“You really meant to play in the first instance?”
“Yes.”
“Well, it was very wicked of you. Only the other day you were telling me how hard you had to work before you saved your first thousand pounds.”
“From that point of view my conduct was idiotic. But I would like to carry the story a little further, Miss Wynton. I was in a mood that night to oppose Mr. Bower for a much more valuable stake if the chance offered.”
“It is rather shocking,” said Helen.
“I suppose so. Of course, there are prizes inlife that cannot be measured by monetary standards.”
He was not looking at the Orlegna now, and the girl by his side well knew it. The great revelation that flooded her soul with light while crossing the Forno came back with renewed power. She did not pretend to herself that the words were devoid of a hidden meaning, and her heart fluttered with subtle ecstasy. But she was proud and self reliant, so proud that she crushed the tumult in her breast, so self reliant that she was able to give him a timid smile.
“That deals with the second head of the indictment, then,” she said lightly. “Now for the first. Why did you select the Engadine for your holiday?”
“If I could tell you that, I should know something of the occult impulses that govern men’s lives. One minute I was in London, meaning to go north. The next I was hurrying to buy a ticket for St. Moritz.”
“But——” She meant to continue, “you arrived here the same day as I did.” Somehow that did not sound quite the right thing to say. Her tongue tripped; but she forced herself to frame a sentence. “It is odd that you, like myself, should have hit upon an out of the way place like Maloja. The difference is that I was sent here, whereas you came of your own free will.”
“I guess you are right,” said he, laughing as though she had uttered an exquisite joke. “Yes,that is just it. I can imagine two young English swallows, meeting in Algeria in the winter, twittering explanations of the same sort.”
“I don’t feel a bit like a swallow, and I am sure I can’t twitter, and as for Algeria, a home of sunshine—well, just look at it!” She waved a hand at the darkening panorama of hills and pine woods, all etched in black lines and masses, where rocks and trees and houses broke the dead white of the snow mantle.
They happened to be crossing a bridge that spans the Orlegna before it takes its first frantic plunge towards Italy. Bower, who had quickened his pace, took the gesture as a signal, and sent an answering flourish. Helen stopped. He evidently wished to overtake them.
“More explanations,” murmured Spencer.
“But he was mistaken. I was calling Nature to witness that your simile was not justified.”
“Tell you what,” he said in a low voice, “if this storm has blown over by the morning, meet me after breakfast, and we will walk down the valley to Vicosoprano for luncheon. There is a diligence back in the afternoon. We can stroll there in three hours, and I shall have time to clear up this swallow proposition.”
“That will be delightful, if the weather improves.”
“It will. I will compel it.”
Bower was nearing them rapidly. A constrained silence fell between them. To end it, Helen cried:
“Well, are you feeling duly humbled, Mr. Bower?”
He did not seem to understand her meaning. Apparently, he might have forgotten that Stampa still lived. Then he roused his wits with an effort. “Not humbled, but elated,” he said. “Have I not led you to feats of derring-do? Why, the Wragg girls will be green with envy when they hear of your exploits.”
He swung round the corner to the bridge. After a smiling glance at Spencer’s impassive face, he turned to Helen. “You have come out of the ordeal with flying colors,” he said. “That flower you picked on the way up has not withered. Give it to me as a memento.”
The words were almost a challenge. The girl hesitated.
“No,” she said. “I must find you some other souvenir.”
“But I want that—if——”
“There is no ‘if.’ You forget that I took it from—from the boulder marked by a cross.”
“I am not superstitious.”
“Nor am I. Nevertheless, I should not care to give you such a symbol.”
She caught Bower and Spencer exchanging a strange look. These men shared some secret that they sedulously kept from her. Perhaps the American meant to enlighten her during their projected walk to Vicosoprano.
Stampa and the others approached. Together they climbed the little hill leading to the summit of the pass. In the village they said “Good night” to the two guides and Karl.
Helen promised laughingly to make the acquaintance of Johann Klucker’s cat at the first opportunity. She was passing through a wicket that protects the footpath across the golf links, when she heard Stampa growl:
“Morgen früh!”
“Ja!” snapped Bower.
She smiled to herself at the thought that things were going to happen to-morrow. She was right. But she had not yet done with the present day. When she entered the cozy and brilliantly lighted veranda of the hotel, the first person her amazed eyes alighted upon was Millicent Jaques.
“
Millicent! You here!” Helen breathed the words in an undertone that carried more than a hint of dismay.
It was one of those rare crises in life when the brain receives a presage of evil without any prior foundation of fact. Helen had every reason to welcome her friend, none to be chilled by her unexpected presence. Among a small circle of intimate acquaintances she counted Millicent Jaques the best and truest. They had drifted apart; but that was owing to Helen’s lack of means. She was not able, nor did she aspire, to mix in the society that hailed the actress as a bright particular star. Yet it meant much to a girl earning her daily bread in a heedless city that she should possess one friend of her own age and sex who could speak of the golden years when they were children together,—the years whenHelen’s father was the prospective governor of an Indian province as large as France; when the tuft hunters now gathered in Maloja would have fawned on her mother in hope of subsequent recognition.
Why, then, did Helen falter in her greeting? Who can tell? She herself did not know, unless it was that Millicent rose so leisurely from the table at which she was drinking a belated cup of tea, and came toward her with a smile that had no warmth in it.
“So you have returned,” she said, “and with both cavaliers?”
Helen was conscious of a queer humming noise in her head. She was incapable of calm thought. She realized now that the friend she had left in London was here in the guise of a bitter enemy. The veranda was full of people waiting for the post. The snow had banished them from links and tennis court. This August afternoon was dark as mid-December at the same hour. But the rendezvous was brilliantly lighted, and the reappearance of the climbers, whose chances of safety had been eagerly debated since the snow storm began, drew all eyes. Someone had whispered too that the beautiful woman who arrived from St. Moritz half an hour earlier, who sat in her furs and sipped her tea after a long conversation with a clerk in the bureau, was none other than Millicent Jaques, the dancer, one of the leading lights of English musical comedy.
The peepers and whisperers little dreamed thatshe could be awaiting the party from the Forno. Now that her vigil was explained, for Bower had advanced with ready smile and outstretched hand, the Wraggs and Vavasours and de la Veres—all the little coterie of gossips and scandalmongers—were drawn to the center of the hall like steel filings to a magnet.
Millicent ignored Bower. She was young enough and pretty enough to feel sure of her ability to deal with him subsequently. Her cornflower blue eyes glittered. They held something of the quiet menace of a crevasse. She had traveled far for revenge, and she did not mean to forego it. Helen, whose second impulse was to kiss her affectionately, with excited clamor of welcome and inquiry, stood rooted to the floor by her friend’s strange words.
“I—I am so surprised——” she half stammered in an agony of confused doubt; and that was the only lame phrase she could utter during a few trying seconds.
Bower frowned. He hated scenes between women. With his first glimpse of Millicent he guessed her errand. For Helen’s sake, in the presence of that rabbit-eared crowd, he would not brook the unmerited flood of sarcastic indignation which he knew was trembling on her lips.
“Miss Wynton has had an exhausting day,” he said coolly. “She must go straight to her room, and rest. You two can meet and talk after dinner.” Without further preamble, he took Helen’s arm.
Millicent barred the way. She did not give place. Again she paid no heed to the man. “I shall not detain you long,” she said, looking only at Helen, and speaking in a low clear voice that her stage training rendered audible throughout the large hall. “I only wished to assure myself that what I was told was true. I found it hard to believe, even when I saw your name written up in the hotel. Before I go, let me congratulate you on your conquest—and Mr. Mark Bower on his,” she added, with clever pretense of afterthought.
Helen continued to stare at her helplessly. Her lips quivered; but they uttered no sound. It was impossible to misunderstand Millicent’s object. She meant to wound and insult in the grossest way.
Bower dropped Helen’s arm, and strode close to the woman who had struck this shrewd blow at him. “I give you this one chance!” he muttered, while his eyes blazed into hers. “Go to your room, or sit down somewhere till I am free. I shall come to you, and put things straight that now seem crooked. You are wrong, horribly wrong, in your suspicions. Wait my explanation, or by all that I hold sacred, you will regret it to your dying hour!”
Millicent drew back a little. She conveyed the suggestion that his nearness was offensive to her nostrils. And she laughed, with due semblance of real amusement. “What! Has she made a fool of you too?” she cried bitingly.
Then Helen did exactly the thing she ought not to have done. She fainted.
Spencer, in his own vivid phrase, was “looking for trouble” the instant he caught sight of the actress. Had some Mahatma-devised magic lantern focused on the screen of his inner consciousness a complete narrative of the circumstances which conspired to bring Millicent Jaques to the Upper Engadine, he could not have mastered cause and effect more fully. The unlucky letter he asked Mackenzie to send to the Wellington Theater—the letter devised as a probe into Bower’s motives, but which was now cruelly searching its author’s heart—had undoubtedly supplied to a slighted woman the clew to her rival’s identity. Better posted than Bower in the true history of Helen’s visit to Switzerland, he did not fail to catch the most significant word in Millicent’s scornful greeting.
“And withbothcavaliers!”
In all probability, she knew the whole ridiculous story, reading into it the meaning lent by jealous spleen, and no more to be convinced of error than the Forno glacier could be made to flow backward.
“No,” said Spencer, “ring for the elevator.”“No,” said Spencer, “ring for the elevator.”Page217
But if his soul was vexed by a sense of bygone folly, his brain was cool and alert. He saw Helen sway slightly. He caught her before she collapsed where she stood. He gathered her tenderly in his arms. She might have been a tired child, fallen asleep too soon. Her limp head rested on his shoulder. Through the meshes of her blue veil he couldsee the sudden pallor of her cheeks. The tint of the silk added to the lifelessness of her aspect. Just then Spencer’s heart was sore within him, and he was an awkward man to oppose.
George de Courcy Vavasour happened to crane his neck nearer at the wrong moment. The American sent him flying with a vigorous elbow thrust. He shoved Bower aside with scant ceremony. Millicent Jaques met a steely glance that quelled the vengeful sparkle in her own eyes, and caused her to move quickly, lest, perchance, this pale-faced American should trample on her. Before Bower could recover his balance, for his hobnails caused him to slip on the tiled floor, Spencer was halfway across the inner hall, and approaching the elevator.
An official of the hotel hastened forward with ready proffer of help. “This way,” he said sympathetically. “The lady was overcome by the heat after so many hours in the intense cold. It often occurs. She will recover soon. Bring her to a chair in the office.”
But Spencer was not willing that Helen’s first wondering glance should rest on strangers, or that, when able to walk to her own apartments, she should be compelled to pass through the ranks of gapers in the lounge.
“No,” he said. “Ring for the elevator. This lady must be taken to her room,—No. 80, I believe,—then the manageress and a chambermaid can attend to her. Quick! the elevator!”
Bower turned on Millicent like an angry bull. “You have chosen your own method,” he growled. “Very well. You shall pay for it.”
Her venom was such that she was by no means disturbed by his threat. “The other man—the American who brought her here—seems to have bested you throughout,” she taunted him.
He drew himself up with a certain dignity. He was aware that every tongue in the place was stilled, that every ear was tuned to catch each note of this fantastic quartet,—a sonata appassionata in which vibrated the souls of men and women. He looked from Millicent’s pallid face to the faces of the listeners, some of whom made pretense of polite indifference, while others did not scruple to exhibit their eager delight. If nothing better, the episode would provide an abundance of spicy gossip during the enforced idleness caused by the weather.
“The lady whom you are endeavoring to malign, will, I hope, do me the honor of becoming my wife,” he said. “That being so, she is beyond the reach of the slanderous malice of an ex-chorus girl.”
He spoke slowly, with the air of a man who weighed his words. A thrill that could be felt ran through his intent audience. Mark Bower, the millionaire, the financial genius who dominated more than one powerful group in the city, who controlled a ring of theaters in London and the provinces, who had declined a knighthood, and would surely be created a peer with the next change of government,—thathe should openly declare himself a suitor for the hand of a penniless girl was a sensation with a vengeance. His description of Millicent as an ex-chorus girl offered anotherbonne boucheto the crowd. She would never again skip airily behind the footlights of the Wellington, or any other important theater in England. So far as she was concerned, the musical comedy candle that succeeded to the sacred lamp of West End burlesque was snuffed out.
Millicent was actress enough not to flinch from the goad. “A charming and proper sentiment,” she cried with well simulated flippancy. “The marriage of Mr. Mark Bower will be quite a fashionable event, provided always that he secures the assent of the American gentleman who is paying his future wife’s expenses during her present holiday.”
Now, so curiously constituted is human nature, or the shallow worldliness that passes current for it among the homeless gadabouts who pose as British society on the Continent, that already the current of opinion in the hotel was setting steadily in Helen’s favor. The remarkable change dated from the moment of Bower’s public announcement of his matrimonial plans. Many of those present were regretting a lost opportunity. It was obvious to the meanest intelligence—and the worn phrase took a new vitality when applied to some among the company—that any kindness shown to Helen during the preceding fortnight would be repaid a hundredfold when she becameMrs. Mark Bower. Again, not even the bitterest of her critics could allege that she was flirting with the quiet mannered American who had just carried her off like a new Paris. She had lived in the same hotel for a whole week without speaking a word to him. If anything, she had shown favor only to Bower, and that in a way so decorous and discreet that more than one woman there was amazed by her careless handling of a promising situation. Just give one of them the chance of securing such a prize fish as this stalwart millionaire! Well, at least he should not miss the hook for lack of a bait.
Oddly enough, the Rev. Philip Hare gave voice to a general sentiment when he interfered in the duel. He, like others, was waiting for his letters. He saw Helen come in, and was hurrying to offer his congratulations on her escape from the storm, when the appearance of Millicent prevented him from speaking at once. The little man was hot with vexation at the scene that followed. He liked Helen; he was unutterably shocked by Millicent’s attack; and he resented the unfair and untrue construction that must be placed on her latest innuendo.
“As one who has made Miss Wynton’s acquaintance in this hotel,” he broke in vehemently, “I must protest most emphatically against the outrageous statement we have just heard. If I may say it, it is unworthy of the lady who is responsible for it. I know nothing of your quarrel, nor do I wish to figure in it; but I do declare, on my honor as aclergyman of the Church of England, that Miss Wynton’s conduct in Maloja has in no way lent itself to the inference one is compelled to draw from the words used.”
“Thank you, Mr. Hare,” said Bower quietly, and a subdued murmur of applause buzzed through the gathering.
There is a legend in Zermatt that Saint Theodule, patron of the Valais, wishing to reach Rome in a hurry, sought demoniac aid to surmount the impassable barrier of the Alps. Opening his window, he saw three devils dancing merrily on the housetops. He called them. “Which of you is the speediest?” he asked. “I,” said one, “I am swift as the wind.”—“Bah!” cried the second, “I can fly like a bullet.”—“These two talk idly,” said the third. “I am quick as the thought of a woman.” The worthy prelate chose the third. The hour being late, he bargained that he should be carried to Rome and back before cockcrow, the price for the service to be his saintly soul. The imp flew well, and returned to the valley of the Rhone long ere dawn. Joyous at his gain, he was about to bound over the wall of the episcopal city of Sion, when St. Theodule roared lustily, “Coq, chante! Que tu chantes! Ou que jamais plus tu ne chantes!” Every cock in Sion awoke at his voice, and raised such a din that the devil dropped a bell given to his saintship by the Holy Father, and Saint Theodule was snug and safe inside it.
The prelate was right in his choice of the third. The thoughts of two women took wings instantly. Mrs. de la Vere, throwing away a half-smoked cigarette, hurried out of the veranda. Millicent Jaques, whose carriage was ready for the long drive to St. Moritz, decided to remain in Maloja.
The outer door opened, with a rush of cold air and a whirl of snow. People expected the postman; but Stampa entered,—only Stampa, the broken survivor of the little band of guides who conquered the Matterhorn. He doffed his Alpine hat, and seemed to be embarrassed by the unusually large throng assembled in the passageway. Bower saw him, and strode away into the dimly lighted foyer.
“Pardon,’sieurs et ’dames,” said Stampa, advancing with his uneven gait, a venerable and pathetic figure, the wreck of a giant, a man who had aged years in a single day. He went to the bureau, and asked permission to seek Herr Spencer in his room.
Helen was struggling back to consciousness when Mrs. de la Vere joined the kindly women who were loosening her bodice and chafing her hands and feet.
The first words the girl heard were in English. A woman’s voice was saying cheerfully, “There, my dear!” a simple formula of marvelous recuperative effect,—“there now! You are all right again. But your room is bitterly cold. Won’t you come intomine? It is quite near, and my stove has been alight all day.”
Helen, opening her eyes, found herself gazing up at Mrs. de la Vere. Real sympathy ranks high among good deeds. The girl’s lips quivered. Returning life brought with it tears.
The woman whom she had regarded as a social butterfly sat beside her on the bed and placed a friendly arm round her neck. “Don’t cry, you dear thing,” she cooed gently. “There is nothing to cry about. You are a bit overwrought, of course; but, as it happens, you have scored heavily off all of us—and not least off the creature who upset you. Now, do try and come with me. Here are your slippers. The corridor is empty. It is only a few steps.”
“Come with you?”
“Yes, you are shivering with the cold, and my room is gloriously warm.”
“But——”
“There are no buts. Marie will bring a basin of nice hot soup. While you are drinking it she will set your stove going. I know exactly how you feel. The whole world is topsyturvy, and you don’t think there is a smile in your make-up, as that dear American man who carried you here would say.”
Helen recovered her senses with exceeding rapidity. Mrs. de la Vere was already leading her to the door.
“What! Mr. Spencer—did he——”
“He did. Come, now. I shall tell you all thetrying details when you are seated in my easy chair, and wrapped in the duckiest Shetland shawl that a red headed laird sent me last Christmas. Excellent! Of course you can walk! Isn’t every other woman in the hotel well aware how you got that lovely figure? Yes, in that chair. And here is the shawl. It’s just like being cuddled by a woolly lamb.”
Mrs. de la Vere turned the keys in two doors. “Reggie always knocks,” she explained; “but some inquisitive cat may follow me here, and I am sure you don’t wish to be gushed over now, after everybody has been so horrid to you.”
“You were not,” said Helen gratefully.
“Yes, I was, in a way. I hate most women; but I admired you ever since you took the conceit out of that giddy husband of mine. If I didn’t speak, it arose from sheer laziness—a sort of drifting with the stream, in tow of the General and that old mischief maker, Mrs. Vavasour. I’m sorry, and you will be quite justified to-morrow morning in sailing past me and the rest as though we were beetles.”
Then Helen laughed, feebly, it is true, but with a genuine mirth that chased away momentarily the evergrowing memory of Millicent’s injustice. “Why do you mention beetles?” she asked. “It is part of my every day work to classify them.”
Mrs. de la Vere was puzzled. “I believe you have said something very cutting,” she cried. “If you did, we deserve it. But please tell me the joke. I shall hand it on to the Wraggs.”
“There is no joke. I act as secretary to a German professor of entomology—insects, you know; he makes beetles a specialty.”
The other woman’s eye danced. “It is all very funny,” she said, “and I still have my doubts. Never mind. I want to atone for earlier shortcomings. I felt that someone really ought to tell you what took place in the outer foyer after you sank gracefully out of the act. Mr.Bower——”
A tap on the door leading into the corridor interrupted her. It was Marie, armed with chicken broth and dry toast. Mrs. de la Vere, who seemed to be filled with an honest anxiety to place Helen at her ease, persuaded her to begin sipping the compound.
“Well, what did Mr. Bower do?” demanded Helen, who was wondering now why she had fainted. The accusation brought against her by Millicent Jaques was untrue. Why should it disturb her so gravely? It did not occur to her that the true cause was physical,—a too sudden change of temperature.
“He sat on that young woman from the Wellington Theater very severely, I assure you. From her manner we all imagined she had some sort of claim on him; but if she was laboring under any such delusion he cured her. He said—Are you really strong enough to stand a shock?”
“Twenty shocks. I can’t think how I could have been so silly——”
“Nerves, my dear. We all have ’em. Sometimes, if I didn’t smoke I should scream. No woman really likes to see her husband flirting openly with her friends. I’m no saint; but my wickedness is defensive. Now, are you ready?”
“Quite ready.”
“Mr. Bower told us,tout le monde, you know, that he meant to marry you.”
“Oh!” said Helen.
During an appreciable pause neither woman spoke. Helen was not sure whether she wanted to laugh or be angry. Mrs. de la Vere eyed her curiously. The girl’s face was yet white and drawn. It was impossible to guess how the great news affected her. The de la Veres were poor on two thousand a year. What did it feel like to be the prospective bride of a millionaire, especially when you were—what was it?—secretary to a man who collected beetles!
“Did Mr. Bower assign any reason for making that remarkable statement?” said Helen at last.
“He explained that the fact—I suppose it is a fact—would safeguard you from the malice of an ex-coryphée. Indeed, he put it more brutally. He spoke of the ‘slanderous malice of an ex-chorus girl.’ The English term sounds a trifle harsher than the French, don’t you think?”
It began to dawn on Helen that Mrs. de la Vere’s friendliness might have a somewhat sordid foundation. Was she tending her merely to secure thefreshest details of an affair that must be causing many tongues to wag?
“I am acquiring new theories of life since I came to Maloja,” she said slowly. “One would have thought that I might be the first person to be made aware of Mr. Bower’s intentions.”
“Oh, this is really too funny. May I light a cigarette?”
“Please do. And now it is my turn to ask you to point out the exquisite humor of the situation.”
“Don’t be vexed with me, child. You needn’t say another word if you don’t wish it; but surely you are not annoyed because I have given you the tip as to what took place in the hall?”
“You have been exceedingly good——”
“No. I haven’t. I was just as nasty as the others, and I sneered like the rest when Bower showed up a fortnight since. I was wrong, and I apologize for it. Regard me as in sackcloth and ashes. But my heart went out to you when you dropped like a log among all those staring people. I’ve—I’ve done it myself, and my case was worse than yours. Once in my life I loved a man, and I came home one day from the hunting field to read a telegram from the War Office. He was ‘missing,’ it said—missing—in a rear-guard action in Tirah. Do you know what that means?”
A cloud of smoke hid her face; but it could not stifle the sob in her voice. There was a knock at the door.
“Are you there, Edith?” demanded Reginald de la Vere.
“Yes. Go away! I’m busy.”
“But——”
“Go away, I tell you!”
Then she jerked a scornful hand toward the door. “Six months later I was married—men who are missed among the Afridis don’t come back,” she said.
“I’m more sorry than I can put into words!” murmured Helen.
“For goodness’ sake don’t let us grow sentimental. Shall we return to our sheep? Don’t be afraid that I shall pasture the goats in the hall on your confidences. Hasn’t Bower asked you?”
“No.”
“Then his action was all the more generous. He meant to squelch that friend of yours—is she your friend?”
“She used to be,” said Helen sadly.
“And what do you mean to do about it? You will marry Bower, of course?”
Helen’s heart fluttered. Her color rose in a sudden wave. “I—I don’t think so,” she breathed.
“Don’t you? Well, I like you the better for saying so. I can picture myself putting the same questions to one of the Wragg girls—to both of ’em, in fact. I am older than you, and very much wiser in some of the world’s ways, and my advice is, Don’t marry any man unless you are sure you love him. If you do love him, you may keep him, formen are patient creatures. But that is for you to decide. I can’t help you there. I am mainly concerned, for the moment, in helping you over the ice during the next day or two—if you will let me, that is. Probably you have determined not to appear in public to-night. That will be a mistake. Wear your prettiest frock, and dine with Reggie and me. We shall invite Mr. Bower to join us, and two other people—some man and woman I can depend on to keep things going. If we laugh and kick up no end of a noise, it will not only worry the remainder of the crowd, but you score heavily off the theatrical lady. See?”
“I can see that you are acting the part of the good Samaritan,” cried Helen.
“Oh, dear, no—nothing so antiquated. Look at your future position—the avowed wife of a millionaire. Eh, what? as Georgie says.”
“But I am not anything of the kind. Mr. Bower——”
“Mr. Bower is all right. He has the recognized history of the man who makes a good husband, and you can’t help liking him, unless—unless there is another man.”
“There, at least, I am——” Helen hesitated. Something gripped her heart and checked the modest protestation of her freedom.
Mrs. de la Vere laughed. “If you are not sure, you are safe,” she said, with a hard ring in her utterance that belied her easygoing philosophy.“Really, you bring me back a lost decade. Now, Helen—may I call you Helen?”
“Yes, indeed.”
“Well, then, don’t forget that my name is Edith. You have just half an hour to dress. I need every second of the time; so off you run to your room. As I hear Reggie flinging his boots around next door, I shall hurry him and arrange about the table. Call for me. We must go to the foyer together. Now kiss me, there’s a dear.”
Helen was wrestling with her refractory tresses—for the coiffure that suits glaciers and Tam o’Shanters is not permissible in evening dress—when a servant brought her a note.
“Dear Miss Wynton,” it ran,—“If you are able to come down to dinner, why not dine with me? Sincerely,”Charles K. Spencer.”
“Dear Miss Wynton,” it ran,—“If you are able to come down to dinner, why not dine with me? Sincerely,
”Charles K. Spencer.”
She blushed and laughed a little. “I am in demand,” she thought, flashing a pardonable glance at her own face in the mirror. She read the brief invitation again. Spencer had a trick of printing the K in his signature. It caught her fancy. It suggested strength, trustworthiness. She did not know then that one of the shrewdest scoundrels in the Western States had already commented on certain qualities betokened by that letter in Spencer’s name.
“I cannot refuse,” she murmured. “To be candid, I don’t want to refuse. What shall I do?”
Bidding the servant wait, she twisted her hair into a coil, threw a wrap round her shoulders, and tapped on Mrs. de la Vere’s door.
“Entrez!” cried that lady.
“I am in a bit of difficulty,” said Helen. “Mr. Spencer wishes me to dine with him. Would you——”
“Certainly. I’ll ask him to join us. Reggie will see him too. Really, Helen, this is amusing. I am beginning to suspect you.”
So Spencer received a surprising answer. He read it without any sign of the amusement Mrs. de la Vere extracted from the situation, for Helen took care to recite the whole arrangement.
“I’m going through with this,” he growled savagely, “even if I have to drink Bower’s health—damn him!”
Seldom, if ever, has a more strangely assorted party met at dinner than that which gathered in the Hotel Kursaal under the social wing of Mrs. de la Vere. Her husband, while being coached in essentials, was the first to discover its incongruities.
“Where Miss Wynton is concerned, you are warned off,” his wife told him dryly. “You must console yourself with Mrs. Badminton-Smythe. She will stand anything to cut out a younger and prettier woman.”
“Where do you come in, Edie?” said he; for Mrs. de la Vere’s delicate aristocratic beauty seemed to be the natural complement of her sporting style, and to-night there was a wistful charm in her face that the lively Reginald had not seen there before.
She turned aside, busying herself with her toilet.“I don’t come in. I went out five years ago,” she cried, with a mocking laugh.
“Do you know,” he muttered, “I often wonder why the deuce you an’ I got married.”
“Because, sweet Reginald, we were made for each other by a wise Providence. What other woman of your acquaintance would tolerate you—as a husband?”
“Oh, dash it all! if it comes to that——”
“For goodness’ sake, don’t fuss, or begin to think. Run away and interview the head waiter. Then you are to buttonhole Bower and the American. I am just sending a chit to the Badminton-Smythes.”
“Who is my partner?”
“Lulu, of course.”
De la Vere was puzzled, and looked it. “I suppose it is all right,” he growled. “Still, I can’t help thinking you’ve got something up your sleeve, Edie.”
She stamped a very pretty foot angrily. “Do as I tell you! Didn’t you hear what Bower said? He will be everlastingly obliged to us for coming to the rescue in this fashion. Next time you have a flutter in the city, his friendship may be useful.”
“By gad!” cried Reginald, beginning, as he fancied, to see light, “something seems to have bitten you this evening. Tell you what—Lulu is a non-runner. Get Bower to put you on to a soft thing in Africans, an’ you an’ I will have a second honeymoon in Madeira next winter. Honor bright! I mean it.”
She seized a silver mounted brush from the dressing table with the obvious intent of speeding his departure. He dodged out, and strolled down the corridor.
“Never saw Edie in that sort of tantrum before,” he said to himself. “If she only knew how sick I was of all this jolly rot, perhaps we’d run better in double harness.”
So it came to pass, when the company assembled in the great dining room, that Bower sat on Mrs. de la Vere’s left, and Spencer on her right. Beyond them, respectively, were Lulu Badminton-Smythe and her husband, and between these latter were de la Vere and Helen. Thus, the girl was separated from the two men whom her shrewd eyed hostess had classed as rivals, while the round table made possible a general conversation.
The talk could hardly fail to turn on the day’s adventures. Spencer, who had never before in his life thrust himself forward in a social gathering, did so now with fixed purpose. He meant to eclipse Bower in a territory where that polished man of the world was accustomed to reign unchallenged. But he had the wisdom to wait. He guessed, not without good cause, that more than one late arrival would pause beside their table and make polite inquiries as to the climbers’ well being. These interruptions were fatal to Bower’s well balanced periods. The journey to the hut, therefore, was dealt with jerkily.
When Spencer took up the thread, he caught andheld the attention of his hearers. In this he was helped considerably by his quaint idioms. To English ears, American expressions are always amusing. Spencer, of course, could speak quite as correct English as anyone present; but he realized that in this instance a certain amount of picturesque exaggeration would lend itself to humor. His quick ear too had missed none of the queer mixture of prayers and objurgations with which Karl and the two guides hailed every incident. His selections set them all in a roar. In fact, they were the liveliest party in the room. Many an eye was drawn by a merriment that offered such striking contrast to the dramatic episode in the outer hall.
“The one person missing from that crowd is the stage lady,” was Miss Gladys Wragg’s caustic comment, when Badminton-Smythe evoked a fresh outburst by protesting that he forgot to eat his fish owing to Spencer’s beastly funny yarn.
And Miss Wragg’s criticism was justified. It only needed Millicent’s presence to add a wizard’s touch to the amazement with which Mrs. Vavasour and others of her kind regarded the defection of the de la Veres and the Badminton-Smythes. But Millicent was dining in her own room. The last thing she dreamed of was that Helen would face the other residents in the hotel after the ordeal she had gone through an hour earlier. She half expected that Bower would endeavor to meet her privately while dinner was being served. She was ready for him.She prepared a number of sarcastic little speeches, each with a subtle venom of its own, and even rehearsed a pose or two with a view toward scenic effect. But she had neither taken Bower’s measure nor counted on Mrs. de la Vere’s superior strategy. All that happened was that she ate a lukewarm meal, and was left to wonder at her one-time admirer’s boldness in accepting a situation that many a daring man would have striven to evade.
After dinner it was the custom of the habitués to break up into small groups and arrange the night’s amusement. Dancing claimed the younger element, while card games had their devotees. Mrs. de la Vere danced invariably; but to-night she devoted herself to Helen. She was under no illusions. Bower and Spencer were engaged in a quiet duel, and the victor meant to monopolize the girl for the remainder of the evening. That was preventable. They could fight their battle on some other occasion. At present there was one thing of vital importance,—the unpleasant impression created by the actress’s bitter attack must be dissipated, and Mrs. de la Vere, secretly marveling at her own enthusiasm, aimed at the achievement.
“Don’t be drawn away from me on any pretext,” she whispered, linking her arm through Helen’s as they passed out into the foyer. “And be gracious to everybody, even to those who have been most cattish.”
Helen was far too excited and grateful to harboranimosity. Moreover, she dreaded the chance of being left alone with Bower. As he had already declared his intentions publicly, she was sure he would seize the first opportunity to ask her to marry him. And what would be her answer? She hardly knew. She must have time to think. She must search her own heart. She almost flinched from the succeeding thought,—was it that her soul had found another mate? If that was so, she must refuse Bower, though the man she was learning to love might pass out of her life and leave her desolate.
She liked Bower, even respected him. Never for an instant had the notion intruded that he had followed her to Switzerland with an unworthy motive. To her mind, nothing could be more straightforward than their acquaintance. The more she reflected on Millicent Jaques’s extraordinary conduct, the more she was astounded by its utter baselessness. And Bower was admirable in many ways. He stood high in the opinion of the world. He was rich, cultured, and seemingly very deeply enamored of her undeserving self. What better husband could any girl desire? He would give her everything that made life worth living. Indeed, if the truth must be told, she was phenomenally lucky.
Thus did she strive to silence misgivings, to quell doubt, to order and regulate a blurred medley of subconscious thought. While laughing, and talking, and making the most successful efforts to be at ease with the dozens of people who came and spoke toMrs. de la Vere and herself, she felt like some frail vessel dancing blithely in a swift, smooth current, yet hastening ever to the verge of a cataract.
Once Bower approached, skillfully piloting Mrs. Badminton-Smythe; for Reginald, tiring of the rôle thrust on him by his wife, had gone to play bridge. It was his clear intent to take Helen from her chaperon.
“It is still snowing, though not so heavily,” he said. “Come on the veranda, and look at the landscape. The lake is a pool of ink in the middle of a white table cloth.”
“The snow will be far more visible in the morning, and we have a lot of ice to melt here,” interposed Mrs. de la Vere quickly.
The man and woman, both well versed in the ways of society, looked each other squarely in the eye. Though disappointed, the man understood, was even appreciative.
“Miss Wynton is fortunate in her friends,” he said, and straightway went to the writing room. He felt that Helen was safe with this unexpected ally. He could afford to bide his time. Nothing could now undo the effect of his open declaration while flouting Millicent Jaques. If he gave that wayward young person a passing thought, it was one of gladness that she had precipitated matters. There remained only an unpleasant meeting with Stampa in the morning. He shuddered at the recollection that he had nearly done a foolish thing while crossing thecrevasse. What sinister influence could have so weakened his nerve as to make him think of murder? Crime was the last resource of impaired intellect. He was able to laugh now at the stupid memory of it.
True, the American——
By the way, what did Millicent mean by her shrewish cry that Spencer was paying for Helen’s holiday? So engrossed was he in other directions that his early doubts with regard to “The Firefly’s” unprecedented enterprise in sending a representative to this out-of-the-way Swiss valley had been lulled to sleep. Of course, he had caused certain inquiries to be made—that was his method. One of the telegrams he dispatched from Zurich after Helen’s train bustled off to Coire started the investigation. Thus far, a trusted clerk could only ascertain that the newspaper had undoubtedly commissioned the girl on the lines indicated. Still, the point demanded attention. He resolved to telegraph further instructions in the morning, with Spencer’s name added as a clew, though, to be sure, he was not done with Millicent yet. He would reckon with her also on the morrow. Perhaps, if he annoyed her sufficiently, she might explain that cryptic taunt.
Could he have seen a letter that was brought to Spencer’s room before dinner, the telegram would not have been written. Mackenzie, rather incoherent with indignation, sent a hurried scrawl.