +<p> +"Quite," I agreed; "but do you also consider it your business to inquire +deliberately into the past life of a lady whom I believe you only know +by sight, and to spread the result of your inquiries broadcast in the +hotel? Is that your idea of chivalry? I shall ask Sir John Sankey +whether it is his," I added, as the judge joined us with genial +condescension, and I recollected that his proverbial harshness toward +the male offender was redeemed by an extraordinary sympathy with the +women. Thereupon I laid a general case before Sir John, asking him +point-blank whether he considered such conduct as Quinby's (but I did +not say whose the conduct was) either justifiable in itself or conducive +to the enjoyment of a holiday community like ours. +</p> +<p> +"It depends," said the judge, cocking a critical eye on the now furious +Quinby. "I am afraid we most of us enjoy our scandal, and for my part I +always like to see a humbug catch it hot. But if the scandal's about a +woman, and if it's an old scandal, and if she's a lonely woman, that +quite alters the case, and in my opinion the author of it deserves all +he gets." +</p> +<p> +At this Quinby burst out, with an unrestrained heat that did not lower +him in my estimation, though the whole of his tirade was directed +exclusively against me. I had been talking "at" him, he declared. I +might as well have been straightforward while I was about it. He, for +his part, was not afraid to take the responsibility for anything he +might have said. It was perfectly true, to begin with. The so-called +Mrs. Lascelles, who was such a friend of mine, had been the wife of a +German Jew in Lahore, who had divorced her on her elopement with a +Major Lascelles, whom she had left in his turn, and whose name she had +not the smallest right to bear. Quinby exercised some restraint in the +utterances of these calumnies, or the whole room must have heard them, +but even as it was we had more listeners than the judge when my turn +came. +</p> +<p> +"I won't give you the lie, Quinby, because I am quite sure you don't +know you are telling one," said I; "but as a matter of fact you are +giving currency to two. In the first place, this lady is Mrs. Lascelles, +for the major did marry her; in the second place, Major Lascelles is +dead." +</p> +<p> +"And how do you know?" inquired Quinby, with a touch of genuine surprise +to mitigate an insolent disbelief. +</p> +<p> +"You forget," said I, "that it was in India I knew your own informant. I +can only say that my information in all this matter is a good deal +better than his. I knew Mrs. Lascelles herself quite well out there; I +knew the other side of her case. It doesn't seem to have struck you, +Quinby, that such a woman must have suffered a good deal before, and +after, taking such a step. Or I don't suppose you would have spread +yourself to make her suffer a little more," +</p> +<p> +And I still consider that a charitable view of his behaviour; but Quinby +was of another opinion, which he expressed with his offensive little +laugh as he lifted his long body from the settee. +</p> +<p> +"This is what one gets for securing a room for a man one doesn't know!" +said he. +</p> +<p> +"On the contrary," I retorted, "I haven't forgotten that, and I have +saved you something because of it. I happen to have saved you no less +than a severe thrashing from a stronger man than myself, who is even +more indignant with you than I am, and who wanted to borrow one of my +sticks for the purpose!" +</p> +<p> +"And it would have served him perfectly right," was the old judge's +comment, when the mischief-maker had departed without returning my +parting shot. "I suppose you meant young Evers, Captain Clephane?" +</p> +<p> +"I did indeed, Sir John. I had to tell him the truth in order to +restrain him." +</p> +<p> +The old judge raised his eyebrows. +</p> +<p> +"Then you hadn't to tell him it before? You are certainly consistent, +and I rather admire your position as regards the lady. But I am not so +sure that it was altogether fair toward the lad. It is one thing to +stand up for the poor soul, my dear sir, but it would be another thing +to let a nice boy like that go and marry her!" +</p> +<p> +So that was the opinion of this ripe old citizen of the world! It ought +not to have irritated me as it did. It would be Catherine's opinion, of +course; but a dispassionate view was not to be expected from her. I had +not hitherto thought otherwise, myself; but now I experienced a perverse +inclination to take the opposite side. Was it so utterly impossible for +a woman with this woman's record to make a good wife to some man yet? I +did not admit it for an instant; he would be a lucky man who won so +healthy and so good a heart; thus I argued to myself with Mrs. Lascelles +in my mind, and nobody else. But Bob Evers was not a man, I was not sure +that he was out of his teens, and to think of him was to think at once +with Sir John Sankey and all the rest. Yes, yes, it would be madness and +suicide in such a youth; there could be no two opinions about that; and +yet I felt indignant at the mildest expression of that which I myself +could not deny. +</p> +<p> +Such was my somewhat chaotic state of mind when I had fled the +billiard-room in my turn, and put on my overcoat and cap to commune with +myself outside. Nobody did justice to Mrs. Lascelles; it was terribly +hard to do her justice; those were perhaps the ideas that were oftenest +uppermost. I did not see how I was to be the exception and prove the +rule; my brief was for Bob, and there was an end of it. It was foolish +to worry, especially on such a night. The moon had waxed since my +arrival, and now hung almost round and altogether dazzling in the little +sky the mountains left us. Yet I had the terrace all to myself; the +magnificent voice of our latest celebrity had drawn everybody else in +doors, or under the open drawing-room windows through which it poured +out into the glorious night. And in the vivid moonlight the very +mountains seemed to have gathered about the little human hive upon their +heights, to be listening to the grand rich notes that had some right to +break their ancient silence. +</p> +<pre> + "If doughty deeds my lady please, + Right soon I'll mount my steed; + And strong his arm, and fast his seat, + That bears frae me the meed. + I'll wear thy colours in my cap, + Thy picture at my heart; + And he that bends not to thine eye + Shall rue it to his smart!" +</pre> +<p> +It was a brave new setting to brave old lines, as simple and direct as +themselves, studiously in keeping, passionate, virile, almost inspired; +and the whole so justly given that the great notes did not drown the +words as they often will, but all came clean to the ear. No wonder the +hotel held its breath! I was standing entranced myself, an outpost of +the audience underneath the windows, whose fringe I could just see round +the uttermost angle of the hotel, when Bob Evers ran down the steps, and +came toward me in such guise that I could not swear to him till the last +yard. +</p> +<p> +"Don't say a word," he whispered excitedly. "I'm just off!" +</p> +<p> +"Off where?" I gasped, for he had changed into full mountaineering garb, +and there was his greased face beaming in the moonlight, and the blue +spectacles twinkling about his hat-band, at half-past nine at night. +</p> +<p> +"Up the Matterhorn!" +</p> +<p> +"At this time of night?" +</p> +<p> +"It is a bit late, and that's why I want it kept quiet. I don't want any +fuss or advice. I've got a couple of excellent guides waiting for me +just below by the shoemaker's hut. I told you I was on their tracks. +Well, it was to-night or never as far as they were concerned, they are +so tremendously full up. So to-night it is, and don't you remind me of +my mother!" +</p> +<p> +I was thinking of her when he spoke; for the song had swung through a +worthy refrain into another verse, and now I knew it better. It was +Catherine who had introduced me to all my lyrics; it was to Catherine I +had once hymned this one in my unformed heart. +</p> +<p> +"But I thought," said I, as I forced myself to think, "that everybody +went up to the <i>Cabane</i> overnight, and started fresh from there in the +morning?" +</p> +<p> +"Most people do, but it's as broad as it's long," declared Bob, airily, +rapidly, and with the same unwonted excitement, born as I thought of +his unwonted enterprise. "You have a ripping moonlight walk instead of a +so-called night's rest in a frowsy hut. We shall get our breakfast there +instead, and I expect to start fresher than if I had slept there and +been knocked up at two o'clock in the morning. That's all settled, +anyhow, and you can look for me on top through the telescope after +breakfast. I shall be back before dark, and then—" +</p> +<p> +"Well, what then?" I asked, for Bob had made a significant and yet +irresolute pause, as though he could not quite bring himself to tell me +something that was on his mind. +</p> +<p> +"Well," he echoed nonchalantly at last, as though he had not hesitated +at all, "as a matter of fact, to-morrow night I am to know my fate. I +have asked Mrs. Lascelles to marry me, and she hasn't said no, but I am +giving her till to-morrow night. That's all, Clephane. I thought it a +fair thing to let you know. If you want to waltz in and try your luck +while I'm gone, there's nothing on earth to prevent you, and it might be +most satisfactory to everybody. As a matter of fact, I'm only going so +as to get over the time and keep out of the way." +</p> +<p> +"As a matter of fact?" I queried, waving a little stick toward the +lighted windows. "Listen a minute, and then tell me!" +</p> +<p> +And we listened together to the last and clearest rendering of the +refrain— +</p> +<pre> + "Then tell me how to woo thee, Love; + O tell me how to woo thee! + For thy dear sake, nae care I'll take, + Tho' ne'er another trow me!" +</pre> +<p> +"What tosh!" shouted Bob (his mother should have heard him) through the +applause. "Of course I'm going to take care of myself, and of course I +meant to rush the Matterhorn while I'm here, but between ourselves +that's my only reason for rushing it to-night." +</p> +<p> +Yet had he no boyish vision of quick promotion in the lady's heart, no +primitive desire to show his mettle out of hand, to set her trembling +while he did or died? He had, I thought, and he had not; that shining +face could only have reflected a single and candid heart. But it is +these very natures, so simple and sweet-hearted and transparent, that +are least to be trusted on the subject of their own motives and +emotions, for they are the soonest deceived, not only by others but in +themselves. Or so I venture to think, and even then reflected, as I +shook my dear lad's hand by the side parapet of the moonlit terrace, and +watched him run down into the shadows of the fir-trees and so out of my +sight with two dark and stalwart figures that promptly detached +themselves from the shadows of the shoemaker's hut. A third figure +mounted to where I now sat listening to the easy, swinging, confident +steps, as they fell fainter and fainter upon the ear; it was the +shoemaker himself who had shod my two sticks with spikes and my boots +with formidable nails; and we exchanged a few words in a mixture of +languages which I should be very sorry to reproduce. +</p> +<p> +"Do you know those two guides?" is what I first asked in effect. +</p> +<p> +"Very well, monsieur." +</p> +<p> +"Are they good guides?" +</p> +<p> +"The very best, monsieur." +</p> + + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<a name="CH10"><!-- CH10 --></a> +<h2> + CHAPTER X +</h2> + +<h3> +THE LAST WORD +</h3> +<p> </p> +<p> +"Is that you?" +</p> +<p> +It was an hour or so later, but still I sat ruminating upon the parapet, +within a yard or two of the spot where I had first accosted Bob Evers +and Mrs. Lascelles. I had retraced the little sequence of subsequent +events, paltry enough in themselves, yet of a certain symmetry and some +importance as a whole. I had attacked and defended my own conduct down +to that hour, when I ought to have been formulating its logical +conclusion, and during my unprofitable deliberations the night had aged +and altered (as it were) behind my back. There was no more music in the +drawing-room. There were no more people under the drawing-room windows. +The lights in all the lower windows were not what they had been; it was +the bedroom tiers that were illuminated now. But I did not realise that +there was less light outside until I awoke to the fact that Mrs. +Lascelles was peering tentatively toward me, and putting her question in +such an uncertain tone. +</p> +<p> +"That depends who I am supposed to be," I answered, laughing as I rose +to put my personality beyond doubt. +</p> +<p> +"How stupid of me!" laughed Mrs. Lascelles in her turn, though rather +nervously to my fancy. "I thought it was Mr. Evers!" +</p> +<p> +I had hard work to suppress an exclamation. So he had not told her what +he was going to do, and yet he had not forbidden me to tell her. Poor +Bob was more subtle than I had supposed, but it was a simple subtlety, a +strange chord but still in key with his character as I knew it. +</p> +<p> +"I am sorry to disappoint you," said I. "But I am afraid you won't see +any more of Bob Evers to-night." +</p> +<p> +"What do you mean?" asked Mrs. Lascelles, suspiciously. +</p> +<p> +"I wonder he didn't tell you," I replied, to gain time in which to +decide how to make the best use of such an unforeseen opportunity. +</p> +<p> +"Well, he didn't; so please will you, Captain Clephane?" +</p> +<p> +"Bob Evers," said I, with befitting gravity, "is climbing the Matterhorn +at this moment." +</p> +<p> +"Never!" +</p> +<p> +"At least he has started." +</p> +<p> +"When did he start?" +</p> +<p> +"An hour or more ago, with a couple of guides." +</p> +<p> +"He told you, then?" +</p> +<p> +"Only just as he was starting." +</p> +<p> +"Was it a sudden idea?" +</p> +<p> +"More or less, I think." +</p> +<p> +I waited for the next question, but that was the last of them. Just then +the interloping cloud floated clear of the moon, and I saw that my +companion was wrapped up as on the earlier night, in the same +unconventional combination of rain-coat and golf-cape; but now the hood +hung down, and the sudden rush of moonlight showed me a face as full of +sheer perplexity and annoyance as I could have hoped to find it, and as +free from deeper feeling. +</p> +<p> +"The silly boy!" exclaimed Mrs. Lascelles at last. "I suppose it really +is pretty safe, Captain Clephane?" +</p> +<p> +"Safer than most dangerous things, I believe; and they are the safest, +as you know, because you take most care. He has a couple of excellent +guides; the chance of getting them was partly why he went. In all human +probability we shall have him back safe and sound, and fearfully pleased +with himself, long before this time to-morrow. Meanwhile, Mrs. +Lascelles," I continued with the courage of my opportunity, "it is a +very good chance for me to speak to you about our friend Bob. I have +wanted to do so for some little time." +</p> +<p> +"Have you, indeed?" said Mrs. Lascelles, coldly. +</p> +<p> +"I have," I answered imperturbably; "and if it wasn't so late I should +ask for a hearing now." +</p> +<p> +"Oh, let us get it over, by all means!" +</p> +<p> +But as she spoke Mrs. Lascelles glanced over the shoulder that she +shrugged so contemptuously, toward the lights in the bedroom windows, +most of which were wide open. +</p> +<p> +"We could walk toward the zig-zags," I suggested. "There is a seat +within a hundred yards, if you don't think it too cold to sit, but in +any case I needn't keep you many minutes. Bob Evers," I continued, as my +suggestion was tacitly accepted, "paid me the compliment of confiding in +me somewhat freely before he started on this hare-brained expedition of +his." +</p> +<p> +"So it appears." +</p> +<p> +"Ah, but he didn't only tell me what he was going to do; he told me why +he was doing it," said I, as we sauntered on our way side by side. "It +was difficult to believe," I added, when I had waited long enough for +the question upon which I had reckoned. +</p> +<p> +"Indeed?" +</p> +<p> +"He said he had proposed to you." +</p> +<p> +And again I waited, but never a word. +</p> +<p> +"That child!" I added with deliberate scorn. +</p> +<p> +But a further pause was broken only by my companion's measured steps and +my own awkward shuffle. +</p> +<p> +"That baby!" I insisted. +</p> +<p> +"Did you tell him he was one, Captain Clephane?" asked Mrs. Lascelles, +dryly, but drawn so far at last. +</p> +<p> +"I spared his feelings. But can it be true, Mrs. Lascelles?" +</p> +<p> +"It is true." +</p> +<p> +"Is it a fact that you didn't give him a definite answer?" +</p> +<p> +"I don't know what business it is of yours," said Mrs. Lascelles, +bluntly; "and since he seems to have told you everything, neither do I +know why you should ask me. However, it is quite true that I did not +finally refuse him on the spot." +</p> +<p> +This carefully qualified confirmation should have afforded me abundant +satisfaction. I was over-eager in the matter, however, and I cried out +impetuously: +</p> +<p> +"But you will?" +</p> +<p> +"Will what?" +</p> +<p> +"Refuse the boy!" +</p> +<p> +We had reached the seat, but neither of us sat down. Mrs. Lascelles +appeared to be surveying me with equal resentment and defiance. I, on +the other hand, having shot my bolt, did my best to look conciliatory. +</p> +<p> +"Why should I refuse him?" she asked at length, with less emotion and +more dignity than her bearing had led me to expect. "You seem so sure +about it, you know!" +</p> +<p> +"He is such a boy—such an utter child—as I said just now." I was +conscious of the weakness of saying it again, and it alone, but my +strongest arguments were too strong for direct statement. +</p> +<p> +This one, however, was not unfruitful in the end. +</p> +<p> +"And I," said Mrs. Lascelles, "how old do you think I am? Thirty-five?" +</p> +<p> +"Of course not," I replied, with obvious gallantry. "But I doubt if Bob +is even twenty." +</p> +<p> +"Well, then, you won't believe me, but I was married before I was his +age, and I am just six-and-twenty now." +</p> +<p> +It was a surprise to me. I did not doubt it for a moment; one never did +doubt Mrs. Lascelles. It was indeed easy enough to believe (so much I +told her) if one looked upon the woman as she was, and only difficult in +the prejudicial light of her matrimonial record. I did not add these +things. "But you are a good deal older," I could not help saying, "in +the ways of the world, and it is there that Bob is such an absolute +infant." +</p> +<p> +"But I thought an Eton boy was a man of the world?" said Mrs. Lascelles, +quoting me against myself with the utmost readiness. +</p> +<p> +"Ah, in some things," I had to concede. "Only in some things, however." +</p> +<p> +"Well," she rejoined, "of course I know what you mean by the other +things. They matter to your mind much more than mere age, even if I had +been fifteen years older, instead of five or six. It's the old story, +from the man's point of view. You can live anything down, but you won't +let us. There is no fresh start for a woman; there never was and never +will be." +</p> +<p> +I protested that this was unfair. "I never said that, or anything like +it, Mrs. Lascellcs!" +</p> +<p> +"No, you don't say it, but you think it!" she cried back. "It is the one +thing you have in your mind. I was unhappy, I did wrong, so I can never +be happy, I can never do right! I am unfit to marry again, to marry a +good man, even if he loves me, even if I love him!" +</p> +<p> +"I neither say nor think anything of the kind," I reiterated, and with +some slight effect this time. Mrs. Lascelles put no more absurdities +into my mouth. +</p> +<p> +"Then what do you say?" she demanded, her deep voice vibrant with +scornful indignation, though there were tears in it too. +</p> +<p> +"I think he will be a lucky fellow who gets you," I said, and meant +every word, as I looked at her well in the moonlight, with her shining +eyes, and curling lip, and fighting flush. +</p> +<p> +"Thank you, Captain Clephane!" +</p> +<p> +And I thought I was to be honoured with a contemptuous courtesy; but I +was not. +</p> +<p> +"He ought to be a man, however," I went on, "and not a boy, and still +less the only child of a woman with whom you would never get on." +</p> +<p> +"So you are as sure of that," exclaimed Mrs. Lascelles, "as of +everything else!" It seemed, however, to soften her, or at least to +change the current of her thoughts. "Yet you get on with her?" she added +with a wistful intonation. +</p> +<p> +I could not deny that I got on with Catherine Evers. +</p> +<p> +"You are even fond of her?" +</p> +<p> +"Quite fond." +</p> +<p> +"Then do you find me a very disagreeable person, that she and I couldn't +possibly hit it off, in your opinion?" +</p> +<p> +"It isn't that, Mrs. Lascelles," said I, almost wearily. "You must know +what it is. You want to marry her son—" +</p> +<p> +Mrs. Lascelles smiled. +</p> +<p> +"Well, let us suppose you do. That would be quite enough for Mrs. Evers. +No matter who you were, how peerless, how incomparable in every way, she +would rather die than let you marry him at his age. I don't say she's +wrong—I don't say she's right. I give you the plain fact for what it is +worth: you would find her from the first a clever and determined +adversary, a regular little lioness with her cub, and absolutely +intolerant on that particular point." +</p> +<p> +I could see Catherine as I spoke, the Catherine I had seen last, and +liked least to remember; but the vision faded before the moonlit reality +of Mrs. Lascelles, laughing to herself like a great, naughty, pretty +child. +</p> +<p> +"I really think I must marry him," she said, "and see what happens!" +</p> +<p> +"If you do," I answered, in all seriousness, "you will begin by +separating mother and son, and end by making both their lives miserable, +and bringing the last misery into your own." +</p> +<p> +And either my tone impressed her, or the covert reminder in my last +words; for the bold smile faded from her face, and she looked longer and +more searchingly in mine than she had done as yet. +</p> +<p> +"You know Mrs. Evers exceedingly well," Mrs. Lascelles remarked. +</p> +<p> +"I did years ago," I guardedly replied. +</p> +<p> +"Do you mean to say," urged my companion, "that you have not seen her +for years?" +</p> +<p> +I did not altogether like her tone. Yet it was so downright and +straightforward, it was hard to be the very reverse in answer to it, and +I shied idiotically at the honest lie. I had quite lost sight both of +Bob and his mother, I declared, from the day I went to India until now. +</p> +<p> +"You mean until you came out here?" persisted Mrs. Lascelles. +</p> +<p> +"Until the other day," I said, relying on a carefully affirmative tone +to close the subject. There was a pause. I began to hope I had +succeeded. The flattering tale was never finished. +</p> +<p> +"I believe," said Mrs. Lascelles, "that you saw Mrs. Evers in town +before you started." +</p> +<p> +It was too late to lie. +</p> +<p> +"As a matter of fact," I answered easily, "I did." +</p> +<p> +I built no hopes on the pause which followed that. Somehow I had my face +to the moon, and Mrs. Lascelles had her back. Yet I knew that her +scrutiny of me was more critical than ever. +</p> +<p> +"How funny of Bob never to have told me!" she said. +</p> +<p> +"Told you what?" +</p> +<p> +"That you saw his mother just before you left." +</p> +<p> +"I didn't tell him," I said at length. +</p> +<p> +"That was funny of you, Captain Clephane." +</p> +<p> +"On the contrary," I argued, with the impudence which was now my only +chance, "it was only natural. Bob was rather raw with his friend +Kennerley, you see. You knew about that?" +</p> +<p> +"Oh, yes." +</p> +<p> +"And why they fell out?" +</p> +<p> +"Yes." +</p> +<p> +"Well, he might have thought the other fellow had been telling tales, +and that I had come out to have an eye on him, if he had known that I +happened to see his mother just before I started." +</p> +<p> +There was another pause; but now I was committed to an attitude, and +prepared for the worst. +</p> +<p> +"Perhaps there would have been some truth in it?" suggested Mrs. +Lascelles. +</p> +<p> +"Perhaps," I agreed, "a little." +</p> +<p> +The pause now was the longest of all. It had no terrors for me. Another +cloud had come between us and the moon. I was sorry for that. I felt +that I was missing something. Even the fine upstanding figure before me +was no longer sharp enough to be expressive. +</p> +<p> +"I have been harking back," explained Mrs. Lascelles, eventually. "Now I +begin to follow. You saw his mother, you heard a report, and you +volunteered or at least consented to come out and keep an eye on the +dear boy, as you say yourself. Am I not more or less right so far, +Captain Clephane?" +</p> +<p> +Her tone was frozen honey. +</p> +<p> +"More or less," I admitted ironically. +</p> +<p> +"Of course, I don't know what report that other miserable young man may +have carried home with him. I don't want to know. But I can guess. One +does not stay in hotel after hotel without getting a pretty shrewd idea +of the way people talk about one. I know the sort of things they have +been saying here. You would hear them yourself, no doubt, Captain +Clephane, as soon as you arrived." +</p> +<p> +I admitted that I had, but reminded Mrs. Lascelles that the first person +I had spoken to was also the greatest gossip in the hotel. She paid no +attention to the remark, but stood looking at me again, with the look +that I could never quite see to read. +</p> +<p> +"And then," she went on, "you found out who it was, and you remembered +all about me, and your worst fears were confirmed. That must have been +an interesting moment. I wonder how you felt.... Did it never occur to +you to speak plainly to anybody?" +</p> +<p> +"I wasn't going to give you away," I said, stolidly, though with no +conscious parade of virtue. +</p> +<p> +"Yet, you see, it would have made no difference if you had! Did you +seriously think it would make much difference, Captain Clephane, to a +really chivalrous young man?" I bowed my head to the well-earned taunt. +"But," she went on, "there was no need for you to speak to Mr. Evers. +You might have spoken to me. Why did you not do that?" +</p> +<p> +"Because I didn't want to quarrel with you," I answered quite honestly; +"because I enjoyed your society too much myself." +</p> +<p> +"That was very nice of you," said Mrs. Lascelles, with a sudden although +subtle return of the good-nature which had always attracted me. "If it +is sincere," she added, as an apparent afterthought. +</p> +<p> +"I am perfectly sincere now." +</p> +<p> +"Then what do you think I should do?" she asked me, in the soft new tone +which actually flattered me with the idea that she was making up her +mind to take my advice. +</p> +<p> +"Refuse this lad!" +</p> +<p> +"And then?" she almost whispered. +</p> +<p> +"And then—" +</p> +<p> +I hesitated. I found it hard to say what I thought, hard even upon +myself. We had been good friends. I admired the woman cordially; her +society was pleasant to me, as it always had been. Nevertheless, we had +just engaged in a duel of no friendly character; and now that we seemed +of a sudden to have become friends again, it was the harder to give her +the only advice which I considered compatible alike with my duty and the +varied demands of the situation. If she took it as she seemed disposed +to do, the immediate loss would be mine, and I foresaw besides a much +more disagreeable reckoning with Bob Evers than the one now approaching +an amicable conclusion. I should have to stay behind to face the music +of his wrath alone. Still, at the risk of appearing brutal I made my +proposal in plain terms; but, to minimise that risk, I ventured to take +the lady's hand and was glad to find the familiarity permitted in the +same friendly spirit in which it was indulged. +</p> +<p> +"I would have no 'and then,'" I said, "if I were you. I should refuse +him under such circumstances that he couldn't possibly bother you, or +himself about you, again. Now is your opportunity." +</p> +<p> +"Is it?" she asked, a thrilling timbre in her low voice. And I fancied +there was a kindred tremor in the firm warm hand within mine. +</p> +<p> +"The best of opportunities," I replied, "if you are not too wedded to +this place, and can tear yourself away from the rest of us." (Her hand +lay loose in mine.) "Mrs. Lascelles, I should go to-morrow morning" (her +hand fell away altogether), "while he is still up the Matterhorn and I +shouldn't let him know where I—shouldn't give him a chance of finding +out—" +</p> +<p> +A sudden peal of laughter cut me short. I could not have believed it +came from my companion. But no other soul was near us, though I looked +all ways. It was the merriest laughter imaginable, only the merriment +was harsh and hard. +</p> +<p> +"Oh, thank you, Captain Clephane! You are too delicious! I saw it +coming; I only wondered whether I could contain myself until it came. +Yet I could hardly believe that even you would commit yourself to that +finishing touch of impudence! Certainly it is an opportunity, <i>his</i> +being out of the way. <i>You</i> were not long in making use of it, were you? +It will amuse him when he comes down, though it may open his eyes. I +shall tell him everything, so I give you warning. Every single thing, +that you have had the insolence to tell me!" +</p> +<p> +She had caught up her skirts from the ground, she had half turned away +from me, toward the hotel. The false merriment had died out of her. The +true indignation remained, ringing in every accent of the deep sweet +voice, and drawn up in every inch of the tall straight figure. I do not +remember whether the moon was hid or shining at the moment. I only know +that my lady's eyes shone bright enough for me to see them then and ever +after, bright and dry with a scorn that burnt too hot for tears; and +that I admired her even while she scorned me, as I had never thought to +admire any woman but one, but this woman least of all. +</p> +<p> +So we both stood, intent, some seconds, looking our last upon each other +if I was wise. Then I lifted my hat, and offered my congratulations +(more sincere than they sounded) to her and Bob. +</p> +<p> +"Did I tell you why he is going up?" I added. "It is to pass the time +until he knows his fate. If only we could let him know it now!" +</p> +<p> +Mrs. Lascelles glanced toward the mountain, and my eyes followed hers. +A great cloud hid the grim outstanding summit. +</p> +<p> +"If only you had prevented him from going!" she cried back at me in a +last reproach; and to me her tone was conclusive, it rang so true, and +so invidiously free from the smaller emotions which it had been my own +unhappiness to inspire. It was the real woman who had spoken out once +more, suddenly, perhaps unthinkingly, but obviously from her heart. And +as she turned, I followed her very slowly and without a word; for now +was I surely and deservedly undone. +</p> + + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<a name="CH11"><!-- CH11 --></a> +<h2> + CHAPTER XI +</h2> + +<h3> +THE LION'S MOUTH +</h3> +<p> </p> +<p> +It was a chilly morning, with rather a high wind; from the haze about +the mountains of the Zermatt valley, which were all that I could see +from my bedroom window, it occurred to me that I might look in vain for +the Matterhorn from the other side of the hotel. It was still visible, +however, when I came down, a white cloud wound about its middle like a +cloth, and the hotel telescope already trained upon its summit from the +shelter of the glass veranda. +</p> +<p> +"See anybody?" I asked of a man who sat at the telescope as though his +eye was frozen to the lens. He might have been witnessing the most +exciting adventure, where the naked eye saw only rock and snow, and cold +grey sky; but he rose at last with a shake of the head, a great gaunt +man with kind keen eyes, and the skin peeled off his nose. +</p> +<p> +"No," said he, "I can't see anybody, and I'm very glad I can't. It's +about as bad a morning for it as you could possibly have; yet last night +was so fine that some fellows might have got up to the hut, and been +foolish enough not to come down again. But have a look for yourself." +</p> +<p> +"Oh, thanks," said I, considerably relieved at what I heard, "but if you +can't see anybody I'm sure I can't. You have done it yourself, I +daresay?" +</p> +<p> +The gaunt man smiled demurely, and the keen eyes twinkled in his flayed +face. He was, indeed, a palpable mountaineer. +</p> +<p> +"What, the Matterhorn?" said he, lowering his voice and looking about +him as if on the point of some discreditable admission. "Oh, yes, I've +done the Matterhorn, back and front and both sides, with and without +guides; but everybody has, in these days. It's nothing when you know the +ropes and chains and things. They've got everything up there now except +an iron staircase. Still, I should be sorry to tackle it to-day, even if +they had a lift!" +</p> +<p> +"Do you think guides would?" I asked, less reassured than I had felt at +first. +</p> +<p> +"It depends on the guides. They are not the first to turn back, as a +rule; but they like wind and mist even less than we do. The guides know +what wind and mist mean." +</p> +<p> +I now understood the special disadvantages of the day and realised the +obvious dangers. I could only hope that either Bob Evers or his guides +had shown the one kind of courage required by the occasion, the moral +courage of turning back. But I was not at all sure of Bob. His stimulus +was not that of the single-minded, level-headed mountaineer; in his +romantic exaltation he was capable of hailing the very perils as so many +more means of grace in the sight of Mrs. Lascelles; yet without doubt he +would have repudiated any such incentive, and that in all the sincerity +of his simple heart. He did not know himself as I knew him. +</p> +<p> +My fears were soon confirmed. Returning to the glass veranda, after the +stock breakfast of the Swiss hotel, with its horseshoe rolls and +fabricated honey, I found the telescope the centre of an ominous crowd, +on whose fringe hovered my new friend the mountaineer. +</p> +<p> +"We were wrong," he muttered to me. "Some fools are up there, after +all." +</p> +<p> +"How many?" I asked quickly. +</p> +<p> +"I don't know. There's no getting near the telescope now, and won't be +till the clouds blot them out altogether." +</p> +<p> +I looked out at the Matterhorn. The loincloth of cloud had shaken itself +out into a flowing robe, from which only the brown skull of the mountain +protruded in its white skull-cap. +</p> +<p> +"There are three of them," announced a nasal voice from the heart of the +little crowd. "A great long chap and two guides." +</p> +<p> +"He can't possibly know that," remarked the mountaineer to me, "but +let's hope it is so." +</p> +<p> +"They're as plain as pike-staffs," continued Quinby, whose bent blond +head I now distinguished, as he occupied the congenial post of Sister +Anne. "They seem stuck.... No, they're getting up on to the snow-slope, +and the front man's cutting steps." +</p> +<p> +"Then they're all right for the present," said the mountaineer. "It's +the getting down that's ticklish." +</p> +<p> +"You can see the rope blowing about between them ... what a wind there +must be ... it's bent out taut like a bow, you can see it against the +snow, and they're bending themselves more than forty-five degrees to +meet it." +</p> +<p> +"All very well going <i>up</i>," murmured the mountaineer: there was a +sinister innuendo in the curt comments of the practical man. +</p> +<p> +I turned into the hall. It, however, was quite deserted. I had hoped I +might see something of Mrs. Lascelles; she was not one of those in the +glass veranda. I now looked in the drawing-room, but neither was she +there. Returning to the empty hall, I passed a minute peering through +the locked glass door of the pigeon-holes in which the careful concierge +files the unclaimed letters. There was nothing for me that I could +discern, in the C pigeon-hole; but next door but one, under E, there lay +on the very top a letter which caught my eye and more. It had not been +through any post. It was a note directed to R. Evers, Esq., in a hand +that I knew instinctively to be that of Mrs. Lascelles, though I had +never seen it in my life before. It was a good hand, but large and bold +and downright as herself. +</p> +<p> +The concierge stood in the doorway, one eye on the disappearing +Matterhorn, one on the experts and others in animated conclave round the +still inaccessible telescope. I touched the concierge on the arm. +</p> +<p> +"Did you see Mrs. Lascelles this morning?" +</p> +<p> +The man's eyes opened before his lips. +</p> +<p> +"She has gone away, sir." +</p> +<p> +"I know," I said, having indeed divined no less. "What train did she +catch?" +</p> +<p> +"The first one from here. That also catches the early train from +Zermatt." +</p> +<p> +"I am sorry," I said after a pause. "I hoped to see Mrs. Lascelles +before she went; now I must write. She left you an address, I suppose?" +</p> +<p> +"Oh, yes, sir." +</p> +<p> +"I shall ask you for it later on. No letters for me, I suppose?" +</p> +<p> +"No, sir." +</p> +<p> +"Sure?" +</p> +<p> +"I will look again." +</p> +<p> +And I looked with him, over his shoulder; but there was nothing; and +the note for Bob Evers now inspired me with a tripartite blend of +curiosity, envy, and apprehension. I would have had a last word from the +same hand myself; had it been never so scornful, this silent scorn was +the harder sort to bear. Also I wanted much to know what her last word +was to Bob—and dreaded more what it might be. +</p> +<p> +There remained the unexpected triumph of having got rid of my lady after +all. That is not to be belittled even now. It is a triumph to succeed in +any undertaking, more especially when one has abandoned one's own last +hope of such success. The unpleasant character of this particular +emprise made its eventual accomplishment in some ways the greater matter +for congratulation in my eyes. At least I had done my part. I had come +to hate it, but the thing was done, and it had been a fairly difficult +thing to do. It was impossible not to plume oneself a little on the +whole, but the feeling was a superficial one, with deeper and uneasier +feelings underneath. Still, I had practically redeemed my impulsive +promise to Catherine Evers; her son and this woman once parted, it +should be easy to keep them apart, and my knowledge of the woman +forbade me to deny the fullest significance to her departure. She had +gone away to stay away—from Bob. She had listened to me the less with +her ears, because her reason and her heart had been compelled to heed. +To be sure, she saw the unsuitability, the impossibility, as clearly as +we did. But it was I who, at all events, had helped to make her see it; +wherefore I deserved well of Catherine Evers, if of no other person in +the world. +</p> +<p> +Oddly enough, this last consideration afforded me least satisfaction; it +seemed to bring home to me by force of contrast the poor figure that I +must assuredly cut in the eyes of the other two, the still poorer +opinion that they would have of me if ever they knew all. I did not care +to pursue this train of thought. It was a subject upon which I was not +prepared to examine myself; to change it, I thought of Bob's present +peril, which I had almost forgotten as I lounged abstractedly in the +empty hall. If anything were to happen to him, in the vulgar sense! What +an irony, what poetic punishment for us survivors! And yet, even as I +rehearsed the ghastly climax in my mind, I told myself that the mother +would rather see him even thus, than married to a widow who had also +been divorced; it was the younger woman who would never forgive me, or +herself. +</p> +<p> +Disappointed faces met me on my next visit to the veranda. The little +crowd there had dwindled to a group. I could have had the telescope now +for as long as I liked: the upper part of the Matterhorn was finally and +utterly effaced and swallowed up by dense white mist and cloud. My +friend the mountaineer looked grave, but his disfigured face did not +wear the baulked expression of others to which he drew my attention. +</p> +<p> +"It is like the curtain coming down with the man's head still in the +lion's mouth," said he. +</p> +<p> +"I hope," said I devoutly, "that you don't seriously think there's any +analogy?" +</p> +<p> +The climber looked at me steadily, and then smiled. +</p> +<p> +"Well, no, perhaps I don't think it quite so bad as all that. But it's +no use pretending it isn't dangerous. May I ask if you know who the +foolhardy fellow is?" +</p> +<p> +I said I did not know, but mentioned my suspicion, only begging my +climbing friend not to let the name go any farther. It was in too many +mouths already, in quite another connection, I was going on to explain; +but the mountaineer nodded, as much as to warn me that even he knew all +about that. It was Bob's office, however, to provide the hotel with its +sensation while he remained, and he was not allowed to perform +anonymously very long. His departure over night leaked out. I was asked +if it was true. The flight of Mrs. Lascelles was the next discovery; +desperate deductions were drawn at once. She had jilted the unlucky +youth and sent him in utter recklessness on his intentionally suicidal +ascent. Nobody any longer expected to see him come down alive; so much I +gathered from the fragments of conversation that reached my ears; and +never was better occupation for a bad day than appeared to be afforded +by the discussion of the supposititious tragedy in all its imaginary +details. As, however, the talk invariably abated at my approach, giving +place to uncomplimentary glances in my direction, I could not but infer +that public opinion had assigned me an unenviable part in the piece. +Perhaps I deserved it, though not from their point of view. +</p> +<p> +The afternoon was at once a dreariness and a dread. There was no ray of +sun without, no sort of warmth within. The Matterhorn never reappeared, +but seemed the grimmer monster for this sinister invisibility. I +gathered that there was real occasion for anxiety, if not for alarm, and +I nursed mine chiefly in my own room until I heard the news when I went +down for my letters. Bob Evers had walked in as though nothing had +happened, and gone straight up to his room with a note that the +concierge handed him. Some one had asked him whether it was he who had +been up the Matterhorn in the morning, and young Evers had vouchsafed +the barest affirmative compatible with civility. The sunburnt climber +was my informant. +</p> +<p> +"And I don't mind telling you it is a relief to me," he added, "and to +everybody, though I shouldn't wonder if there was a little unconscious +disappointment in the air as well. I congratulate you, for I could see +you were anxious, and I must find an opportunity of congratulating your +young friend himself." +</p> +<p> +Meanwhile no such opportunity was afforded me, though I quite expected +and was fully prepared for another visit from Bob in my room. I waited +for him there until dinner-time, but he never came, and I was beginning +to wish he would. It was like the wrapping of the Matterhorn in mist; it +only widened the field of apprehension; and yet it was not for me to go +to the boy. My unrest was further aggravated by a letter which I had +just received from the boy's mother in answer to my first to her. It was +not a very dreadful letter; but I only trusted that no evil impulse had +caused Catherine to write in anything like the same strain to Bob; for +neither was it a very charitable letter, nor one that a man could be +glad to get from the woman whom he had set out on an enduring pinnacle. +There was only this to be said for it, that years ago I had sought in +vain for a really human weakness in Catherine Evers, and now at last I +had found one. She was rather too human about Mrs. Lascelles. +</p> +<p> +I looked for Bob both at and after dinner, but we were never within +speaking distance and I fancied he avoided even my eye. What had Mrs. +Lascelles said? He looked redder and browner and rougher in the face, +but I heard that he would hardly open his lips at table, that he was +almost surly on the subject of his exploit. Everybody else appeared to +me to be speaking of it, or of Bob himself; but I had him on my nerves +and may well have formed an exaggerated impression about it all. Only I +do not forget some of the things I did overhear that day, and night; and +they now had the effect of sending me in search of Bob, since Bob would +not come near me. "I will have it out with him," I grimly decided, "and +then get out of this myself by the first train going." I had had quite +enough of the place that had enchanted me up to the last four-and-twenty +hours. I began to see myself back in Elm Park Gardens. There, at least, +if also there alone, I should get some credit for what I had done. +</p> +<p> +It was no use looking for Bob upon the terrace now; yet I did look +there, among other obvious places, before I could bring myself to knock +at his door. There was a light in his room, so I knew that he was there, +and he cried out admittance in so sharp a tone that I fancied he also +knew who knocked. I found him packing in his shirt-sleeves. He received +me with a stare in exact keeping with his tone. What on earth had Mrs. +Lascelles said? +</p> +<p> +"Going away?" I asked, as a mere preliminary, and I shut the door behind +me. Bob followed the action with raised eyebrows, then flung me the +shortest possible affirmative, as he bent once more over the suit-case on +the bed. +</p> +<p> +But in a few seconds he looked up. +</p> +<p> +"Anything I can do for you, Clephane?" +</p> +<p> +"That depends where you are going." +</p> +<p> +Bob went on packing with a smile. I guessed where he was going. "I +thought there might be something pressing," he remarked, without looking +up again. +</p> +<p> +"There is," said I. "There is something you can do for me on the spot. +You can try to believe that I have not meant to be quite such a skunk as +I may have seemed—to you," I was on the point of adding, but I stopped +short of that advisedly, as I thought of Mrs. Lascelles also. +</p> +<p> +"Oh, that's all right," said Bob, in a would-be airy tone that carried +its own contradiction. "All's fair, according to the proverb; I no more +blame you than you would have blamed me. I hope, on the contrary, that I +may congratulate you." +</p> +<p> +And he stood up with a look which, coupled with his words, made it my +turn to stare. +</p> +<p> +"Indeed you may not," said I. +</p> +<p> +"Aren't you engaged to her?" he asked. +</p> +<p> +"Good God, no!" I cried. "What made you think so?" +</p> +<p> +"Everything!" exclaimed Bob, after a moment's pause of obvious +bewilderment. "I—you see—I had a note from Mrs. Lascelles herself!" +</p> +<p> +"Yes?" said I, carefully careless, but I wanted more than ever to know +that missive's gist. +</p> +<p> +"Only a few lines," Bob went on, ruefully; "they are the first thing I +heard or saw when I got down, and they almost made me wish I'd come down +with a run! Well, it's no use talking about it, I only thought you'd +know. It was the usual smack in the eye, I suppose, only nicely put and +all that. She didn't tell me where she was going, or why; she told me I +had better ask you." +</p> +<p> +"But you wouldn't condescend." +</p> +<p> +Bob gave a rather friendly little laugh. +</p> +<p> +"I said I'd see you damned!" he admitted. "But of course I thought you +were the lucky man. I still half believe you are!" +</p> +<p> +"Well, I'm not." +</p> +<p> +"Do you mean to say that she's refused you too?" +</p> +<p> +"She hasn't had the chance." +</p> +<p> +Bob's eyes opened to an infantile width. +</p> +<p> +"But you told me you were in earnest!" he urged. +</p> +<p> +"As much in earnest as you were, I believe was what I said." +</p> +<p> +"That's the same thing," returned Bob, sharply. "You may not think it +is. I don't care what you think. But I'm very sorry you said you were in +earnest if you were not." +</p> +<p> +And his tone convinced me that he was no longer commiserating himself; +he was sorry on some new account, and the evident reality of his regret +filled me in turn with all the qualms of a guilty conscience. +</p> +<p> +"Why are you sorry?" I demanded. +</p> +<p> +"Oh, not on my own account," said Bob. "I'm delighted, personally, of +course." +</p> +<p> +"Then do you mean to say—you actually told her—I was as much in +earnest as you were?" +</p> +<p> +Bob Evers smiled openly in my face; it was the only revenge he ever +took; and even it was tempered by the inextinguishable sweetness of +expression and the childlike wide-eyed candour which were Bob's even in +the hour of his humiliation, and will be, one hopes, all his days. +</p> +<p> +"Not in so many words," he said, "but I am afraid I did tell her in +effect. You see, I took you at your word. I thought it was quite true. +I'm awfully sorry, Duncan. But it really does serve you right!" +</p> +<p> +I made no answer. I was looking at the suit-case on the bed. Bob seemed +to have lost all interest in his packing. I turned to leave him without +a word. +</p> +<p> +"I am awfully sorry!" he was the one to say again. I began to wonder +when he would see all round the point, and how it would affect his +feeling (to say nothing of his actions) when he did. Meanwhile it was +Bob who was holding out his hand. +</p> +<p> +"So am I," I said, taking it. +</p> +<p> +And for once I, too, was not thinking about myself. +</p> + + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<a name="CH12"><!-- CH12 --></a> +<h2> + CHAPTER XII +</h2> + +<h3> +A STERN CHASE +</h3> +<p> </p> +<p> +Where had Bob been going, and where was he going now? If these were not +the first questions that I asked myself on coming away from him, they +were at all events among my last thoughts that night, and as it +happened, quite my first next morning. His voice had reached me through +my bedroom window, on the head of a dream about himself. I got up and +looked out; there was Bob Evers seeing the suit-case into the tiny train +which brings your baggage (and yourself, if you like) to the very door +of the Riffel Alp Hotel. Bob did not like and I watched him out of sight +down the winding path threaded by the shining rails. He walked slowly, +head and shoulders bent, it might be with dogged resolve, it might be in +mere depression; there was never a glimpse of his face, nor a backward +glance as he swung round the final corner, with his great-coat over his +arm. +</p> +<p> +In spite of my curiosity as to his destination, I made no attempt to +discover it for myself, but on consideration I was guilty of certain +inquiries concerning that of Mrs. Lascelles. They had not to be very +exhaustive; she had made no secret of her original plans upon leaving +the Riffel Alp, and they did not appear to have undergone much change. I +myself left the same forenoon, and lay that night amid the smells of +Brigues, after a little tour of its hotels, in one of which I found the +name of Mrs. Lascelles in the register, while in every one I was +prepared to light upon Bob Evers in the flesh. But that encounter did +not occur. +</p> +<p> +In the early morning I was one of a shivering handful who awaited the +diligence for the Furka Pass; and an ominous drizzle made me thankful +that my telegram of the previous day had been too late to secure me an +outside seat. It was quite damp enough within. Nor did the day improve +as we drove, or the view attract me in the least. It was at its worst as +a sight, and I at mine as a sightseer. I have as little recollection of +my fellow-passengers; but I still see the page in the hotel register at +the Rhone Glacier, with the name I sought written boldly in its place, +just twenty-four hours earlier. +</p> +<p> +The Furka Pass has its European reputation; it would gain nothing from +my enthusiastic praises, had I any enthusiasm to draw upon, or the +descriptive powers to do it justice. But what I best remember is the +time it took us to climb those interminable zig-zags, and to shake off +the too tenacious sight of the hotel in the hollow where I had seen a +signature and eaten my lunch. Now I think of it, there were two couples +who had come so far with us, but at the Rhone Glacier they exchanged +their mutually demonstrative adieux, and I thought the couple who came +on would never have done waving to the couple who stayed behind. They +kept it up for at least an hour, and then broke out again at each of our +many last glimpses of the hotel, now hundreds of feet below. That was +the only diversion until these energetic people went to see the glacier +cave at the summit of the pass. I am glad to remember that I preferred +refreshment at the inn. After that, night fell upon a scene whose +desolation impressed me more than its grandeur, and so in the end we +rattled into Andermatt: here was a huge hotel all but empty, with a +perfect tome of a visitors' book, and in it sure enough the fine free +autograph which I was beginning to know so well. +</p> +<p> +"Yes, sare," said the concierge, "the season end suddenly mit the bad +vedder at the beginning of the veek. You know that lady? She has been +here last night; she go avay again to-day, on to Göschenen and Zürich. +Yes, sare, she shall be in Zürich to-night." +</p> +<p> +I was in Zürich myself the night after. I knew the hotel to go to, knew +it from Mrs. Lascelles herself, whose experience of continental hotels +was so pathetically extensive. This was the best in Switzerland, so she +had assured me in one of our talks: she could never pass through Zürich +without making a night of it at the Baur au Lac. But one night of it +appeared to be enough, or so it had proved on this occasion, for again I +missed her by a few hours. I was annoyed. I agreed with Mrs. Lascelles +about this hotel. Since I had made up my mind to overtake her first or +last, it might as well have been a comfortable place like this, where +there was good cooking and good music and all the comforts which I may +or may not have needed, but which I was certainly beginning to desire. +</p> +<p> +What a contrast to the place at which I found myself the following +night. It was a place called Triberg, in the Black Forest, which I had +never penetrated before, and certainly never shall again. It seemed to +me an uttermost end of the earth, but it was raining when I arrived, and +the rain never ceased for an instant while I was there. About a dozen +hotel omnibuses met the train, from which only three passengers +alighted; the other two were a young married couple at whom I would not +have looked twice, though we all boarded the same lucky 'bus, had not +the young man stared very hard at me. +</p> +<p> +"Captain Clephane," said he, "I guess you've forgotten me; but you may +remember my best gurl?" +</p> +<p> +It was our good-natured young American from the Riffel Alp, who had not +only joined in the daily laugh against himself up there, but must needs +raise it as soon as ever he met one of us again. I rather think his best +girl did not hear him, for she was staring through the streaming omnibus +windows into an absolutely deserted country street, and I feared that +her eyes would soon resemble the panes. She brightened, however, in a +very flattering way, as I thought, on finding a third soul for one or +both of them to speak to, for a change. I only wished I could have +returned the compliment in my heart. +</p> +<p> +"Captain Clephane," continued the young bridegroom, "we came down Monday +last. Say, who do you guess came down along with us?" +</p> +<p> +"A friend of yours," prompted the bride, as I put on as blank an +expression as possible. +</p> +<p> +I opened my eyes a little wider. It seemed the only thing to do. +</p> +<p> +"Captain Clephane," said the bridegroom, beaming all over his +good-humoured face, "it was a lady named Lascelles, and it's to her +advice we owe this pleasure. We travelled together as far as Loocerne. +We guess we'll put salt on her at this hotel." +</p> +<p> +"So does the Captain," announced the bride, who could not look at me +without a smile, which I altogether declined to return. But I need +hardly confess that she was right. It was from Mrs. Lascelles that I +also had heard of the dismal spot to which we were come, as her own +ultimate objective after Switzerland. It was the only address with which +she had provided the concierge at the Riffel Alp. All day I had +regretted the night wasted at Zürich, on the chance of saving a day; but +until this moment I had been sanguine of bringing my dubious quest to a +successful issue here in Triberg. Now I was no longer even anxious to do +so. I did not desire witnesses of a meeting which might well be of a +character humiliating to myself. Still less should I have chosen for +such witnesses a couple who were plainly disposed to put the usual +misconstruction upon the relations of any man with any woman. +</p> +<p> +My disappointment was consequently less than theirs when we drove up to +as gloomy a hostelry as I have ever beheld, with the blue-black forest +smoking wet behind it, to find that here also the foul weather had +brought the season to a premature and sudden end, literally emptying +this particular hotel. Nor did the landlord give us the welcome we might +have expected on a hasty consideration of the circumstances. He said +that he had been on the point of shutting up that house until next +season and hinted at less profit than loss upon three persons only. +</p> +<p> +"But there's a fourth person coming," declared the disconsolate bride. +"We figured on finding her right here!" +</p> +<p> +"A Mrs. Lascelles," her husband explained. +</p> +<p> +"Been and gone," said the landlord, grinning sardonically. "Too lonely +for the lady. She has arrived last night, and gone away again this +morning. You will find her at the Darmstaedterhof, in Baden-Baden, +unless she changes her mind on the way." +</p> +<p> +I caught his grin. It had been the same story, at every stage of my +journey; the chances were that it would be the same thing again at +Baden-Baden. There may have been something, however, of which I was +unaware in my smile; for I found myself under close observation by the +bride; and as our eyes met her hand slipped within her husband's arm. +</p> +<p> +"I guess <i>we</i> won't find her there," she said. "I guess we'll just light +out for ourselves, and wish the captain luck." +</p> +<p> +A stern chase is proverbially protracted, but on dry land it has usually +one end. Mine ended in Baden on the fifth (and first fine) day, rather +early in the afternoon. On arrival I drove straight to the +Darmstaedterhof, and asked to see no visitors' books, for the five days +had taken the edge off my finesse, but inquired at once whether a Mrs. +Lascelles was staying there or not. She was. It seemed incredible. Were +they sure she had not just left? They were sure. But she was not in; at +my request they made equally sure of that. She had probably gone to the +Conversationshaus, to listen to the band. All Baden went there in the +afternoon, to listen to that band. It was a very good band. Baden-Baden +was a very good place. There was no better hotel in Baden-Baden than the +Darmstaedterhof; there were no such baths in the other hotels, these +came straight from the spring, at their natural temperature. They were +matchless for rheumatism, especially in the legs. The old Empress, +Augusta, when in Baden, used to patronise this very hotel and no other. +They could show me the actual bath, and I myself could have pension +(baths excluded) for eight marks and fifty a day. If I would be so kind +as to step into the lift, I should see the room for myself, and then +with my permission they would bring in my luggage and pay the cab. +</p> +<p> +All this by degrees, from a pale youth in frock-coat and forage-cap, and +a more prosperous personage with <i>pince-nez</i> and a paunch (yet another +concierge and my latest landlord respectively), while I stood making up +my mind. The closing proposition was of some assistance to me. I had no +luggage on the cab, of which the cabman's hat alone was visible, at the +bottom of a flight of steps, at the far end of the flagged approach. I +had left my luggage at the station, but I only recollected the fact upon +being recalled from a mental forecast of the interview before me to +these exceedingly petty preliminaries. +</p> +<p> +There and then I paid off the cab and found my own way to this +Conversationshaus. I liked the look of the trim, fresh town in its +perfect amphitheatre of pine-clad hills, covered in by a rich blue sky +from which the last clouds were exhaling like breath from a mirror. The +well-drained streets were drying clean as in a black frost; checkered +with sharp shadows, twinkling with shop windows, and strikingly free +from the more cumbrous forms of traffic. If this was Germany, I could +dispense with certain discreditable prejudices. I had to inquire my way +of a policeman in a flaming helm; because I could not understand his +copious directions, he led me to a tiny bridge within earshot of the +band, and there refused my proferred coin with the dignity of a +Hohenzollern. Under the tiny bridge there ran the shallowest and +clearest of little rivers. Up the white walls of the houses clambered a +deal of Virginia creeper, brought on by the rain, and now almost scarlet +in the strong sunlight. Presently at some gates there was a mark to pay, +or it may have been two; immediate admittance to an avenue of +fascinating shops, with an inner avenue of trees, little tables under +them, and the crash of the band growing louder at every yard. Eventual +access to a fine, broad terrace, a fine, long façade, a bandstand, and +people listening and walking up and down, people listening and drinking +beer or coffee at more little tables, people listening and reading on +rows of chairs, people standing to listen with all their ears; but not +for a long time the person I sought. +</p> +<hr> +<p> +Not for a very long time, but yet, at last, and all alone, among the +readers on the chairs, deep in a Tauchnitz volume even here as in the +Alps; more daintily yet not less simply dressed, in pink muslin and a +big black hat; and blessed here as there with such blooming health, such +inimitable freshness, such a general air of well-being and of deep +content, as almost to disgust me after my whole week's search and my own +hourly qualms. +</p> +<p> +So I found Mrs. Lascelles in the end, and so I saw her until she looked +up and saw me; then the picture changed; but I am not going to describe +the change. +</p> +<p> +"Well, really!" she cried out. +</p> +<p> +"It has taken me all the week to find you," said I, as I replaced my +hat. +</p> +<p> +Her eyes flashed again. +</p> +<p> +"Has it, indeed! And now you have found me, aren't you satisfied? Pray +have a good look, Captain Clephane. You won't find anybody else!" +</p> +<p> +Her meaning dawned on me at last. +</p> +<p> +"I didn't expect to, Mrs. Lascelles." +</p> +<p> +"Am I to believe that?" +</p> +<p> +"You must do as you please. It is the truth. Mrs. Lascelles, I have been +all the week looking for you and you alone." +</p> +<p> +I spoke with some warmth, for not only did I speak the truth, but it had +become more and more the truth at every stage of my journey since +Brigues. Mrs. Lascelles leant back in her chair and surveyed me with +less anger, but with the purer and more pernicious scorn. +</p> +<p> +"And what business had you to do that?" she asked calmly. "How dare you, +I should like to know?" +</p> +<p> +"I dared," said I, "because I owed you a debt which, I felt, must be +paid in person, or it would never be paid at all. Mrs. Lascelles, I +owed and do owe you about the most abject apology man ever made! I have +followed you all this way for no other earthly reason than to make it, +in all sincere humility. But it has taken me more or less since Tuesday +morning; and I can't kneel here. Do you mind if I sit down?" +</p> +<p> +Mrs. Lascelles drew in the hem of her pink muslin, with an all but +insufferable gesture of unwilling resignation. I took the next chair but +one, but, leaning my elbow on the chair-back between us, was rather the +gainer by the intervening inches, which enabled me to study a perfect +profile and the most wonderful colouring as I could scarcely have done +at still closer range. She never turned to look at me, but simply +listened while the band played, and people passed, and I said my say. It +was very short: there was so little that she did not know. There was the +excitement about Bob, his subsequent reappearance, our scene in his room +and my last sight of him in the morning; but the bare facts went into +few words, and there was no demand for details. Mrs. Lascelles seemed to +have lost all interest in her latest lover; but when I tried to speak +of my own hateful hand in that affair, to explain what I could of it, +but to extenuate nothing, and to apologise from my heart for it all, +then there was a change in her, then her blood mounted, then her bosom +heaved, and I was silenced by a single flash from her eyes. +</p> +<p> +"Yes," said she, "you could let him think you were in earnest, you could +pose as his rival, you could pretend all that! Not to me, I grant you! +Even you did not go quite so far as that; or was it that you knew that I +should see through you? You made up for it, however, the other night. +That I never, never, never shall forgive. I, who had never seriously +thought of accepting him, who was only hesitating in order to refuse him +in the most deliberate and final manner imaginable—I, to have the word +put into my mouth—by you! I, who was going in any case, of my own +accord, to be told to go—by you! One thing you will never know, Captain +Clephane, and that is how nearly you drove me into marrying him just to +spite you and his miserable mother. I meant to do it, that night when I +left you. It would have served you right if I had!" +</p> +<p> +She did not rise. She did not look at me again. But I saw the tears +standing in her eyes, one I saw roll down her cheek, and the sight smote +me harder than her hardest word, though more words followed in broken +whispers. +</p> +<p> +"It wasn't because I cared ... that you hurt me as you did. I never did +care for him ... like that. It was ... because ... you seemed to think +my society contamination ... to an honest boy. I did care for him, but +not like that. I cared too much for him to let him marry me ... to +contaminate him for life!" +</p> +<p> +I repudiated the reiterated word with all my might. I had never used it, +even in my thoughts; it had never once occurred to me in connection with +her. Had I not shown as much? Had I behaved as though I feared +contamination for myself? I rapped out these questions with undue +triumph, in my heat, only to perceive their second edge as it cut me to +the quick. +</p> +<p> +"But you were playing a part," retorted Mrs. Lascelles. "You don't deny +it. Are you proud of it, that you rub it in? Or are you going to begin +denying it now?" +</p> +<p> +Unfortunately, that was impossible. Tt was too late for denials. But, +driven into my last corner, as it seemed, I relapsed for the moment into +thought, and my thoughts took the form of a rapid retrospect of all the +hours that this angry woman and I had spent together. I was introduced +to her again by poor Bob. I recognised her again by the light of a +match, and accosted her next morning in the strong sunshine. We went for +our first walk together. We sat together on the green ledge overlooking +the glaciers, and first she talked about herself, and then we both +talked about Bob, and then Bob appeared in the flesh and gave me my +disastrous idea. Then there was the day on the Findelen that we had all +three spent together. Then there was the walk home from early church +(short as it had been), the subsequent expedition to Zermatt and back, +with its bright beginning and its clouded end. Up to that point, at all +events, they had been happy hours, so many of them unburdened by a +single thought of Bob Evers and his folly, not one of them haunted by +the usual sense of a part that is played. I almost wondered as I +realised this. I supposed it would be no use attempting to express +myself to Mrs. Lascelles, but I felt I must say something before I went, +so I said: +</p> +<p> +"I deny nothing, and I'm proud of nothing, but neither am I quite so +ashamed as perhaps I ought to be. Shall I tell you why, Mrs. Lascelles? +It may have been an insolent and an infamous part, as you imply; but I +enjoyed playing it, and I used often to forget it was a part at all. So +much so that even now I'm not so sure that it was one! There—I suppose +that makes it all ten times worse. But I won't apologise again. Do you +mind giving me that stick?" +</p> +<p> +I had rested the two of them against the chair between us. Mrs. +Lascelles had taken possession of one, with which she was methodically +probing the path, for there had been no time to draw their Alpine teeth. +She did not comply with my request. She smiled instead. +</p> +<p> +"I mind very much," her old voice said. "Now we have finished fighting, +perhaps you will listen to the <i>Meistersinger</i>—for it is worth +listening to on that band—and try to appreciate Baden while you are +here. There are no more trains for hours." +</p> +<p> +The wooded hills rose over the bandstand, against the bright blue sky. +The shadow of the colonnade lay sharp and black beyond our feet, with +people passing, and the band crashing, in the sunlight beyond. That was +Baden. I should not have found it a difficult place to appreciate, a +week or so before; even now it was no hardship to sit there listening to +the one bit of Wagner that my ear welcomes as a friend, and furtively to +watch my companion as she sat and listened too. You will perceive by +what train of associations my eyes soon fell upon the Tauchnitz volume +which she must have placed without thinking on the chair between us. I +took it up. Heavens! It was one of the volumes of Browning's Poems. And +back I sped in spirit to a green ledge overlooking the Gorner Glacier, +to think what we had said about Browning up there, but only to remember +how I had longed to be to Mrs. Lascelles what Catherine Evers had been +to me. There were some sharp edges to the reminiscence, but I turned the +pages while they did their worst, and so cut myself to the heart upon a +sharper than them all. It was in a poem I remembered, a poem whose title +pained me into glancing farther. And see what leapt to meet me from the +printed page: +</p> +<pre> + "And I,—what I seem to my friend, you see: + What I soon shall seem to his love, you guess: + What I seem to myself, do you ask of me? + No hero, I confess." +</pre> +<p> +True, too true; no hero, indeed; anything in the wide world else! But +that I should read it there by the woman's side! And yet, even that was +no such coincidence; had we not talked about the poet, had I not implied +what Catherine thought of him, what everybody ought to think? +</p> +<p> +Of a sudden a strange thrill stirred me; sidelong I glanced at my +companion. She had turned her head away; her cheek was deeply dyed. She +knew what I was doing; she might divine my thoughts. I shut the book +lest she should see the vile title of a thing I had hitherto liked. And +the <i>Prizelied</i> crashed back into the ear. +</p> + + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<a name="CH13"><!-- CH13 --></a> +<h2> + CHAPTER XIII +</h2> + +<h3> +NUMBER THREE +</h3> +<p> </p> +<p> +It was the middle of November when I was shown once more into the old +room at the old number in Elm Park Gardens. There was a fire, the +windows were shut, and the electric light was a distinct improvement +when the maid put it on; otherwise all was exactly as I had left it in +August, and so often pictured it since. There was "Hope," presiding over +the shelf of poets, and here "Paolo and Francesca," reminiscent as ever +of Melbury Road, upon a wet Sunday, years and years ago. The day's +<i>Times</i> and the week's <i>Spectator</i> were not less prominent than the last +new problem novel; all three lay precisely where their predecessors had +always lain; and my own dead self stood in its own old place upon the +piano which had been in St. Helena with Napoleon. It is vanity's deserts +to come across these unnecessary memorials of a decently buried +boyhood; there is always something stultifying about them, and I longed +to confiscate this one of me. +</p> +<p> +But there was a photograph on the chimney-piece that interested me +keenly; it was evidently the very latest of Bob Evers, and I studied it +with a painful curiosity. Was the boy really altered, or did I only +imagine it from my secret knowledge of his affairs? To me he seemed +graver, more sedate, less angelically trustful in expression, and yet +something finer and manlier withal: to confirm the idea one had only to +compare this new one with the racket photograph now relegated to a rear +rank. The round-eyed look was gone. Had I here yet another memorial of +yet another buried boyhood? If so, I felt I was the sexton, and I might +be ashamed, and I was. +</p> +<p> +"Looking at Bob? Isn't it a dear one of him? You see—he is none the +worse!" +</p> +<p> +And Catherine Evers stood smiling as warmly, as gratefully, as she +grasped my hand; but with her warmth there was a certain nervousness of +manner, which had the odd effect of putting me perversely at my ease; +and I found myself looking critically at Catherine, really critically, +for I suppose the first time in my life. +</p> +<p> +"He is playing foot-ball," she continued, full as ever of her boy. "I +had a letter from him only this morning. He had his colours at Eton, you +know (he had them for everything there), but he never dreamt of getting +them at Cambridge, yet now he really thinks he has a chance! They tried +him the other day, and he kicked a goal. Dear old Bob! If he does get +them he will be a Blue and a half, he says. He writes so happily, +Duncan! I have so much to be thankful for—to thank you for!" +</p> +<p> +Yes, Catherine was good to look at; there was no doubt of it; and this +time she was not wearing any hat. Discoursing of the lad, she was +animated, eager, for once as exclamatory as her pen, with light and life +in every look of the thin intellectual face, in every glance of the +large, intellectual eyes, and in every intonation of the keen dry voice. +A sweet woman; a young woman; a woman with a full heart of love and +sympathy and tenderness—for Bob! Yet, when she thanked me at the end, +either upon an impulse, or because she thought she must, her eyes fell, +and again I detected that slight embarrassment which was none the less a +revelation, to me, in Catherine Evers, of all women in the world. +</p> +<p> +"We won't speak of that," I said, "if you don't mind. I am not proud of +it." +</p> +<p> +Catherine scanned me more narrowly. I knew her better with that look. +"Then tell me about yourself, and do sit down," she said, drawing a +chair near the fire, but sitting on the other side of it herself. "I +needn't ask you how you are. I never saw you looking so well. That comes +of going right away and not hurrying back. I think you were so wise! +But, Duncan, I am sorry to see both sticks still! Have you seen your man +since you came back?" +</p> +<p> +"I have." +</p> +<p> +"Well?" +</p> +<p> +"I'm afraid there's no more soldiering for me." +</p> +<p> +Catherine seemed more than sorry and disappointed; she looked quite +indignant with the eminent specialist who had finally pronounced this +opinion. Was I sure he was the very best man for that kind of thing? She +would have a second opinion, if she were me. Very well, then, a third +and fourth! If there was one man she pitied from the bottom of her +heart, it was the man without a profession or an occupation of some +kind. Catherine looked, however, as though her pity were almost akin to +horror. +</p> +<p> +"I have a trifle, luckily," I said. "I must try something else." +</p> +<p> +Catherine stared into the fire, as though thinking of something else for +me to try. She seemed full of apprehension on my account. +</p> +<p> +"Don't you worry about me," I went on. "I came here to talk about +somebody else, of course." +</p> +<p> +Catherine almost started. +</p> +<p> +"I've told you about Bob," she said, with a suspicious upward glance +from the fire. +</p> +<p> +"I don't mean Bob," said I, "or anything you may think I did for him or +you. I said just now that I didn't want to speak of it and no more I do. +Yet, as a matter of fact, I do want to speak to you about the lady in +that case." +</p> +<p> +Catherine's face betrayed the mixed emotions of relief and fresh alarm. +</p> +<p> +"You don't mean to say the creature—? But it's impossible. I heard from +Bob only this morning. He wrote so happily!" +</p> +<p> +I could not help smiling at the nature and quality of the alarm. +</p> +<p> +"They have seen nothing more of each other, if that's what you fear," +said I. "But what I do want to speak about is this creature, as you call +her, and no one else. She has done nothing to deserve quite so much +contempt. I want you to be just to her, Catherine." +</p> +<p> +I was serious. I may have been ridiculous. Catherine evidently found me +so, for, after gauging me with that wry but humourous look which I knew +so well of old, for which I had been waiting this afternoon, she went +off into the decorous little fit of laughter in which it had invariably +ended. +</p> +<p> +"Forgive me, Duncan dear! But you do look so serious, and you <i>are</i> so +dreadfully broad! I never was. I hope you remember that? Broad minds and +easy principles—the combination is inevitable. But, really though, +Duncan, is there anything to be said for her? Was she a possible +person, in any sense of the word?" +</p> +<p> +"Quite a probable person," I assured Catherine. +</p> +<p> +"But I have heard all sorts of things about her!" +</p> +<p> +"From Bob?" +</p> +<p> +"No, he never mentioned her." +</p> +<p> +"Nor me, perhaps?" +</p> +<p> +"Nor you, Duncan. I am afraid there may be just a drop of bad blood +there! You see, he looked upon you as a successful rival. You wrote and +told me so, if you remember, from some place on your way down from the +mountains. Your letter and Bob arrived the same night." +</p> +<p> +I nodded. +</p> +<p> +"It was so clever of you!" pursued Catherine. "Quite brilliant; but I +don't quite know what to say to your letting my baby climb that awful +Matterhorn; in a fog, too!" +</p> +<p> +And there was real though momentary reproach in the firelit face. +</p> +<p> +"I couldn't very well stop him, you know. Besides," I added, "it was +such a chance." +</p> +<p> +"Of what?" +</p> +<p> +"Of getting rid of Mrs. Lascelles. I thought you would think it worth +the risk." +</p> +<p> +"I do," declared Catherine, on due consultation with the fire. "I really +do! Bob is all I have—all I want—in this world, Duncan; and it may +seem a dreadful thing to say, and you mayn't believe it when I've said +it, but—yes!—I'd rather he had never come home at all than come home +married, at his age, and to an Indian widow, whose first husband had +divorced her! I mean it, Duncan; I do indeed!" +</p> +<p> +"I am sure you do," said I. "It was just what I said to myself." +</p> +<p> +"To think of my Bob being Number Three!" murmured Catherine, with that +plaintive drollery of hers which I had found irresistible in the days of +old. +</p> +<p> +I was able to resist it now. "So those were the things you heard?" I +remarked. +</p> +<p> +"Yes," said Catherine; "haven't you heard them?" +</p> +<p> +"I didn't need. I knew her in India years ago." +</p> +<p> +Catherine's eyes opened. +</p> +<p> +"<i>You</i> knew this Mrs. Lascelles?" +</p> +<p> +"Before that was her name. I have also met her original husband. If you +had known him, you would be less hard on her." +</p> +<p> +Catherine's eyes were still wide open. They were rather hard eyes, after +all. "Why did you not tell me you had known her, when you wrote?" she +asked. +</p> +<p> +"It wouldn't have done any good. I did what you wanted done, you know. I +thought that was enough." +</p> +<p> +"It was enough," echoed Catherine, with a quick return of grace. She +looked into the fire. "I don't want to be hard upon the poor thing, +Duncan! I know you think we women always are, upon each other. But to +have come back married—at his age—to even the nicest woman in the +world! It would have been madness ... ruination ... Duncan, T'm going to +say something else that may shock you." +</p> +<p> +"Say away," said I. +</p> +<p> +Her voice had fallen. She was looking at me very narrowly, as if to +measure the effect of her unspoken words. +</p> +<p> +"I am not so very sure about marriage," she went on, "at any age! Don't +misunderstand me ... I was very happy ... but I for one could never +marry again ... and I am not sure that I ever want to see Bob...." +</p> +<p> +Catherine had spoken very gently, looking once more in the fire; when +she ceased there was a space of utter silence in the little room. Then +her eyes came back furtively to mine; and presently they were twinkling +with their old staid merriment. +</p> +<p> +"But to be Number Three!" she said again. "My poor old Bob!" +</p> +<p> +And she smiled upon me, tenderly, from the depths of her alter-egoism. +</p> +<p> +"Well," I said, "he never will be." +</p> +<p> +"God forbid!" cried Catherine. +</p> +<p> +"He has forbidden. It will never happen." +</p> +<p> +"Is she dead?" asked Catherine, but not too quickly for common decency. +She was not one to pass such bounds. +</p> +<p> +"Not that I know of." +</p> +<p> +It was hard to repress a sneer. +</p> +<p> +"Then what makes you so sure—that he never could?" +</p> +<p> +"Well, he never will in my time!" +</p> +<p> +"You are good to me," said Catherine, gratefully. +</p> +<p> +"Not a bit good," said I, "or—only to myself ... I have been good to no +one else in this whole matter. That's what it all amounts to, and that's +what I really came to tell you. Catherine ... I am married to her +myself!" +</p> + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<center> +THE END +</center> +<p> </p> + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of No Hero, by E.W. 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Hornung + +Release Date: February 18, 2004 [EBook #11153] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NO HERO *** + + + + +Produced by Steven desJardins and Distributed Proofreaders + + + + + +No Hero + +By E.W. Hornung + + +1903 + + + +CONTENTS + +Chapter + +I. A Plenipotentiary + +II. The Theatre of War + +III. First Blood + +IV. A Little Knowledge + +V. A Marked Woman + +VI. Out of Action + +VII. Second Fiddle + +VIII. Prayers and Parables + +IX. Sub Judice + +X. The Last Word + +XI. The Lion's Mouth + +XII. A Stern Chase + +XIII. Number Three + + + + +No Hero + + +CHAPTER I + +A PLENIPOTENTIARY + + +Has no writer ever dealt with the dramatic aspect of the unopened +envelope? I cannot recall such a passage in any of my authors, and yet +to my mind there is much matter for philosophy in what is always the +expressionless shell of a boundless possibility. Your friend may run +after you in the street, and you know at a glance whether his news is to +be good, bad, or indifferent; but in his handwriting on the +breakfast-table there is never a hint as to the nature of his +communication. Whether he has sustained a loss or an addition to his +family, whether he wants you to dine with him at the club or to lend him +ten pounds, his handwriting at least will be the same, unless, indeed, +he be offended, when he will generally indite your name with a studious +precision and a distant grace quite foreign to his ordinary caligraphy. + +These reflections, trite enough as I know, are nevertheless inevitable +if one is to begin one's unheroic story in the modern manner, at the +latest possible point. That is clearly the point at which a waiter +brought me the fatal letter from Catherine Evers. Apart even from its +immediate consequences, the letter had a _prima facie_ interest, of no +ordinary kind, as the first for years from a once constant +correspondent. And so I sat studying the envelope with a curiosity too +piquant not to be enjoyed. What in the world could so obsolete a friend +find to say to one now? Six months earlier there had been a certain +opportunity for an advance, which at that time could not possibly have +been misconstrued; when they landed me, a few later, there was another +and perhaps a better one. But this was the last summer of the late +century, and already I was beginning to get about like a lamplighter on +my two sticks. Now, young men about town, on two walking-sticks, in the +year of grace 1900, meant only one thing. Quite a stimulating thing in +the beginning, but even as I write, in this the next winter but one, a +national irritation of which the name alone might prevent you from +reading another word. + +Catherine's handwriting, on the contrary, was still stimulating, if +indeed I ever found it more so in the foolish past. It had not altered +in the least. There was the same sweet pedantry of the Attic _e_, the +same superiority to the most venial abbreviation, the same inconsistent +forest of exclamatory notes, thick as poplars across the channel. The +present plantation started after my own Christian name, to wit "Dear +Duncan!!" Yet there was nothing Germanic in Catherine's ancestry; it was +only her apologetic little way of addressing me as though nothing had +ever happened, of asking whether she might. Her own old tact and charm +were in that tentative burial of the past. In the first line she had all +but won my entire forgiveness; but the very next interfered with the +effect. + +"You promised to do anything for me!" + +I should be sorry to deny it, I am sure, for not to this day do I know +what I did say on the occasion to which she evidently referred. But was +it kind to break the silence of years with such a reference? Was it even +quite decent in Catherine to ignore my existence until I could be of use +to her, and then to ask the favour in her first breath? It was true, as +she went on to remind me, that we were more or less connected after all, +and at least conceivable that no one else could help her as I could, if +I would. In any case, it was a certain satisfaction to hear that +Catherine herself was of the last opinion. I read on. She was in a +difficulty; but she did not say what the difficulty was. For one +unworthy moment the thought of money entered my mind, to be ejected the +next, as the Catherine of old came more and more into the mental focus. +Pride was the last thing in which I had found her wanting, and her +letter indicated no change in that respect. + +"You may wonder," she wrote just at the end, "why I have never sent you +a single word of inquiry, or sympathy, or congratulation!! +Well--suppose it was 'bad blood'!! between us when you went away! Mind, +_I_ never meant it to be so, but suppose it was: could I treat the dear +old you like that, and the Great New You like somebody else? You have +your own fame to thank for my unkindness! _I_ am only thankful they +haven't given you the V.C.!! _Then_ I should _never_ have dared--not +even now!!!" + +I smoked a cigarette when I had read it all twice over, and as I crushed +the fire out of the stump I felt I could as soon think of lighting it +again as I should have expected Catherine Evers to set a fresh match to +me. That, I was resolved, she should never do; nor was I quite coxcomb +enough to suspect her of the desire for a moment. But a man who has once +made a fool of himself, especially about a woman somewhat older than +himself, does not soon get over the soreness; and mine returned with the +very fascination which made itself felt even in the shortest little +letter. + +Catherine wrote from the old address in Elm Park Gardens, and she wanted +me to call as early as I could, or to make any appointment I liked. I +therefore telegraphed that I was coming at three o'clock that afternoon, +and thus made for myself one of the longest mornings that I can remember +spending in town. I was staying at the time at the Kensington Palace +Hotel, to be out of the central racket of things, and yet more or less +under the eye of the surgeon who still hoped to extract the last bullet +in time. I can remember spending half the morning gazing aimlessly over +the grand old trees, already prematurely bronzed, and the other half in +limping in their shadow to the Round Pond, where a few little townridden +boys were sailing their humble craft. It was near the middle of August, +and for the first time I was thankful that an earlier migration had not +been feasible in my case. + +In spite of my telegram Mrs. Evers was not at home when I arrived, but +she had left a message which more than explained matters. She was +lunching out, but only in Brechin Place, and I was to wait in the study +if I did not mind. I did not, and yet I did, for the room in which +Catherine certainly read her books and wrote her letters was also the +scene of that which I was beginning to find it rather hard work to +forget as it was. Nor had it changed any more than her handwriting, or +than the woman herself as I confidently expected to find her now. I have +often thought that at about forty both sexes stand still to the eye, and +I did not expect Catherine Evers, who could barely have reached that +rubicon, to show much symptom of the later marches. To me, here in her +den, the other year was just the other day. My time in India was little +better than a dream to me, while as for angry shots at either end of +Africa, it was never I who had been there to hear them. I must have come +by my sticks in some less romantic fashion. Nothing could convince me +that I had ever been many days or miles away from a room that I knew by +heart, and found full as I left it of familiar trifles and poignant +associations. + +That was the shelf devoted to her poets; there was no addition that I +could see. Over it hung the fine photograph of Watts's "Hope," an ironic +emblem, and elsewhere one of that intolerably sad picture, his "Paolo +and Francesca": how I remembered the wet Sunday when Catherine took me +to see the original in Melbury Road! The old piano which was never +touched, the one which had been in St. Helena with Napoleon's doctor, +there it stood to an inch where it had stood of old, a sort of +grand-stand for the photographs of Catherine's friends. I descried my +own young effigy among the rest, in a frame which I recollected giving +her at the time. Well, I looked all the idiot I must have been; and +there was the very Persian rug that I had knelt on in my idiocy! I could +afford to smile at myself to-day; yet now it all seemed yesterday, not +even the day before, until of a sudden I caught sight of that other +photograph in the place of honour on the mantelpiece. It was one by +Hills and Sanders, of a tall youth in flannels, armed with a +long-handled racket, and the sweet open countenance which Robin Evers +had worn from his cradle upward. I should have known him anywhere and at +any age. It was the same dear, honest face; but to think that this giant +was little Bob! He had not gone to Eton when I saw him last; now I knew +from the sporting papers that he was up at Cambridge; but it was left to +his photograph to bring home the flight of time. + +Certainly his mother would never have done so when all at once the door +opened and she stood before me, looking about thirty in the ample shadow +of a cavalier's hat. Simply but admirably gowned, as I knew she would +be, her slender figure looked more youthful still; yet in all this there +was no intent; the dry cool smile was that of an older woman, and I was +prepared for greater cordiality than I could honestly detect in the +greeting of the small firm hand. But it was kind, as indeed her whole +reception of me was; only it had always been the way of Catherine the +correspondent to make one expect a little more than mere kindness, and +of Catherine the companion to disappoint that expectation. Her +conversation needed few exclamatory points. + +"Still halt and lame," she murmured over my sticks. "You poor thing, you +are to sit down this instant." + +And I obeyed her as one always had, merely remarking that I was getting +along famously now. + +"You must have had an awful time," continued Catherine, seating herself +near me, her calm wise eyes on mine. + +"Blood-poisoning," said I. "It nearly knocked me out, but I'm glad to +say it didn't quite." + +Indeed, I had never felt quite so glad before. + +"Ah! that was too hard and cruel; but I was thinking of the day itself," +explained Catherine, and paused in some sweet transparent awe of one who +had been through it. + +"It was a beastly day," said I, forgetting her objection to the epithet +until it was out. But Catherine did not wince. Her fixed eyes were full +of thought. + +"It was all that here," she said. "One depressing morning I had a +telegram from Bob, 'Spion Kop taken'--" + +"So Bob," I nodded, "had it as badly as everybody else!" + +"Worse," declared Catherine, her eye hardening; "it was all I could do +to keep him at Cambridge, though he had only just gone up. He would have +given up everything and flown to the Front if I had let him." + +And she wore the inexorable face with which I could picture her standing +in his way; and in Catherine I could admire that dogged look and all it +spelt, because a great passion is always admirable. The passion of +Catherine's life was her boy, the only son of his mother, and she a +widow. It had been so when he was quite small, as I remembered it with a +pinch of jealousy startling as a twinge from an old wound. More than +ever must it be so now; that was as natural as the maternal embargo in +which Catherine seemed almost to glory. And yet, I reflected, if all the +widows had thought only of their only sons--and of themselves! + +"The next depressing morning," continued Catherine, happily oblivious of +what was passing through one's mind, "the first thing I saw, the first +time I put my nose outside, was a great pink placard with 'Spion Kop +Abandoned!' Duncan, it was too awful." + +"I wish we'd sat tight," I said, "I must confess." + +"Tight!" cried Catherine in dry horror. "I should have abandoned it long +before. I should have run away--hard! To think that you didn't--that's +quite enough for me." + +And again I sustained the full flattery of that speechless awe which was +yet unembarrassing by reason of its freedom from undue solemnity. + +"There were some of us who hadn't a leg to run on," I had to say; "I was +one, Mrs. Evers." + +"I beg your pardon?" + +"Catherine, then." But it put me to the blush. + +"Thank you. If you really wish me to call you 'Captain Clephane' you +have only to say so; but in that case I can't ask the favour I had made +up my mind to ask--of so old a friend." + +Her most winning voice was as good a servant as ever; the touch of scorn +in it was enough to stimulate, but not to sting; and it was the same +with the sudden light in the steady intellectual eyes. + +"Catherine," I said, "you can't indeed ask any favour of me! There you +are quite right. It is not a word to use between us." + +Mrs. Evers gave me one of her deliberate looks before replying. + +"And I am not so sure that it is a favour," she said softly enough at +last. "It is really your advice I want to ask, in the first place at all +events. Duncan, it's about old Bob!" + +The corners of her mouth twitched, her eyes filled with a quaint +humorous concern, and as a preamble I was handed the photograph which I +had already studied on my own account. + +"Isn't he a dear?" asked Bob's mother. "Would you have known him, +Duncan?" + +"I did know him," said I. "Spotted him at a glance. He's the same old +Bob all over." + +I was fortunate enough to meet the swift glance I got for that, for in +sheer sweetness and affection it outdid all remembered glances of the +past. In a moment it was as though I had more than regained the lost +ground of lost years. And in another moment, on the heels of the +discovery, came the still more startling one that I was glad to have +regained my ground, was thankful to be reinstated, and strangely, +acutely, yet uneasily happy, as I had never been since the old days in +this very room. + +Half in a dream I heard Catherine telling of her boy, of his Eton +triumphs, how he had been one of the rackets pair two years, and in the +eleven his last, but "in Pop" before he was seventeen, and yet as simple +and unaffected and unspoilt with it all as the small boy whom I +remembered. And I did remember him, and knew his mother well enough to +believe it all; for she did not chant his praises to organ music, but +rather hummed them to the banjo; and one felt that her own demure +humour, so signal and so permanent a charm in Catherine, would have been +the saving of half-a-dozen Bobs. + +"And yet," she wound up at her starting-point, "it's about poor old Bob +I want to speak to you!" + +"Not in a fix, I hope?" + +"I hope not, Duncan." + +Catherine was serious now. + +"Or mischief?" + +"That depends on what you mean by mischief." + +Catherine was more serious still. + +"Well, there are several brands, but only one or two that really +poison--unless, of course, a man is very poor." + +And my mind harked back to its first suspicion, of some financial +embarrassment, now conceivable enough; but Catherine told me her boy was +not poor, with the air of one who would have drunk ditchwater rather +than let the other want for champagne. + +"It is just the opposite," she added: "in little more than a year, when +he comes of age, he will have quite as much as is good for him. You know +what he is, or rather you don't. I do. And if I were not his mother I +should fall in love with him myself!" + +Catherine looked down on me as she returned from replacing Bob's +photograph on the mantelpiece. The humour had gone out of her eye; in +its place was an almost animal glitter, a far harder light than had +accompanied the significant reference to the patriotic impulse which she +had nipped in the bud. It was probably only the old, old look of the +lioness whose whelp is threatened, but it was something new to me in +Catherine Evers, something half-repellent and yet almost wholly fine. + +"You don't mean to say it's that?" I asked aghast. + +"No, I don't," Catherine answered, with a hard little laugh. "He's not +quite twenty, remember; but I am afraid that he is making a fool of +himself, and I want it stopped." + +I waited for more, merely venturing to nod my sympathetic concern. + +"Poor old Bob, as you may suppose, is not a genius. He is far too nice," +declared Catherine's old self, "to be anything so nasty. But I always +thought he had his head screwed on, and his heart screwed in, or I never +would have let him loose in a Swiss hotel. As it was, I was only too +glad for him to go with George Kennerley, who was as good at work at +Eton as Bob was at games." + +In Catherine's tone, for all the books on her shelves, the pictures on +her walls, there was no doubt at all as to which of the two an Eton boy +should be good at, and I agreed sincerely with another nod. + +"They were to read together for an hour or so every day. I thought it +would be a nice little change for Bob, and it was quite a chance; he +must do a certain amount of work, you see. Well, they only went at the +beginning of the month, and already they have had enough of each other's +society." + +"You don't mean that they've had a row?" + +Catherine inclined a mortified head. + +"Bob never had such a thing in his life before, nor did I ever know +anybody who succeeded in having one with Bob. It does take two, you +know. And when one of the two has an angelic temper, and tact enough for +twenty--" + +"You naturally blame the other," I put in, as she paused in visible +perplexity. + +"But I don't, Duncan, and that's just the point. George is devoted to +Bob, and is as nice as he can be himself, in his own sober, honest, +plodding way. He may not have the temper, he certainly has not the tact, +but he worships Bob and has come back quite miserable." + +"Then he has come back, and you have seen him?" + +"He was here last night. You must know that Bob writes to me every day, +even from Cambridge, if it's only a line; and in yesterday's letter he +mentioned quite casually that George had had enough of it and was off +home. It was a little too casual to be quite natural in old Bob, and +there are other things he has been mentioning in the same way. If any +instinct is to be relied upon it is a mother's, and mine amounted almost +to second sight. I sent Master George a telegram, and he came in last +night." + +"Well?"' + +"Not a word! There was bad blood between them, but that was all I could +get out of him. Vulgar disagreeables between Bob, of all people, and his +greatest friend! If you could have seen the poor fellow sitting where +you are sitting now, like a prisoner in the dock! I put him in the +witness-box instead, and examined him on scraps of Bob's letters to me. +It was as unscrupulous as you please, but I felt unscrupulous; and the +poor dear was too loyal to admit, yet too honest to deny, a single +thing." + +"And?" said I, as Bob's mother paused again. + +"And," cried she, with conscious melodrama in the fiery twinkle of her +eye--"and, I know all! There is an odious creature at the hotel--a +widow, if you please! A 'ripping widow' Bob called her in his first +letter; then it was 'Mrs. Lascelles'; but now it is only 'some people' +whom he escorts here, there, and everywhere. _Some_ people, indeed!" + +Catherine smiled unmercifully. I relied upon my nod. + +"I needn't tell you," she went on, "that the creature is at least twenty +years older than my baby, and not at all nice at that. George didn't +tell me, mind, but he couldn't deny a single thing. It was about her +that they fell out. Poor George remonstrated, not too diplomatically, I +daresay, but I can quite see that my Bob behaved as he was never known +to behave on land or sea. The poor child has been bewitched, neither +more nor less." + +"He'll get over it," I murmured, with the somewhat shaky confidence born +of my own experience. + +Catherine looked at me in mild surprise. + +"But it's going on now, Duncan--it's going on still!" + +"Well," I added, with all the comfort that my voice would carry, and +which an exaggerated concern seemed to demand: "well, Catherine, it +can't go very far at his age!" Nor to this hour can I yet conceive a +sounder saying, in all the circumstances of the case, and with one's +knowledge of the type of lad; but my fate was the common one of +comforters, and I was made speedily and painfully aware that I had now +indeed said the most unfortunate thing. + +Catherine did not stamp her foot, but she did everything else required +by tradition of the exasperated lady. Not go far? As if it had not gone +too far already to be tolerated another instant longer than was +necessary! + +"He is making a fool of himself--my boy--my Bob--before a whole +hotelful of sharp eyes and sharper tongues! Is that not far enough for +it to have gone? Duncan, it must be stopped, and stopped at once; but I +am not the one to do it. I would rather it went on," cried Catherine +tragically, as though the pit yawned before us all, "than that his +mother should fly to his rescue before all the world! But a friend might +do it, Duncan--if--" + +Her voice had dropped. I bent my ear. + +"If only," she sighed, "I had a friend who would!" + +Catherine was still looking down when I looked up; but the droop of the +slender body, the humble angle of the cavalier hat, the faint flush +underneath, all formed together a challenge and an appeal which were the +more irresistible for their sweet shamefacedness. Acute consciousness of +the past (I thought), and (I even fancied) some penitence for a wrong by +no means past undoing, were in every sensitive inch of her, as she sat a +suppliant to the old player of that part. And there are emotions of +which the body may be yet more eloquent than the face; there was the +figure of Watts's "Hope" drooping over as she drooped, not more lissom +and speaking than her own; just then it caught my eye, and on the spot +it was as though the lute's last string of that sweet masterpiece had +vibrated aloud in Catherine's room. + +My hand shook as I reached for my trusty sticks, but I cannot say that +my voice betrayed me when I inquired the name of the Swiss hotel. + +"The Riffel Alp," said Catherine--"above Zermatt, you know." + +"I start to-morrow morning," I rejoined, "if that will do." + +Then Catherine looked up. I cannot describe her look. Transfiguration +were the idle word, but the inadequate, and yet more than one would +scatter the effect of so sudden a burst of human sunlight. + +"Would you really go?" she cried. "Do you mean it, Duncan?" + +"I only wish," I replied, "that it were to Australia." + +"But then you would be weeks too late." + +"Ah, that's another story! I may be too late as it is." + +Her brightness clouded on the instant; only a gleam of annoyance pierced +the cloud. + +"Too late for what, may I ask?" + +"Everything except stopping the banns." + +"Please don't talk nonsense, Duncan. Banns at nineteen!" + +"It is nonsense, I agree; at the same time the minor consequences will +be the hardest to deal with. If they are being talked about, well, they +are being talked about. You know Bob best: suppose he is making a fool +of himself, is he the sort of fellow to stop because one tells him so? I +should say not, from what I know of him, and of you." + +"I don't know," argued Catherine, looking pleased with her compliment. +"You used to have quite an influence over him, if you remember." + +"That's quite possible; but then he was a small boy, now he is a grown +man." + +"But you are a much older one." + +"Too old to trust to that." + +"And you have been wounded in the war." + +"The hotel may be full of wounded officers; if not I might get a little +unworthy purchase there. In any case I'll go. I should have to go +somewhere before many days. It may as well be to that place as to +another. I have heard that the air is glorious; and I'll keep an eye on +Robin, if I can't do anything else." + +"That's enough for me," cried Catherine, warmly. "I have sufficient +faith in you to leave all the rest to your own discretion and good sense +and better heart. And I never shall forget it, Duncan, never, never! You +are the one person he wouldn't instantly suspect as an emissary, besides +being the only one I ever--ever trusted well enough to--to take at your +word as I have done." + +I thought myself that the sentence might have pursued a bolder course +without untruth or necessary complications. Perhaps my conceit was on a +scale with my acknowledged infirmity where Catherine was concerned. But +I did think that there was more than trust in the eyes that now melted +into mine; there was liking at least, and gratitude enough to inspire +one to win infinitely more. I went so far as to take in mine the hand to +which I had dared to aspire in the temerity of my youth; nor shall I +pretend for a moment that the old aspirations had not already mounted to +their old seat in my brain. On the contrary, I was only wondering +whether the honesty of voicing my hopes would nowise counterbalance the +caddishness of the sort of stipulation they might imply. + +"All I ask," I was saying to myself, "is that you will give me another +chance, and take me seriously this time, if I prove myself worthy in the +way you want." + +But I am glad to think I had not said it when tea came up, and saved a +dangerous situation by breaking an insidious spell. + +I stayed another hour at least, and there are few in my memory which +passed more deliciously at the time. In writing of it now I feel that I +have made too little of Catherine Evers, in my anxiety not to make too +much, yet am about to leave her to stand or to fall in the reader's +opinion by such impression as I have already succeeded in creating in +his or her mind. Let me add one word, or two, while yet I may. A +baron's daughter (though you might have known Catherine some time +without knowing that), she had nevertheless married for mere love as a +very young girl, and had been left a widow before the birth of her boy. +I never knew her husband, though we were distant kin, nor yet herself +during the long years through which she mourned him. Catherine Evers was +beginning to recover her interest in the world when first we met; but +she never returned to that identical fold of society in which she had +been born and bred. It was, of course, despite her own performances, a +fold to which the worldly wolf was no stranger; and her trouble had +turned a light-hearted little lady into an eager, intellectual, +speculative being, with a sort of shame for her former estate, and an +undoubted reactionary dislike of dominion and of petty pomp. Of her own +high folk one neither saw nor heard a thing; her friends were the +powerful preachers of most denominations, and one or two only painted or +wrote; for she had been greatly exercised about religion, and somewhat +solaced by the arts. + +Of her charm for me, a lad with a sneaking regard for the pen, even when +I buckled on the sword, I need not be too analytical. No doubt about her +kindly interest, in the first instance, in so morbid a curiosity as a +subaltern who cared for books and was prepared to extend his gracious +patronage to pictures. This subaltern had only too much money, and if +the truth be known, only too little honest interest in the career into +which he had allowed himself to drift. An early stage of that career +brought him up to London, where family pressure drove him on a day to +Elm Park Gardens. The rest is easily conceived. Here was a woman, still +young, though some years older than oneself; attractive, intellectual, +amusing, the soul of sympathy, at once a spiritual influence and the +best companion in the world; and for a time, at least, she had taken a +perhaps imprudent interest in a lad whom she so greatly interested +herself, on so many and various accounts. Must you marvel that the +young fool mistook the interest, on both sides, for a more intense +feeling, of which he for one had no experience at the time, and that he +fell by his mistake at a ridiculously early stage of his career? + +It is, I grant, more surprising to find the same young man playing Harry +Esmond (at due distance) to the same Lady Castlewood after years in +India and a taste of two wars. But Catherine's room was Catherine's +room, a very haunt of the higher sirens, charged with noble promptings +and forgotten influences and impossible vows. And you will please bear +in mind that as yet I am but setting forth, from this rarefied +atmosphere, upon my invidious mission. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE THEATRE OF WAR + + +It is a far cry to Zermatt at the best of times, and that is not the +middle of August. The annual rush was at its height, the trains crowded, +the heat of them overpowering. I chose to sit up all night in my corner +of an ordinary compartment, as a lesser evil than the _wagon-lit_ in +which you cannot sit up at all. In the morning one was in Switzerland, +with a black collar, a rusty chin, and a countenance in keeping with its +appointments. It was not as though the night had been beguiled for me by +such considerations as are only proper to the devout pilgrim in his +lady's service. + +On the contrary, and to tell the honest truth, I found it quite +impossible to sustain such a serious view of the very special service to +which I was foresworn: the more I thought of it, in one sense, the less +in another, until my only chance was to go forward with grim humour in +the spirit of impersonal curiosity which that attitude induces. In a +word, and the cant one which yet happens to express my state of mind to +a nicety, I had already "weakened" on the whole business which I had +been in such a foolish hurry to undertake, though not for one +reactionary moment upon her for whom I had undertaken it. I was still +entirely eager to "do her behest in pleasure or in pain"; but this +particular enterprise I was beginning to view apart from its +inspiration, on its intrinsic demerits, and the more clearly I saw it in +its own light, the less pleasure did the prospect afford me. + +A young giant, whom I had not seen since his childhood, was merely +understood to be carrying on a conspicuous, but in all probability the +most innocent, flirtation in a Swiss hotel; and here was I, on mere +second-hand hearsay, crossing half Europe to spoil his perfectly +legitimate sport! I did not examine my project from the unknown lady's +point of view; it made me quite hot enough to consider it from that of +my own sex. Yet, the day before yesterday, I had more than acquiesced +in the dubious plan. I had even volunteered for its achievement. The +train rattled out one long, maddening tune to my own incessant +marvellings at my own secret apostasy: the stuffy compartment was not +Catherine's sanctum of the quickening memorials and the olden spell. +Catherine herself was no longer before me in the vivacious flesh, with +her half playful pathos of word and look, her fascinating outward light +and shade, her deeper and steadier intellectual glow. Those, I suppose, +were the charms which had undone me, first as well as last; but the +memory of them was no solace in the train. Nor was I tempted to dream +again of ultimate reward. I could see now no further than my immediate +part, and a more distasteful mixture of the mean and of the ludicrous I +hope never to rehearse again. + +One mitigation I might have set against the rest. Dining at the Rag the +night before I left, I met a man who knew a man then staying at the +Riffel Alp. My man was a sapper with whom I had had a very slight +acquaintance out in India, but he happened to be one of those +good-natured creatures who never hesitate to bestir themselves or their +friends to oblige a mere acquaintance: he asked if I had secured rooms, +and on learning that I had not, insisted on telegraphing to his friend +to do his best for me. I had not hitherto appreciated the popularity of +a resort which I happened only to know by name, nor did I even on +getting at Lausanne a telegram to say that a room was duly reserved for +me. It was only when I actually arrived, tired out with travel, toward +the second evening, and when half of those who had come up with me were +sent down again to Zermatt for their pains, that I felt as grateful as I +ought to have been from the beginning. Here upon a mere ledge of the +High Alps was a hotel with tier upon tier of windows winking in the +setting sun. On every hand were dazzling peaks piled against a turquoise +sky, yet drawn respectfully apart from the incomparable Matterhorn, that +proud grim chieftain of them all. The grand spectacle and the magic air +made me thankful to be there, if only for their sake, albeit the more +regretful that a purer purpose had not drawn me to so fine a spot. + +My unknown friend at court, one Quinby, a civilian, came up and spoke +before I had been five minutes at my destination. He was a very tall and +extraordinarily thin man, with an ill-nourished red moustache, and an +easy geniality of a somewhat acid sort. He had a trick of laughing +softly through his nose, and my two sticks served to excite a sense of +humour as odd as its habitual expression. + +"I'm glad you carry the outward signs," said he, "for I made the most of +your wounds and you really owe your room to them. You see, we're a very +representative crowd. That festive old boy, strutting up and down with +his cigar, in the Panama hat, is really best known in the black cap: +it's old Sankey, the hanging judge. The big man with his back turned you +will know in a moment when he looks this way: it's our celebrated friend +Belgrave Teale. He comes down in one or other of his parts every day: +to-day it's the genial squire, yesterday it was the haw-haw officer of +the Crimean school. But a real live officer from the Front we don't +happen to have had, much less a wounded one, and you limp straight into +the breach." + +I should have resented these pleasantries from an ordinary stranger, but +this libertine might be held to have earned his charter, and moreover I +had further use for him. We were loitering on the steps between the +glass veranda and the terrace at the back of the hotel. The little +sunlit stage was full of vivid, trivial, transitory life, it seemed as a +foil to the vast eternal scene. The hanging judge still strutted with +his cigar, peering jocosely from under the broad brim of his Panama; the +great actor still posed aloof, the human Matterhorn of the group. I +descried no showy woman with a tall youth dancing attendance; among the +brick-red English faces there was not one that bore the least +resemblance to the latest photograph of Bob Evers. + +A little consideration suggested my first move. + +"I think I saw a visitors' book in the hall," I said. "I may as well +stick down my name." + +But before doing so I ran my eye up and down the pages inscribed by +those who had arrived that month. + +"See anybody you know?" inquired Quinby, who hovered obligingly at my +elbow. It was really necessary to be as disingenuous as possible, more +especially with a person whose own conversation was evidently quite +unguarded. + +"Yes, by Jove I do! Robin Evers, of all people!" + +"Do you know him?" + +The question came pretty quickly. I was sorry I had said so much. + +"Well, I once knew a small boy of that name; but then they are not a +small clan." + +"His mother's the Honourable," said Quinby, with studious unconcern, yet +I fancied with increased interest in me. + +"I used to see something of them both," I deliberately admitted, "when +the lad was little. How has he turned out?" + +Quinby gave his peculiar nasal laugh. + +"A nice youth," said he. "A very nice youth!" + +"Do you mean nice or nasty?" I asked, inclined to bridle at his tone. + +"Oh, anything but nasty," said Quinby. "Only--well--perhaps a bit rapid +for his years!" + +I stooped and put my name in the book before making any further remark. +Then I handed Quinby my cigarette-case, and we sat down on the nearest +lounge. + +"Rapid, is he?" said I. "That's quite interesting. And how does it take +him?" + +"Oh, not in any way that's discreditable; but as a matter of fact, +there's a gay young widow here, and they're fairly going it!" + +I lit my cigarette with a certain unexpected sense of downright +satisfaction. So there was something in it after all. It had seemed such +a fool's errand in the train. + +"A young widow," I repeated, emphasising one of Quinby's epithets and +ignoring the other. + +"I mean, of course, she's a good deal older than Evers." + +"And her name?" + +"A Mrs. Lascelles." + +I nodded. + +"Do you happen to know anything about her, Captain Clephane?" + +"I can't say I do." + +"No more does anybody else," said Quinby, "except that she's an Indian +widow of sorts." + +"Indian!" I repeated with more interest. + +Quinby looked at me. + +"You've been out there yourself, perhaps?" + +"It was there I knew Hamilton," said I, naming our common friend in the +Engineers. + +"Yet you're sure you never came across Mrs. Lascelles there?" + +"India's a large place," I said, smiling as I shook my head. + +"I wonder if Hamilton did," speculated Quinby aloud. + +"And the Lascelleses," I added, "are another large clan." + +"Well," he went on, after a moment's further cogitation, "there's nobody +here can place this particular Mrs. Lascelles; but there are some who +say things which they can tell you themselves. I'm not going to repeat +them if you know anything about the boy. I only wish you knew him well +enough to give him a friendly word of advice!" + +"Is it so bad as all that?" + +"My dear sir, I don't say there's anything bad about it," returned +Quinby, who seemed to possess a pretty gift of suggestive negation. "But +you may hear another opinion from other people, for you will find that +the whole hotel is talking about it. No," he went on, watching my eyes, +"it's no use looking for them at this time of day; they disappear from +morning to night; if you want to see them you must take a stroll when +everybody else is thinking of turning in. Then you may have better luck. +But here are the letters at last." + +The concierge had appeared, hugging an overflowing armful of postal +matter. In another minute there was hardly standing room in the little +hall. My companion uttered his unlovely laugh. + +"And here comes the British lion roaring for his London papers! It isn't +his letters he's so keen on, if you notice, Captain Clephane; it's his +_Daily Mail_, with the latest cricket, and after that the war. Teale is +an exception, of course. He has a stack of press-cuttings every day. +You will see him gloating over them in a minute. Ah! the old judge has +got his _Sportsman_; he reads nothing else except the _Sporting Times_, +and he's going back for the Leger. Do you see the man with the blue +spectacles and the peeled nose? He was last Vice Chancellor but one at +Cambridge. No, that's not a Bishop, it's an Archdeacon. All we want is a +Cabinet Minister now; every evening there is a rumour that the Colonial +Secretary is on his way, and most mornings you will hear that he has +actually arrived under cloud of night." + +The facetious Quinby did not confine his more or less caustic commentary +to the well-known folk of whom there seemed no dearth; in the ten or +twenty minutes that we sat together he further revealed himself as a +copious gossip, with a wide net alike for the big fish and for the +smallest fry. There was a sheepish gentleman with a twitching face, and +a shaven cleric in close attendance; the former a rich brand plucked +from burning by the latter, whose temporal reward was the present trip, +so Quinby assured me during the time it took them to pass before our +eyes through the now emptying hall. A delightfully boyish young American +came inquiring waggishly for his "best girl"; next moment I was given to +understand that he meant his bride, who was ten times too good for him, +with further trivialities to which the dressing-bell put a timely +period. There was no sign of my Etonian when I went upstairs. + +As I dressed in my small low room, with its sloping ceiling of varnished +wood, at the top of the house, I felt that after all I had learnt +nothing really new respecting that disturbing young gentleman. Quinby +had already proved himself such an arrant gossip as to discount every +word that he had said before I placed him in his proper type: it is one +which I have encountered elsewhere, that of the middle-aged bachelor who +will and must talk, and he had confessed his celibacy almost in his +first breath; but a more pronounced specimen of the type I am in no +hurry to meet again. If, however, there was some comfort in the thought +of his more than probable exaggerations, there was none at all in the +knowledge that these would be, if they had not already been, poured into +every tolerant ear in the place, if anything more freely than into mine. + +I was somewhat late for dinner, but the scandalous couple were later +still, and all the evening I saw nothing of them. That, however, was +greatly due to this fellow Quinby, whose determined offices one could +hardly disdain after once accepting favours from him. In the press after +dinner I saw his ferret's face peering this way and that, a good head +higher than any other, and the moment our eyes met he began elbowing his +way toward me. Only an ingrate would have turned and fled; and for the +next hour or two I suffered Quinby to exploit my wounds and me for a +good deal more than our intrinsic value. To do the man justice, however, +I had no fault to find with the very pleasant little circle into which +he insisted on ushering me, at one end of the glazed veranda, and should +have enjoyed my evening but for an inquisitive anxiety to get in touch +with the unsuspecting pair. Meanwhile the lilt of a waltz had mingled +with the click of billiard balls and the talking and laughing which make +a summer's night vocal in that outpost of pleasure on the silent +heights; and some of our party had gone off to dance. In the end I +followed them, sticks and all; but there was no Bob Evers among the +dancers, nor in the billiard-room, nor anywhere else indoors. + +Then, last of all, I looked where Quinby had advised me to look, and +there sure enough, on the almost deserted terrace, were the couple whom +I had come several hundred miles to put asunder. Hitherto I had only +realised the distasteful character of my task; now at a glance I had my +first inkling of its difficulty; and there ended the premature +satisfaction with which I had learnt that there was "something in" the +rumour which had reached Catherine's ears. + +There was no moon, but the mountain stars were the brightest I have ever +seen in Europe. The mountains themselves stood back, as it were, +darkling and unobtrusive; all that was left of the Matterhorn was a +towering gap in the stars; and in the faint cold light stood my +friends, somewhat close together, and I thought I saw the red tips of +two cigarettes. There was at least no mistaking the long loose limbs in +the light overcoat. And because a woman always looks relatively taller +than a man, this woman looked nearly as tall as this lad. + +"Bob Evers? You may not remember me, but my name's Clephane--Duncan, you +know!" + +I felt the veriest scoundrel, and yet the words came out as smoothly as +I have written them, as if to show me that I had been a potential +scoundrel all my life. + +"Duncan Clephane? Why, of course I remember you. I should think I did! I +say, though, you must have had a shocking time!" + +Bob's voice was quite quiet for all his astonishment, his manner a +miracle, though it was too dark to read the face; and his right hand +held tenderly to mine, as his eyes fell upon my sticks, while his left +poised a steady cigarette. And now I saw that there was only one red tip +after all. + +"I read your name in the visitors' book," said I, feeling too big a +brute to acknowledge the boy's solicitude for me. "I--I felt certain it +must be you." + +"How splendid!" cried the great fellow in his easy, soft, unconscious +voice, "By the way, may I introduce you to Mrs. Lascelles? Captain +Clephane's one of our very oldest friends, just back from the Front, and +precious nearly blown to bits!" + + + + +CHAPTER III + +FIRST BLOOD + + +Mrs. Lascelles and I exchanged our bows. For a dangerous woman there was +a rather striking want of study in her attire. Over the garment which I +believe is called a "rain-coat," the night being chilly, she had put on +her golf-cape as well, and the effect was a little heterogeneous. It +also argued qualities other than those for which I was naturally on the +watch. Of the lady's face I could see even less than of Bob's, for the +hood of the cape was upturned into a cowl, and even in Switzerland the +stars are only stars. But while I peered she let me hear her voice, and +a very rich one it was--almost deep in tone--the voice of a woman who +would sing contralto. + +"Have you really been fighting?" she asked, in a way that was either put +on, or else the expression of a more understanding sympathy than one +usually provoked; for pity and admiration, and even a helpless woman's +envy, might all have been discovered by an ear less critical and more +charitable than mine. + +"Like anything!" answered Bob, in his unaffected speech. + +"Until they knocked me out," I felt bound to add, "and that, +unfortunately, was before very long." + +"You must have been dreadfully wounded!" said Mrs. Lascelles, raising +her eyes from my sticks and gazing at me, I fancied, with some +intentness; but at her expression I could only guess. + +"Bowled over on Spion Kop," said Bob, "and fairly riddled as he lay." + +"But only about the legs, Mrs. Lascelles," I explained; "and you see I +didn't lose either, so I've no cause to complain. I had hardly a graze +higher up." + +"Were you up there the whole of that awful day?" asked Mrs. Lascelles, +on a low but thrilling note. + +"I'd got to be," said I, trying to lighten the subject with a laugh. But +Bob's tone was little better. + +"So he went staggering about among his men," he must needs chime in, +with other superfluities, "for I remember reading all about it in the +papers, and boasting like anything about having known you, Duncan, but +feeling simply sick with envy all the time. I say, you'll be a +tremendous hero up here, you know! I'm awfully glad you've come. It's +quite funny, all the same. I suppose you came to get bucked up? He +couldn't have gone to a better place, could he, Mrs. Lascelles?" + +"Indeed he could not. I only wish we could empty the hotel and fill +every bed with our poor wounded!" + +I do not know why I should have felt so much surprised. I had made unto +myself my own image of Mrs. Lascelles, and neither her appearance, nor a +single word that had fallen from her, was in the least in keeping with +my conception. Prepared for a certain type of woman, I was quite +confounded by its unconventional embodiment, and inclined to believe +that this was not the type at all. I ought to have known life better. +The most scheming mind may well entertain an enthusiasm for arms, +genuine enough in itself, at a martial crisis, and a natural manner is +by no means incompatible with the cardinal vices. That manner and that +enthusiasm were absolutely all that I as yet knew in favour of this Mrs. +Lascelles; but they were enough to cause me irritation. I wished to be +honest with somebody; let me at least be honestly inimical to her. I +took out my cigarette-case, and when about to help myself, handed it, +with a vile pretence at impulse, to Mrs. Lascelles instead. + +Mrs. Lascelles thanked me, in a higher key, but declined. + +"Don't you smoke?" I asked blandly. + +"Sometimes." + +"Ah! then I wasn't mistaken. I thought I saw two cigarettes just now." + +Indeed, I had first smelt and afterward discovered the second cigarette +smouldering on the ground. Bob was smoking his still. The chances were +that they had both been lighted at the same time; therefore the other +had been thrown away unfinished at my approach. And that was one more +variation from the type of my confident preconceptions. + +Young Robin had meanwhile had a quick eye on us both, and the stump of +his own cigarette was glowing between a firmer pair of lips than I had +looked for in that boyish face. + +"It's so funny," said he (but there was no fun in his voice), "the +prejudice some people have against ladies smoking. Why shouldn't they? +Where's the harm?" + +Now there is no new plea to be advanced on either side of this eternal +question, nor is it one upon which I ever felt strongly, but just then I +felt tempted to speak as though I did. I will not now dissect my motive, +but it was vaguely connected with my mission, and not unrighteous from +that standpoint. I said it was not a question of harm at all, but of +what one admired in a woman, and what one did not: a man loved to look +upon a woman as something above and beyond him, and there could be no +doubt that the gap seemed a little less when both were smoking like twin +funnels. That, I thought, was the adverse point of view; I did not say +that it was mine. + +"I'm glad to hear it," said Bob Evers, with the faintest coldness in his +tone, though I fancied he was fuming within, and admired both his +chivalry and his self-control. "To me it's quite funny. I call it sheer +selfishness. We enjoy a cigarette ourselves; why shouldn't they? We +don't force them to be teetotal, do we? Is it bad form for a lady to +drink a glass of wine? You mightn't bicycle once, might you, Mrs. +Lascelles? I daresay Captain Clephane doesn't approve of that yet!" + +"That's hitting below the belt," said I, laughing. "I wasn't giving you +my opinion, but only the old-fashioned view of the matter. I wish you'd +take one, Mrs. Lascelles, or I shall think I've been misunderstood all +round!" + +"No, thank you, Captain Clephane. That old-fashioned feeling is +infectious." + +"Then I will," cried Bob, "to show there's no ill-feeling. You old +fire-eater, I believe you just put up the argument to change the +conversation. Wouldn't you like a chair for those game legs?" + +"No, I've got to use them in moderation. I was going to have a stroll +when I spotted you at last." + +"Then we'll all take one together," cried the genial old Bob once more. +"It's a bit cold standing here, don't you think, Mrs. Lascelles? After +you with the match!" + +But I held it so long that he had to strike another, for I had looked on +Mrs. Lascelles at last. It was not an obviously interesting face, like +Catherine's, but interest there was of another kind. There was nothing +intellectual in the low brow, no enthusiasm for books and pictures in +the bold eyes, no witticism waiting on the full lips; but in the curve +of those lips and the look from those eyes, as in the deep chin and the +carriage of the hooded head, there was something perhaps not lower than +intellect in the scale of personal equipment. There was, at all events, +character and to spare. Even by the brief glimmer of a single match I +could see that (and more) for myself. Then came a moment's interval +before Bob struck his light, and in that moment her face changed. As I +saw it next, it appealed, it entreated, until the second match was +flung away. And the appeal was to such purpose that I do not think I was +five seconds silent. + +"And what do you do with yourself up here all day? I mean you hale +people; of course, I can only potter in the sun." + +The question, perhaps, was better in intention than in tact. I did not +mean them to take it to themselves, but Bob's answer showed that it was +open to misconstruction. + +"Some people climb," said he; "you'll know them by their noses. The +glaciers are almost as bad, though, aren't they, Mrs. Lascelles? Lots of +people potter about the glaciers. It's rather sport in the serracs; +you've got to rope. But you'll find lots more loafing about the place +all day, reading Tauchnitz novels, and watching people on the Matterhorn +through the telescope. That's the sort of thing, isn't it, Mrs. +Lascelles?" + +She also had misunderstood the drift of my unlucky question. But there +was nothing disingenuous in her reply. It reminded me of her eyes, as I +had seen them by the light of the first match. + +"Mr. Evers doesn't say that he is a climber himself, Captain Clephane; +but he is a very keen one, and so am I. We are both beginners, so we +have begun together. It's such fun. We do some little thing every day; +to-day we did the Schwarzee. You won't be any wiser, and the real +climbers wouldn't call it climbing, but it means three thousand feet +first and last. To-morrow we are going to the Monte Rosa hut. There is +no saying where we shall end up, if this weather holds." + +In this fashion Mrs. Lascelles not only made me a contemptuous present +of information which I had never sought, but tacitly rebuked poor Bob +for his gratuitous attempt at concealment. Clearly, they had nothing to +conceal; and the hotel talk was neither more nor less than hotel talk. +There was, nevertheless, a certain self-consciousness in the attitude of +either (unless I grossly misread them both) which of itself afforded +some excuse for the gossips in my own mind. + +Yet I did not know; every moment gave me a new point of view. On my +remarking, genuinely enough, that I only wished I could go with them, +Bob Evers echoed the wish so heartily that I could not but believe that +he meant what he said. On his side, in that case, there could be +absolutely nothing. And yet, again, when Mrs. Lascelles had left us, as +she did ere long in the easiest and most natural manner, and when we had +started a last cigarette together, then once more I was not so sure of +him. + +"That's rather a handsome woman," said I, with perhaps more than the +authority to which my years entitled me. But I fancied it would "draw" +poor Bob. And it did. + +"Rather handsome!" said he, with a soft little laugh not altogether +complimentary to me. "Yes, I should almost go as far myself. Still I +don't see how _you_ know; you haven't so much as seen her, my dear +fellow." + +"Haven't we been walking up and down outside this lighted veranda for +the last ten minutes?" + +Bob emitted a pitying puff. "Wait till you see her in the sunlight! +There's not many of them can stand it, as they get it up here. But she +can--like anything!" + +"She has made an impression on you, Bob," said I, but in so sedulously +inoffensive a manner that his self-betrayal was all the greater when he +told me quite hotly not to be an ass. + +Now I was more than ten years his senior, and Bob's manners were as +charming as only the manners of a nice Eton boy can be; therefore I held +my peace, but with difficulty refrained from nodding sapiently to +myself. We took a couple of steps in silence, then Bob stopped short. I +did the same. He was still a little stern; we were just within range of +the veranda lights, and I can see and hear him to this day, almost as +clearly as I did that night. + +"I'm not much good at making apologies," he began, with rather less +grace than becomes an apologist; but it was more than enough for me from +Bob. + +"Nor I at receiving them, my dear Bob." + +"Well, you've got to receive one now, whether you accept it or not. I +was the ass myself, and I beg your pardon!" + +Somehow I felt it was a good deal for a lad to say, at that age, and +with Bob's upbringing and popularity, even though he said it rather +scornfully in the fewest words. The scorn was really for himself, and I +could well understand it. Nay, I was glad to have something to forgive +in the beginning, I with my unforgivable mission, and would have laughed +the matter off without another word if Bob had let me. + +"I'm a bit raw on the point," said he, taking my arm for a last turn, +"and that's the truth. There was a fellow who came out with me, quite a +good chap really, and a tremendous pal of mine at Eton, yet he behaved +like a lunatic about this very thing. Poor chap, he reads like anything, +and I suppose he'd been overdoing it, for he actually asked me to choose +between Mrs. Lascelles and himself! What could a fellow do but let the +poor old simpleton go? They seem to think you can't be pals with a woman +without wanting to make love to her. Such utter rot! I confess I lose my +hair with them; but that doesn't excuse me in the least for losing it +with you." + +I assured him, on the other hand, that his very natural irritability on +the subject made all the difference in the world. "But whom," I added, +"do you mean by 'them'? Not anybody else in the hotel?" + +"Good heavens, no!" cried Bob, finding a fair target for his scorn at +last. "Do you think I care twopence what's said or thought by people I +never saw in my life before and am never likely to see again? I know how +I'm behaving. What does it matter what they think? Not that they're +likely to bother their heads about us any more than we do about them." + +"You don't know that." + +"I certainly don't care," declared my lordly youth, with obvious +sincerity. "No, I was only thinking of poor old George Kennerley and +people like him, if there are any. I did care what he thought, that is +until I saw he was as mad as anything on the subject. It was too silly. +I tell you what, though, I'd value your opinion!" And he came to another +stop and confronted me again, but this time such a picture of boyish +impulse and of innocent trust in me (even by that faint light) that I +was myself strongly inclined to be honest with him on the spot. But I +only smiled and shook my head. + +"Oh, no, you wouldn't," I assured him. + +"But I tell you I would!" he cried. "Do _you_ think there's any harm in +my going about with Mrs. Lascelles because I rather like her and she +rather likes me? I won't condescend to give you my word that I mean +none." + +What answer could I give? His charming frankness quite disarmed me, and +the more completely because I felt that a dignified reticence would have +been yet more characteristic of this clean, sweet youth, with his noble +unconsciousness alike of evil and of evil speaking. I told him the +truth--that there could be no harm at all with such a fellow as himself. +And he wrung my hand until he hurt it; but the physical pain was a +relief. + +Never can I remember going up to bed with a better opinion of another +person, or a worse one of myself. How could I go on with my thrice +detestable undertaking? Now that I was so sure of him, why should I even +think of it for another moment? Why not go back to London and tell his +mother that her early confidence had not been misplaced, that the lad +did know how to take care of himself, and better still of any woman whom +he chose to honour with his bright, pure-hearted friendship? All this I +felt as strongly as any conviction I have ever held. Why, then, could I +not write it at once to Catherine in as many words? + +Strange how one forgets, how I had forgotten in half an hour! The reason +came home to me on the stairs, and for the second time. + +It had come home first by the light of those two matches, struck outside +in the dark part of the deserted terrace. It was not the lad whom I +distrusted, but the woman of whose face I had then obtained my only +glimpse--that night. + +I had known her, after all, in India years before. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +A LITTLE KNOWLEDGE + + +Once in the Town Hall at Simla (the only time I was ever there) it was +my fortune to dance with a Mrs. Heymann of Lahore, a tall woman, but a +featherweight partner, and in all my dancing days I never had a better +waltz. To my delight she had one other left, though near the end, and we +were actually dancing when an excitable person came out of the +card-room, flushed with liquor and losses, and carried her off in the +most preposterous manner. It was a shock to me at the time to learn that +this outrageous little man was my partner's husband. Months later, when +I came across their case in the papers, it was, I am afraid, without +much sympathy for the injured husband. The man was quite unpresentable, +and I had seen no more of him at Simla, but of the woman just enough to +know her by matchlight on the terrace at the Riffel Alp. + +And this was Bob's widow, this dashing _divorcee_! Dashing she was as I +now remembered her, fine in mould, finer in spirit, reckless and +rebellious as she well might be. I had seen her submit before a +ball-room, but with the contempt that leads captivity captive. Seldom +have I admired anything more. It was splendid even to remember, the +ready outward obedience, the not less apparent indifference and disdain. +There was a woman whom any man might admire, who had had it in her to be +all things to some man! But Bob Evers was not a man at all. And +this--and this--was his widow! + +Was she one at all? How could I tell? Yes, it was Lascelles, the other +name in the case, to the best of my recollection. But had she any right +to bear it? And even supposing they had married, what had happened to +the second husband? Widow or no widow, second marriage or no second +marriage, defensible or indefensible, was this the right friend for a +lad still fresh from Eton, the only son of his mother, who had sent me +in secret to his side? + +There was only one answer to the last question, whatever might be said +or urged in reply to all the rest. I could not but feel that Catherine +Evers had been justified in her instinct to an almost miraculous degree; +that her worst fears were true enough, so far as the lady was concerned; +and that Providence alone could have inspired her to call in an agent +who knew what I knew, and who therefore saw his duty as plainly as I +already saw mine. But it is one thing to recognise a painful duty and +quite another thing to know how to minimise the pain to those most +affected by its performance. The problem was no easy one to my mind, and +I lay awake upon it far into the night. + +Tired out with travel, I fell asleep in the end, to awake with a start +in broad daylight. The sun was pouring through the uncurtained +dormer-window of my room under the roof. And in the sunlight, looking +his best in knickerbockers, as only thin men do, with face greased +against wind and glare, and blue spectacles in rest upon an Alpine +wideawake, stood the lad who had taken his share in keeping me awake. + +"I'm awfully sorry," he began. "It's horrid cheek, but when I saw your +room full of light I thought you might have been even earlier than I +was. You must get them to give you curtains up here." + +He had a note in his hand and I thought by his manner there was +something that he wished and yet hesitated to tell me. I accordingly +asked him what it was. + +"It's what we were speaking about last night!" burst out Bob. "That's +why I've come to you. It's these silly fools who can't mind their own +business and think everybody else is like themselves! Here's a note from +Mrs. Lascelles which makes it plain that that old idiot George is not +the only one who has been talking about us, and some of the talk has +reached her ears. She doesn't say so in so many words, but I can see +it's that. She wants to get out of our expedition to Monte Rosa +hut--wants me to go alone. The question is, ought I to let her get out +of it? Does it matter one rap what this rabble says about us? I've come +to ask your advice--you were such a brick about it all last night--and +what you say I'll do." + +I had begun to smile at Bob's notion of "a rabble": this one happened +to include a few quite eminent men, as you have seen, to say nothing of +the average quality of the crowd, of which I had been able to form some +opinion of my own. But I had already noticed in Bob the exclusiveness of +the type to which he belonged, and had welcomed it as one does welcome +the little faults of the well-night faultless. It was his last sentence +that made me feel too great a hypocrite to go on smiling. + +"It may not matter to you," I said at length, "but it may to the lady." + +"I suppose it does matter more to them?" + +The sunburnt face, puckered with a wry wistfulness, was only comic in +its incongruous coat of grease. But I was under no temptation to smile. +I had to confine my mind pretty closely to the general principle, and +rather studiously to ignore the particular instance, before I could +bring myself to answer the almost infantile inquiry in those honest +eyes. + +"My dear fellow, it must!" + +Bob looked disappointed but resigned. + +"Well, then, I won't press it, though I'm not sure that I agree. You +see, it's not as though there was or ever would be anything between us. +The idea's absurd. We are absolute pals and nothing else. That's what +makes all this such a silly bore. It's so unnecessary. Now she wants me +to go alone, but I don't see the fun of that." + +"Does she ask you to go alone?" + +"She does. That's the worst of it." + +I nodded, and he asked me why. + +"She probably thinks it would be the best answer to the tittle-tattlers, +Bob." + +That was not a deliberate lie; not until the words were out did it occur +to me that Mrs. Lascelles might now have another object in getting rid +of her swain for the day. But Bob's eyes lighted in a way that made me +feel a deliberate liar. + +"By Jove!" he said, "I never thought of that. I don't agree with her, +mind, but if that's her game I'll play it like a book. So long, Duncan! +I'm not one of those chaps who ask a man's advice without the slightest +intention of ever taking it!" + +"But I haven't ventured to advise you," I reminded the boy, with a +cowardly eye to the remotest consequences. + +"Perhaps not, but you've shown me what's the proper thing to do." And he +went away to do it there and then, like the blameless exception that I +found him to so many human rules. + +I had my breakfast upstairs after this, and lay for some considerable +time a prey to feelings which I shall make no further effort to expound; +for this interview had not altered, but only intensified them; and in +any case they must be obvious to those who take the trouble to conceive +themselves in my unenviable position. + +And it was my ironic luck to be so circumstanced in a place where I +could have enjoyed life to the hilt! Only to lie with the window open +was to breathe air of a keener purity, a finer temper, a more +exhilarating freshness, than had ever before entered my lungs; and to +get up and look out of the window was to peer into the limpid brilliance +of a gigantic crystal, where the smallest object was in startling +focus, and the very sunbeams cut with scissors. The people below trailed +shadows like running ink. The light was ultra-tropical. One looked for +drill suits and pith headgear, and was amazed to find pajamas +insufficient at the open window. + +Upon the terrace on the other side, when I eventually came down, there +were cane chairs and Tauchnitz novels under the umbrella tents, and the +telescope out and trained upon a party on the Matterhorn. A group of +people were waiting turns at the telescope, my friend Quinby and the +hanging judge among them. But I searched under the umbrella tents as +well as one could from the top of the steps before hobbling down to join +the group. + +"I have looked for an accident through that telescope," said the jocose +judge, "fifteen Augusts running. They usually have one the day after I +go." + +"Good morning, sir!" was Quinby's greeting; and I was instantly +introduced to Sir John Sankey, with such a parade of my military history +as made me wince and Sir John's eye twinkle. I fancied he had formed an +unkind estimate of my rather overpowering friend, and lived to hear my +impression confirmed in unjudicial language. But our first conversation +was about the war, and it lasted until the judge's turn came for the +telescope. + +"Black with people!" he ejaculated. "They ought to have a constable up +there to regulate the traffic." + +But when I looked it was long enough before my inexperienced eye could +discern the three midges strung on the single strand of cobweb against +the sloping snow. + +"They are coming down," explained the obliging Quinby. "That's one of +the most difficult places, the lower edge of the top slope. It's just a +little way along to the right where the first accident was.... By the +way, your friend Evers says he's going to do the Matterhorn before he +goes." + +It was unwelcome hearing, for Quinby had paused to regale me with a +lightning sketch of the first accident, and no one had contradicted his +gruesome details. + +"_Is_ young Evers a friend of yours?" inquired the judge. + +"He is." + +The judge did not say another word. But Quinby availed himself of the +first opportunity of playing Ancient Mariner to my Wedding Guest. + +"I saw you talking to them," he told me confidentially, "last night, you +know!" + +"Indeed." + +He took me by the sleeve. + +"Of course I don't know what you said, but it's evidently had an effect. +Evers has gone off alone for the first time since he has been here." + +I shifted my position. + +"You evidently keep an eye on him, Mr. Quinby." + +"I do, Clephane. I find him a diverting study. He is not the only one in +this hotel. There's old Teale on his balcony at the present minute, if +you look up. He has the best room in the hotel; the only trouble is that +it doesn't face the sun all day; he's not used to being in the shade, +and you'll hear him damn the limelight-man in heaps one of these fine +mornings. But your enterprising young friend is a more amusing person +than Belgrave Teale." + +I had heard enough of my enterprising young friend from this quarter. + +"Do you never make any expeditions yourself, Mr. Quinby?" + +"Sometimes." Quinby looked puzzled. "Why do you ask?" he was constrained +to add. + +"You should have volunteered instead of Mrs. Lascelles to-day. It would +have been an excellent opportunity for prosecuting your own rather +enterprising studies." + +One would have thought that one's displeasure was plain enough at last; +but not a bit of it. So far from resenting the rebuff, the fellow +plucked my sleeve, and I saw at a glance that he had not even listened +to my too elaborate sarcasm. + +"Talk of the--lady!" he whispered. "Here she comes." + +And a second glance intercepted Mrs. Lascelles on the steps, with her +bold good looks and her fine upstanding carriage, cut clean as a +diamond in that intensifying atmosphere, and hardly less dazzling to the +eye. Yet her cotton gown was simplicity's self; it was the right setting +for such natural brilliance, a brilliance of eyes and teeth and +colouring, a more uncommon brilliance of expression. Indeed it was a +wonderful expression, brave rather than sweet, yet capable of sweetness +too, and for the moment at least nobly free from the defensive +bitterness which was to mark it later. So she stood upon the steps, the +talk of the hotel, trailing, with characteristic independence, a cane +chair behind her, while she sought a shady place for it, even as I had +stood seeking for her: before she found one I was hobbling toward her. + +"Oh, thanks, Captain Clephane, but I couldn't think of allowing you! +Well, then, between us, if you insist. Here under the wall, I think, is +as good a place as any." + +She pointed out a clear space in the rapidly narrowing ribbon of shade, +and there I soon saw Mrs. Lascelles settled with her book (a trashy +novel, that somehow brought Catherine Evers rather sharply before my +mind's eye) in an isolation as complete as could be found upon the +crowded terrace, and too intentional on her part to permit of an +intrusion on mine. I lingered a moment, nevertheless. + +"So you didn't go to that hut after all, Mrs. Lascelles?" + +"No." She waited a moment before looking up at me. "And I'm afraid Mr. +Evers will never forgive me," she added after her look, in the rich +undertone that had impressed me overnight, before the cigarette +controversy. + +I was not going to say that I had seen Bob before he started, but it was +an opportunity of speaking generally of the lad. Thus I found myself +commenting on the coincidence of our meeting again--he and I--and again +lying before I realised that it was a lie. But Mrs. Lascelles sat +looking up at me with her fine and candid eyes, as though she knew as +well as I which was the real coincidence, and knew that I knew into the +bargain. It gave me the disconcerting sensation of being detected and +convicted at one blow. Bob Evers failed me as a topic, and I stood like +the fool I felt. + +"I am sure you ought not to stand about so much, Captain Clephane." + +Mrs. Lascelles was smiling faintly as I prepared to take her hint. + +"Doesn't it really do you any harm?" she inquired in time to detain me. + +"No, just the opposite. I am ordered to take all the exercise I can." + +"Even walking?" + +"Even hobbling, Mrs. Lascelles, if I don't overdo it." + +She sat some moments in thought. I guessed what she was thinking, and I +was right. + +"There are some lovely walks quite near, Captain Clephane. But you have +to climb a little, either going or coming." + +"I could climb a little," said I, making up my mind. "It's within the +meaning of the act--it would do me good. Which way will you take me, +Mrs. Lascelles?" + +Mrs. Lascelles looked up quickly, surprised at a boldness on which I was +already complimenting myself. But it is the only way with a bold woman. + +"Did I say I would take you at all, Captain Clephane?" + +"No, but I very much hope you will." + +And our eyes met as fairly as they had done by matchlight the night +before. + +"Then I will," said Mrs. Lascelles, "because I want to speak to you." + + + + +CHAPTER V + +A MARKED WOMAN + + +We had come farther than was wise without a rest, but all the seats on +the way were in full view of the hotel, and I had been irritated by +divers looks and whisperings as we traversed the always crowded terrace. +Bob Evers, no doubt, would have turned a deaf ear and a blind eye to +them. I myself could pretend to do so, but pretence was evidently one of +my strong points. I had not Bob's fine natural regardlessness, for all +my seniority and presumably superior knowledge of the world. + +So we had climbed the zigzags to the right of the Riffelberg and +followed the footpath overlooking the glacier, in the silence enjoined +by single file, but at last we were seated on the hillside, a trifle +beyond that emerald patch which some humourist has christened the +Cricket-ground. Beneath us were the serracs of the Gorner Glacier, +teased and tousled like a fringe of frozen breakers. Beyond the serracs +was the main stream of comparatively smooth ice, with its mourning band +of moraine, and beyond that the mammoth sweep and curve of the Theodule +where these glaciers join. Peak after peak of dazzling snow dwindled +away to the left. Only the gaunt Riffelhorn reared a brown head against +the blue. And there we sat, Mrs. Lascelles and I, with all this before +us and a rock behind, while I wondered what my companion meant to say, +and how she would begin. + +I had not to wonder long. + +"You were very good to me last night, Captain Clephane." + +There was evidently no beating about the bush for Mrs. Lascelles. I +thoroughly approved, but was nevertheless somewhat embarrassed for the +moment. + +"I--really I don't know how, Mrs. Lascelles!" + +"Oh, yes, you do, Captain Clephane; you recognised me at a glance, as I +did you." + +"I certainly thought I did," said I, poking about with the ferrule of +one of my sticks. + +"You know you did." + +"You are making me know it." + +"Captain Clephane, you knew it all along; but we won't argue that point. +I am not going to deny my identity. It is very good of you to give me +the chance, if rather unnecessary. I am not a criminal. Still you could +have made me feel like one, last night, and heaps of men would have done +so, either for the fun of it or from want of tact." + +I looked inquiringly at Mrs. Lascelles. She could tell me what she +pleased, but I was not going to anticipate her by displaying an +independent knowledge of matters which she might still care to keep to +herself. If she chose to open up a painful subject, well, the pain be +upon her own head. Yet I must say that there was very little of it in +her face as our eyes met. There was the eager candour that one could not +help admiring, with the glowing look of gratitude which I had done so +ridiculously little to earn; but the fine flushed face betrayed neither +pain, nor shame, nor the affectation of one or the other. There was a +certain shyness with the candour. That was all. + +"You know quite well what I mean," continued Mrs. Lascelles, with a +genuine smile at my disingenuous face. "When you met me before it was +under another name, which you have probably quite forgotten." + +"No, I remember it." + +"Do you remember my husband?" + +"Perfectly." + +"Did you ever hear--" + +Her lip trembled. I dropped my eyes. + +"Yes," I admitted, "or rather I saw it for myself in the papers. It's no +use pretending I didn't, nor yet that I was the least bit surprised +or--or anything else!" + +That was not one of my tactful speeches. It was culpably, might indeed +have been wilfully, ambiguous; and yet it was the kind of clumsy and +impulsive utterance which has the ring of a good intention, and is thus +inoffensive except to such as seek excuses for offence. My instincts +about Mrs. Lascelles did not place her in this category at all. +Nevertheless, the ensuing pause was long enough to make me feel uneasy, +and my companion only broke it as I was in the act of framing an +apology. + +"May I bore you, Captain Clephane?" she asked abruptly. I looked at her +once more. She had regained an equal mastery of face and voice, and the +admirable candour of her eyes was undimmed by the smallest trace of +tears. + +"You may try," said I, smiling with the obvious gallantry. + +"If I tell you something about myself from that time on, will you +believe what I say?" + +"You are the last person whom I should think of disbelieving." + +"Thank you, Captain Clephane." + +"On the other hand, I would much rather you didn't say anything that +gave you pain, or that you might afterward regret." + +There was a touch of weariness in Mrs. Lascelles's smile, a rather +pathetic touch to my mind, as she shook her head. + +"I am not very sensitive to pain," she remarked. "That is the one thing +to be said for having to bear a good deal while you are fairly young. I +want you to know more about me, because I believe you are the only +person here who knows anything at all. And then--you didn't give me away +last night!" + +I pointed to the grassy ledge in front of us, such a vivid green against +the house now a hundred feet below. + +"I am not pushing you over there," I said. "I take about as much credit +for that." + +"Ah," sighed Mrs. Lascelles, "but that dear boy, who turns out to be a +friend of yours, he knows less than anybody else! He doesn't even +suspect. It would have hurt me, yes, it would have hurt even me, to be +given away to him! You didn't do it while I was there, and I know you +didn't when I had turned my back." + +"Of course you know I didn't," I echoed rather testily as I took out a +cigarette. The case reminded me of the night before. But I did not again +hand it to Mrs. Lascelles. + +"Well, then," she continued, "since you didn't give me away, even +without thinking, I want you to know that after all there isn't quite so +much to give away as there might have been. A divorce, of course, is +always a divorce; there is no getting away from that, or from mine. But +I really did marry again. And I really am the widow they think I am." + +I looked quickly up at her, in pure pity and compassion for one gone so +far in sorrow and yet such a little way in life. It was a sudden +feeling, an unpremeditated look, but I might as well have spoken aloud. +Mrs. Lascelles read me unerringly, and she shook her head, sadly but +decidedly, while her eyes gazed calmly into mine. + +"_It_ was not a happy marriage, either," she said, as impersonally as if +speaking of another woman. "You may think what you like of me for saying +so to a comparative stranger; but I won't have your sympathy on false +pretences, simply because Major Lascelles is dead. Did you ever meet +him, by the way?" + +And she mentioned an Indian regiment. But the major and I had never met. + +"Well, it was not very happy for either of us. I suppose such marriages +never are. I know they are never supposed to be. Even if the couple are +everything to each other, there is all the world to point his finger, +and all the world's wife to turn her back, and you have to care a good +deal to get over that. But you may have been desperate in the first +instance; you may have said to yourself that the fire couldn't be much +worse than the frying-pan. In that case, of course, you deserve no +sympathy, and nothing is more irritating to me than the sympathy I don't +deserve. It's a matter of temperament; I'm obliged to speak out, even if +it puts people more against me than they were already. No, you needn't +say anything, Captain Clephane; you didn't express your sympathy, I +stopped you in time.... And yet it is rather hard, when one's still +reasonably young, with almost everything before one--to be a marked +woman all one's time!" + +Up to her last words, despite an inviting pause after almost every +sentence, I had succeeded in holding my tongue; though she was looking +wistfully now at the distant snow-peaks and obviously bestowing upon +herself the sympathy she did not want from me (as I had been told in so +many words, if not more plainly in the accompanying brief encounter +between our eyes), yet had I resisted every temptation to put in my +word, until these last two or three from Mrs. Lascelles. They, however, +demanded a denial, and I told her it was absurd to describe herself in +such terms. + +"I am marked," she persisted, "wherever I go I may be known, as you knew +me here. If it hadn't been you it would have been somebody else, and I +should have known of it indirectly instead of directly; but even +supposing I had escaped altogether at this hotel, the next one would +probably have made up for it." + +"Do you stay much in hotels?" + +There had been something in the mellow voice which made such a question +only natural, yet it was scarcely asked before I would have given a good +deal to recall it. + +"There is nowhere else to stay," said Mrs. Lascelles, "unless one sets +up house alone, which is costlier and far less comfortable. You see, one +does make a friend or two sometimes--before one is found out." + +"But surely your people--" + +This time I did check myself. + +"My people," said Mrs. Lascelles, "have washed their hands of me." + +"But Major Lascelles--surely _his_ people--" + +"They washed their hands of him! You see, they would be the first to +tell you, he had always been rather wild; but his crowning act of +madness in their eyes was his marriage. It was worse than the worst +thing he had ever done before. Still, it is not for me to say anything, +or feel anything, against his family...." + +And then I knew that they were making her an allowance; it was more than +I wanted to know; the ground was too delicate, and led nowhere in +particular. Still, it was difficult not to take a certain amount of +interest in a handsome woman who had made such a wreck of her life so +young, who was so utterly alone, so proud and independent in her +loneliness, and apparently quite fine-hearted and unspoilt. But for Bob +Evers and his mother, the interest that I took might have been a little +different in kind; but even with my solicitude for them there mingled +already no small consideration for the social solitary whom I watched +now as she sat peering across the glacier, the foremost figure in a +world of high lights and great backgrounds, and whom to watch was to +admire, even against the greatest of them all. Alas! mere admiration +could not change my task or stay my hand; it could but clog me by +destroying my singleness of purpose, and giving me a double heart to +match my double face. + +Since, however, a detestable duty had been undertaken, and since as a +duty it was more apparent than I had dreamt of finding it, there was +nothing for it but to go through with the thing and make immediate +enemies of my friends. So I set my teeth and talked of Bob. I was glad +Mrs. Lascelles liked him. His father was a remote connection of mine, +whom I had never met. But I had once known his mother very well. + +"And what is she like?" asked Mrs. Lascelles, calling her fine eyes home +from infinity, and fixing them once more on me. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +OUT OF ACTION + + +Now if, upon a warm, soft, summer evening, you were suddenly asked to +describe the perfect winter's day, either you would have to stop and +think a little, or your imagination is more elastic than mine. Yet you +might have a passionate preference for cold sun and bracing airs. To me, +Catherine Evers and this Mrs. Lascelles were as opposite to each other +as winter and summer, or the poles, or any other notorious antitheses. +There was no comparison between them in my mind, yet as I sat with one +among the sunlit, unfamiliar Alps, it was a distinct effort to picture +the other in the little London room I knew so well. For it was always +among her books and pictures that I thought of Catherine, and to think +was to wish myself there at her side, rather than to wish her here at +mine. Catherine's appeal, I used to think, was to the highest and the +best in me, to brain and soul, and young ambition, and withal to one's +love of wit and sense of humour. Mrs. Lascelles, on the other hand, +struck me primarily in the light of some splendid and spirited animal. I +still liked to dwell upon her dancing. She satisfied the mere eye more +and more. But I had no reason to suppose that she knew right from wrong +in art or literature, any more than she would seem to have distinguished +between them in life itself. Her Tauchnitz novel lay beside her on the +grass and I again reflected that it would not have found a place on +Catherine's loftiest shelf. Catherine would have raved about the view +and made delicious fun of Quinby and the judge, and we should have sat +together talking poetry and harmless scandal by the happy hour. Mrs. +Lascelles probably took place and people alike for granted. But she had +lived, and as an animal she was superb! I looked again into her healthy +face and speaking eyes, with their bitter knowledge of good and evil, +their scorn of scorn, their redeeming honesty and candour. The contrast +was complete in every detail except the widowhood of both women; but I +did not pursue it any farther; for once more there was but one woman in +my thoughts, and she sat near me under a red parasol--clashing so +humanly with the everlasting snows! + +"You don't answer my question, Captain Clephane. How much for your +thoughts?" + +"I'll make you a present of them, Mrs. Lascelles. I was beginning to +think that a lot of rot has been written about the eternal snows and the +mountain-tops and all the rest of it. There a few lines in that last +little volume of Browning--" + +I stopped of my own accord, for upon reflection the lines would have +made a rather embarrassing quotation. But meanwhile Mrs. Lascelles had +taken alarm on other grounds. + +"Oh, _don't_ quote Browning!" + +"Why not?" + +"He is far too deep for me; besides, I don't care for poetry, and I was +asking you about Mrs. Evers." + +"Well," I said, with some little severity, "she's a very clever woman." + +"Clever enough to understand Browning?" + +"Quite." + +If this was irony, it was also self-restraint, for it was to Catherine's +enthusiasm that I owed my own. The debt was one of such magnitude as a +life of devotion could scarcely have repaid, for to whom do we owe so +much as to those who first lifted the scales from our eyes and awakened +within us a soul for all such things? Catherine had been to me what I +instantly desired to become to this benighted beauty; but the desire was +not worth entertaining, since I hardly expected to be many minutes +longer on speaking terms with Mrs. Lascelles. I recalled the fact that +it was I who had broached the subject of Bob Evers and his mother, +together with my unpalatable motive for so doing. And I was seeking in +my mind, against the grain, I must confess, for a short cut back to Bob, +when Mrs. Lascelles suddenly led the way. + +"I don't think," said she, "that Mr. Evers takes after his mother." + +"I'm afraid he doesn't," I replied, "in that respect." + +"And I am glad," she said. "I do like a boy to be a boy. The only son +of his mother is always in danger of becoming something else. Tell me, +Captain Clephane, are they very devoted to each other?" + +There was some new note in that expressive voice of hers. Was it merely +wistful, was it really jealous, or was either element the product of my +own imagination? I made answer while I wondered: + +"Absolutely devoted, I should say; but it's years since I saw them +together. Bob was a small boy then, and one of the jolliest. Still I +never expected him to grow up the charming chap he is now." + +Mrs. Lascelles sat gazing at the great curve of Theodule Glacier. I +watched her face. + +"He _is_ charming," she said at length. "I am not sure that I ever met +anybody quite like him, or rather I am quite sure that I never did. He +is so quiet, in a way, and yet so wonderfully confident and at ease!" + +"That's Eton," said I. "He is the best type of Eton boy, and the best +type of Eton boy," I declared, airing the little condition with a +flourish, "is one of the greatest works of God." + +"I daresay you're right," said Mrs. Lascelles, smiling indulgently; "but +what is it? How do you define it? It isn't 'side,' and yet I can quite +imagine people who don't know him thinking that it is. He is cocksure of +himself, but of nothing else; that seems to me to be the difference. No +one could possibly be more simple in himself. He may have the assurance +of a man of fifty, yet it isn't put on; it's neither bumptious nor +affected, but just as natural in Mr. Evers as shyness and awkwardness in +the ordinary youth one meets. And he has the _savoir faire_ not to ask +questions!" + +Were we all mistaken? Was this the way in which a designing woman would +speak of the object of her designs? Not that I thought so hardly of Mrs. +Lascelles myself; but I did think that she might well fall in love with +Bob Evers, at least as well as he with her. Was this, then, the way in +which a woman would be likely to speak of the young man with whom she +had fallen in love? To me the appreciation sounded too frank and +discerning and acute. Yet I could not call it dispassionate, and +frankness was this woman's outstanding merit, though I was beginning to +discover others as well. Moreover, the fact remained that they had been +greatly talked about; that at any rate must be stopped and I was there +to stop it. + +I began to pick my words. + +"It's all Eton, except what is in the blood, and it's all a question of +manners, or rather of manner. Don't misunderstand me, Mrs. Lascelles. I +don't say that Bob isn't independent in character as well as in his +ways, but only that when all's said he's still a boy and not a man. He +can't possibly have a man's experience of the world, or even of himself. +He has a young head on his shoulders, after all, if not a younger one +than many a boy with half the assurance that you admire in him." + +Mrs. Lascelles looked at me point-blank. + +"Do you mean that he can't take care of himself?" + +"I don't say that." + +"Then what do you say?" + +The fine eyes met mine without a flicker. The full mouth was curved at +the corners in a tolerant, unsuspecting smile. It was hard to have to +make an enemy of so handsome and good-humoured a woman. And was it +necessary, was it even wise? As I hesitated she turned and glanced +downward once more toward the glacier, then rose and went to the lip of +our grassy ledge, and as she returned I caught the sound which she had +been the first to hear. It was the gritty planting of nailed boots upon +a hard, smooth rock. + +"I'm afraid you can't say it now," whispered Mrs. Lascelles. "Here's Mr. +Evers himself, coming this way back from the Monte Rosa hut! I'm going +to give him a surprise!" + +And it was a genuine one that she gave him, for I heard his boyish +greeting before I saw his hot brown face, and there was no mistaking the +sudden delight of both. It was sudden and spontaneous, complete, until +his eyes lit on me. Even then his smile did not disappear, but it +changed, as did his tone. + +"Good heavens!" cried Bob. "How on earth did _you_ get up here? By rail +to the Riffelberg, I hope?" + +"On my sticks." + +"It was much too far for him," added Mrs. Lascelles, "and all my fault +for showing him the way. But I'm afraid there was contributory obstinacy +in Captain Clephane, because he simply wouldn't turn back. And now tell +us about yourself, Mr. Evers; surely we were not coming back this way?" + +"_We_ were not," said Bob, with a something sardonic in his little +laugh, "but I thought I might as well. It's the long way, six miles on +end upon the glacier." + +"But have you really been to the hut?" + +"Rather!" + +"And where's our guide?" + +"Oh, I wouldn't be bothered with a guide all to myself." + +"My dear young man, you might have stepped straight into a crevasse!" + +"I precious nearly did," laughed Bob, again with something odd about his +laughter; "but I say, do you know, if you won't think me awfully rude, +I'll push on back and get changed. I'm as hot as anything and not fit +to be seen." + +And he was gone after very little more than a minute from first to last, +gone with rather an elaborate salute to Mrs. Lascelles, and rather a +cavalier nod to me. But then neither of us had made any effort to detain +him and a notable omission I thought it in Mrs. Lascelles, though to the +lad himself it may well have seemed as strange in the old friend as in +the new. + +"What was it," asked Mrs. Lascelles, when we were on our way home, "that +you were going to say about Mr. Evers when he appeared in the flesh in +that extraordinary way?" + +"I forget," said I, immorally. + +"Really? So soon? Don't you remember, I thought you meant that he +couldn't take care of himself, and you were just going to tell me what +you did mean?" + +"Oh, well, it wasn't that, because he can!" + +But, as a matter of fact, I had seen my way to taking care of Master Bob +without saying a word either to him or to Mrs. Lascelles, or at all +events without making enemies of them both. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +SECOND FIDDLE + + +My plan was quite obvious in its simplicity, and not in the least +discreditable from my point of view. It was perhaps inevitable that a +boy like Bob should imagine I was trying to "cut him out," as my blunt +friend Quinby phrased it to my face. I had not, of course, the smallest +desire to do any such vulgar thing. All I wanted was to make myself, if +possible, as agreeable to Mrs. Lascelles as this youth had done before +me, and in any case to share with him all the perils of her society. In +other words I meant to squeeze into "the imminent deadly breach" beside +Bob Evers, not necessarily in front of him. But if there was nothing +dastardly in this, neither was there anything heroic, since I was proof +against that kind of deadliness if Bob was not. + +On the other hand, the whole character of my mission was affected by the +decision at which I had now arrived. There was no longer a necessity to +speak plainly to anybody. That odious duty was eliminated from my plan +of campaign, and the "frontal attack" of recent history discarded for +the "turning movement" of the day. So I had learnt something in South +Africa after all. I had learnt how to avoid hard knocks which might very +well do more harm than good to the cause I had at heart. That cause was +still sharply defined before my mind. It was the first and most sacred +consideration. I wrote a reassuring despatch to Catherine Evers, and +took it myself to the little post-office opposite the hotel that very +evening before dressing for dinner. But I cannot say that I was thinking +of Catherine when I proceeded to spoil three successive ties in the +tying. + +Yet I can only repeat that I felt absolutely "proof" against the real +cause of my solicitude. It is the most delightful feeling where a +handsome woman is concerned. The judgment is not warped by passion or +clouded by emotion; you see the woman as she is, not as you wish to see +her, and if she disappoint it does not matter. You are not left to +choose between systematic self-deception and a humiliating admission of +your mistake. The lady has not been placed upon an impossible pedestal, +and she has not toppled down. In this case the lady started at the most +advantageous disadvantage; every admirable quality, her candour, her +courage, her spirited independence, her evident determination to piece a +broken life together again and make the best of it, told doubly in her +favour to me with my special knowledge of her past. It would be too much +to say that I was deeply interested; but Mrs. Lascelles had inspired me +with a certain sympathy and dispassionate regard. Cultivated she was +not, in the conventional sense, but she knew more than can be imbibed +from books. She knew life at first hand, had drained the cup for +herself, and yet could savour the lees. Not that she enlarged any +further on her own past. Mrs. Lascelles was never a great talker, like +Catherine; but she was certainly a woman to whom one could talk. And +talk to her I did thenceforward, with a conscientious conviction that I +was doing my duty, and only an occasional qualm for its congenial +character, while Bob listened with a wondering eye, or went his own way +without a word. + +It is easy to criticise my conduct now. It would have been difficult to +act otherwise at the time. I am speaking of the evening after my walk +with Mrs. Lascelles, of the next day when it rained, and now of my third +night at the hotel. The sky had cleared. The glass was high. There was a +finer edge than ever on the silhouetted mountains against the stars. It +appeared that Bob and Mrs. Lascelles had talked of taking their lunch to +the Findelen Glacier on the next fine day, for he came up and reminded +her of it as she sat with me in the glazed veranda after dinner. I had +seen him standing alone under the stars a few minutes before: so this +was the result of his cogitation. But in his manner there was nothing +studied, much less awkward, and his smile even included me, though he +had not spoken to me alone all day. + +"Oh, no, I hadn't forgotten, Mr. Evers. I am looking forward to it," +said my companion, with a smile of her own to which the most jealous +swain could not have taken exception. + +Bob Evers looked hard at me. + +"You'd better come, too," he said. + +"It's probably too far," said I, quite intending to play second fiddle +next day, for it was really Bob's turn. + +"Not for a man who has been up to the Cricket-ground," he rejoined. + +"But it's dreadfully slippery," put in Mrs. Lascelles, with a +sympathetic glance at my sticks. + +"Let him get them shod like alpenstocks," quoth Bob, "and nails in his +boots; then they'll be ready when he does the Matterhorn!" + +It might have passed for boyish banter, but I knew that it was something +more; the use of the third person changed from chaff to scorn as I +listened, and my sympathetic resolution went to the winds. + +"Thank you," I replied; "in that case I shall be delighted to come, and +I'll take your tip at once by giving orders about my boots." + +And with that I resigned my chair to Bob, not sorry for the chance; he +should not be able to say that I had monopolised Mrs. Lascelles without +intermission from the first. Nevertheless, I was annoyed with him for +what he had said, and for the moment my actions were no part of my +scheme. Consequently I was thus in the last mood for a familiarity from +Quinby, who was hanging about the door between the veranda and the hall, +and who would not let me pass. + +"That's awfully nice of you," he had the impudence to whisper. + +"What do you mean?" + +"Giving that poor young beggar another chance!" + +"I don't understand you." + +"Oh, I like that! You know very well that you've gone in on the military +ticket and deliberately cut the poor youngster--" + +I did not wait to hear the end of this gratuitous observation. It was +very rude of me, but in another minute I should have been guilty of a +worse affront. My annoyance had deepened into something like dismay. It +was not only Bob Evers who was misconstruing my little attentions to +Mrs. Lascelles. I was more or less prepared for that. But here were +outsiders talking about us--the three of us! So far from putting a stop +to the talk, I had given it a regular fillip: here were Quinby and his +friends as keen as possible to see what would happen next, if not +betting on a row. The situation had taken a sudden turn for the worse. I +forgot the pleasant hours that I had passed with Mrs. Lascelles, and +began to wish myself well out of the whole affair. But I had now no +intention of getting out of the glacier expedition. I would not have +missed it on any account. Bob had brought that on himself. + +And I daresay we seemed a sufficiently united trio as we marched along +the pretty winding path to the Findelen next morning. Dear Bob was not +only such a gentleman, but such a man, that it was almost a pleasure to +be at secret issue with him; he would make way for me at our lady's +side, listen with interest when she made me spin my martial yarns, laugh +if there was aught to laugh at, and in a word, give me every conceivable +chance. His manners might have failed him for one heated moment +overnight; they were beyond all praise this morning; and I repeatedly +discerned a morbid sporting dread of giving the adversary less than fair +play. It was sad to me to consider myself as such to Catherine's son, +but I was determined not to let the thought depress me, and there was +much outward occasion for good cheer. The morning was a perfect one in +every way. The rain had released all the pungent aromas of the mountain +woods through which we passed. Snowy height came in dazzling contrast +with a turquoise sky. The toy town of Zermatt spattered the green hollow +far below. And before me on the narrow path went Bob Evers in a flannel +suit, followed by Mrs. Lascelles and her red parasol, though he carried +her alpenstock with his own in readiness for the glacier. + +Thither we came in this order, I at least very hot from hard hobbling to +keep up; but the first breath from the glacier cooled me like a bath, +and the next like the great drink in the second stanza of the Ode to a +Nightingale. I could have shouted out for pleasure, and must have done +so but for the engrossing business of keeping a footing on the sloping +ice with its soiled margin of yet more treacherous _moraine_. Yet on the +glacier itself I was less handicapped than I had been on the way, and +hopped along finely with my two shod sticks and the sharp new nails in +my boots. Bob, however, was invariably in the van, and Mrs. Lascelles +seemed more disposed to wait for me than to hurry after him. I think he +pushed the pace unwittingly, under the prick of those emotions which +otherwise were in such excellent control. I can see him now, continually +waiting for us on the brow of some glistening ice-slope, leaning on his +alpenstock and looking back, jet-black by contrast between the blinding +hues of ice and sky. + +But once he waited on the brink of some unfathomable crevasse, and then +we all three cowered together and peeped down; the sides were green and +smooth and sinister, like a crack in the sea, but so close together that +one could not have fallen out of sight; yet when Bob loosened a lump of +ice and kicked it in we heard it clattering from wall to wall in +prolonged diminuendo before the faint splash just reached our ears. Mrs. +Lascelles shuddered, and threw out a hand to prevent me from peering +farther over. The gesture was obviously impersonal and instinctive, as +an older eye would have seen, but Bob's was smouldering when mine met it +next, and in the ensuing advance he left us farther behind than ever. +But on the rock where we had our lunch he was once more himself, bright +and boyish, careless and assured. So he continued till the end of that +chapter. On the way home, moreover, he never once forged ahead, but was +always ready with a hand for Mrs. Lascelles at the awkward places; and +on the way through the woods, nothing would serve him but that I should +set the pace, that we might all keep together. Judge therefore of my +surprise when he came to my room, as I was dressing for the absurdly +early dinner which is the one blot upon Riffel Alp arrangements, with +the startling remark that we "might as well run straight with one +another." + +"By all means, my dear fellow," said I, turning to him with the lather +on my chin. He was dressed already, as perfectly as usual, and his hands +were in his pockets. But his fresh brown face was as grave as any +judge's, and his mouth as stern. I went on to ask, disingenuously +enough, if we had not been "running straight with each other" as it was. + +"Not quite," said Bob Evers, dryly; "and we might as well, you know!" + +"To be sure; but don't mind if I go on shaving, and pray speak for +yourself." + +"I will," he rejoined. "Do you remember our conversation the night you +came?" + +"More or less." + +"I mean when you and I were alone together, before we turned in." + +"Oh, yes. I remember something about it." + +"It would be too silly to expect you to remember much," he went on after +a pause, with a more delicate irony than heretofore. "But, as a matter +of fact, I believe I said it was all rot that people talked about the +impossibility of being mere pals with a woman, and all that sort of +thing." + +"I believe you did.'" + +"Well, then, _that_ was rot. That's all." + +I turned round with my razor in mid-air, + +"My dear fellow!" I exclaimed. + +"Quite funny, isn't it?" he laughed, but rather harshly, while his +mountain bronze deepened under my scrutiny. + +"You are not in earnest, Bob!" said I; and on the word his laughter +ended, his colour went. + +"_I_ am," he answered through his teeth. "_Are you_?" + +Never was war carried more suddenly into the enemy's country, or that +enemy's breath more completely taken away than mine. What could I say? +"As much as you are, I should hope!" was what I ultimately said. + +The lad stood raking me with a steady fire from his blue eyes. + +"I mean to marry her," he said, "if she will have me." + +There was no laughing at him. Though barely twenty, as I knew, he was +man enough for any age as we faced each other in my room, and a man who +knew his own mind into the bargain. + +"But, my dear Bob," I ventured to remonstrate, "you are years too +young--" + +"That's my business. I am in earnest. What about you?" + +I breathed again. + +"My good fellow," said I, "you are at perfect liberty to give yourself +away to me, but you really mustn't expect me to do quite the same for +you." + +"I expect precious little, I can tell you!" the lad rejoined hotly. +"Not that it matters twopence so long as you are not misled by anything +I said the other day. I prefer to run straight with you--you can run as +you like with me. I only didn't want you to think that I was saying one +thing and doing another. As a matter of fact I meant all I said at the +time, or thought I did, until you came along and made me look into +myself rather more closely than I had done before. I won't say how you +managed it. You will probably see for yourself. But I'm very much +obliged to you, whatever happens. And now that we understand each other +there's no more to be said, and I'll clear out." + +There was, indeed, no more to be said, and I made no attempt to detain +him; for I did see for myself, only too clearly and precisely, how I had +managed to precipitate the very thing which I had come out from England +expressly to prevent. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +PRAYERS AND PARABLES + + +I had quite forgotten one element which plays its part in most affairs +of the affections. I mean, of course, the element of pique. Bob Evers, +with the field to himself, had been sensible and safe enough; it was my +intrusion, and nothing else, which had fanned his boyish flame into this +premature conflagration. Of that I felt convinced. But Bob would not +believe me if I told him so; and what else was there for me to tell him? +To betray Catherine and the secret of my presence, would simply hasten +an irrevocable step. To betray Mrs. Lascelles, and _her_ secret, would +certainly not prevent one. Both courses were out of the question upon +other grounds. Yet what else was left? + +To speak out boldly to Mrs. Lascelles, to betray Catherine and myself to +her? + +I shrank from that; nor had I any right to reveal a secret which was +not only mine. What then was I to do? Here was this lad professedly on +the point of proposing to this woman. It was useless to speak to the +lad; it was impossible to speak to the woman. To be sure, she might not +accept him; but the mere knowledge that she was to have the chance +seemed enormously to increase my responsibility in the matter. As for +the dilemma in which I now found myself, deservedly as you please, there +was no comparing it with any former phase of this affair. + + "O, what a tangled web we weave, + When first we practise to deceive!" + +The hackneyed lines sprang unbidden, as though to augment my punishment; +then suddenly I reflected that it was not in my own interest I had begun +to practise my deceit; and the thought of Catherine braced me up, +perhaps partly because I felt that it should. I put myself back into the +fascinating little room in Elm Park Gardens. I saw the slender figure in +the picture hat, I heard the half-humorous and half-pathetic voice. +After all, it was for Catherine I had undertaken this ridiculous +mission; she was therefore my first and had much better be my only +consideration. I could not run with the hare after hunting with the +hounds. And I should like to have seen Catherine's face if I had +expressed any sympathy with the hare! + +No; it was better to be unscrupulously stanch to one woman than weakly +chivalrous toward both; and my mind was made up by the end of dinner. +There was only one chance now of saving the wretched Bob, or rather one +way of setting to work to save him; and that was by actually adopting +the course with which he had already credited me. He thought I was +"trying to cut him out." Well, I would try! + +But the more I thought of him, of Mrs. Lascelles, of them both, the less +sanguine I felt of success; for had I been she (I could not help +admitting it to myself), as lonely, as reckless, as unlucky, I would +have married the dear young idiot on the spot. Not that my own marriage +(with Mrs. Lascelles) was an end that I contemplated for a moment as I +took my cynical resolve. And now I trust that I have made both my +position and my intentions very plain, and have written myself down +neither more of a fool nor less of a knave than circumstances (and one's +own infirmities) combined to make me at this juncture of my career. + +The design was still something bolder than its execution, and if Bob did +not propose that night it was certainly no fault of mine. I saw him with +Mrs. Lascelles on the terrace after dinner; but I had neither the heart +nor the face to thrust myself upon them. Everything was altered since +Bob had shown me his hand; there were certain rules of the game which +even I must now observe. So I left him in undisputed possession of the +perilous ground, and being in a heavy glow from the strong air of the +glacier, went early to my room; where I lay long enough without a wink, +but quite prepared for Bob, with news of his engagement, at every step +in the corridor. + +Next day was Sunday, and chiefly, I am afraid, because there was neither +blind nor curtain to my dormer-window, and the morning sun streamed full +upon my pillow, I got up and went to early service in the little tin +Protestant Church. It was wonderfully well attended. Quinby was there, +a head taller than anybody else, and some sizes smaller in heads. The +American bridegroom came in late with his "best girl." The late Vice +Chancellor, with the peeled nose, and Mr. Belgrave Teale, fit for Church +Parade, or for the afternoon act in one of his own fashion-plays, took +round the offertory bags, into which Mr. Justice Sankey (in race-course +checks) dropped gold. It was not the sort of service at which one cares +to look about one, but I was among the early comers, and I could not +help it. Mrs. Lascelles, however, was there before me, whereas Bob Evers +was not there at all. Nevertheless, I did not mean to walk back with her +until I saw her walking very much alone, a sort of cynosure even on the +way from church, though humble and grave and unconscious as any country +maid. I watched her with the rest, but in a spirit of my own. Some +subtle change I seemed to detect in Mrs. Lascelles as in Bob. Had he +really declared himself overnight, and had she actually accepted him? A +new load seemed to rest upon her shoulders, a new anxiety, a new care; +and as if to confirm my idea, she started and changed colour as I came +up. + +"I didn't see you in church," she remarked, in her own natural fashion, +when we had exchanged the ordinary salutations. + +"I am afraid you wouldn't expect to see me, Mrs. Lascelles." + +"Well, as a matter of fact, I didn't, but I suppose," added Mrs. +Lascelles, as her rich voice fell into a pensive (but not a pathetic) +key, "I suppose it is you who are much more surprised at seeing me. I +can't help it if you are, Captain Clephane. I am not really a religious +person. I have not flown to that extreme as yet. But it has been a +comfort to me, sometimes; and so, sometimes, I go." + +It was very simply said, but with a sigh at the end that left me +wondering whether she was in any new need of spiritual solace. Did she +already find herself in the dilemma in which I had imagined her, and was +it really a dilemma to her? New hopes began to chase my fears, and were +gaining upon them when a flannel suit on the sunlit steps caused a +temporary check: there was Bob waiting for us, his hands in his +pockets, a smile upon his face, yet in the slope of his shoulders and +the carriage of his head a certain indefinable but very visible +attention and intent. + +"Is Mrs. Evers a religious woman?" asked my companion, her step slowing +ever so slightly as we approached. + +"Not exactly; but she knows all about it," I replied. + +"And doesn't believe very much? Then we shouldn't hit it off," exclaimed +Mrs. Lascelles, "for I know nothing and believe all I can! Nevertheless, +I'm not going to church again to-day." + +The last words were in a sort of aside, and I afterwards heard that Bob +and Mrs. Lascelles had attended the later service together on the +previous Sunday; but I guessed almost as much on the spot, and it put +out of my head both the unjust assumption of the earlier remark, +concerning Catherine, and the contrast between them which Mrs. Lascelles +could hardly afford to emphasise. + +"Let's go somewhere else instead--Zermatt--or anywhere else you like," I +suggested, eagerly; but we were close to the steps, and before she +could reply Bob had taken off his straw hat to Mrs. Lascelles, and flung +me a nod. + +"How very energetic!" he cried. "I only hope it's a true indication of +form, for I've got a scheme: instead of putting in another chapel I +propose we stroll down to Zermatt for lunch and come back by the train." + +Bob's proposal was made pointedly to Mrs. Lascelles, and as pointedly +excluded me, but she stood between the two of us with a charming smile +of good-humoured perplexity. + +"Now what am I to say? Captain Clephane was in the very act of making +the same suggestion!" + +Bob glared on me for an instant in spite of Eton and all his ancestors. + +"We'll all go together," I cried before he could speak. "Why not?" + +Nor was this mere unreasoning or good-natured impulse, since Bob could +scarcely have pressed his suit in my presence, while I should certainly +have done my best to retard it; still, it was rather a relief to me to +see him shake his head with some return of his natural grace. + +"My idea was to show Mrs. Lascelles the gorge," said Bob, "but you can +do that as well as I can; you can't miss it; besides, I've seen it, and +I really ought to stay up here, as a matter of fact, for I'm on the +track of a guide for the Matterhorn." + +We looked at him narrowly with one accord, but he betrayed no signs of +desperate impulse, only those of "climbing fever," and I at least +breathed again. + +"But if you want a guide," said I, "Zermatt's full of them." + +"I know," said he, "but it's a particular swell I'm after, and he hangs +out up here in the season. They expect him back from a big trip any +moment, and I really ought to be on the spot to snap him up." + +So Bob retired, in very fair order after all, and not without his +laughing apologies to Mrs. Lascelles; but it was sad to me to note the +spurious ring his laugh had now; it was like the death-knell of the +simple and the single heart that it had been my lot, if not my mission, +to poison and to warp. But the less said about my odious task, the +sooner to its fulfilment, which now seemed close at hand. + +It was not in fact so imminent as I supposed, for the descent into +Zermatt is somewhat too steep for the conduct of a necessarily delicate +debate. Sound legs go down at a compulsory run, and my companion was +continually waiting for me to catch her up, only to shoot ahead again +perforce. Or the path was too narrow for us to walk abreast, and you +cannot become confidential in single file; or the noise of falling +waters drowned our voices, when we stood together on that precarious +platform in the cool depths of the gorge, otherwise such an admirable +setting for the scene that I foresaw. Then it was a beautiful walk in +itself, with its short tacks in the precipitous pine-woods above, its +sudden plunge into the sunken gorge below, its final sweep across the +green valley beyond; and it was all so new to us both that there were +impressions to exchange or to compare at every turn. In fine, and with +all the will in the world, it was quite impossible to get in a word +about Bob before luncheon at the Monte Rosa, and by that time I for one +was in no mood to introduce so difficult a topic. + +But an opportunity there came, an opportunity such as even I could not +neglect; on the contrary, I made too much of it, as the sequel will +show. It was in the little museum which every tourist goes to see. We +had shuddered over the gruesome relics of the first and worst +catastrophe on the Matterhorn, and were looking in silence upon the +primitive portraits of the two younger Englishmen who had lost their +lives on that historic occasion. It appeared that they had both been +about the same age as Bob Evers, and I pointed this out to my companion. +It was a particularly obvious remark to make; but Mrs. Lascelles turned +her face quickly to mine, and the colour left it in the half-lit, +half-haunted little room, which we happened to have all to ourselves. + +"Don't let him go up, Captain Clephane; don't let him, please!" + +"Do you mean Bob Evers?" I asked, to gain time while I considered what +to say; for the intensity of her manner took me aback. + +"You know I do," said Mrs. Lascelles, impatiently; "don't let him go up +the Matterhorn to-night, or to-morrow morning, or whenever it is that he +means to start." + +"But, my dear Mrs. Lascelles, who am I to prevent that young gentleman +from doing what he likes?" + +"I thought you were more or less related?" + +"Rather less than more." + +"But aren't you very intimate with his mother?" + +I had to meet a pretty penetrating look. + +"I was once." + +"Well, then, for his mother's sake you ought to do your best to keep him +out of danger, Captain Clephane." + +It was my turn to repay the look which I had just received. No doubt I +did so with only too much interest; no doubt I was equally clumsy of +speech; but it was my opportunity, and something or other must be said. + +"Quite so, Mrs. Lascelles; and for his mother's sake," said I, "I not +only will do, I have already done, my best to keep the lad out of harm's +way. He is the apple of her eye; they are simply all the world to one +another. It would break her heart if anything happened to +him--anything--if she were to lose him in any sense of the word." + +I waited a moment, thinking she would speak, prepared on my side to be +as explicit as she pleased; but Mrs. Lascelles only looked at me with +her mouth tight shut and her eyes wide open; and I concluded--somewhat +uneasily, I will confess--that she saw for herself what I meant. + +"As for the Matterhorn," I went on, "that, I believe, is not such a very +dangerous exploit in these days. There are permanent chains and things +where there used to be polished precipices. It makes the real +mountaineers rather scornful; anyone with legs and a head, they will +tell you, can climb the Matterhorn nowadays. If I had the legs I'd go +with him, like a shot." + +"To share the danger, I suppose?" + +"And the sport." + +"Ah," said Mrs. Lascelles, "and the sport, of course! I had forgotten +that!" + +Yet I did not perceive that I had been found out, for nothing was +further from my mind than to prolong the parable to which I had stooped +in passing a few moments before. It had served its purpose, I conceived. +I had given my veiled warning; it never occurred to me that Mrs. +Lascelles might be indulging in a veiled retort. I thought she was +annoyed at the hint that I had given her. I began to repent of that +myself. It had quite spoilt our day, and so many and long were the +silences, as we wandered from little shop to little shop, and finally +with relief to the train, that I had plenty of time to remember how much +we had found to talk about all the morning. + +But matters were coming to a head in spite of me, for Bob Evers waylaid +us on our return, and, with hardly a word to Mrs. Lascelles, straightway +followed me to my room. He was pale with a suppressed anger which flared +up even as he closed my door behind him, but though his honest face was +now in flames, he still kept control of his tongue. + +"I want you to lend me one of those sticks of yours," he said, quietly; +"the heaviest, for choice." + +"What the devil for?" I demanded, thinking for the moment of no +shoulders but my own. + +"To give that bounder Quinby the licking he deserves!" cried Bob: "to +give it him now at once, when the post comes in, and there are plenty of +people about to see the fun. Do you know what he's been saying and +spreading all over the place?" + +"No," I answered, my heart sinking within me. "What has he been saying?" + +The colour altered on Bob's face, altered and softened to a veritable +blush, and his eyes avoided mine. + +"I'm ashamed to tell you, it makes me so sick," he said, disgustedly. +"But the fact is that he's been spreading a report about Mrs. Lascelles; +it has nothing on earth to do with me. It appears he only heard it +himself this morning, by letter, but the brute has made good use of his +time! _I_ only got wind of it an hour or two ago, of course quite by +accident, and I haven't seen the fellow since; but he's particularly +keen on his letters, and either he explains himself to my satisfaction +or I make an example of him before the hotel. It's a thing I never +dreamt of doing in my life, and I'm sorry the poor beast is such a +scarecrow; but it's a duty to punish that sort of crime against a woman, +and now I'm sure you'll lend me one of your sticks. I am only sorry I +didn't bring one with me." + +"But wait a bit, my dear fellow," said I, for he was actually holding +out his hand: "you have still to tell me what the report was." + +"Divorce!" he answered in a tragic voice. "Clephane, the fellow says she +was divorced in India, and that it was--that it was her fault!" + +He turned away his face. It was in a flame. + +"And you are going to thrash Quinby for saying that?" + +"If he sticks to it, I most certainly am," said Bob, the fire settling +in his blue eyes. + +"I should think twice about it, Bob, if I were you." + +"My dear man, what else do you suppose I have been thinking of all the +afternoon?" + +"It will make a fresh scandal, you see." + +"I can't help that." + +And Bob shut his mouth with a self-willed snap. + +"But what good will it do?" + +"A liar will be punished, that's all! It's no use talking, Clephane; my +mind is made up." + +"But are you so sure that it's a lie?" I was obliged to say it at last, +reluctantly enough, yet with a wretched feeling that I might just as +well have said it in the beginning. + +"Sure?" he echoed, his innocent eyes widening before mine. "Why, of +course I'm sure! You don't know what pals we've been. Of course I never +asked questions, but she's told me heaps and heaps of things; it would +fit in with some of them, if it were true." + +Then I told him that it was true, and how I knew that it was true, and +my reason for having kept all that knowledge to myself until now. "I +could not give her away even to you, Bob, nor yet tell you that I had +known her before; for you would have been certain to ask when and how; +and it was in her first husband's time, and under his name." + +It was a comfort to be quite honest for once with one of them, and it is +a relief even now to remember that I was absolutely honest with Bob +Evers about this. He said almost at once that he would have done the +same himself, and even as he spoke his whole manner changed toward me. +His face had darkened at my unexpected confirmation of the odious +rumour, but already it was beginning to lighten toward me, as though he +found my attitude the one redeeming feature in the new aspect of +affairs. He even thanked me for my late reserve, obviously from his +heart, and in a way that went to mine on more grounds than one. It was +as though a kindness to Mrs. Lascelles was already the greatest possible +kindness to him. + +"But I am glad you have told me now," he added, "for it explains many +things. I was inclined to look upon you, Duncan--you won't mind my +telling you now--as a bit of a deliberate interloper! But all the time +you knew her first, and that alters everything. I hope to out you still, +but I sha'n't any longer bear you a grudge if you out me!" + +I was horrified. + +"My dear fellow," I cried, "do you mean to say this makes no +difference?" + +"It does to Quinby. I must keep my hands off him, I suppose, though to +my mind he deserves his licking all the more." + +"But does it make no difference to _you_? My good boy, can you at your +age seriously think of marrying a woman who has been married twice +already, and divorced once?" + +"I didn't know that when I thought of it first," he answered, doggedly, +"and I am not going to let it make a difference now. Do you suppose I +would stand away from her because of anything that's past and over? Do +they stand away from us for--that sort of thing?" + +Of course I said that was rather different, with as much conviction as +though the ancient dogma had been my own. + +"But, Duncan, you know it's the very last thing you're dreaming of doing +yourself!" + +And again I argued, as feebly as you please, that it was quite different +in my case--that I was a good ten years older than he, and not my +mother's only son. + +Bob stiffened on the spot. + +"My mother must take care of herself," said he; "and I," he added, "I +must take care of myself, if you don't mind. And I hope you won't, for +you've been most awfully good to me, you know! I never thought so until +these last few minutes; but now I sha'n't forget it, no matter how it +all turns out!" + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +SUB JUDICE + + +Well, I made a belated attempt to earn my young friend's good opinion. I +kept out of his way after dinner, and went in search of Quinby instead. +I felt I had a crow of my own to pluck with this gentleman, who owed to +my timely intervention a far greater immunity than he deserved. It was +in the little billiard-room I found him, pachydermatously applauding the +creditable attempts of Sir John Sankey at the cannon game, and as +studiously ignoring the excellent shots of an undistinguished clergyman +who was beating the judge. Quinby made room for me beside him, with a +civility which might have caused me some compunction, but I repaid him +by coming promptly to my point. + +"What's this report about Mrs. Lascelles?" I asked, not angrily at all, +for naturally my feeling in the matter was not so strong as Bob's, but +with a certain contemptuous interest, if a man can judge of his own +outward manner from his inner temper at the time. + +Quinby favoured me with a narrow though a sidelong look; the room was +very full, and in the general chit-chat, punctuated by the constant +clicking of the heavy balls, there was very little danger of our being +overheard. But Quinby was careful to lower his voice. + +"It's perfectly true," said he, "if you mean about her being divorced." + +"Yes, that was what I heard; but who started the report?" + +"Who started it. You may well ask! Who starts anything in a place like +this? Ah, good shot, Sir John, good shot!" + +"Never mind the good shots, Quinby. I really rather want to talk to you +about this. I sha'n't keep you long." + +"Talk away, then. I am listening." + +"Mrs. Lascelles and I are rather friends." + +"So I can see." + +"Very well, then, I want to know who started all this. It may be +perfectly true, as you say, but who found it out? If you can't tell me +I must ask somebody else." + +The ruddy Alpine colouring had suddenly become accentuated in the case +of Quinby. + +"As a matter of fact," said he, "it was I who first heard of it, quite +by chance. You can't blame me for that, Clephane." + +"Of course not," said I encouragingly. + +"Well, unfortunately I let it out; and you know how things get about in +an hotel." + +"It was unfortunate," I agreed. "But how on earth did you come to hear?" + +Quinby hummed and hawed; he had heard from a soldier friend, a man who +had known her in India, a man whom I knew myself, in fact Hamilton the +sapper, who had telegraphed to Quinby to secure me my room. I ought to +have been disarmed by the coincidence; but I recalled our initial +conversation, about India and Hamilton and Mrs. Lascelles, and I could +not consider it a coincidence at all. + +"You don't mean to tell me," said I, aping the surprise I might have +felt, "that our friend wrote and gave Mrs. Lascelles away to you of his +own accord?" + +But Quinby did not vouchsafe an answer. "Hard luck, Sir John!" cried +he, as the judge missed an easy cannon, leaving his opponent a still +easier one, which lost him the game. I proceeded to press my question in +a somewhat stronger form, though still with all the suavity at my +command. + +"Surely," I urged, "you must have written to ask him about her first?" + +"That's my business, I fancy," said Quinby, with a peculiarly aggressive +specimen of the nasal snigger of which enough was made in a previous +chapter, but of which Quinby himself never tired. + +"Quite," I agreed; "but do you also consider it your business to inquire +deliberately into the past life of a lady whom I believe you only know +by sight, and to spread the result of your inquiries broadcast in the +hotel? Is that your idea of chivalry? I shall ask Sir John Sankey +whether it is his," I added, as the judge joined us with genial +condescension, and I recollected that his proverbial harshness toward +the male offender was redeemed by an extraordinary sympathy with the +women. Thereupon I laid a general case before Sir John, asking him +point-blank whether he considered such conduct as Quinby's (but I did +not say whose the conduct was) either justifiable in itself or conducive +to the enjoyment of a holiday community like ours. + +"It depends," said the judge, cocking a critical eye on the now furious +Quinby. "I am afraid we most of us enjoy our scandal, and for my part I +always like to see a humbug catch it hot. But if the scandal's about a +woman, and if it's an old scandal, and if she's a lonely woman, that +quite alters the case, and in my opinion the author of it deserves all +he gets." + +At this Quinby burst out, with an unrestrained heat that did not lower +him in my estimation, though the whole of his tirade was directed +exclusively against me. I had been talking "at" him, he declared. I +might as well have been straightforward while I was about it. He, for +his part, was not afraid to take the responsibility for anything he +might have said. It was perfectly true, to begin with. The so-called +Mrs. Lascelles, who was such a friend of mine, had been the wife of a +German Jew in Lahore, who had divorced her on her elopement with a +Major Lascelles, whom she had left in his turn, and whose name she had +not the smallest right to bear. Quinby exercised some restraint in the +utterances of these calumnies, or the whole room must have heard them, +but even as it was we had more listeners than the judge when my turn +came. + +"I won't give you the lie, Quinby, because I am quite sure you don't +know you are telling one," said I; "but as a matter of fact you are +giving currency to two. In the first place, this lady is Mrs. Lascelles, +for the major did marry her; in the second place, Major Lascelles is +dead." + +"And how do you know?" inquired Quinby, with a touch of genuine surprise +to mitigate an insolent disbelief. + +"You forget," said I, "that it was in India I knew your own informant. I +can only say that my information in all this matter is a good deal +better than his. I knew Mrs. Lascelles herself quite well out there; I +knew the other side of her case. It doesn't seem to have struck you, +Quinby, that such a woman must have suffered a good deal before, and +after, taking such a step. Or I don't suppose you would have spread +yourself to make her suffer a little more," + +And I still consider that a charitable view of his behaviour; but Quinby +was of another opinion, which he expressed with his offensive little +laugh as he lifted his long body from the settee. + +"This is what one gets for securing a room for a man one doesn't know!" +said he. + +"On the contrary," I retorted, "I haven't forgotten that, and I have +saved you something because of it. I happen to have saved you no less +than a severe thrashing from a stronger man than myself, who is even +more indignant with you than I am, and who wanted to borrow one of my +sticks for the purpose!" + +"And it would have served him perfectly right," was the old judge's +comment, when the mischief-maker had departed without returning my +parting shot. "I suppose you meant young Evers, Captain Clephane?" + +"I did indeed, Sir John. I had to tell him the truth in order to +restrain him." + +The old judge raised his eyebrows. + +"Then you hadn't to tell him it before? You are certainly consistent, +and I rather admire your position as regards the lady. But I am not so +sure that it was altogether fair toward the lad. It is one thing to +stand up for the poor soul, my dear sir, but it would be another thing +to let a nice boy like that go and marry her!" + +So that was the opinion of this ripe old citizen of the world! It ought +not to have irritated me as it did. It would be Catherine's opinion, of +course; but a dispassionate view was not to be expected from her. I had +not hitherto thought otherwise, myself; but now I experienced a perverse +inclination to take the opposite side. Was it so utterly impossible for +a woman with this woman's record to make a good wife to some man yet? I +did not admit it for an instant; he would be a lucky man who won so +healthy and so good a heart; thus I argued to myself with Mrs. Lascelles +in my mind, and nobody else. But Bob Evers was not a man, I was not sure +that he was out of his teens, and to think of him was to think at once +with Sir John Sankey and all the rest. Yes, yes, it would be madness and +suicide in such a youth; there could be no two opinions about that; and +yet I felt indignant at the mildest expression of that which I myself +could not deny. + +Such was my somewhat chaotic state of mind when I had fled the +billiard-room in my turn, and put on my overcoat and cap to commune with +myself outside. Nobody did justice to Mrs. Lascelles; it was terribly +hard to do her justice; those were perhaps the ideas that were oftenest +uppermost. I did not see how I was to be the exception and prove the +rule; my brief was for Bob, and there was an end of it. It was foolish +to worry, especially on such a night. The moon had waxed since my +arrival, and now hung almost round and altogether dazzling in the little +sky the mountains left us. Yet I had the terrace all to myself; the +magnificent voice of our latest celebrity had drawn everybody else in +doors, or under the open drawing-room windows through which it poured +out into the glorious night. And in the vivid moonlight the very +mountains seemed to have gathered about the little human hive upon their +heights, to be listening to the grand rich notes that had some right to +break their ancient silence. + + "If doughty deeds my lady please, + Right soon I'll mount my steed; + And strong his arm, and fast his seat, + That bears frae me the meed. + I'll wear thy colours in my cap, + Thy picture at my heart; + And he that bends not to thine eye + Shall rue it to his smart!" + +It was a brave new setting to brave old lines, as simple and direct as +themselves, studiously in keeping, passionate, virile, almost inspired; +and the whole so justly given that the great notes did not drown the +words as they often will, but all came clean to the ear. No wonder the +hotel held its breath! I was standing entranced myself, an outpost of +the audience underneath the windows, whose fringe I could just see round +the uttermost angle of the hotel, when Bob Evers ran down the steps, and +came toward me in such guise that I could not swear to him till the last +yard. + +"Don't say a word," he whispered excitedly. "I'm just off!" + +"Off where?" I gasped, for he had changed into full mountaineering garb, +and there was his greased face beaming in the moonlight, and the blue +spectacles twinkling about his hat-band, at half-past nine at night. + +"Up the Matterhorn!" + +"At this time of night?" + +"It is a bit late, and that's why I want it kept quiet. I don't want any +fuss or advice. I've got a couple of excellent guides waiting for me +just below by the shoemaker's hut. I told you I was on their tracks. +Well, it was to-night or never as far as they were concerned, they are +so tremendously full up. So to-night it is, and don't you remind me of +my mother!" + +I was thinking of her when he spoke; for the song had swung through a +worthy refrain into another verse, and now I knew it better. It was +Catherine who had introduced me to all my lyrics; it was to Catherine I +had once hymned this one in my unformed heart. + +"But I thought," said I, as I forced myself to think, "that everybody +went up to the _Cabane_ overnight, and started fresh from there in the +morning?" + +"Most people do, but it's as broad as it's long," declared Bob, airily, +rapidly, and with the same unwonted excitement, born as I thought of +his unwonted enterprise. "You have a ripping moonlight walk instead of a +so-called night's rest in a frowsy hut. We shall get our breakfast there +instead, and I expect to start fresher than if I had slept there and +been knocked up at two o'clock in the morning. That's all settled, +anyhow, and you can look for me on top through the telescope after +breakfast. I shall be back before dark, and then--" + +"Well, what then?" I asked, for Bob had made a significant and yet +irresolute pause, as though he could not quite bring himself to tell me +something that was on his mind. + +"Well," he echoed nonchalantly at last, as though he had not hesitated +at all, "as a matter of fact, to-morrow night I am to know my fate. I +have asked Mrs. Lascelles to marry me, and she hasn't said no, but I am +giving her till to-morrow night. That's all, Clephane. I thought it a +fair thing to let you know. If you want to waltz in and try your luck +while I'm gone, there's nothing on earth to prevent you, and it might be +most satisfactory to everybody. As a matter of fact, I'm only going so +as to get over the time and keep out of the way." + +"As a matter of fact?" I queried, waving a little stick toward the +lighted windows. "Listen a minute, and then tell me!" + +And we listened together to the last and clearest rendering of the +refrain-- + + "Then tell me how to woo thee, Love; + O tell me how to woo thee! + For thy dear sake, nae care I'll take, + Tho' ne'er another trow me!" + +"What tosh!" shouted Bob (his mother should have heard him) through the +applause. "Of course I'm going to take care of myself, and of course I +meant to rush the Matterhorn while I'm here, but between ourselves +that's my only reason for rushing it to-night." + +Yet had he no boyish vision of quick promotion in the lady's heart, no +primitive desire to show his mettle out of hand, to set her trembling +while he did or died? He had, I thought, and he had not; that shining +face could only have reflected a single and candid heart. But it is +these very natures, so simple and sweet-hearted and transparent, that +are least to be trusted on the subject of their own motives and +emotions, for they are the soonest deceived, not only by others but in +themselves. Or so I venture to think, and even then reflected, as I +shook my dear lad's hand by the side parapet of the moonlit terrace, and +watched him run down into the shadows of the fir-trees and so out of my +sight with two dark and stalwart figures that promptly detached +themselves from the shadows of the shoemaker's hut. A third figure +mounted to where I now sat listening to the easy, swinging, confident +steps, as they fell fainter and fainter upon the ear; it was the +shoemaker himself who had shod my two sticks with spikes and my boots +with formidable nails; and we exchanged a few words in a mixture of +languages which I should be very sorry to reproduce. + +"Do you know those two guides?" is what I first asked in effect. + +"Very well, monsieur." + +"Are they good guides?" + +"The very best, monsieur." + + + + +CHAPTER X + +THE LAST WORD + + +"Is that you?" + +It was an hour or so later, but still I sat ruminating upon the parapet, +within a yard or two of the spot where I had first accosted Bob Evers +and Mrs. Lascelles. I had retraced the little sequence of subsequent +events, paltry enough in themselves, yet of a certain symmetry and some +importance as a whole. I had attacked and defended my own conduct down +to that hour, when I ought to have been formulating its logical +conclusion, and during my unprofitable deliberations the night had aged +and altered (as it were) behind my back. There was no more music in the +drawing-room. There were no more people under the drawing-room windows. +The lights in all the lower windows were not what they had been; it was +the bedroom tiers that were illuminated now. But I did not realise that +there was less light outside until I awoke to the fact that Mrs. +Lascelles was peering tentatively toward me, and putting her question in +such an uncertain tone. + +"That depends who I am supposed to be," I answered, laughing as I rose +to put my personality beyond doubt. + +"How stupid of me!" laughed Mrs. Lascelles in her turn, though rather +nervously to my fancy. "I thought it was Mr. Evers!" + +I had hard work to suppress an exclamation. So he had not told her what +he was going to do, and yet he had not forbidden me to tell her. Poor +Bob was more subtle than I had supposed, but it was a simple subtlety, a +strange chord but still in key with his character as I knew it. + +"I am sorry to disappoint you," said I. "But I am afraid you won't see +any more of Bob Evers to-night." + +"What do you mean?" asked Mrs. Lascelles, suspiciously. + +"I wonder he didn't tell you," I replied, to gain time in which to +decide how to make the best use of such an unforeseen opportunity. + +"Well, he didn't; so please will you, Captain Clephane?" + +"Bob Evers," said I, with befitting gravity, "is climbing the Matterhorn +at this moment." + +"Never!" + +"At least he has started." + +"When did he start?" + +"An hour or more ago, with a couple of guides." + +"He told you, then?" + +"Only just as he was starting." + +"Was it a sudden idea?" + +"More or less, I think." + +I waited for the next question, but that was the last of them. Just then +the interloping cloud floated clear of the moon, and I saw that my +companion was wrapped up as on the earlier night, in the same +unconventional combination of rain-coat and golf-cape; but now the hood +hung down, and the sudden rush of moonlight showed me a face as full of +sheer perplexity and annoyance as I could have hoped to find it, and as +free from deeper feeling. + +"The silly boy!" exclaimed Mrs. Lascelles at last. "I suppose it really +is pretty safe, Captain Clephane?" + +"Safer than most dangerous things, I believe; and they are the safest, +as you know, because you take most care. He has a couple of excellent +guides; the chance of getting them was partly why he went. In all human +probability we shall have him back safe and sound, and fearfully pleased +with himself, long before this time to-morrow. Meanwhile, Mrs. +Lascelles," I continued with the courage of my opportunity, "it is a +very good chance for me to speak to you about our friend Bob. I have +wanted to do so for some little time." + +"Have you, indeed?" said Mrs. Lascelles, coldly. + +"I have," I answered imperturbably; "and if it wasn't so late I should +ask for a hearing now." + +"Oh, let us get it over, by all means!" + +But as she spoke Mrs. Lascelles glanced over the shoulder that she +shrugged so contemptuously, toward the lights in the bedroom windows, +most of which were wide open. + +"We could walk toward the zig-zags," I suggested. "There is a seat +within a hundred yards, if you don't think it too cold to sit, but in +any case I needn't keep you many minutes. Bob Evers," I continued, as my +suggestion was tacitly accepted, "paid me the compliment of confiding in +me somewhat freely before he started on this hare-brained expedition of +his." + +"So it appears." + +"Ah, but he didn't only tell me what he was going to do; he told me why +he was doing it," said I, as we sauntered on our way side by side. "It +was difficult to believe," I added, when I had waited long enough for +the question upon which I had reckoned. + +"Indeed?" + +"He said he had proposed to you." + +And again I waited, but never a word. + +"That child!" I added with deliberate scorn. + +But a further pause was broken only by my companion's measured steps and +my own awkward shuffle. + +"That baby!" I insisted. + +"Did you tell him he was one, Captain Clephane?" asked Mrs. Lascelles, +dryly, but drawn so far at last. + +"I spared his feelings. But can it be true, Mrs. Lascelles?" + +"It is true." + +"Is it a fact that you didn't give him a definite answer?" + +"I don't know what business it is of yours," said Mrs. Lascelles, +bluntly; "and since he seems to have told you everything, neither do I +know why you should ask me. However, it is quite true that I did not +finally refuse him on the spot." + +This carefully qualified confirmation should have afforded me abundant +satisfaction. I was over-eager in the matter, however, and I cried out +impetuously: + +"But you will?" + +"Will what?" + +"Refuse the boy!" + +We had reached the seat, but neither of us sat down. Mrs. Lascelles +appeared to be surveying me with equal resentment and defiance. I, on +the other hand, having shot my bolt, did my best to look conciliatory. + +"Why should I refuse him?" she asked at length, with less emotion and +more dignity than her bearing had led me to expect. "You seem so sure +about it, you know!" + +"He is such a boy--such an utter child--as I said just now." I was +conscious of the weakness of saying it again, and it alone, but my +strongest arguments were too strong for direct statement. + +This one, however, was not unfruitful in the end. + +"And I," said Mrs. Lascelles, "how old do you think I am? Thirty-five?" + +"Of course not," I replied, with obvious gallantry. "But I doubt if Bob +is even twenty." + +"Well, then, you won't believe me, but I was married before I was his +age, and I am just six-and-twenty now." + +It was a surprise to me. I did not doubt it for a moment; one never did +doubt Mrs. Lascelles. It was indeed easy enough to believe (so much I +told her) if one looked upon the woman as she was, and only difficult in +the prejudicial light of her matrimonial record. I did not add these +things. "But you are a good deal older," I could not help saying, "in +the ways of the world, and it is there that Bob is such an absolute +infant." + +"But I thought an Eton boy was a man of the world?" said Mrs. Lascelles, +quoting me against myself with the utmost readiness. + +"Ah, in some things," I had to concede. "Only in some things, however." + +"Well," she rejoined, "of course I know what you mean by the other +things. They matter to your mind much more than mere age, even if I had +been fifteen years older, instead of five or six. It's the old story, +from the man's point of view. You can live anything down, but you won't +let us. There is no fresh start for a woman; there never was and never +will be." + +I protested that this was unfair. "I never said that, or anything like +it, Mrs. Lascellcs!" + +"No, you don't say it, but you think it!" she cried back. "It is the one +thing you have in your mind. I was unhappy, I did wrong, so I can never +be happy, I can never do right! I am unfit to marry again, to marry a +good man, even if he loves me, even if I love him!" + +"I neither say nor think anything of the kind," I reiterated, and with +some slight effect this time. Mrs. Lascelles put no more absurdities +into my mouth. + +"Then what do you say?" she demanded, her deep voice vibrant with +scornful indignation, though there were tears in it too. + +"I think he will be a lucky fellow who gets you," I said, and meant +every word, as I looked at her well in the moonlight, with her shining +eyes, and curling lip, and fighting flush. + +"Thank you, Captain Clephane!" + +And I thought I was to be honoured with a contemptuous courtesy; but I +was not. + +"He ought to be a man, however," I went on, "and not a boy, and still +less the only child of a woman with whom you would never get on." + +"So you are as sure of that," exclaimed Mrs. Lascelles, "as of +everything else!" It seemed, however, to soften her, or at least to +change the current of her thoughts. "Yet you get on with her?" she added +with a wistful intonation. + +I could not deny that I got on with Catherine Evers. + +"You are even fond of her?" + +"Quite fond." + +"Then do you find me a very disagreeable person, that she and I couldn't +possibly hit it off, in your opinion?" + +"It isn't that, Mrs. Lascelles," said I, almost wearily. "You must know +what it is. You want to marry her son--" + +Mrs. Lascelles smiled. + +"Well, let us suppose you do. That would be quite enough for Mrs. Evers. +No matter who you were, how peerless, how incomparable in every way, she +would rather die than let you marry him at his age. I don't say she's +wrong--I don't say she's right. I give you the plain fact for what it is +worth: you would find her from the first a clever and determined +adversary, a regular little lioness with her cub, and absolutely +intolerant on that particular point." + +I could see Catherine as I spoke, the Catherine I had seen last, and +liked least to remember; but the vision faded before the moonlit reality +of Mrs. Lascelles, laughing to herself like a great, naughty, pretty +child. + +"I really think I must marry him," she said, "and see what happens!" + +"If you do," I answered, in all seriousness, "you will begin by +separating mother and son, and end by making both their lives miserable, +and bringing the last misery into your own." + +And either my tone impressed her, or the covert reminder in my last +words; for the bold smile faded from her face, and she looked longer and +more searchingly in mine than she had done as yet. + +"You know Mrs. Evers exceedingly well," Mrs. Lascelles remarked. + +"I did years ago," I guardedly replied. + +"Do you mean to say," urged my companion, "that you have not seen her +for years?" + +I did not altogether like her tone. Yet it was so downright and +straightforward, it was hard to be the very reverse in answer to it, and +I shied idiotically at the honest lie. I had quite lost sight both of +Bob and his mother, I declared, from the day I went to India until now. + +"You mean until you came out here?" persisted Mrs. Lascelles. + +"Until the other day," I said, relying on a carefully affirmative tone +to close the subject. There was a pause. I began to hope I had +succeeded. The flattering tale was never finished. + +"I believe," said Mrs. Lascelles, "that you saw Mrs. Evers in town +before you started." + +It was too late to lie. + +"As a matter of fact," I answered easily, "I did." + +I built no hopes on the pause which followed that. Somehow I had my face +to the moon, and Mrs. Lascelles had her back. Yet I knew that her +scrutiny of me was more critical than ever. + +"How funny of Bob never to have told me!" she said. + +"Told you what?" + +"That you saw his mother just before you left." + +"I didn't tell him," I said at length. + +"That was funny of you, Captain Clephane." + +"On the contrary," I argued, with the impudence which was now my only +chance, "it was only natural. Bob was rather raw with his friend +Kennerley, you see. You knew about that?" + +"Oh, yes." + +"And why they fell out?" + +"Yes." + +"Well, he might have thought the other fellow had been telling tales, +and that I had come out to have an eye on him, if he had known that I +happened to see his mother just before I started." + +There was another pause; but now I was committed to an attitude, and +prepared for the worst. + +"Perhaps there would have been some truth in it?" suggested Mrs. +Lascelles. + +"Perhaps," I agreed, "a little." + +The pause now was the longest of all. It had no terrors for me. Another +cloud had come between us and the moon. I was sorry for that. I felt +that I was missing something. Even the fine upstanding figure before me +was no longer sharp enough to be expressive. + +"I have been harking back," explained Mrs. Lascelles, eventually. "Now I +begin to follow. You saw his mother, you heard a report, and you +volunteered or at least consented to come out and keep an eye on the +dear boy, as you say yourself. Am I not more or less right so far, +Captain Clephane?" + +Her tone was frozen honey. + +"More or less," I admitted ironically. + +"Of course, I don't know what report that other miserable young man may +have carried home with him. I don't want to know. But I can guess. One +does not stay in hotel after hotel without getting a pretty shrewd idea +of the way people talk about one. I know the sort of things they have +been saying here. You would hear them yourself, no doubt, Captain +Clephane, as soon as you arrived." + +I admitted that I had, but reminded Mrs. Lascelles that the first person +I had spoken to was also the greatest gossip in the hotel. She paid no +attention to the remark, but stood looking at me again, with the look +that I could never quite see to read. + +"And then," she went on, "you found out who it was, and you remembered +all about me, and your worst fears were confirmed. That must have been +an interesting moment. I wonder how you felt.... Did it never occur to +you to speak plainly to anybody?" + +"I wasn't going to give you away," I said, stolidly, though with no +conscious parade of virtue. + +"Yet, you see, it would have made no difference if you had! Did you +seriously think it would make much difference, Captain Clephane, to a +really chivalrous young man?" I bowed my head to the well-earned taunt. +"But," she went on, "there was no need for you to speak to Mr. Evers. +You might have spoken to me. Why did you not do that?" + +"Because I didn't want to quarrel with you," I answered quite honestly; +"because I enjoyed your society too much myself." + +"That was very nice of you," said Mrs. Lascelles, with a sudden although +subtle return of the good-nature which had always attracted me. "If it +is sincere," she added, as an apparent afterthought. + +"I am perfectly sincere now." + +"Then what do you think I should do?" she asked me, in the soft new tone +which actually flattered me with the idea that she was making up her +mind to take my advice. + +"Refuse this lad!" + +"And then?" she almost whispered. + +"And then--" + +I hesitated. I found it hard to say what I thought, hard even upon +myself. We had been good friends. I admired the woman cordially; her +society was pleasant to me, as it always had been. Nevertheless, we had +just engaged in a duel of no friendly character; and now that we seemed +of a sudden to have become friends again, it was the harder to give her +the only advice which I considered compatible alike with my duty and the +varied demands of the situation. If she took it as she seemed disposed +to do, the immediate loss would be mine, and I foresaw besides a much +more disagreeable reckoning with Bob Evers than the one now approaching +an amicable conclusion. I should have to stay behind to face the music +of his wrath alone. Still, at the risk of appearing brutal I made my +proposal in plain terms; but, to minimise that risk, I ventured to take +the lady's hand and was glad to find the familiarity permitted in the +same friendly spirit in which it was indulged. + +"I would have no 'and then,'" I said, "if I were you. I should refuse +him under such circumstances that he couldn't possibly bother you, or +himself about you, again. Now is your opportunity." + +"Is it?" she asked, a thrilling timbre in her low voice. And I fancied +there was a kindred tremor in the firm warm hand within mine. + +"The best of opportunities," I replied, "if you are not too wedded to +this place, and can tear yourself away from the rest of us." (Her hand +lay loose in mine.) "Mrs. Lascelles, I should go to-morrow morning" (her +hand fell away altogether), "while he is still up the Matterhorn and I +shouldn't let him know where I--shouldn't give him a chance of finding +out--" + +A sudden peal of laughter cut me short. I could not have believed it +came from my companion. But no other soul was near us, though I looked +all ways. It was the merriest laughter imaginable, only the merriment +was harsh and hard. + +"Oh, thank you, Captain Clephane! You are too delicious! I saw it +coming; I only wondered whether I could contain myself until it came. +Yet I could hardly believe that even you would commit yourself to that +finishing touch of impudence! Certainly it is an opportunity, _his_ +being out of the way. _You_ were not long in making use of it, were you? +It will amuse him when he comes down, though it may open his eyes. I +shall tell him everything, so I give you warning. Every single thing, +that you have had the insolence to tell me!" + +She had caught up her skirts from the ground, she had half turned away +from me, toward the hotel. The false merriment had died out of her. The +true indignation remained, ringing in every accent of the deep sweet +voice, and drawn up in every inch of the tall straight figure. I do not +remember whether the moon was hid or shining at the moment. I only know +that my lady's eyes shone bright enough for me to see them then and ever +after, bright and dry with a scorn that burnt too hot for tears; and +that I admired her even while she scorned me, as I had never thought to +admire any woman but one, but this woman least of all. + +So we both stood, intent, some seconds, looking our last upon each other +if I was wise. Then I lifted my hat, and offered my congratulations +(more sincere than they sounded) to her and Bob. + +"Did I tell you why he is going up?" I added. "It is to pass the time +until he knows his fate. If only we could let him know it now!" + +Mrs. Lascelles glanced toward the mountain, and my eyes followed hers. +A great cloud hid the grim outstanding summit. + +"If only you had prevented him from going!" she cried back at me in a +last reproach; and to me her tone was conclusive, it rang so true, and +so invidiously free from the smaller emotions which it had been my own +unhappiness to inspire. It was the real woman who had spoken out once +more, suddenly, perhaps unthinkingly, but obviously from her heart. And +as she turned, I followed her very slowly and without a word; for now +was I surely and deservedly undone. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +THE LION'S MOUTH + + +It was a chilly morning, with rather a high wind; from the haze about +the mountains of the Zermatt valley, which were all that I could see +from my bedroom window, it occurred to me that I might look in vain for +the Matterhorn from the other side of the hotel. It was still visible, +however, when I came down, a white cloud wound about its middle like a +cloth, and the hotel telescope already trained upon its summit from the +shelter of the glass veranda. + +"See anybody?" I asked of a man who sat at the telescope as though his +eye was frozen to the lens. He might have been witnessing the most +exciting adventure, where the naked eye saw only rock and snow, and cold +grey sky; but he rose at last with a shake of the head, a great gaunt +man with kind keen eyes, and the skin peeled off his nose. + +"No," said he, "I can't see anybody, and I'm very glad I can't. It's +about as bad a morning for it as you could possibly have; yet last night +was so fine that some fellows might have got up to the hut, and been +foolish enough not to come down again. But have a look for yourself." + +"Oh, thanks," said I, considerably relieved at what I heard, "but if you +can't see anybody I'm sure I can't. You have done it yourself, I +daresay?" + +The gaunt man smiled demurely, and the keen eyes twinkled in his flayed +face. He was, indeed, a palpable mountaineer. + +"What, the Matterhorn?" said he, lowering his voice and looking about +him as if on the point of some discreditable admission. "Oh, yes, I've +done the Matterhorn, back and front and both sides, with and without +guides; but everybody has, in these days. It's nothing when you know the +ropes and chains and things. They've got everything up there now except +an iron staircase. Still, I should be sorry to tackle it to-day, even if +they had a lift!" + +"Do you think guides would?" I asked, less reassured than I had felt at +first. + +"It depends on the guides. They are not the first to turn back, as a +rule; but they like wind and mist even less than we do. The guides know +what wind and mist mean." + +I now understood the special disadvantages of the day and realised the +obvious dangers. I could only hope that either Bob Evers or his guides +had shown the one kind of courage required by the occasion, the moral +courage of turning back. But I was not at all sure of Bob. His stimulus +was not that of the single-minded, level-headed mountaineer; in his +romantic exaltation he was capable of hailing the very perils as so many +more means of grace in the sight of Mrs. Lascelles; yet without doubt he +would have repudiated any such incentive, and that in all the sincerity +of his simple heart. He did not know himself as I knew him. + +My fears were soon confirmed. Returning to the glass veranda, after the +stock breakfast of the Swiss hotel, with its horseshoe rolls and +fabricated honey, I found the telescope the centre of an ominous crowd, +on whose fringe hovered my new friend the mountaineer. + +"We were wrong," he muttered to me. "Some fools are up there, after +all." + +"How many?" I asked quickly. + +"I don't know. There's no getting near the telescope now, and won't be +till the clouds blot them out altogether." + +I looked out at the Matterhorn. The loincloth of cloud had shaken itself +out into a flowing robe, from which only the brown skull of the mountain +protruded in its white skull-cap. + +"There are three of them," announced a nasal voice from the heart of the +little crowd. "A great long chap and two guides." + +"He can't possibly know that," remarked the mountaineer to me, "but +let's hope it is so." + +"They're as plain as pike-staffs," continued Quinby, whose bent blond +head I now distinguished, as he occupied the congenial post of Sister +Anne. "They seem stuck.... No, they're getting up on to the snow-slope, +and the front man's cutting steps." + +"Then they're all right for the present," said the mountaineer. "It's +the getting down that's ticklish." + +"You can see the rope blowing about between them ... what a wind there +must be ... it's bent out taut like a bow, you can see it against the +snow, and they're bending themselves more than forty-five degrees to +meet it." + +"All very well going _up_," murmured the mountaineer: there was a +sinister innuendo in the curt comments of the practical man. + +I turned into the hall. It, however, was quite deserted. I had hoped I +might see something of Mrs. Lascelles; she was not one of those in the +glass veranda. I now looked in the drawing-room, but neither was she +there. Returning to the empty hall, I passed a minute peering through +the locked glass door of the pigeon-holes in which the careful concierge +files the unclaimed letters. There was nothing for me that I could +discern, in the C pigeon-hole; but next door but one, under E, there lay +on the very top a letter which caught my eye and more. It had not been +through any post. It was a note directed to R. Evers, Esq., in a hand +that I knew instinctively to be that of Mrs. Lascelles, though I had +never seen it in my life before. It was a good hand, but large and bold +and downright as herself. + +The concierge stood in the doorway, one eye on the disappearing +Matterhorn, one on the experts and others in animated conclave round the +still inaccessible telescope. I touched the concierge on the arm. + +"Did you see Mrs. Lascelles this morning?" + +The man's eyes opened before his lips. + +"She has gone away, sir." + +"I know," I said, having indeed divined no less. "What train did she +catch?" + +"The first one from here. That also catches the early train from +Zermatt." + +"I am sorry," I said after a pause. "I hoped to see Mrs. Lascelles +before she went; now I must write. She left you an address, I suppose?" + +"Oh, yes, sir." + +"I shall ask you for it later on. No letters for me, I suppose?" + +"No, sir." + +"Sure?" + +"I will look again." + +And I looked with him, over his shoulder; but there was nothing; and +the note for Bob Evers now inspired me with a tripartite blend of +curiosity, envy, and apprehension. I would have had a last word from the +same hand myself; had it been never so scornful, this silent scorn was +the harder sort to bear. Also I wanted much to know what her last word +was to Bob--and dreaded more what it might be. + +There remained the unexpected triumph of having got rid of my lady after +all. That is not to be belittled even now. It is a triumph to succeed in +any undertaking, more especially when one has abandoned one's own last +hope of such success. The unpleasant character of this particular +emprise made its eventual accomplishment in some ways the greater matter +for congratulation in my eyes. At least I had done my part. I had come +to hate it, but the thing was done, and it had been a fairly difficult +thing to do. It was impossible not to plume oneself a little on the +whole, but the feeling was a superficial one, with deeper and uneasier +feelings underneath. Still, I had practically redeemed my impulsive +promise to Catherine Evers; her son and this woman once parted, it +should be easy to keep them apart, and my knowledge of the woman +forbade me to deny the fullest significance to her departure. She had +gone away to stay away--from Bob. She had listened to me the less with +her ears, because her reason and her heart had been compelled to heed. +To be sure, she saw the unsuitability, the impossibility, as clearly as +we did. But it was I who, at all events, had helped to make her see it; +wherefore I deserved well of Catherine Evers, if of no other person in +the world. + +Oddly enough, this last consideration afforded me least satisfaction; it +seemed to bring home to me by force of contrast the poor figure that I +must assuredly cut in the eyes of the other two, the still poorer +opinion that they would have of me if ever they knew all. I did not care +to pursue this train of thought. It was a subject upon which I was not +prepared to examine myself; to change it, I thought of Bob's present +peril, which I had almost forgotten as I lounged abstractedly in the +empty hall. If anything were to happen to him, in the vulgar sense! What +an irony, what poetic punishment for us survivors! And yet, even as I +rehearsed the ghastly climax in my mind, I told myself that the mother +would rather see him even thus, than married to a widow who had also +been divorced; it was the younger woman who would never forgive me, or +herself. + +Disappointed faces met me on my next visit to the veranda. The little +crowd there had dwindled to a group. I could have had the telescope now +for as long as I liked: the upper part of the Matterhorn was finally and +utterly effaced and swallowed up by dense white mist and cloud. My +friend the mountaineer looked grave, but his disfigured face did not +wear the baulked expression of others to which he drew my attention. + +"It is like the curtain coming down with the man's head still in the +lion's mouth," said he. + +"I hope," said I devoutly, "that you don't seriously think there's any +analogy?" + +The climber looked at me steadily, and then smiled. + +"Well, no, perhaps I don't think it quite so bad as all that. But it's +no use pretending it isn't dangerous. May I ask if you know who the +foolhardy fellow is?" + +I said I did not know, but mentioned my suspicion, only begging my +climbing friend not to let the name go any farther. It was in too many +mouths already, in quite another connection, I was going on to explain; +but the mountaineer nodded, as much as to warn me that even he knew all +about that. It was Bob's office, however, to provide the hotel with its +sensation while he remained, and he was not allowed to perform +anonymously very long. His departure over night leaked out. I was asked +if it was true. The flight of Mrs. Lascelles was the next discovery; +desperate deductions were drawn at once. She had jilted the unlucky +youth and sent him in utter recklessness on his intentionally suicidal +ascent. Nobody any longer expected to see him come down alive; so much I +gathered from the fragments of conversation that reached my ears; and +never was better occupation for a bad day than appeared to be afforded +by the discussion of the supposititious tragedy in all its imaginary +details. As, however, the talk invariably abated at my approach, giving +place to uncomplimentary glances in my direction, I could not but infer +that public opinion had assigned me an unenviable part in the piece. +Perhaps I deserved it, though not from their point of view. + +The afternoon was at once a dreariness and a dread. There was no ray of +sun without, no sort of warmth within. The Matterhorn never reappeared, +but seemed the grimmer monster for this sinister invisibility. I +gathered that there was real occasion for anxiety, if not for alarm, and +I nursed mine chiefly in my own room until I heard the news when I went +down for my letters. Bob Evers had walked in as though nothing had +happened, and gone straight up to his room with a note that the +concierge handed him. Some one had asked him whether it was he who had +been up the Matterhorn in the morning, and young Evers had vouchsafed +the barest affirmative compatible with civility. The sunburnt climber +was my informant. + +"And I don't mind telling you it is a relief to me," he added, "and to +everybody, though I shouldn't wonder if there was a little unconscious +disappointment in the air as well. I congratulate you, for I could see +you were anxious, and I must find an opportunity of congratulating your +young friend himself." + +Meanwhile no such opportunity was afforded me, though I quite expected +and was fully prepared for another visit from Bob in my room. I waited +for him there until dinner-time, but he never came, and I was beginning +to wish he would. It was like the wrapping of the Matterhorn in mist; it +only widened the field of apprehension; and yet it was not for me to go +to the boy. My unrest was further aggravated by a letter which I had +just received from the boy's mother in answer to my first to her. It was +not a very dreadful letter; but I only trusted that no evil impulse had +caused Catherine to write in anything like the same strain to Bob; for +neither was it a very charitable letter, nor one that a man could be +glad to get from the woman whom he had set out on an enduring pinnacle. +There was only this to be said for it, that years ago I had sought in +vain for a really human weakness in Catherine Evers, and now at last I +had found one. She was rather too human about Mrs. Lascelles. + +I looked for Bob both at and after dinner, but we were never within +speaking distance and I fancied he avoided even my eye. What had Mrs. +Lascelles said? He looked redder and browner and rougher in the face, +but I heard that he would hardly open his lips at table, that he was +almost surly on the subject of his exploit. Everybody else appeared to +me to be speaking of it, or of Bob himself; but I had him on my nerves +and may well have formed an exaggerated impression about it all. Only I +do not forget some of the things I did overhear that day, and night; and +they now had the effect of sending me in search of Bob, since Bob would +not come near me. "I will have it out with him," I grimly decided, "and +then get out of this myself by the first train going." I had had quite +enough of the place that had enchanted me up to the last four-and-twenty +hours. I began to see myself back in Elm Park Gardens. There, at least, +if also there alone, I should get some credit for what I had done. + +It was no use looking for Bob upon the terrace now; yet I did look +there, among other obvious places, before I could bring myself to knock +at his door. There was a light in his room, so I knew that he was there, +and he cried out admittance in so sharp a tone that I fancied he also +knew who knocked. I found him packing in his shirt-sleeves. He received +me with a stare in exact keeping with his tone. What on earth had Mrs. +Lascelles said? + +"Going away?" I asked, as a mere preliminary, and I shut the door behind +me. Bob followed the action with raised eyebrows, then flung me the +shortest possible affirmative, as he bent once more over the suit-case on +the bed. + +But in a few seconds he looked up. + +"Anything I can do for you, Clephane?" + +"That depends where you are going." + +Bob went on packing with a smile. I guessed where he was going. "I +thought there might be something pressing," he remarked, without looking +up again. + +"There is," said I. "There is something you can do for me on the spot. +You can try to believe that I have not meant to be quite such a skunk as +I may have seemed--to you," I was on the point of adding, but I stopped +short of that advisedly, as I thought of Mrs. Lascelles also. + +"Oh, that's all right," said Bob, in a would-be airy tone that carried +its own contradiction. "All's fair, according to the proverb; I no more +blame you than you would have blamed me. I hope, on the contrary, that I +may congratulate you." + +And he stood up with a look which, coupled with his words, made it my +turn to stare. + +"Indeed you may not," said I. + +"Aren't you engaged to her?" he asked. + +"Good God, no!" I cried. "What made you think so?" + +"Everything!" exclaimed Bob, after a moment's pause of obvious +bewilderment. "I--you see--I had a note from Mrs. Lascelles herself!" + +"Yes?" said I, carefully careless, but I wanted more than ever to know +that missive's gist. + +"Only a few lines," Bob went on, ruefully; "they are the first thing I +heard or saw when I got down, and they almost made me wish I'd come down +with a run! Well, it's no use talking about it, I only thought you'd +know. It was the usual smack in the eye, I suppose, only nicely put and +all that. She didn't tell me where she was going, or why; she told me I +had better ask you." + +"But you wouldn't condescend." + +Bob gave a rather friendly little laugh. + +"I said I'd see you damned!" he admitted. "But of course I thought you +were the lucky man. I still half believe you are!" + +"Well, I'm not." + +"Do you mean to say that she's refused you too?" + +"She hasn't had the chance." + +Bob's eyes opened to an infantile width. + +"But you told me you were in earnest!" he urged. + +"As much in earnest as you were, I believe was what I said." + +"That's the same thing," returned Bob, sharply. "You may not think it +is. I don't care what you think. But I'm very sorry you said you were in +earnest if you were not." + +And his tone convinced me that he was no longer commiserating himself; +he was sorry on some new account, and the evident reality of his regret +filled me in turn with all the qualms of a guilty conscience. + +"Why are you sorry?" I demanded. + +"Oh, not on my own account," said Bob. "I'm delighted, personally, of +course." + +"Then do you mean to say--you actually told her--I was as much in +earnest as you were?" + +Bob Evers smiled openly in my face; it was the only revenge he ever +took; and even it was tempered by the inextinguishable sweetness of +expression and the childlike wide-eyed candour which were Bob's even in +the hour of his humiliation, and will be, one hopes, all his days. + +"Not in so many words," he said, "but I am afraid I did tell her in +effect. You see, I took you at your word. I thought it was quite true. +I'm awfully sorry, Duncan. But it really does serve you right!" + +I made no answer. I was looking at the suit-case on the bed. Bob seemed +to have lost all interest in his packing. I turned to leave him without +a word. + +"I am awfully sorry!" he was the one to say again. I began to wonder +when he would see all round the point, and how it would affect his +feeling (to say nothing of his actions) when he did. Meanwhile it was +Bob who was holding out his hand. + +"So am I," I said, taking it. + +And for once I, too, was not thinking about myself. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +A STERN CHASE + + +Where had Bob been going, and where was he going now? If these were not +the first questions that I asked myself on coming away from him, they +were at all events among my last thoughts that night, and as it +happened, quite my first next morning. His voice had reached me through +my bedroom window, on the head of a dream about himself. I got up and +looked out; there was Bob Evers seeing the suit-case into the tiny train +which brings your baggage (and yourself, if you like) to the very door +of the Riffel Alp Hotel. Bob did not like and I watched him out of sight +down the winding path threaded by the shining rails. He walked slowly, +head and shoulders bent, it might be with dogged resolve, it might be in +mere depression; there was never a glimpse of his face, nor a backward +glance as he swung round the final corner, with his great-coat over his +arm. + +In spite of my curiosity as to his destination, I made no attempt to +discover it for myself, but on consideration I was guilty of certain +inquiries concerning that of Mrs. Lascelles. They had not to be very +exhaustive; she had made no secret of her original plans upon leaving +the Riffel Alp, and they did not appear to have undergone much change. I +myself left the same forenoon, and lay that night amid the smells of +Brigues, after a little tour of its hotels, in one of which I found the +name of Mrs. Lascelles in the register, while in every one I was +prepared to light upon Bob Evers in the flesh. But that encounter did +not occur. + +In the early morning I was one of a shivering handful who awaited the +diligence for the Furka Pass; and an ominous drizzle made me thankful +that my telegram of the previous day had been too late to secure me an +outside seat. It was quite damp enough within. Nor did the day improve +as we drove, or the view attract me in the least. It was at its worst as +a sight, and I at mine as a sightseer. I have as little recollection of +my fellow-passengers; but I still see the page in the hotel register at +the Rhone Glacier, with the name I sought written boldly in its place, +just twenty-four hours earlier. + +The Furka Pass has its European reputation; it would gain nothing from +my enthusiastic praises, had I any enthusiasm to draw upon, or the +descriptive powers to do it justice. But what I best remember is the +time it took us to climb those interminable zig-zags, and to shake off +the too tenacious sight of the hotel in the hollow where I had seen a +signature and eaten my lunch. Now I think of it, there were two couples +who had come so far with us, but at the Rhone Glacier they exchanged +their mutually demonstrative adieux, and I thought the couple who came +on would never have done waving to the couple who stayed behind. They +kept it up for at least an hour, and then broke out again at each of our +many last glimpses of the hotel, now hundreds of feet below. That was +the only diversion until these energetic people went to see the glacier +cave at the summit of the pass. I am glad to remember that I preferred +refreshment at the inn. After that, night fell upon a scene whose +desolation impressed me more than its grandeur, and so in the end we +rattled into Andermatt: here was a huge hotel all but empty, with a +perfect tome of a visitors' book, and in it sure enough the fine free +autograph which I was beginning to know so well. + +"Yes, sare," said the concierge, "the season end suddenly mit the bad +vedder at the beginning of the veek. You know that lady? She has been +here last night; she go avay again to-day, on to Goeschenen and Zuerich. +Yes, sare, she shall be in Zuerich to-night." + +I was in Zuerich myself the night after. I knew the hotel to go to, knew +it from Mrs. Lascelles herself, whose experience of continental hotels +was so pathetically extensive. This was the best in Switzerland, so she +had assured me in one of our talks: she could never pass through Zuerich +without making a night of it at the Baur au Lac. But one night of it +appeared to be enough, or so it had proved on this occasion, for again I +missed her by a few hours. I was annoyed. I agreed with Mrs. Lascelles +about this hotel. Since I had made up my mind to overtake her first or +last, it might as well have been a comfortable place like this, where +there was good cooking and good music and all the comforts which I may +or may not have needed, but which I was certainly beginning to desire. + +What a contrast to the place at which I found myself the following +night. It was a place called Triberg, in the Black Forest, which I had +never penetrated before, and certainly never shall again. It seemed to +me an uttermost end of the earth, but it was raining when I arrived, and +the rain never ceased for an instant while I was there. About a dozen +hotel omnibuses met the train, from which only three passengers +alighted; the other two were a young married couple at whom I would not +have looked twice, though we all boarded the same lucky 'bus, had not +the young man stared very hard at me. + +"Captain Clephane," said he, "I guess you've forgotten me; but you may +remember my best gurl?" + +It was our good-natured young American from the Riffel Alp, who had not +only joined in the daily laugh against himself up there, but must needs +raise it as soon as ever he met one of us again. I rather think his best +girl did not hear him, for she was staring through the streaming omnibus +windows into an absolutely deserted country street, and I feared that +her eyes would soon resemble the panes. She brightened, however, in a +very flattering way, as I thought, on finding a third soul for one or +both of them to speak to, for a change. I only wished I could have +returned the compliment in my heart. + +"Captain Clephane," continued the young bridegroom, "we came down Monday +last. Say, who do you guess came down along with us?" + +"A friend of yours," prompted the bride, as I put on as blank an +expression as possible. + +I opened my eyes a little wider. It seemed the only thing to do. + +"Captain Clephane," said the bridegroom, beaming all over his +good-humoured face, "it was a lady named Lascelles, and it's to her +advice we owe this pleasure. We travelled together as far as Loocerne. +We guess we'll put salt on her at this hotel." + +"So does the Captain," announced the bride, who could not look at me +without a smile, which I altogether declined to return. But I need +hardly confess that she was right. It was from Mrs. Lascelles that I +also had heard of the dismal spot to which we were come, as her own +ultimate objective after Switzerland. It was the only address with which +she had provided the concierge at the Riffel Alp. All day I had +regretted the night wasted at Zuerich, on the chance of saving a day; but +until this moment I had been sanguine of bringing my dubious quest to a +successful issue here in Triberg. Now I was no longer even anxious to do +so. I did not desire witnesses of a meeting which might well be of a +character humiliating to myself. Still less should I have chosen for +such witnesses a couple who were plainly disposed to put the usual +misconstruction upon the relations of any man with any woman. + +My disappointment was consequently less than theirs when we drove up to +as gloomy a hostelry as I have ever beheld, with the blue-black forest +smoking wet behind it, to find that here also the foul weather had +brought the season to a premature and sudden end, literally emptying +this particular hotel. Nor did the landlord give us the welcome we might +have expected on a hasty consideration of the circumstances. He said +that he had been on the point of shutting up that house until next +season and hinted at less profit than loss upon three persons only. + +"But there's a fourth person coming," declared the disconsolate bride. +"We figured on finding her right here!" + +"A Mrs. Lascelles," her husband explained. + +"Been and gone," said the landlord, grinning sardonically. "Too lonely +for the lady. She has arrived last night, and gone away again this +morning. You will find her at the Darmstaedterhof, in Baden-Baden, +unless she changes her mind on the way." + +I caught his grin. It had been the same story, at every stage of my +journey; the chances were that it would be the same thing again at +Baden-Baden. There may have been something, however, of which I was +unaware in my smile; for I found myself under close observation by the +bride; and as our eyes met her hand slipped within her husband's arm. + +"I guess _we_ won't find her there," she said. "I guess we'll just light +out for ourselves, and wish the captain luck." + +A stern chase is proverbially protracted, but on dry land it has usually +one end. Mine ended in Baden on the fifth (and first fine) day, rather +early in the afternoon. On arrival I drove straight to the +Darmstaedterhof, and asked to see no visitors' books, for the five days +had taken the edge off my finesse, but inquired at once whether a Mrs. +Lascelles was staying there or not. She was. It seemed incredible. Were +they sure she had not just left? They were sure. But she was not in; at +my request they made equally sure of that. She had probably gone to the +Conversationshaus, to listen to the band. All Baden went there in the +afternoon, to listen to that band. It was a very good band. Baden-Baden +was a very good place. There was no better hotel in Baden-Baden than the +Darmstaedterhof; there were no such baths in the other hotels, these +came straight from the spring, at their natural temperature. They were +matchless for rheumatism, especially in the legs. The old Empress, +Augusta, when in Baden, used to patronise this very hotel and no other. +They could show me the actual bath, and I myself could have pension +(baths excluded) for eight marks and fifty a day. If I would be so kind +as to step into the lift, I should see the room for myself, and then +with my permission they would bring in my luggage and pay the cab. + +All this by degrees, from a pale youth in frock-coat and forage-cap, and +a more prosperous personage with _pince-nez_ and a paunch (yet another +concierge and my latest landlord respectively), while I stood making up +my mind. The closing proposition was of some assistance to me. I had no +luggage on the cab, of which the cabman's hat alone was visible, at the +bottom of a flight of steps, at the far end of the flagged approach. I +had left my luggage at the station, but I only recollected the fact upon +being recalled from a mental forecast of the interview before me to +these exceedingly petty preliminaries. + +There and then I paid off the cab and found my own way to this +Conversationshaus. I liked the look of the trim, fresh town in its +perfect amphitheatre of pine-clad hills, covered in by a rich blue sky +from which the last clouds were exhaling like breath from a mirror. The +well-drained streets were drying clean as in a black frost; checkered +with sharp shadows, twinkling with shop windows, and strikingly free +from the more cumbrous forms of traffic. If this was Germany, I could +dispense with certain discreditable prejudices. I had to inquire my way +of a policeman in a flaming helm; because I could not understand his +copious directions, he led me to a tiny bridge within earshot of the +band, and there refused my proferred coin with the dignity of a +Hohenzollern. Under the tiny bridge there ran the shallowest and +clearest of little rivers. Up the white walls of the houses clambered a +deal of Virginia creeper, brought on by the rain, and now almost scarlet +in the strong sunlight. Presently at some gates there was a mark to pay, +or it may have been two; immediate admittance to an avenue of +fascinating shops, with an inner avenue of trees, little tables under +them, and the crash of the band growing louder at every yard. Eventual +access to a fine, broad terrace, a fine, long facade, a bandstand, and +people listening and walking up and down, people listening and drinking +beer or coffee at more little tables, people listening and reading on +rows of chairs, people standing to listen with all their ears; but not +for a long time the person I sought. + + * * * * * + +Not for a very long time, but yet, at last, and all alone, among the +readers on the chairs, deep in a Tauchnitz volume even here as in the +Alps; more daintily yet not less simply dressed, in pink muslin and a +big black hat; and blessed here as there with such blooming health, such +inimitable freshness, such a general air of well-being and of deep +content, as almost to disgust me after my whole week's search and my own +hourly qualms. + +So I found Mrs. Lascelles in the end, and so I saw her until she looked +up and saw me; then the picture changed; but I am not going to describe +the change. + +"Well, really!" she cried out. + +"It has taken me all the week to find you," said I, as I replaced my +hat. + +Her eyes flashed again. + +"Has it, indeed! And now you have found me, aren't you satisfied? Pray +have a good look, Captain Clephane. You won't find anybody else!" + +Her meaning dawned on me at last. + +"I didn't expect to, Mrs. Lascelles." + +"Am I to believe that?" + +"You must do as you please. It is the truth. Mrs. Lascelles, I have been +all the week looking for you and you alone." + +I spoke with some warmth, for not only did I speak the truth, but it had +become more and more the truth at every stage of my journey since +Brigues. Mrs. Lascelles leant back in her chair and surveyed me with +less anger, but with the purer and more pernicious scorn. + +"And what business had you to do that?" she asked calmly. "How dare you, +I should like to know?" + +"I dared," said I, "because I owed you a debt which, I felt, must be +paid in person, or it would never be paid at all. Mrs. Lascelles, I +owed and do owe you about the most abject apology man ever made! I have +followed you all this way for no other earthly reason than to make it, +in all sincere humility. But it has taken me more or less since Tuesday +morning; and I can't kneel here. Do you mind if I sit down?" + +Mrs. Lascelles drew in the hem of her pink muslin, with an all but +insufferable gesture of unwilling resignation. I took the next chair but +one, but, leaning my elbow on the chair-back between us, was rather the +gainer by the intervening inches, which enabled me to study a perfect +profile and the most wonderful colouring as I could scarcely have done +at still closer range. She never turned to look at me, but simply +listened while the band played, and people passed, and I said my say. It +was very short: there was so little that she did not know. There was the +excitement about Bob, his subsequent reappearance, our scene in his room +and my last sight of him in the morning; but the bare facts went into +few words, and there was no demand for details. Mrs. Lascelles seemed to +have lost all interest in her latest lover; but when I tried to speak +of my own hateful hand in that affair, to explain what I could of it, +but to extenuate nothing, and to apologise from my heart for it all, +then there was a change in her, then her blood mounted, then her bosom +heaved, and I was silenced by a single flash from her eyes. + +"Yes," said she, "you could let him think you were in earnest, you could +pose as his rival, you could pretend all that! Not to me, I grant you! +Even you did not go quite so far as that; or was it that you knew that I +should see through you? You made up for it, however, the other night. +That I never, never, never shall forgive. I, who had never seriously +thought of accepting him, who was only hesitating in order to refuse him +in the most deliberate and final manner imaginable--I, to have the word +put into my mouth--by you! I, who was going in any case, of my own +accord, to be told to go--by you! One thing you will never know, Captain +Clephane, and that is how nearly you drove me into marrying him just to +spite you and his miserable mother. I meant to do it, that night when I +left you. It would have served you right if I had!" + +She did not rise. She did not look at me again. But I saw the tears +standing in her eyes, one I saw roll down her cheek, and the sight smote +me harder than her hardest word, though more words followed in broken +whispers. + +"It wasn't because I cared ... that you hurt me as you did. I never did +care for him ... like that. It was ... because ... you seemed to think +my society contamination ... to an honest boy. I did care for him, but +not like that. I cared too much for him to let him marry me ... to +contaminate him for life!" + +I repudiated the reiterated word with all my might. I had never used it, +even in my thoughts; it had never once occurred to me in connection with +her. Had I not shown as much? Had I behaved as though I feared +contamination for myself? I rapped out these questions with undue +triumph, in my heat, only to perceive their second edge as it cut me to +the quick. + +"But you were playing a part," retorted Mrs. Lascelles. "You don't deny +it. Are you proud of it, that you rub it in? Or are you going to begin +denying it now?" + +Unfortunately, that was impossible. Tt was too late for denials. But, +driven into my last corner, as it seemed, I relapsed for the moment into +thought, and my thoughts took the form of a rapid retrospect of all the +hours that this angry woman and I had spent together. I was introduced +to her again by poor Bob. I recognised her again by the light of a +match, and accosted her next morning in the strong sunshine. We went for +our first walk together. We sat together on the green ledge overlooking +the glaciers, and first she talked about herself, and then we both +talked about Bob, and then Bob appeared in the flesh and gave me my +disastrous idea. Then there was the day on the Findelen that we had all +three spent together. Then there was the walk home from early church +(short as it had been), the subsequent expedition to Zermatt and back, +with its bright beginning and its clouded end. Up to that point, at all +events, they had been happy hours, so many of them unburdened by a +single thought of Bob Evers and his folly, not one of them haunted by +the usual sense of a part that is played. I almost wondered as I +realised this. I supposed it would be no use attempting to express +myself to Mrs. Lascelles, but I felt I must say something before I went, +so I said: + +"I deny nothing, and I'm proud of nothing, but neither am I quite so +ashamed as perhaps I ought to be. Shall I tell you why, Mrs. Lascelles? +It may have been an insolent and an infamous part, as you imply; but I +enjoyed playing it, and I used often to forget it was a part at all. So +much so that even now I'm not so sure that it was one! There--I suppose +that makes it all ten times worse. But I won't apologise again. Do you +mind giving me that stick?" + +I had rested the two of them against the chair between us. Mrs. +Lascelles had taken possession of one, with which she was methodically +probing the path, for there had been no time to draw their Alpine teeth. +She did not comply with my request. She smiled instead. + +"I mind very much," her old voice said. "Now we have finished fighting, +perhaps you will listen to the _Meistersinger_--for it is worth +listening to on that band--and try to appreciate Baden while you are +here. There are no more trains for hours." + +The wooded hills rose over the bandstand, against the bright blue sky. +The shadow of the colonnade lay sharp and black beyond our feet, with +people passing, and the band crashing, in the sunlight beyond. That was +Baden. I should not have found it a difficult place to appreciate, a +week or so before; even now it was no hardship to sit there listening to +the one bit of Wagner that my ear welcomes as a friend, and furtively to +watch my companion as she sat and listened too. You will perceive by +what train of associations my eyes soon fell upon the Tauchnitz volume +which she must have placed without thinking on the chair between us. I +took it up. Heavens! It was one of the volumes of Browning's Poems. And +back I sped in spirit to a green ledge overlooking the Gorner Glacier, +to think what we had said about Browning up there, but only to remember +how I had longed to be to Mrs. Lascelles what Catherine Evers had been +to me. There were some sharp edges to the reminiscence, but I turned the +pages while they did their worst, and so cut myself to the heart upon a +sharper than them all. It was in a poem I remembered, a poem whose title +pained me into glancing farther. And see what leapt to meet me from the +printed page: + + "And I,--what I seem to my friend, you see: + What I soon shall seem to his love, you guess: + What I seem to myself, do you ask of me? + No hero, I confess." + +True, too true; no hero, indeed; anything in the wide world else! But +that I should read it there by the woman's side! And yet, even that was +no such coincidence; had we not talked about the poet, had I not implied +what Catherine thought of him, what everybody ought to think? + +Of a sudden a strange thrill stirred me; sidelong I glanced at my +companion. She had turned her head away; her cheek was deeply dyed. She +knew what I was doing; she might divine my thoughts. I shut the book +lest she should see the vile title of a thing I had hitherto liked. And +the _Prizelied_ crashed back into the ear. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +NUMBER THREE + + +It was the middle of November when I was shown once more into the old +room at the old number in Elm Park Gardens. There was a fire, the +windows were shut, and the electric light was a distinct improvement +when the maid put it on; otherwise all was exactly as I had left it in +August, and so often pictured it since. There was "Hope," presiding over +the shelf of poets, and here "Paolo and Francesca," reminiscent as ever +of Melbury Road, upon a wet Sunday, years and years ago. The day's +_Times_ and the week's _Spectator_ were not less prominent than the last +new problem novel; all three lay precisely where their predecessors had +always lain; and my own dead self stood in its own old place upon the +piano which had been in St. Helena with Napoleon. It is vanity's deserts +to come across these unnecessary memorials of a decently buried +boyhood; there is always something stultifying about them, and I longed +to confiscate this one of me. + +But there was a photograph on the chimney-piece that interested me +keenly; it was evidently the very latest of Bob Evers, and I studied it +with a painful curiosity. Was the boy really altered, or did I only +imagine it from my secret knowledge of his affairs? To me he seemed +graver, more sedate, less angelically trustful in expression, and yet +something finer and manlier withal: to confirm the idea one had only to +compare this new one with the racket photograph now relegated to a rear +rank. The round-eyed look was gone. Had I here yet another memorial of +yet another buried boyhood? If so, I felt I was the sexton, and I might +be ashamed, and I was. + +"Looking at Bob? Isn't it a dear one of him? You see--he is none the +worse!" + +And Catherine Evers stood smiling as warmly, as gratefully, as she +grasped my hand; but with her warmth there was a certain nervousness of +manner, which had the odd effect of putting me perversely at my ease; +and I found myself looking critically at Catherine, really critically, +for I suppose the first time in my life. + +"He is playing foot-ball," she continued, full as ever of her boy. "I +had a letter from him only this morning. He had his colours at Eton, you +know (he had them for everything there), but he never dreamt of getting +them at Cambridge, yet now he really thinks he has a chance! They tried +him the other day, and he kicked a goal. Dear old Bob! If he does get +them he will be a Blue and a half, he says. He writes so happily, +Duncan! I have so much to be thankful for--to thank you for!" + +Yes, Catherine was good to look at; there was no doubt of it; and this +time she was not wearing any hat. Discoursing of the lad, she was +animated, eager, for once as exclamatory as her pen, with light and life +in every look of the thin intellectual face, in every glance of the +large, intellectual eyes, and in every intonation of the keen dry voice. +A sweet woman; a young woman; a woman with a full heart of love and +sympathy and tenderness--for Bob! Yet, when she thanked me at the end, +either upon an impulse, or because she thought she must, her eyes fell, +and again I detected that slight embarrassment which was none the less a +revelation, to me, in Catherine Evers, of all women in the world. + +"We won't speak of that," I said, "if you don't mind. I am not proud of +it." + +Catherine scanned me more narrowly. I knew her better with that look. +"Then tell me about yourself, and do sit down," she said, drawing a +chair near the fire, but sitting on the other side of it herself. "I +needn't ask you how you are. I never saw you looking so well. That comes +of going right away and not hurrying back. I think you were so wise! +But, Duncan, I am sorry to see both sticks still! Have you seen your man +since you came back?" + +"I have." + +"Well?" + +"I'm afraid there's no more soldiering for me." + +Catherine seemed more than sorry and disappointed; she looked quite +indignant with the eminent specialist who had finally pronounced this +opinion. Was I sure he was the very best man for that kind of thing? She +would have a second opinion, if she were me. Very well, then, a third +and fourth! If there was one man she pitied from the bottom of her +heart, it was the man without a profession or an occupation of some +kind. Catherine looked, however, as though her pity were almost akin to +horror. + +"I have a trifle, luckily," I said. "I must try something else." + +Catherine stared into the fire, as though thinking of something else for +me to try. She seemed full of apprehension on my account. + +"Don't you worry about me," I went on. "I came here to talk about +somebody else, of course." + +Catherine almost started. + +"I've told you about Bob," she said, with a suspicious upward glance +from the fire. + +"I don't mean Bob," said I, "or anything you may think I did for him or +you. I said just now that I didn't want to speak of it and no more I do. +Yet, as a matter of fact, I do want to speak to you about the lady in +that case." + +Catherine's face betrayed the mixed emotions of relief and fresh alarm. + +"You don't mean to say the creature--? But it's impossible. I heard from +Bob only this morning. He wrote so happily!" + +I could not help smiling at the nature and quality of the alarm. + +"They have seen nothing more of each other, if that's what you fear," +said I. "But what I do want to speak about is this creature, as you call +her, and no one else. She has done nothing to deserve quite so much +contempt. I want you to be just to her, Catherine." + +I was serious. I may have been ridiculous. Catherine evidently found me +so, for, after gauging me with that wry but humourous look which I knew +so well of old, for which I had been waiting this afternoon, she went +off into the decorous little fit of laughter in which it had invariably +ended. + +"Forgive me, Duncan dear! But you do look so serious, and you _are_ so +dreadfully broad! I never was. I hope you remember that? Broad minds and +easy principles--the combination is inevitable. But, really though, +Duncan, is there anything to be said for her? Was she a possible +person, in any sense of the word?" + +"Quite a probable person," I assured Catherine. + +"But I have heard all sorts of things about her!" + +"From Bob?" + +"No, he never mentioned her." + +"Nor me, perhaps?" + +"Nor you, Duncan. I am afraid there may be just a drop of bad blood +there! You see, he looked upon you as a successful rival. You wrote and +told me so, if you remember, from some place on your way down from the +mountains. Your letter and Bob arrived the same night." + +I nodded. + +"It was so clever of you!" pursued Catherine. "Quite brilliant; but I +don't quite know what to say to your letting my baby climb that awful +Matterhorn; in a fog, too!" + +And there was real though momentary reproach in the firelit face. + +"I couldn't very well stop him, you know. Besides," I added, "it was +such a chance." + +"Of what?" + +"Of getting rid of Mrs. Lascelles. I thought you would think it worth +the risk." + +"I do," declared Catherine, on due consultation with the fire. "I really +do! Bob is all I have--all I want--in this world, Duncan; and it may +seem a dreadful thing to say, and you mayn't believe it when I've said +it, but--yes!--I'd rather he had never come home at all than come home +married, at his age, and to an Indian widow, whose first husband had +divorced her! I mean it, Duncan; I do indeed!" + +"I am sure you do," said I. "It was just what I said to myself." + +"To think of my Bob being Number Three!" murmured Catherine, with that +plaintive drollery of hers which I had found irresistible in the days of +old. + +I was able to resist it now. "So those were the things you heard?" I +remarked. + +"Yes," said Catherine; "haven't you heard them?" + +"I didn't need. I knew her in India years ago." + +Catherine's eyes opened. + +"_You_ knew this Mrs. Lascelles?" + +"Before that was her name. I have also met her original husband. If you +had known him, you would be less hard on her." + +Catherine's eyes were still wide open. They were rather hard eyes, after +all. "Why did you not tell me you had known her, when you wrote?" she +asked. + +"It wouldn't have done any good. I did what you wanted done, you know. I +thought that was enough." + +"It was enough," echoed Catherine, with a quick return of grace. She +looked into the fire. "I don't want to be hard upon the poor thing, +Duncan! I know you think we women always are, upon each other. But to +have come back married--at his age--to even the nicest woman in the +world! It would have been madness ... ruination ... Duncan, T'm going to +say something else that may shock you." + +"Say away," said I. + +Her voice had fallen. She was looking at me very narrowly, as if to +measure the effect of her unspoken words. + +"I am not so very sure about marriage," she went on, "at any age! Don't +misunderstand me ... I was very happy ... but I for one could never +marry again ... and I am not sure that I ever want to see Bob...." + +Catherine had spoken very gently, looking once more in the fire; when +she ceased there was a space of utter silence in the little room. Then +her eyes came back furtively to mine; and presently they were twinkling +with their old staid merriment. + +"But to be Number Three!" she said again. "My poor old Bob!" + +And she smiled upon me, tenderly, from the depths of her alter-egoism. + +"Well," I said, "he never will be." + +"God forbid!" cried Catherine. + +"He has forbidden. It will never happen." + +"Is she dead?" asked Catherine, but not too quickly for common decency. +She was not one to pass such bounds. + +"Not that I know of." + +It was hard to repress a sneer. + +"Then what makes you so sure--that he never could?" + +"Well, he never will in my time!" + +"You are good to me," said Catherine, gratefully. + +"Not a bit good," said I, "or--only to myself ... I have been good to no +one else in this whole matter. That's what it all amounts to, and that's +what I really came to tell you. Catherine ... I am married to her +myself!" + +THE END + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of No Hero, by E.W. 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