“Was rather taken aback by appearance of H. She says you told her I was leaving the hotel. We fell on each other’s neck and wept. Is that right? M. J.”
“Was rather taken aback by appearance of H. She says you told her I was leaving the hotel. We fell on each other’s neck and wept. Is that right? M. J.”
He cut the end off a cigar, lit the paper with a match, and lit the cigar with the paper.
“Five thousand pounds!” he said to himself. “It is a lot of money to one who has none. I remember the time when I would have sold my soul to the devil for half the amount.”
But that was not a pleasing notion. It suggested that, by evil hazard, some such contract had, in fact, been made, but forgotten by one of the parties to it. So he dismissed it. Having disposed of Stampa and Millicent, practically between breakfast and lunch, there were no reasons why he should trouble further about them. The American threatened a fresh obstacle. He was winning his way with Helen altogether too rapidly. In the light of those ominous words at the luncheon table his close association with Stampa indicated a definite knowledge of the past. Curse him! Why did he interfere?
Bower was eminently a selfish man. He had enjoyed unchecked success for so long a time that he railed now at the series of mischances that tripped the feet of his desires. Looking back through recent days, he was astonished to find how often Spencer had crossed his path. Before he was four hours in Maloja, Helen, in his hearing, had singled out the American for conjecture and scrutiny. Then Dunston spoke of the same man as an eager adversary at baccarat; but the promised game was arranged without Spencer’s coöperation, greatly to Dunston’s loss. A man did not act in such fashion without some motive. What was it? This reserved, somewhat contemptuous rival had also snatchedHelen from his company many times. He had undoubtedly rendered some service in coming to the Forno hut; but Bower’s own lapse from sanity on that occasion did not escape his notice. Finally, this cool mannered, alert youngster from the New World did not seem to care a fig for any prior claim on Helen’s affections. His whole attitude might be explained by the fact that he was Stampa’s employer, and had won the old guide’s confidence.
Yes, the American was the real danger. That pale ghost conjured from the grave by Stampa was intangible, powerless, a dreamlike wraith evoked by a madman’s fancy. Already the fear engendered myopia of the morning was passing from Bower’s eyes. The passage of arms with Millicent had done him good. He saw now that if he meant to win Helen he must fight for her.
Glancing at his watch, he found that the time was a quarter to three. He opened a window in his sitting room, which was situated in the front of the hotel. By leaning out he could survey the carriage stand at the foot of the long flight of steps. A pair-horse vehicle was drawn up there, and men were fastening portly dress baskets in the baggage carrier over the hind wheels.
He smiled. “The pretty dancer travels luxuriously,” he thought. “I wonder whether she will be honest enough to pay her debts with my money?”
He still hated her for having dragged him into a public squabble. He looked to the future to requitehim. A year, two years, would soon pass. Then, when funds were low and engagements scarce, she would appeal to him again, and his solicitors would reply. He caught himself framing curt, stinging sentences to be embodied in the letter; but he drew himself up with a start. Surely there was something very wrong with Mark Bower, the millionaire, when he gloated over such paltry details. Why, his reflections were worthy of that old spitfire, Mrs. de Courcy Vavasour.
His cigar had gone out. He threw it away. It had the taste of Millicent’s cheap passion. A decanter of brandy stood on the table, and he drank a small quantity, though he had imbibed freely of champagne at luncheon. He glanced at a mirror. His face was flushed and care lined, and he scowled at his own apparition.
“I must go and see the last of Millicent. It will cheer me up,” he said to himself.
When he entered the foyer, Millicent was already in the veranda, a dainty picture in furs and feathers. Somewhat to his surprise, Helen was with her. A good many people were watching them covertly, a quite natural proceeding in view of their strained relations overnight.
“It will paralyze the dowager brigade if we hug each other.”“It will paralyze the dowager brigade if we hug each other.”Page309
Millicent’s first action after quitting thesalle à mangerhad been to worm out of Léontine the full, true, and particular history of Etta Stampa, or so much of the story as was known to the hotel servants. The recital was cut short by Helen’s visit,but resumed during packing operations, as Millicent had enlarged her store of knowledge considerably during the process of reconciliation.
So, alive to possibilities going far beyond a single check, even for five thousand pounds, at the last moment she sent a message to Helen.
“Come and see me off,” she wrote. “It will simply paralyze the dowager brigade if we hug each other on the mat.”
“Come and see me off,” she wrote. “It will simply paralyze the dowager brigade if we hug each other on the mat.”
Helen agreed. She was not sorry that her critics should be paralyzed, or stupefied, or rendered incapable in some way of inflicting further annoyance. In her present radiant mood, nearly all her troubles having taken unto themselves wings, she looked on yesterday’s episode in the light of a rather far fetched joke. Bower stood so high in her esteem that she was sure the outspoken announcement of his intentions was dictated chiefly by anger at Millicent’s unfair utterances. Perhaps he had some thought of marriage; but he must seek a wife in a more exalted sphere. She felt in her heart that Spencer was only awaiting a favorable opportunity to declare his love, and she did not strive to repress the wave of divine happiness that flooded her heart at the thought.
After much secret pondering and some shy confidences intrusted to Mrs. de la Vere, she had resolved to tell him that if he left the Maloja at once—an elastic phrase in lovers’ language—and came to herin London next month, she would have an answer ready. She persuaded herself that there was no other honorable way out of an embarrassing position. She had come to Switzerland for work, not for love making. Spencer would probably wish to marry her forthwith, and that was not to be thought of while “The Firefly’s” commission was only half completed. All of which modest and maidenly reasoning left wholly out of account Spencer’s strenuous wooing; it is chronicled here merely to show her state of mind when she kissed Millicent farewell.
It is worthy of note also that two young people who might be expected to take the liveliest interest in each other’s company were steadfast in their determination to separate. Each meant to send the other back to England with the least possible delay, and both were eager to fly into each other’s arms—in London! Whereat the gods may have laughed, or frowned, as the case may be, if they glanced at the horoscopes of certain mortals pent within the mountain walls of the Upper Engadine.
While Helen was still gazing after Millicent’s retreating carriage, Bower came from the darksome foyer to the sunlit veranda. “So you parted the best of friends?” he said quietly.
She turned and looked at him with shining eyes. “I cannot tell you how pleased I am that a stupid misunderstanding should be cleared away!” she said.
“Then I share your pleasure, though, to be candid,I was thinking that a woman’s kiss has infinite gradations. It may savor of Paradise or the Dead Sea.”
“But she told me how grieved she was that she had behaved so foolishly, and appealed to me not to let the folly of a day break the friendship of years.”
“Ah! Millicent picks up some well turned sentiments on the stage. Come out for a little stroll, and tell me all about it.”
Helen hesitated. “It will soon be tea time,” she said, with a self conscious blush. She had promised Spencer to walk with him to the château; but her visit to Millicent had intervened, and he was not on the veranda at the moment.
“We need not go far. The sun has garnished the roads for us. What do you say if we make for the village, and interview Johann Klucker’s cat on the weather?”
His tone was quite reassuring. To her transparent honesty of purpose it seemed better that they should discuss Millicent’s motive in coming to the hotel and then dismiss it for ever. “A most excellent idea,” she cried lightly. “I have been writing all the morning, so a breath of fresh air will be grateful.”
They passed down the steps.
They had not gone more than a few paces when the driver of an empty carriage pulled up his vehicle and handed Bower a telegram.
“They gave it to me at St. Moritz, Herr Bower,” he said. “I took a message there for Herr Spencer, and they asked me to bring this to you, as it would reach you more quickly than if it came by the post.”
Bower thanked the man, and opened the envelop. It was a very long telegram; but he only glanced at it in the most cursory manner before putting it in a pocket.
At a distant corner of the road by the side of the lake, Millicent turned for a last look at the hotel and waved a hand at them. Helen replied.
“I almost wish now she was staying here a few days,” she said wistfully. “She ought to have seen our valley in its summer greenery.”
“I fear she brought winter in her train,” was Bower’s comment. “But the famous cat must decide. Here, boy,” he went on, hailing a village urchin, “where is Johann Klucker’s house?”
The boy pointed to a track that ran close to the right bank of the tiny Inn. He explained volubly, and was rewarded with a franc.
“Do you know this path?” asked Bower. “Klucker’s chalet is near the waterfall, which should be a fine sight owing to the melting snow.”
It was Helen’s favorite walk. She would have preferred a more frequented route; but the group of houses described by the boy was quite near, and she could devise no excuse for keeping to the busy highway. As the path was narrow she walked in front. The grass and flowers seemed to have drawn freshtints from the snow, which had cleared away with magical rapidity from this sheltered spot. But the little rivulet, usually diamond bright, was now a turbulent and foaming stream. Care was needed not to slip. If anyone fell into that miniature torrent, it would be no easy matter to escape without broken bones.
“Would you ever believe that a few hours’ snow, followed by a hot sun, would make such a difference to a mere ribbon of water like this?” she asked, when they were passing through a narrow cleft in a wall of rock through which the Inn roared with a quite respectable fury.
“I am in a mood to believe anything,” said Bower. “Do you remember our first meeting at the Embankment Hotel? Who would have imagined then that Millicent Jaques, a few weeks later, would rush a thousand miles to the Maloja and scream her woes to Heaven and the multitude. Neither you nor I, I fancy, had seen her during the interval. Did she tell you the cause of her extraordinary behavior?”
“No. I did not ask her. But it scarce needed explanation, Mr. Bower. I—I fear she suspected me of flirting. It was unjust; but I can well conceive that a woman who thinks her friend is robbing her of a man’s affections does not wait to consider nice points of procedure.”
“Surely Millicent did not say that I had promised to marry her?”
Though Helen was not prepared for this downrightplunge into an embarrassing discussion, she managed to evade a direct answer. “There was more than a suggestion of that in her words last night,” she said. “Perhaps she thought so in all seriousness. You seem to have undeceived her to-day, and I am sure you must have dealt with her kindly, or she would not have acknowledged her mistake in such frank terms to me. There, now! That is the end of a very disagreeable episode. Shall we say no more about it?”
Helen was flushed and hurried of speech: but she persevered bravely, hoping that Bower’s tact would not desert him at this crisis. She quickened her pace a little, with the air of one who has said the last word on a difficult topic and is anxious to forget it.
Bower overtook her. He grasped her shoulder almost roughly, and drew her round till she faced him. “You are trying to escape me, Helen!” he said hoarsely. “That is impossible. Someone must have told you what I said to Millicent in the hearing of all who chose to listen. Her amazing outburst forced from me an avowal that should have been made to you alone. Helen, I want you to be my wife. I love you better than all the world. I have my faults,—what man is flawless?—but I have the abiding virtue of loving you. I shall make your life happy, Helen. For God’s sake do not tell me that you are already promised to another!”
His eyes blazed into hers with a passion that was appalling in its intensity. She seemed to lose thepower to speak or move. She looked up at him like a frightened child, who hears strange words that she does not comprehend. Thinking he had won her, he threw his arms about her and strained her fiercely to his breast. He strove to kiss away the tears that began to fall in piteous protest; but she bent her head as if in shame.
“Oh, please let me go!” she sobbed. “Please let me go! What have I done that you should treat me so cruelly.”
“Cruelly, Helen? How should I be cruel to you whom I hold so dear?”
Still he clasped her tightly, hardly knowing what he did in his transport of joy at the belief that she was his.
She struggled to free herself. She shrank from this physical contact with a strange repulsion. She felt as a timid animal must feel when some lord of the jungle pulls it down and drags it to his lair. Bower was kissing her cheeks, her forehead, her hair, finding a mad rapture in the fragrance of her skin. He crushed her in a close embrace that was almost suffocating.
“Oh, please let me go!” she wailed. “You frighten me. Let me go! How dare you!”
She fought so wildly that he yielded to a dim sense that she was in earnest. He relaxed his grip. With the instinct of a hunted thing, she took a dangerous leap for safety clean across the swollen Inn. Luckily she alighted on a broad boulder, or a sprainedankle would have been the least penalty for that desperate means of escape.
As she stood there, with tears streaming down her face and the crimson brand of angry terror on her brow, the dreadful knowledge that he had lost her smote Bower like a rush of cold air from a newly opened tomb. Between them brawled the tiny torrent. It offered no bar to an active man; but even in his panic of sudden perception he resisted the impulse that bade him follow.
“Helen,” he pleaded, stretching forth his hands in frenzied gesture, “why do you cast me off? I swear by all a man holds sacred that I mean no wrong. You are dear to me as life itself. Ah, Helen, say that I may hope! I do not even ask for your love. I shall win that by a lifetime of devotion.”
At last she found utterance. He had alarmed her greatly; but no woman can feel it an outrage that a man should avow his longing. And she pitied Bower with a great pity. Deep down in her heart was a suspicion that they might have been happy together had they met sooner. She would never have loved him,—she knew that now beyond cavil,—but if they were married she must have striven to make life pleasant for him, while she drifted down the smooth stream of existence free from either abiding joys or carking sorrows.
“I am more grieved than I can tell that this should have happened,” she said, striving hard torestrain the sob in her voice, though it gave her words the ring of genuine regret. “I little dreamed that you thought of me in that way, Mr. Bower. But I can never marry you—never, no matter what the circumstances! Surely you will help me to dispel the memory of a foolish moment. It has been trying to both of us. Let us pretend that it never was.”
Had she struck him with a whip he could not have flinched so visibly beneath the lash as from the patent honesty of her words. For a time he did not answer, and the sudden calm that came quick on the heels of frenzy had in it a weird peacefulness.
Neither could ever again forget the noisy rush of the stream, the glad singing of birds in a thicket overhanging the bank, the tinkle of the cow bells as the cattle began to climb to the pastures for a luxurious hour ere sundown. It was typical of their lives that they should be divided by the infant Inn, almost at its source, and that thenceforth the barrier should become ever wider and deeper till it reached the infinite sea.
He seemed to take his defeat well. He was pale, and his lips twitched with the effort to attain composure. He looked at Helen with a hungry longing that was slowly acknowledging restraint.
“I must have frightened you,” he said, breaking a silence that was growing irksome. “Of course I apologize for that. But we cannot leave things where they are. If you must send me away fromyou, I may at least demand a clear understanding. Have no fear that I shall distress you further. May I join you, or will you walk to the bridge a little higher up?”
“Let us return to the hotel,” she protested.
“No, no. We are not children. We have broken no law of God or man. Why should I be ashamed of having asked you to marry me, or you to listen, even though it be such a hopeless fantasy as you say?”
Helen, deeply moved in his behalf, walked to a bridge of planks a little distance up stream. Bower joined her there. He had deliberately resolved to do a dastardly thing. If Spencer was the cause of Helen’s refusal, that obstacle, at any rate, could be smashed to a pulp.
“Now, Helen,” he said, “I want you to believe that your happiness is my only concern. Perhaps, at some other time, you may allow me to renew in less abrupt manner the proposal I have made to-day. But when you hear all that I have to tell, you will be forced to admit that I placed your high repute above every other consideration in declaring my love before, rather than after, you learned how and why you came to Switzerland.”
His manner was becoming more calm and judicial each moment. It reacted on Helen, who gazed at him with a very natural surprise in her still tear-laden eyes.
“That, at least, is simple enough,” she cried.
“No. It is menacing, ugly, a trick calculated to wound you sorely. When first it came to my ears I refused to credit the vile meanness of it. You saw that telegram which reached my hands as we quitted the hotel? It is a reply to certain inquiries I caused to be made in London. Read it.”
Helen took the crumpled sheets of thin paper and began to read. Bower watched her face with a maleficent confidence that might have warned her had she seen it. But she paid heed to nothing else at that moment save the mysterious words scrawled in a foreign handwriting:
“Have investigated ‘Firefly’ incident fully. Pargrave compelled Mackenzie to explain. The American, Charles K. Spencer, recently residing at Embankment Hotel, is paying Miss Helen Wynton’s expenses, including cost of publishing her articles. He followed her on the day of her departure, and has since asked Mackenzie for introduction. Pargrave greatly annoyed, and holds Mackenzie at your disposal.“Kennett.”
“Have investigated ‘Firefly’ incident fully. Pargrave compelled Mackenzie to explain. The American, Charles K. Spencer, recently residing at Embankment Hotel, is paying Miss Helen Wynton’s expenses, including cost of publishing her articles. He followed her on the day of her departure, and has since asked Mackenzie for introduction. Pargrave greatly annoyed, and holds Mackenzie at your disposal.
“Kennett.”
Helen went very white; but she spoke with a firmness that was amazing, even to Bower. “Who is Kennett?” she said.
“One of my confidential clerks.”
“And Pargrave?”
“The proprietor of ‘The Firefly.’”
“Did Millicent know of this—plot?”
“Yes.”
Then she murmured a broken prayer. “Ah, dear Heaven!” she complained, “for what am I punished so bitterly?”
Karl, the voluble and sharp-eyed, retailed a bit of gossip to Stampa that evening as they smoked in Johann Klucker’s chalet. “As I was driving the cattle to the middle alp to-day, I saw ourfräuleinin the arms of the bigvoyageur,” he said.
Stampa withdrew his pipe from between his teeth. “Say that again,” he whispered, as though afraid of being overheard.
Karl did so, with fuller details.
“Are you sure?” asked Stampa.
Karl sniffed scornfully. “Ach, Gott!How could I err?” he cried. “There are not so many pretty women in the hotel that I should not recognize ourfräulein. And who would forget Herr Bower? He gave me two louis for a ten francs job. We must get them together on the hills again, Christian. He will be soft hearted now, and pay well for taking care of his lady.”
“Yes,” said Stampa, resuming his pipe. “You are right, Karl. There is no place like the hills. And he will pay—the highest price, look you!Saperlotte!I shall exact a heavy fee this time.”
Asustained rapping on the inner door of the hut roused Helen from dreamless sleep. In the twilight of the mind that exists between sleeping and waking she was bewildered by the darkness, perhaps baffled by her novel surroundings. She strove to pierce the gloom with wide-open, unseeing eyes, but the voice of her guide broke the spell.
“Time to get up,sigñora. The sun is on the rock, and we have a piece of bad snow to cross.”
Then she remembered, and sighed. The sigh was involuntary, the half conscious tribute of a wearied heart. It needed an effort to brace herself against the long hours of a new day, the hours when thoughts would come unbidden, when regrets that she was fighting almost fiercely would rush in and threaten to overwhelm her. But Helen was brave. She had the courage that springs from the conviction of havingdone that which is right. If she was a woman too, with a woman’s infinite capacity for suffering—well, that demanded another sort of bravery, a resolve to subdue the soul’s murmurings, a spiritual teeth-clenching in the determination to prevail, a complete acceptance of unmerited wrongs in obedience to some inexplicable decree of Providence.
So she rose from a couch which at least demanded perfect physical health ere one could find rest on it, and, being fully dressed, went forth at once to drink the steaming hot coffee that filled the tiny hut with its fragrance.
“A fine morning, Pietro?” she asked, addressing the man who had summoned her.
“Si, sigñora.Dawn is breaking with good promise. There is a slight mist on the glacier; but the rock shows clear in the sun.”
She knew that an amiable grin was on the man’s face; but it was so dark in thecabanethat she could see little beyond the figures of the guide and his companion. She went to the door, and stood for a minute on the narrow platform of rough stones that provided the only level space in a witches’ cauldron of moss covered boulders and rough ice. Beneath her feet was an ultramarine mist, around her were masses of black rock; but overhead was a glorious pink canopy, fringed by far flung circles of translucent blue and tenderest green. And this heaven’s own shield was ever widening. Eastward its arc was broken by an irregular dark mass, whose pinnaclesglittered like burnished gold. That was the Aguagliouls Rock, which rises so magnificently in the midst of a vast ice field, like some great portal to the wonderland of the Bernina. She had seen it the night before, after leaving the small restaurant that nestles at the foot of the Roseg Glacier. Then its scarred sides, brightened by the crimson and violet rays of the setting sun, looked friendly and inviting. Though its base was a good mile distant across the snow-smoothed surface of the ice, she could discern every crevice and ledge and steep couloir. Now, all these distinguishing features were merged in the sea-blue mist. The great wall itself seemed to be one vast, unscalable precipice, capped by a series of shining spires.
And for the first time in three sorrowful days, while her eyes dwelt on that castle above the clouds, the mysterious grandeur of nature healed her vexed spirit, and the peace that passeth all understanding fell upon her. The miserable intrigues and jealousies of the past weeks were so insignificant, so far away, up here among the mountains. Had she only consulted her own happiness, she mused, she would not have ordered events differently. There was no real reason why she should have flown from the hotel like a timid deer roused by hounds from a thicket. Instead of doubling and twisting from St. Moritz to Samaden, and back by carriage to a remote hotel in the Roseg Valley, she might have remained and defied her persecutors. But now the fume and fretwere ended, and she tried to persuade herself she was glad. She felt that she could never again endure the sight of Bower’s face. The memory of his passionate embrace, of his blazing eyes, of the thick sensual lips that forced their loathsome kisses upon her, was bitter enough without the need of reviving it each time they met. She was sorry it was impossible to bid farewell to Mrs. de la Vere. Any hint of her intent would have drawn from that well-disposed cynic a flood of remonstrance hard to stem; though nothing short of force would have kept Helen at Maloja once she was sure of Spencer’s double dealing.
Of course, she might write to Mrs. de la Vere when she was in calmer mood. It would be easier then to pick and choose the words that would convey in full measure her detestation of the American. For she hated him—yes, hatred alone was satisfying. She despised her own heart because it whispered a protest. Yet she feared him too. It was from him that she fled. She admitted this to her honest mind while she watched the spreading radiance of the new day. She feared the candor of his steady eyes more than the wiles and hypocrisies of Bower and her false friend, Millicent. By a half miraculous insight into the history of recent events, she saw that Bower had followed her to Switzerland with evil intent.
But the discovery embittered her the more against Spencer, who had lured her there deliberately, thanagainst Bower who knew of it, nor scrupled to use the knowledge as best it marched with his designs. It was nothing to her, she told herself, that Spencer no less than Bower had renounced his earlier purpose, and was ready to marry her. She still quivered with anger at the thought that she had fallen so blindly into the toils. Even though she accepted Mackenzie’s astounding commission, she might have guessed that there was some ignoble element underlying it. She felt now that it was possible to be prepared,—to scrutinize occurrences more closely, to hold herself aloof from compromising incidents. The excursion to the Forno, the manifest interest she displayed in both men, the concealment of her whereabouts from friends in London, her stiff lipped indifference to the opinion of other residents in the hotel,—these things, trivial individually, united into a strong self indictment.
As for Spencer, though she meant, above all things, to avoid meeting him, and hoped that he was now well on his way to the wide world beyond Maloja, she would never forgive him—no, never!
“I am sorry to hurry you,sigñora, but there is a bit of really bad snow on the Sella Pass,” urged Pietro apologetically at her shoulder, and she reëntered the hut at once, sitting down to that which she deemed to be her last meal on the Swiss side of the Upper Engadine.
It was in a hotel at St. Moritz that she had settled her route with the aid of a map and a guidebook.When, on that day of great happenings, she quitted the Kursaal-Maloja, she stipulated that the utmost secrecy should be observed as to her departure. Her boxes and portmanteau were brought from her room by the little used exit she had discovered soon after her arrival. A closed carriage met her there in the dusk, and she drove straight to St. Moritz station. Leaving her baggage in the parcels office, she sought a quiet hotel for the night, registering her room under her mother’s maiden name of Trenholme. She meant to return to England by the earliest train in the morning; but her new-born terror of encountering Spencer set in motion a scheme for evading pursuit either by him or Bower.
By going up the Roseg Valley, and carrying the barest necessaries for a few days’ travel, she could cross the Bernina range into Italy, reach the rail at Sondrio, and go round by Como to Lucerne and thence to Basle, whither the excellent Swiss system of delivering passengers’ luggage would convey her bulky packages long before she was ready to claim them.
With a sense of equity that was creditable, she made up her mind to expend every farthing of the money received from “The Firefly.” She had kept her contract faithfully: Mackenzie, therefore, or Spencer, must abide by it to the last letter. The third article of the series was already written and in the post. The fourth she wrote quietly in her room at the St. Moritz hotel, nor did she stir outduring the next day until it was dark, when she walked a few yards up the main street to buy a rucksack and an alpenstock.
Early next morning, close wrapped and veiled, she took a carriage to the Restaurant du Glacier. Here she met an unforeseen check. The local guides were absent in the Bernina, and the hotel proprietor—good, careful man!—would not hear of intrusting the pretty English girl to inexperienced villagers, but persuaded her to await the coming of a party from Italy, whose rooms were bespoke. Their guides, in all probability, would be returning over the Sella Pass, and would charge far less for the journey.
He was right. On the afternoon of the following day, three tired Englishmen arrived at the restaurant, and their hardy Italian pilots were only too glad to find avoyageurready to start at once for the Mortel hut, whence a nine hours’ climb would take them back to the Val Malenco, provided they crossed the dangerous névé on the upper part of the glacier soon after daybreak.
Pietro, the leader, was a cheery soul. Like others of his type in the Bernina region, he spoke a good deal of German, and his fund of pleasant anecdote and reminiscence kept Helen from brooding on her own troubles during the long evening in the hut.
And now, while she was finishing her meal in the dim light of dawn, and the second guide was packing their few belongings, Pietro regaled her with alegend of the Monte del Diavolo, which overlooks Sondrio and the lovely valley of the Adda.
“Once upon a time,sigñora, they used to grow fine grapes there,” he said, “and the wine was always sent to Rome for the special use of the Pope and his cardinals. That made the people proud, and the devil took possession of them, which greatly grieved a pious hermit who dwelt in a cell in the little Val Malgina, by the side of a torrent that flows into the Adda. So one day he asked the good Lord to permit the devil to visit him; but when Satan appeared the saint laughed at him. ‘You!’ he cried. ‘Who sent for you? You are not the Prince of the Infernal Regions?’—‘Am I not?’ said the stranger, with a truly fiendish grin. ‘Just try my powers, and see what will happen!’—‘Very well,’ said the saint, ‘produce me twenty barrels of better wine than can be grown in Sondrio.’ So old Barbariccia stamped his hoof, and lo! there were the twenty barrels, while the mere scent of them nearly made the saint break a vow that he would never again taste fermented wine. But he held fast, and said, ‘Now, drink the lot.’—‘Oh, nonsense!’ roared the devil. ‘Pooh!’ said the hermit, ‘you’re not much of a devil if you can’t do in a moment what the College of Cardinals can do in a week.’ That annoyed Satan, and he put away barrel after barrel, until the saint began to feel very uneasy. But the last barrel finished him, and down he went like a log, whereupon the holy man put him into one of his own tubs and senthim to Rome to be dealt with properly. There was a tremendous row, it is said, when the cask was opened. In the confusion, Satan escaped; but in revenge for the trick that had been played on him, he put a blight on the vines of the Adda, and from that day to this never a liter of decent wine came out of Sondrio.”
“I guess if that occurred anywhere in Italy nowadays, they’d lynch the hermit,” said a voice in English outside.
Helen screamed, and the two Italians were startled. No one was expected at the hut at that hour. Its earliest visitors should come from the inner range, after a long tramp from Italy or Pontresina.
“Sorry if I scared you,” said Spencer, his tall figure suddenly darkening the doorway; “but I didn’t like to interrupt the story.”
Helen sprang to her feet. Her cheeks, blanched for a few seconds, became rosy red. “You!” she cried. “How dare you follow me here?”
In the rapidly growing light she caught a transitory gleam in the American’s eyes, though his face was as impassive as usual. And the worst of it was that it suggested humor, not resentment. Even in the tumult of wounded pride that took her heart by storm, she realized that her fiery vehemence had gone perilously near to a literal translation of the saintly scoff at old Barbariccia. And, now if ever, she must be dignified. Anger yielded to disdain. In an instant she grew cold and self collected.
“I regret that in my surprise I spoke unguardedly,” she said. “Of course, this hut is open to everyone——”
“Judging by the look of things between here and the hotel, we shall not be worried by a crowd,” broke in Spencer. “I meant to arrive half an hour earlier; but that slope on the Alp Ota offers surprising difficulties in the dark.”
“I wished to say, when you interrupted me, that I am leaving at once, so my presence can make little difference to you,” said Helen grandly.
“That sounds more reasonable than it really is,” was the quietly flippant reply.
“It conveys my intent. I have no desire to prolong this conversation,” she cried rather more flurriedly.
“Now, there I agree with you. We have started on the wrong set of rails. It is my fault. I ought to have coughed, or fallen down the moraine, or done any old thing sooner than butt into the talk so unexpectedly. If you will allow me, I’ll begin again right now.”
He turned to the Italians, who were watching and listening in curious silence, trying to pick up an odd word that would help to explain the relations between the two.
“Will you gentlemen take an interest in the scenery for five minutes?” he asked, with a smile.
Though the valley of the Adda may have lost its wine, it will never lose its love of romance. Thepolite Italians raised their hats and went out. Helen, drawing a long breath, withdrew somewhat into the shadow. She felt that she would have more command over herself if the American could not see her face. The ruse did not avail her at all. Spencer crossed the floor of the hut until he looked into her eyes.
“Helen,” he said, “why did you run away from me?”
The tender reproach in his voice almost unnerved her; but she answered simply, “What else would you have me do, once I found out the circumstances under which I came to Switzerland?”
“It may be that you were not told the truth. Who was your informant?”
“Mr. Bower.”
“None other?”
“What, then? Is my pitiful story the property of the hotel?”
“It is now. I took care of that. Some of the people there had been spreading a misleading version, and it was necessary to correct it. The women, of course, I could not deal with. As the General was an old man, I picked out George de Courcy Vavasour as best fitted to digest the wrong edition. I made him eat it. It seemed to disagree with him; but he got through with an effort.”
Helen felt that she ought to decline further discussion. But she was tongue tied. Spencer was regarding her so fixedly that she began to fear lesthe might notice the embarrassed perplexity that she herself was quite conscious of.
“Will you be good enough to explain exactly what you mean?” she said, forcing the question mechanically from her lips.
“That is why I am here. I assure you that subterfuge can never again exist between you and me,” said he earnestly. “You can accept my words literally. Acting for himself and others, Vavasour wrote on paper the lying insinuations made by Miss Jaques, and ate them—both words and paper. He happened to use the thin, glazed, Continental variety, so what it lost in bulk it gained in toughness. He didn’t like it, and said so; but he had to do it.”
She was nervously aware of a wish to laugh; but unless she gave way to hysteria that was not to be thought of. Trying to retreat still farther into the friendly shade, she backed round the inner end of the table, but found the way blocked by a rough bench. Something must be said or done to extricate herself. The dread that her voice might break was becoming an obsession.
“You speak of a false version, and that implies a true one,” she managed to say constrainedly. “How far was Mr. Bower’s statement false or true?”
“I settled that point too. Mr. Bower told you the facts. The deduction he forced on you was a lie. To my harmless notion of gratifying a girl’s longing for a holiday abroad he added the motivethat inspired his own journey. I overheard your conversation with Miss Jaques in the Embankment Hotel; I saw Bower introduced to you; I saw him looking for you in Victoria Station, and knew that he represented the meeting as accidental. I felt a certain responsibility on your account; so I followed by the next train. Bower played his cards so well that I found myself in a difficult position. I was busy guessing; but was unable to prove anything, while the one story I was sure of was not in the game. And then, you see, he wanted to make you his wife, which brought about the real complication. I haven’t much use for him; but I must be fair, and Bower’s only break was when he misrepresented my action in subsidizing ‘The Firefly.’ I don’t deny he was pretty mad at the idea of losing you, and jealousy will often drive a man to do a mean thing which might otherwise be repugnant to his betternature——”
“Jealousy!” shrilled Helen, her woman’s wit at last finding a joint in his armor. Yet never did woman err more than she in thinking that her American suitor would flinch beneath the shaft.
“That is the word,” was the quiet reply.
She flared into indignant scorn. “Pray tell me why he or any other man should feel jealous of you where I am concerned,” she said.
“I am going to tell you right away—Helen. But that is the last chapter. There is quite a long record as to the way I hit on your track in St. Moritz,and heard of you by telephone last night. Of course, that part of the story willkeep——”
“Is it necessary that I should hear any portion of it?” she interrupted, hoping to irritate him, and thus lessen the strain imposed by his studiously tranquil manner.
“Well, it ought to interest you. But it has humorous points to which I can’t do justice under present conditions. You are right, Helen—you most always are. The real question at issue is my position in the deal, which becomes quite clear when I say that you are the only woman I have ever loved or ever shall love. More than that, you are the only woman to whom I have ever spoken a word of love, and as I have set about loving the dearest and prettiest and healthiest girl I have ever seen, it is safe to figure that you will have sole claim on all the nice things I can try to say to any woman during the remainder of my life.”
He hesitated a moment. He did not appear to notice that Helen, after a rebellious gasp or two, had suddenly become very still.
“I suppose I ought to have fixed up a finer bit of word painting than that,” he continued slowly. “As a matter of fact, I don’t mind admitting that ever since eleven o’clock last night, when the proprietor of the hotel below there telephoned to me that Miss Trenholme had gone to the Mortel hut with two guides, I have been rehearsing X plus Y multiplied by Z ways of telling you just how dear you are tome. But they all vanished like smoke when I saw your sweet face. You tried to be severe with me, Helen; but your voice didn’t ring true, and you are the poorest sort of prevaricator I know. And the reason those set forms wouldn’t work at the right moment is that they were addressed to the silent air. You are near me now, my sweet. You are almost in my arms. You are in my arms, Helen, and it sounds just right to keep on telling you that I love you now and shall love you for ever. Oh, my dear, my dear, you must never, never, run away again! Search the dictionary for all the unkindest things you can say about me; but don’t run away ... for I know now that when you are absent the day is night and the night is akin to death.”
Guide Pietro was somewhat a philosopher. Stamping about on the tiny stone plateau of the hut to keep at bay the cold mists from the glacier, he happened to glance through the open door. He drew away instantly.
“Bartelommeo,” he said to his companion, “we shall not cross the Sella to-day with our charmingvoyageur.”
Bartelommeo was surprised. He looked at the clean cut crest of the rock, glowing now in vivid sunlight. Argument was not required; he pointed silently with the stem of his pipe.
“Yes,” murmured Pietro. “We couldn’t have a better day for the pass. It is not the weather.”
“Then what is it?” asked Bartelommeo, moved to speech.
“She is going the other way. Didn’t you catch the tears in her voice yesterday? She smiled at my stories, and carried herself bravely; but her eyes were heavy, and the corners of her mouth drooped when she was left to her thoughts. And again, my friend, did you not see her face when the youngsigñorarrived?”
“She was frightened.”
Pietro laughed softly. “A woman always fears her lover,” he said. “That is just the reason why you married Caterina. You liked her for her shyness. It made you feel yourself a man—a devil of a fellow. Don’t you remember how timid she was, how she tried to avoid you, how she would dodge into anybody’s chalet rather than meet you?”
“But how do you know?” demanded Bartelommeo, waking into resentful appreciation of Pietro’s close acquaintance with his wooing.
“Because I married Lola two years earlier. Women are all the same, no matter what country they hail from—nervous as young chamois before marriage—but after! Body of Bacchus! Was it on Wednesday that Caterina hauled you out of the albergo to chop firewood?”
Bartelommeo grunted, and put his pipe in his mouth again.