Winn's way of playing bandy was to play as if there wasn't any ice. In the first few practices it had the disadvantage of a constant series of falls, generally upon the back of his head; but he soon developed an increasing capacity of balance and an intensity of speed. He became the quickest forward the St. Moritz team had ever possessed.
When he was following the ball he took up his feet and ran. The hard clash of the skates, the determined onrush of the broad-built, implacable figure, were terrible to withstand. What was to be done against a man who didn't skate, but tore, who fell upon a ball as a terrier plunges, eyeless and intent, into a rat-hole? The personal safety of himself or others never occurred to Winn. He remembered nothing but the rules of the game. These he held in the back of his mind, with the ball in front of it.
All St. Moritz came to watch the great match between itself and Davos. It was a still, cold day; there was no blue in the sky; the mountains were a hard black and white and the valley very colorless and clear. There was a hush of coming snow in the air, and the sky was covered by a toneless, impending cloud.
The game, after a brief interval, became a duel between two men: Winn, with his headlong, thirsty method of attack, and the champion player of Davos, Mavorovitch, who was known as the most finished skater of the season.
Mavorovitch never apparently lifted his skates, but seemed to send them forward by a kind of secret pressure. He was a very cool player, as quick as mercury and as light as thistledown. Winn set himself against him with the dogged fury of a bull against a toreador.
"That man's not brave; he's careless," a St. Moritz potentate remarked to Miss Marley. Miss Marley gave a short laugh and glanced at Winn.
"That's my idea of courage," she said, "carelessness toward things that don't count. Major Staines isn't careless with the ball."
"A game's a game," the foreign prince protested, "not a prolonged invitation to concussion."
"All, that's where your foreign blood comes in, Your Highness," argued Miss Marley. "A game isn't a game to an Englishman; it's his way of tackling life. As a man plays so he reaps."
"Very well, then," remarked her companion, gravely. "Mark my words, Madame, your friend over there will reap disaster."
Winn tackled the ball in a series of sudden formidable rushes; he hurled himself upon the slight form of Mavorovitch, only to find he had before him a portion of the empty air. Mavorovitch was invariably a few inches beyond his reach, and generally in possession of the ball.
Twice Winn wrested it forcibly from him and got half way up the ice, tearing along with his skates crashing their iron way toward the goal, and twice Mavorovitch noiselessly, except for a faint scraping, slid up behind him and coaxed the ball out of his very grip. St. Moritz lost two goals to nothing in the first half, and Winn felt as if he were biting on air.
He stood a little apart from the other players, with his back turned to the crowd. He wished it wasn't necessary always to have an audience; a lot of people who sat and did nothing irritated him. Mavorovitch irritated him, too. He did not like a man to be so quiet; the faintclick,clickof Mavorovitch's skates on the ice was like a lady knitting.
The whistle sounded again, and Winn set upon the ball with redoubled fury. He had a feeling that if he didn't win this game he was going to dislike it very much. He tore up the ice, every muscle strained, his stick held low, caressing the round, flying knob in front; he had got the ball all right, the difficulty was going to be, to keep it. His mind listened to the faint distant scraping of Mavorovitch's approach. Winn had chosen the exact spot for slowing up for his stroke.
It must be a long-distance shot or Mavorovitch would be there to intercept him, the longer, the safer, if he could get up speed enough for his swing. He had left the rest of the players behind him long ago, tossing some to one side and outflanking others; but he had not got clear away from Mavorovitch, bent double, and quietly calculating, a few feet behind him, the exact moment for an intercepting spurt: and then through the sharpness of the icy air and the sense of his own speed an extraordinary certainty flashed into Winn. He was not alone; Claire was there. He called it a fancy, but he knew it was a certainty. A burning joy seized him, and a new wild strength poured into him. He could do anything now.
He drew up suddenly, long before the spot he had fixed upon as a certain stroke, lifted his arm, and struck with all his might. It was a long, doubtful, crossing stroke, almost incredibly distant from the goal.
The crowd held its breath as the ball rose, cutting straight above the goal-keeper's head, through the very center of the goal.
Winn was probably the only person there who didn't follow its flight. He looked up quickly at the bank above him, and met her eyes. She was as joined to him as if they had no separate life.
In a moment it struck him that there was nothing else to do but to go to her at once, take her in his arms, and walk off with her somewhere into the snow. He knew now that he had been in hell; the sight of her was like the sudden cessation of blinding physical pain.
Then he pulled himself together and went back to the game. He couldn't think any more, but the new activity in him went on playing methodically and without direction.
Mavorovitch, who was playing even more skilfully and swiftly, got the better of him once or twice; but the speed that had given Winn room for his great stroke flowed tirelessly through him. It seemed to him as if he could have outpaced a Scotch express.
He carried the ball off again and again out of the mob of his assailants. They scattered under his rushes like creatures made of cardboard. He offered three goals and shot one. The cheering of the St. Moritzers sounded in his ears as if it were a long way off. He saw the disappointed, friendly grin of little Mavorovitch as the last whistle settled the match at five goals to four against Davos, but everything seemed cloudy and unreal. He heard Mavorovitch say:
"Spooner never told us he had a dark horse over here. I must say I am disappointed. Until half-time I thought I should get the better of you; but how did you get that devilish spurt on? Fierce pace tires, but you were easier to tire when you began."
Winn's eyes wandered over the little man beside him.
"Oh, I don't know," he said good-naturedly; he had never in his life felt so good-natured. "I suppose I thought we were getting beaten. That rather braces one up, doesn't it?"
"Ah, that is you English all over," laughed Mavorovitch. "We have a saying, 'In all campaigns the English lose many battles, but they always win one—namely, the last.'"
"I'm sure it's awfully jolly of you to say so," said Winn. "You play a pretty fine game yourself, you know, considerably more skill in it than mine. I had no idea you were not English yourself."
Mavorovitch seemed to swim away into a mist of laughter, people receded, the bank receded; at last he stood before her. Winn thought she was a little thinner in the face and her eyes were larger than ever. He could not take his own away from her; he had no thoughts, and he forgot to speak.
Everybody was streaming off to tea. The rink was deserted; it lay a long, gray shadow beneath the high, white banks. The snow had begun to fall, light, dry flakes that rested like powder on Claire's curly hair. She waited for him to speak; but as he still said nothing, she asked with a sudden dimple:
"Where does this path lead to?"
Then Winn recollected himself, and asked her if she didn't want some tea. Claire shook her head.
"Not now," she said decidedly; "I want to go along this path."
Winn obeyed her silently. The path took them between dark fir-trees to the farthest corner of the little park. Far below them a small stream ran into the lake, it was frozen over, but in the silence they could hear it whispering beneath the ice. The world was as quiet as if it lay in velvet. Then Claire said suddenly:
"Oh, why did you make me hurt him when I liked him so much?"
They found a bench and sat down under the trees.
"Do you mean you've sent Lionel away?" Winn asked anxiously.
"Yes," she said in a forlorn little voice; "yesterday I sent him away. He didn't know I was coming over here, he was very miserable. He asked me if I knew about you—he said he believed you wanted me to—and I said, 'Of course I know everything.' I wasn't going to let him think you hadn't told me. Why did you go away?"
He had not thought she would ask him that. It was as if he saw before him an interminable hill which he had believed himself to have already climbed.
He drew a deep breath, then he said:
"Didn't they talk about it? I wrote to her, the chaplain's wife I mean; I hadn't time to see her, but I sent it by the porter. I thought she'd do; she seemed a gossipy woman, kept on knitting and gassing over a stove in the hall. I thought she was—a sort of circulating library, you see. I tipped the porter—tow-headed Swiss brute. I suppose he swallowed it."
"He went away the same day you did," Claire explained. "Nobody told me anything. Do you think I would have let them? I wouldn't let Lionel, and I knew he had a right to, but I didn't care about anybody's rights. You see, I—I thought you'd tell me yourself. So I came," she finished quietly.
She waited. Winn began to draw patterns on the snow with his stick, then he said:
"I've been a bit of a blackguard not telling you myself. I didn't want to talk about it, and that's a fact. I'm married."
He kept his face turned away from her. It seemed a long time before she spoke.
"You should have told me that before," she said in a queer, low voice. "It's too late now."
"Would it," he asked quickly, "have made any difference—about Lionel, I mean?"
She shook her head.
"Not," she said, "about Lionel."
He bent lower over the pattern in the snow; it had become more intricate.
"I couldn't tell you," he muttered; "I tried. I couldn't. That was why I went off. You say too late. D'you mind telling me if you mean—you care?"
Her silence seemed interminable, and then he knew she had already answered him. It seemed to him that if he sat there and died, he couldn't speak.
"Winn," she asked in a whisper, "did you go because of me—or because of you?"
He turned round, facing her.
"Is that worrying you?" he asked fiercely. "Well, you can see for yourself, can't you? All there is of me—" He could not finish his sentence.
It was snowing heavily. They seemed intensely, cruelly alone. It was as if all life crept off and left them by themselves in the drifting gray snow, in their silent little corner of the unconscious, unalterable world.
Winn put his arm around her and drew her head down on his shoulder.
"It's all right," he said rather thickly. "I won't hurt you."
But he knew that he had hurt her, and that it was all wrong.
She did not cry, but she trembled against his heart. He felt her shivering as if she were afraid of all the world but him.
"I must stay with you," she whispered. "I must stay with you, mustn't I?"
He tried not to say "always," but he thought afterward that he must have said "always."
Then she lifted her curls and her little fur cap with the snow on it from his shoulder, and looked deep into his eyes. The worst of it was that hers were filled with joy.
"Winn," she said, "do you love me enough for anything? Not only for happiness, but, if we had to have dreadful things, enough for dreadful things?"
She spoke of dreadful things as if they were outside her, and as if they were very far away.
"I love you enough for anything," said Winn, gravely.
"Tell me," she whispered, "did you ever even think—you liked her as much?"
Winn looked puzzled; it took him a few minutes to guess whom she meant, then he said wonderingly:
"My wife, you mean?"
Claire nodded. It was silly how the little word tore its way into her very heart; she had to bite her lips to keep herself from crying out. She did not realize that the word was meaningless to him.
"No," said Winn, gravely; "that's the worst of it. I must have been out of my head. It was a fancy. Of course I thought it was all right, but I didn'tcare. It was fun rather than otherwise; you know what I mean? I'm afraid I gave her rather a rotten time of it; but fortunately she doesn't like me at all. It's not surprising."
"Yes, it is," said Claire, firmly; "it's very surprising. But if she doesn't care for you, and you don't care for her, can't anything be done?"
There is something cruel in the astonishing ease with which youth believes in remedial measures. It is a cruelty which reacts so terribly upon its possessors.
Winn hesitated; then he told her that he would take her to the ends of the world. Claire pushed away the ends of the world; they did not sound very practical.
"I mean," she said, "have you got to consider anybody else? Of course there's Maurice and your people, I've thought of them. But I don't think they'd mind so awfully always, do you? It wouldn't be like robbing or cheating some one who really needed us. We couldn't do that, of course."
Then Winn remembered Peter. He told her somehow that there was Peter. He hid his face against her breast while he told her; he could not bear to see in her eyes this new knowledge of Peter.
But she was very quiet about it; it was almost as if she had always known that there was Peter.
Winn spoke very wildly after that; he denied Peter; he denied any obstacles; he spoke as if they were already safely and securely married. He explained that they had to be together; that was the long and short of it. Anything else was absurd; she must see that it was absurd.
Claire didn't interrupt him once; but when he had quite finished, she said consideringly:
"Yes; but, after all, she gave you Peter."
Then Winn laughed, remembering how Estelle had given him Peter. He couldn't explain to Claire quite how funny it was.
She bore his laughter, though it surprised her a little; there seemed to be so many new things to be learned about him. Then she said:
"Anyway, we can be quite happy for a fortnight, can't we?"
Winn raised his head and looked at her. It was his turn to be surprised.
"Maurice and I," she explained, "have to go back in two weeks; we've come over here for the fortnight. So we'll just be happy, won't we? And we can settle what we'll do afterward, at the end of the time."
She spoke as if a fortnight was a long time. Then Winn kissed her; he did it with extraordinary gentleness, on the side of her cheek and on her wet curls covered with snow.
"You're such a baby," he said half to himself; "so it isn't a bit of use your being as old as the hills the other part of the time. There are just about a million reasons why you shouldn't stay, you know."
"Oh, reasons!" said Claire, making a face at anything so trivial as a reason. Then she became very grave, and said, "Iwantto stay, Winn; of course I know what you mean. But there's Maurice; it isn't as if I were alone. And afterwards—oh, Winn, it's because I don't know what is going to happen afterwards—Imusthave now!"
Winn thought for a moment, then he said:
"Well, I'll try and work it. You mustn't be in the same hotel, though. Fortunately, I know a nice woman who'll help us through; only, darling, I'm awfully afraid it's beastly wrong for you. I mean I can't explain properly; but if I let you go now, it would be pretty sickening. But you'd get away; and if you stay, I'll do the best I can but we shall get mixed up so that you'll find it harder to shake me off. You see, you're awfully young; there are chances ahead of you, awfully decent other chaps, marriage—"
"And you," she whispered—"you?"
"Oh, it doesn't matter a damn about me either way," he explained carefully. "I'm stuck. But it isn't really fair of me to let you stay. You don't understand, but it simply isn't fair."
Claire looked reproachfully at him.
"If I don't want you to be fair," she said, "you oughtn't to want to be—not more than I do, I mean. Besides—Oh, Winn, I do know about when I go! That's why Ican'tgo till we've been happy, awfully happy,first. Don't you see, if I went now, there'd be nothing to look back on but just your being hurt and my being hurt; and I want happiness! Oh, Winn, I want happiness!"
That was the end of it. He took her in his arms and promised her happiness.
It seemed incredible that they should be happy, but from the first of their fortnight to the last they were increasingly, insanely happy. Everything ministered to their joy; the unstinted blue and gold of the skies, the incommunicable glee of mountain heights, their blind and eager love.
There was no future. They were on an island cut off from all to-morrows; but they were together, and their island held the fruits of the Hesperides.
They lived surrounded by light passions, by unfaithfulnesses that had not the sharp excuses of desire, bonds that held only because they would require an effort to break and bonds that were forged only because it was easier to pass into a new relation than to continue in an old one. Their solid and sober passion passed through these light fleets of pleasure-boats as a great ship takes its unyielding way toward deep waters.
Winn was spared the agony of foresight; he could not see beyond her sparkling eyes; and Claire was happy, exultantly, supremely happy, with the reckless, incurious happiness of youth.
It was terrible to see them coming in and out with their joy. Their faces were transfigured, their eyes had the look of sleep-walkers, they moved as through another world. They had only one observer, and to Miss Marley the sight of them was like the sight of those unknowingly condemned to die. St. Moritz in general was not observant. It had gossips, but it did not know the difference between true and false, temporary and permanent. It had one mold for all its fancies: given a man and a woman, it formed at once its general and monotonous conjecture.
Maurice might have noticed Claire's preoccupation, for Maurice was sensitive to that which touched himself, but for the moment a group more expensive and less second rate than he had discovered at Davos took up his entire attention. He had none to spare for his sister unless she bothered him, and she didn't bother him.
It was left to Miss Marley to watch from hour to hour the significant and rising chart of passion. The evening after the Davos match, Winn had knocked at the door of her private sitting-room. It was his intention only to ask her if she would dine with some friends of his from Davos; he would mention indifferently that they were very young, a mere boy and girl, and he would suggest with equal subtlety that he would be obliged if Miss Marley would continue to take meals at his table during their visit. St. Moritz, he saw himself saying, was such a place for talk. There was no occasion to go into anything, and Miss Marley would, of course, have no idea how matters really stood. She was a good sort, but he wasn't going to talk about Claire.
Miss Marley said, "Come in," in that wonderful, low, soft voice of hers that came so strangely from her blistered lips. She was sitting in a low chair, smoking, in front of an open wood fire.
Her room was furnished by herself. It was a comfortable, featureless room, with no ornaments and no flowers; there were plenty of books in cases or lying about at ease on a big table, a stout desk by the window, and several leather-covered, deep armchairs. The walls were bare except for photographs of the Cresta. These had been taken from every possible angle of the run—its banks, its corners, its flashing pieces of straight, and its incredible final hill. It was noticeable that though there was generally a figure on a toboggan in the photograph, it never happened to be one of Miss Marley herself. She was a creditable rider, but she did not, to her own mind, show off the Cresta.
Her eyes met Winn's with a shrewdness that she promptly veiled. He wasn't looking as if he wanted her to be shrewd. It struck her that she was seeing Winn as he must have looked when he was about twenty. She wondered if this was only because he had won the match. His eyes were very open and they were off their guard. It could not be said that Winn had ever in his life looked appealing, but for a Staines to look so exposed to friendliness was very nearly an appeal.
"Mavorovitch has just left me," said Miss Marley. "You ought to have heard what he said about you. It was worth hearing. You played this afternoon like a successful demon dealing with lost souls. I don't think I've ever seen bandy played quite in that vein before."
Winn sank into one of the leather armchairs and lighted a cigarette.
"As a matter of fact," he said, "I played like a fluke. I am not up to Mavorovitch's form at all. I just happened to be on my game; he would have had me down and out otherwise."
Miss Marley nodded; she was wondering what had put Winn on his game. She turned her eyes away from him and looked into the fire. Winn was resting for the first time that day; the sense of physical ease and her even, tranquil comradeship were singularly soothing to him. Suddenly it occurred to him that he very much liked Miss Marley, and in a way in which he had never before liked any woman, with esteem and without excitement. He gave her a man's first proof of confidence.
"Look here," he said, "I want you to help me."
Miss Marley turned her eyes back to him; she was a plain woman, but she was able to speak with her eyes, and though what she said was sometimes hard and always honest, on the present occasion they expressed only an intense reassurance of good-will.
"When I came in," Winn said rather nervously, "I meant to ask you a little thing, but I find I am going to ask you a big one."
"Oh, well," said Miss Marley, "ask away. Big or little, friends should stand by each other."
"Yes," said Winn, relieved, "that's what I thought you'd say. I don't know that I ever mentioned to you I'm married?"
"No," she answered quietly, "I can't say that you did; however, most men of your age are married."
"And I've got a son," Winn continued. "His name is Peter—after my father, you know."
"That's a good thing," she concurred heartily. "I'm glad you've got a son."
"Unfortunately," said Winn, "my marriage didn't exactly come off. We got hold of the wrong end of the stick."
"Ah," said Miss Marley, "that's a pity! The right end of the stick is, I believe, almost essential in marriage."
"Yes," Winn acknowledged; "I see that now, of course. I was keen on getting her, but I hadn't thought the rest out. Rather odd, isn't it, that you don't get as much as a tip about how jolly a thing could be till you've dished yourself from having it?"
Miss Marley agreed that it was rather odd.
Winn came back swiftly to his point.
"What I was going to ask you," he said, holding her with his eyes, "is to sit at my table for a bit. I happen to have two young friends of mine over from Davos. He's her brother, of course, but I thought I'd like to have another woman somewhere about. Look better, wouldn't it? She's only nineteen."
His voice dropped as he mentioned Claire's age as if he were speaking of the Madonna.
"Yes," agreed Miss Marley, "it would look better."
"I dare say," said Winn after rather a long pause, "you see what I mean? The idea is—our idea, you know—to be together as much as we can for a fortnight. It'll be all right, of course; only I rather wondered if you'd see us through."
"See you through being all right?" Miss Marley asked with the directness of a knife-thrust.
"Well—yes," said Winn. "It would just put people off thinking things. Everybody seems to know you up here, and I somehow thought I'd rather you knew."
"Thank you," said Miss Marley, briefly.
She turned back to the fire again. She had seen all she wanted to see in Winn's eyes. She saw his intention. What she wasn't sure about was the fortnight. A fortnight can do a good deal with an intention.
Miss Marley knew the world very well. People had often wanted to use her for a screen before, and generally she had refused, believing that the chief safeguard of innocence is the absence of screens. But she saw that Winn did not want her to be that kind of a screen; he wanted her to be in the center of his situation without touching it. He wanted her for Claire, but he wanted her also a little for himself, so that he might feel the presence of her upright friendliness. He intensely trusted her.
There are people who intend to do good in the world and invariably do harm. They enter eagerly into the lives of others and put their fingers pressingly upon delicate machinery; very often they destroy it, more seldom, unfortunately, they cut their own fingers. Miss Marley did not belong to this type. She did not wish to be involved and she was scrupulous never to involve others. She hesitated before she gave her consent, but she couldn't withstand the thought that Claire was only nineteen. She spoke at last.
"What you suggest," she said quietly, "is going to be rather hard for you both. I suppose you do realize how hard? You see, you are only at the beginning of the fortnight now. Unhappy men and very young girls make difficult situations, Major Staines."
He got up and walked to the window, standing with his back to her. She wondered if she had said too much; his back looked uncompromising. She did not realize that she could never say too much in the defense of Claire. Then he said, without looking round:
"We shall have to manage somehow."
It occurred to Miss Marley, with a wave of reassurance, that this was probably Winn's usual way of managing.
"In any case," she said firmly, "you can count on me to do anything you wish."
Winn expressed no gratitude. He merely said:
"I shall introduce her to you this evening."
Before he left Miss Marley he shook hands with her. Her hands were hard and muscular, but she realized when she felt his grip that he must have been extremely grateful.
They went out early, before the sun was up, when the valley was an apricot mist and the mountains were as white as snowdrops in the spring. The head waiter fell easily into their habits, and provided them with an early breakfast and a parcel for lunch. Then they drove off through the biting, glittering coldness.
Sometimes they went far down the valley to Sils and on to the verge of the Maloja. Sometimes they drove through the narrower valleys to Pontresina and on into the impenetrable winter gloom of the Mortratsch glacier. The end was the same solitude, sunshine, and their love. The world was wrapped away in its winter stillness. The small Swiss villages slept and hardly stirred. In the hot noonday a few drowsy peasants crept to and from the barns where the cattle passed their winter life. Sometimes a woman labored at a frozen pump, or a party of skiers slipped rapidly through the shady streets, rousing echoes with their laughter; but for the most part they were as much alone as if the world had ceased to hold any beings but themselves. The pine-trees scented all the air, the snow dripped reluctantly, and sometimes far off they heard the distant boom of an avalanche. They sat together for long sunlit hours on the rickety wooden balcony of a friendly hospice, drinking hot spicedglüweinand building up their precarious memories.
There were moments when the hollow present snapped under their feet like a broken twig, and then the light in their eyes darkened and they ran out upon the safer path of make-believe.
It was Winn who, curiously enough, began it, and returned to it oftenest. It came to him, this abolishing of Estelle, always more easily than it came to Claire. It was inconceivable to Claire that Winn didn't, as a rule, remember his wife. She could have understood the tragedy of his marriage, but Winn didn't make a tragedy of it, he made nothing of it at all. It seemed terrible to Claire that any woman, bearing his name, the mother of his child, should have no life in his heart. She found herself resenting this for Estelle. She tried to make Winn talk about her, so that she might justify her ways to him. But Winn went no further in his expressions than the simple phrases, "She's not my sort," "We haven't anything in common," "I expect we didn't hit it off." Finally he said, terribly, under the persistency of Claire's pressure, "Well, if you will have it, I don't believe a single word she says."
"Oh, but sometimes, sometimes she must speak the truth!" Claire urged, breathless with pity.
"I dare say," Winn replied indifferently. "Possibly she does, but what difference does it make to me when I don't know which times?"
Claire waited a little, then she said:
"I wasn't thinking of the difference to you; I was thinking of the difference to her."
"I tell you," Winn repeated obstinately, "that I don't care a hang about the difference to her. People shouldn't tell lies. I don't care that for her!" He snapped a crumb off the table. He looked triumphantly at Claire, under the impression that he had convinced her of a pleasing fact. She burst into tears.
He tried to take her in his arms, but for a moment she resisted him.
"Do youwantme to love Estelle?" he asked in desperation.
Claire shook her head.
"I'd like her—to be loved," she said, still sobbing.
Winn looked wonderingly at her.
"Well, as far as that goes, so would I," he observed, with a sardonic grin. "There'd be some way out for us then."
Claire shook her head vehemently, but she made no attempt to explain her tears. She felt that she couldn't alter him, and that when he most surprised her it was wiser to accept these surprises than to probe her deep astonishment.
He surprised her very often, he was in such a hurry to unburden himself of all he was. It seemed to him as if he must tell her everything while he had her. He expressed himself as he had never in his wildest dreams supposed that any man could express himself to another human being. He broke down his conventions, he forced aside his restraint, he literally poured out his heart to her. He gave her his opinions, his religion, his codes of conduct, until she began a little to understand his attitude toward Estelle.
It was part of his exterior way of looking at the world at large. Up till now people, except Lionel, had never really entered into his imagination. Of course there were his servants and his dogs and, nearer still, his horses. He spent hours telling her about his horses. They really had come into his life, but never people; even his own family were nothing but a background for wrangles.
He had never known tenderness. He had had all kinds of odd feelings about Peter, but they hadn't got beyond his own mind. His tenderness was beyond everything now; it over-flowed expression. It was the radical thing in him. He showed her plainly that it would break his heart if she were to let her feet get wet. He made plans for her future which would have suited a chronic invalid. He wanted to give her jewels, expensive specimens of spaniels, and a banking account.
She would take nothing from him but a notebook and a little opal ring. Winn restrained his passion, but out of revenge for his restraint his fancies ran wild.
It was Claire who had to be practical; she who had spent her youth in dreams now clung desperately to facts. She read nothing, she hardly talked, but she drew his very soul out to meet her listening soul. There were wonders within wonders to her in Winn. She had hardly forced herself to accept his hardness when she discovered in him a tolerance deeper than anything she had ever seen, and an untiring patience. He had pulled men out of holes only to see them run back into them with the swiftness of burrowing rabbits; but nothing made him feel as if he could possibly give them up.
"You can't tell how many new starts a man wants," he explained to Claire; "but he ought to have as many as he can take. As long as a man wants to get on, I think he ought to be helped."
His code about a man's conduct to women was astonishingly drastic.
"If you've let a woman in," he explained, "you've got to strip yourself to get her out, no matter whether you care for her or not. The moment a woman gets caught out, you can't do too much for her. It's like seeing a dog with a tin can tied to its tail; you've got to get it off. A man ought to pay for his fun; even if it isn't his fault, he ought to pay just the same. It's not so much that he's the responsible person, but he's the leasthad. That ought to settle the question."
He was more diffident, but not less decided, on the subject of religion.
"If there's a God at all," he stated, "He must be good; otherwise you can't explain goodness, which doesn't pay and yet always seems worth having. You know what I mean. Not that I am a religious man myself, but I like the idea. Women certainly ought to be religious."
He hoped that Claire would go regularly to church unless it was draughty.
It was on the Bernina, when they were nine thousand feet up in a blue sky, beyond all sight or sound of life, in their silent, private world, that they talked about death.
"Curious," Winn said, "how little you think about it when you're up against it. I shouldn't like to die of an illness. That's all I've ever felt about it; that would be like letting go. I don't think I could let go easily; but just a proper, decent knock-out—why, I don't believe you'd know anything about it. I never felt afraid of chucking it, till I knew you, now I'm afraid."
Claire looked at his strong hands in the sunshine and at her own which lay on his; they looked so much alive! She tried hard to think about death, because she knew that some day everybody must die; but she felt as if she was alive forever.
"Yes," she said; "of course I suppose weshall. But, Winn, don't you think that we could send for each other then? Wouldn't that be splendid?"
The idea of death became suddenly a shortening of the future; it was like something to look forward to. Winn nodded gravely, but he didn't seem to take the same comfort in it that Claire did. He only said:
"I dare say we could manage something. But you feel all right, don't you?"
Claire laughed until something in his grave eyes hurt her behind her laughter.
The sky changed from saffron to dead blue and then to startling rose color. Flame after flame licked the Bernina heights. Their sleigh-bells rang persistently beneath them. They drank their coffee hurriedly while the sun sank out of the valley, and the whole world changed into an icy light.
They drove off rapidly down the pass, wrapped in furs and clinging to each other. They did not know what anything would mean when they were apart. The thought of separation was like bending from a sunny world over a well of darkness. Claire cried a little, but not very much. She never dared let herself really cry because of what might happen to Winn.
It surprised him sometimes how little she tried to influence his future life. She did not make him promise anything except to go to see Dr. Gurnet. He wondered afterward why she had left so much to his discretion when he had made so many plans, and urgent precautions for her future; and yet he knew that when she left him he would be desperate enough to break any promises and never desperate enough to break her trust in him. Suddenly he said to her as the darkness of the pass swallowed them:
"Look here, I won't take to drink. I'd like to, but I won't." And Claire leaned toward him and kissed him, and he said a moment later, with a little half laugh:
"D'you know, I rather wish you hadn't done that. You never have before, and I sha'n't be able to forget it. You put the stopper on to that intention."
And Claire said nothing, smiling into the darkness.
Claire had never been alone with Miss Marley before; she had known her only as an accompaniment to Winn; but she had been aware, even in these partial encounters, that she was being benevolently judged. It must be owned that earlier in the day she had learned, with a sinking of the heart, that she must give up the evening to Miss Marley. When every hour counted as a victory over time, she could not understand how Winn could let her go; and yet he had said quite definitely: "I want you to go to Miss Marley this evening. She'd like to talk to you, and I think you'd better."
But something happened which changed her feelings. Miss Marley was a woman despite the Cresta and there are times when only a woman's judgment can satisfy the heart of a girl. Claire was startled and perturbed by Maurice's sudden intervention. Maurice said:
"That chap Staines is getting you talked about. Pretty low down of him, as I believe he's married." She was pulled up short in the golden stream of her love. She saw for the first time the face of opinion—that hostile, stupid, interfering face. Claire had never thought that by any malign possibility they could be supposed to be doing wrong. She could not connect wrong with either her love or Winn's. If there was one quality more than another which had distinguished it, it had been its simple sense of rightness. She had seen Winn soften and change under it as the hard earth changes at the touch of spring. She had felt herself enriched and enlarged, moving more unswervingly than ever toward her oldest prayer—that she might, on the whole, be good. She hardly prayed at all about Winn; loving him was her prayer.
If she had meant to take him away from Estelle or to rob him of Peter, then she knew she would have been wrong. But in this fortnight she was taking nothing from Estelle that Estelle had ever had, and she was doing no harm to Peter. It would not be likely to do him any harm to soften his father's heart.
Claire's morality consisted solely in the consideration of other people; her instincts revolted against unkindness. It was an early Christian theory much lost sight of, "Love, and do as you please," the safety of the concession resting upon the quality of the love.
But to-night another idea had occurred to her, and she was very uneasy. Was it really possible that any one could blame Winn? Her first instinct had been sheer anger, and her anger had carried her past fear into the pride of love. She had felt as if she wanted to confront the world and defy it. If the world dared judge them, what did it matter? Their hearts were clean. She was too young to know that under the world's judgments clean hearts break even more easily than soiled ones.
But her mind had not rested there. She had begun to be afraid for Winn, and with all her heart she longed to see him justified. What had he ever done that he could be judged? He had loved her, spared her, guarded her. He had made, he was making, inconceivable sacrifices for her. He was killing not only his own joy, but hers rather than do her what he thought a wrong.
She sat on a footstool in front of Miss Marley's wood fire, frowning at the flames. Miss Marley watched her cautiously; there was a good deal she wanted to say, but she hoped that most of it might be said by Claire. A very careful talker can get a good deal expressed in this way; impressions, to be permanent, must always come from the person you wish to impress.
"Miss Marley," Claire began, "do you think it matters what peoplethink?"
Miss Marley, who invariably rolled her own cigarettes, took up a small silver box, flattened the cigarette-paper out carefully, and prepared to fill it before answering. Then she said:
"Very few people do think; that is generally what matters—absence of thought. Speech without thought is responsible for most people's disasters."
"But it can't matter what people say if it isn't true, can it?" Claire persisted. "I mean—nonsensecan'tcountagainst any one?"
"I'm rather afraid it does matter," said Miss Marley, lighting her cigarette. "Nonsense is very infectious, and it often carries a good deal of weight. I have known nonsense break people's hearts."
"Oh!" said Claire in a rising breath. She was wondering what it was like to have a broken heart. Somewhere in the back of her mind she knew that she was going to have one, half of one; but what really frightened her was that the other half was going to belong to Winn.
"Could any one," she said under her breath, "think any harm of him? He told me you knew all about us, and that I might talk to you if I wanted to; but I didn't then. There didn't seem anything to say. But now I do want to know; I want to know awfully what you think. If I asked him, he'd only laugh or else he'd be angry. He's very young in some ways, you know, Miss Marley—younger than I am."
"Yes," agreed Miss Marley; "men are always, to the end of their lives, very young in some ways."
"I never thought," Claire went on breathlessly, "that people would dream of blaming him because we were together. Why, it's so stupid! If they only knew! He's so good!"
"If he's that," said Miss Marley, smiling into the fire, "you've succeeded in making a saint of a Staines, a very difficult experiment! I shouldn't advise you to run away too much with that idea, however."
"It isn't me; it's him," exclaimed Claire, regardless of grammar. "I mean, after what Maurice said this afternoon—I don't know how to put it quite—I almost wish we'd both been bad!"
Miss Marley nodded. She knew the danger of blame when a tug of war is in progress, and how it weakens the side attacked.
"How can I explain to people," Claire went on, "what he's been like? I don't know whether I've told you, but he went away almost directly he found out he cared, before—long before he knew I cared, though he might have known; and he left a message to tell me about his wife, which I never got. But, oh, Miss Marley, I've never told him, I should have come if I'd got it or not! I should really, because Ihadto know if he cared! So you see, don't you, that if either of us was wicked it was me? Only I didn'tfeelwicked; I really felt awfully good. I don't see how you're to tell what's right if God doesn't let you know and people talk nonsense."
"It's not," agreed Miss Marley, dryly, "particularly easy to know."
"And his wife doesn't care for him," Claire went on. "Fancy Winn's wife not caring for him! Poor woman!"
"Why do you pity her?" Miss Marley inquired with interest.
"Well," said Claire, with a sudden dimple, "I was only thinking I shouldn't like to be Winn's wife if he didn't care for me; and then I was thinking that if he didn't, I'd make him!"
"Well, that effort doesn't seem required of you," said Miss Marley.
"No, but it only shows you that I'm much the most wicked, doesn't it?" asked Claire, with some pride.
"The points against Winn," Miss Marley said gravely, "are his age, his experience, and his wife. I feel bound to tell you that there are points against him."
Claire frowned.
"Winn isn't really old," she explained, "because he's only done things all his life—games or his work; it hasn't been people. People make you old, especially when you are looking after them. He's never really grown up; and as for experience, I don't think you experience anything unless you care about it. It hurts me sometimes to hear him talk about his wife. He's neverhadher; he's only had me. I don't explain very well, but I know it's true, because he told me things about loving which showed me he'd never had anything before except dogs—and Peter; and Peter's awfully young, and dogs can't answer back. You can't grow up on dogs."
Miss Marley tacitly admitted the limitations of canine influence; but she said:
"Still, you know, he's not kept to his own code; that's what one must judge people by. I'm sure he'd tell you himself that a married man should leave girls alone."
Claire thought for a moment, then she said:
"Yes, but he's gone deeper than his code now. Don't you think that perhaps a smash, even of something you value, makes you grow? I don't know how to put it quite, but if you never did what you thought wrong, would you ever know how big right is? Besides, he hasn't gone on doing it. Perhaps hedidstart wrong in getting to care, but that only makes it harder and finer, his stopping himself. Very few people, I think, but Winn could stop themselves, and nobody but Winn could ever care—so much." Her voice broke, and she turned away her head.
"What," said Miss Marley, rolling another cigarette, "are your plans?"
Miss Marley felt that she must give up first principles but she hoped that she might still be able to do something about plans.
"We are going to drive over the Maloja to Chiavenna," said Claire; "Maurice has a party to go with. We shall start by the earlier post, and have lunch together at Vico-Soprano before he comes. And then when Maurice comes we shall say good-by; and then—and then, Miss Marley, I've been thinking—we mustn't meet again! I haven't told Winn yet, because he likes to talk as if we could, in places awfully far away and odd, with you to chaperon us. I think it helps him to talk like that but I don't think now that we must ever meet again. You won't blame him if I tell you something, will you?"
"No," said Miss Marley; "after what you've said to me to-night I am not inclined to blame him."
"Well," said Claire, "I don't think, if we were to meet again, he would let me go. We may manage this time, but not twice."
"Are you sure," asked Miss Marley, gently, "that you will manage this time?"
Claire raised her head and looked at Miss Marley.
"Aren't you?" she said gravely. "Ididfeel very sure."
"I'd feel a great deal surer," said Miss Marley, "if you didn't drive down the pass. If you once set off with Winn, do you suppose he'll stop? I am sure he means to now; in fact, his sending you up here to talk to me proves it. He knows I sha'n't be much of a help to him in carrying you off. But, my dear, I never knew any Staines stop, once he'd started. As long as he is looking at the consequences for you, he'll steer clear of them, he's looking at them now, but a moment will come when he'll cease to look, and then everything will depend on you. I think your one chance is to say good-by here, and to drive down the pass with Maurice. He can dispose of his party for once."
The color left Claire's face, but her eyes never flinched from Miss Marley's. After a time Miss Marley turned her head away; she could no longer bear the look in Claire's eyes. It was like watching the face of some one drowning.
"I don't want a chance!" whispered Claire.