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, p'r'aps 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 and held 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 harbor animosity. 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 to Mrs. 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 the crevasse. 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.
"DEAR MR. SPENCER," it ran,--"A devil of a thing has happened. To-day," the date being three days old, "I went out to lunch, leaving a thick headed subeditor in charge. I had not been gone ten minutes when a stage fairy, all frills and flounces, whisked into the office and asked for Miss Wynton's address. My assistant succumbed instantly. He was nearly asphyxiated with joy at being permitted to entertain, not unawares, that angel of musical comedy, Miss Millicent Jaques. His maundering excuse is that you yourself seemed to acknowledge Miss Jaques's right to be acquainted with her friend's whereabouts. I have good reason to believe that the frail youth not only spoke of Maloja, but supplied such details as were known to him of your kindness in the matter. I have cursed him extensively; but that can make no amends. At any rate, I feel that you should be told, and it only remains for me to express my lasting regret that the incident should have occurred."
This letter, joined to certain lurid statements made by Stampa, had induced Spencer to accept Mrs. de la Vere's invitation. Little as he cared to dine in Bower's company, it was due to Helen that he should not refuse. He was entangled neck and heels in a net of his own contriving. For very shame's sake, he could not wriggle out, leaving Helen in the toils.
Surely there never was a day more crammed with contrarieties. He witnessed his adversary's rebuff, and put it down to its rightful cause. No sooner had he discovered Mrs. de la Vere's apparent motive in keeping the girl by her side, than he was buttonholed by the Rev. Philip Hare.
"You know I am not an ardent admirer of Bower," said the cleric; "but I must admit that it was very manly of him to make that outspoken statement about Miss Wynton."
"What statement?" asked Spencer.
"Ah, I had forgotten. You were not present, of course. He made the other woman's hysterical outburst supremely ridiculous by saying, in effect, that he meant to marry Miss Wynton."
"He said that, eh?"
"Yes. He was quite emphatic. I rebuked Miss Jaques myself, and he thanked me."
"Everything was nicely cut and dried in my absence, it seems."
"Well--er----"
"The crowd evidently lost sight of the fact that I had carried off the prospective bride."
"N-no. Miss Jaques called attention to it."
"Guess her head is screwed on straight, padre. She made a bad break in attacking Miss Wynton; but when she set about Bower she was running on a strong scent. Sit tight, Mr. Hare. Don't take sides, or whoop up the wrong spout, and you'll see heaps of fun before you're much older."
Mightily incensed, the younger man turned away. The vicar produced his handkerchief and trumpeted into it loudly.
"God bless my soul!" he said, and repeated the pious wish, for he felt that it did him good, "how does one whoop up the wrong spout? And what happens if one does? And how remarkably touchy everybody seems to be. Next time I apply to the C.M.S. for an Alpine station, I shall stipulate for a low altitude. I am sure this rarefied air is bad for the nerves."
Nevertheless, Hare's startling communication was the one thing needed to clear away the doubts that beset Spencer at the dinner table. He had seen Mrs. de la Vere enter Helen's bedroom when he left the girl in charge of a gesticulating maid; but an act of womanly solicitude did not explain the friendship that sprang so suddenly into existence. Now he understood, or thought he understood, which is a man's way when he seeks to interpret a woman's mind. Mrs. de la Vere, like the rest, was dazzled by Bower's wealth. After ignoring Helen during the past fortnight, she was prepared to toady to her instantly in her new guise as the chosen bride of a millionaire. The belief added fuel to the fire already raging in his breast.
There never was man more loyal to woman in his secret meditations than Spencer; but his gorge rose at the sight of Helen's winsome gratitude to one so unworthy of it. With him, now as ever, to think was to act.
Watching his chance, he waylaid Helen when her vigilant chaperon was momentarily absorbed in a suggestion that private theatricals and the rehearsal of a minuet would relieve the general tedium while the snow held.
"Spare me five minutes, Miss Wynton," he said. "I want to tell you something."
Mrs. de la Vere pirouetted round on him before the girl could answer.
"Miss Wynton is just going to bed," she informed him graciously. "You know how tired she is, Mr. Spencer. You must wait till the morning."
"I don't feel like waiting; but I promise to cut down my remarks to one minute--by the clock." He answered Mrs. de la Vere, but looked at Helen.
Her color rose and fell almost with each beat of her heart. She saw the steadfast purpose in his eyes, and shrank from the decision she would be called upon to make. Hardly realizing what form the words took, she gave faint utterance to the first lucid idea that presented itself. "I think--I must really--go to my room," she murmured. "You wouldn't--like me--to faint twice in one evening--Mr. Spencer?"
It was an astonishing thing to say, the worst thing possible. It betrayed an exact knowledge of his purpose in seeking this interview. His eyes blazed with a quick light. It seemed that he was answered before he spoke.
"Not one second. Go away, do!" broke in Mrs. de la Vere, whisking Helen toward the elevator without further parley. But she shot a glance at Spencer over her shoulder that he could not fail to interpret as a silent message of encouragement. Forthwith he viewed her behavior from a more favorable standpoint.
"Guess the feminine make-up is more complex than I counted on," he communed, as he bent over a table to find a match, that being a commonplace sort of action calculated to disarm suspicion, lest others might be observing him, and wondering why the women retired so promptly.
"I like your American, my dear," said Mrs. de la Vere sympathetically, in the solitude of the corridor.
Helen was silent.
"If you want to cry, don't mind me," went on the kindly cynic. "I'm coming in with you. I'll light up while you weep, and then you must tell me all about it. That will do you a world of good."
"There's n-n-nothing to tell!" bleated Helen.
"Oh yes, there is. You silly child, to-morrow you will have to choose between those two men. Which shall it be? I said before dinner that I couldn't help you to decide. Perhaps I was mistaken. Anyhow, I'll try."
At midnight the snow storm ceased, the wind died away, and the still air deposited its vapor on hills and valley in a hoar frost. The sun rose with a magnificent disregard for yesterday's riot.
Spencer's room faced the southeast. When the valet drew his blind in the morning the cold room was filled with a balmy warmth. A glance through the window, however, dispelled a germ of hope that Helen and he might start on the promised walk to Vicosoprano. The snow lay deep in the pass, and probably extended a mile or two down into the Vale of Bregaglia. The rapid thaw that would set in during the forenoon might clear the roads before sunset. Next day, walking would be practicable; to-day it meant wading.
He looked through the Orlegna gorge, and caught the silvery sheen of the Cima di Rosso's snow capped summit. Hardly a rock was visible. The gale had clothed each crag with a white shroud. All day long the upper reaches of the glacier would be pelted by avalanches. It struck him that an early stroll to the highest point of the path beyond Cavloccio might be rewarded with a distant view of several falls. In any case, it provided an excellent pretext for securing Helen's company, and he would have cheerfully suggested a trip in a balloon to attain the same object.
The temperature of his bath water induced doubts as to the imminence of the thaw. Indeed, the air was bitterly cold as yet. The snow lay closely on roads and meadow land. It had the texture of fine powder. Passing traffic left shallow, well defined marks. A couple of stablemen swung their arms to restore circulation. The breath of horses and cattle showed in dense clouds.
For once in his life the color of a tie and the style of his clothes became matters of serious import. At first, he was blind to the humor of it. He hesitated between the spruce tightness of a suit fashioned by a New York tailor and the more loosely designed garments he had purchased in London. Then he laughed and reddened. Flinging both aside, he chose the climber's garb worn the previous day, and began to dress hurriedly. Therein he was well advised. Nothing could better become his athletic figure. He was that type of man who looks thinner when fully clothed. He had never spared himself when asking others to work hard, and he received his guerdon now in a frame of iron and sinews of pliant steel.
Helen usually came down to breakfast at half-past eight. She had the healthy British habit of beginning the day with a good meal, and Spencer indulged in the conceit that he might be favored with a tête-à-tête before they started for the projected walk. Neither Bower nor Mrs. de la Vere ever put in an appearance at that hour. Though Americans incline to the Continental manner of living, this true Westerner found himself a sudden convert to English methods. In a word, he was in love, and his lady could not err. To please her he was prepared to abjure iced water--even to drink tea.
But, as often happens, his cheery mood was destined to end in disappointment. He lingered a whole hour in the salle à manger, but Helen came not. Then he rose in a panic. What if she had breakfasted in her room, and was already basking in the sunlit veranda--perhaps listening to Bower's eloquence? He rushed out so suddenly that his waiter was amazed. Really, these Americans were incomprehensible--weird as the English. The two races dwelt far apart, but they moved in the same erratic orbit. To the stolid German mind they were human comets, whose comings and goings were not to be gaged by any reasonable standard.
No, the veranda was empty--to him. Plenty of people greeted him; but there was no Helen. Ultimately he reflected that their appointment was for ten o'clock. He calmed down, and a pipe became obvious. He was enjoying that supremest delight of the smoker--the first soothing whiffs of the day's tobacco--when a servant brought him a note. The handwriting was strange to his eyes; but a premonition told him that it was Helen's. Somehow, he expected that she would write in a clear, strong, legible way. He was not mistaken. She sent a friendly little message that she was devoting the morning to work. The weather made it impossible to go to Vicosoprano, and in any event she did not feel equal to a long walk. "Yesterday's events," she explained, "took more out of me than I imagined."
Well, she had been thinking of him, and that counted. He was staring at the snow covered tennis courts, and wondering how soon the valley would regain its summer aspect, when Stampa limped into sight round the corner of the hotel. He stood at the foot of the broad flight of steps, as though waiting for someone. Spencer was about to join him for a chat, when he recollected that Bower and the guide had an arrangement to meet in the morning.
With the memory came a queer jumble of impressions. Stampa's story, told overnight, was a sad one; but the American was too fair minded to affect a moral detestation of Bower because of a piece of folly that wrecked a girl's life sixteen years ago. If the sins of a man's youth were to shadow his whole life, then charity and regeneration must be cast out of the scheme of things. Moreover, Bower's version of the incident might put a new face on it. There was no knowing how he too had been tempted and suffered. That he raged against the resurrection of a bygone misdeed was shown by his mad impulse to kill Stampa on the glacier. That such a man, strong in the power of his wealth and social position, should even dream of blotting out the past by a crime, offered the clearest proof of the frenzy that possessed him as soon as he recognized Etta Stampa's father.
Not one word of his personal belief crossed Spencer's lips during the talk with the guide. Rather did he impress on his angry and vengeful hearer that a forgotten scandal should be left in its tomb. He took this line, not that he posed as a moralist, but because he hated to acknowledge, even to himself, that he was helped in his wooing by Helen's horror of his rival's lapse from the standard every pure minded woman sets up in her ideal lover. Ethically, he might be wrong; in his conscience he was justified. He had suffered too grievously from every species of intrigue and calumny during his own career not to be ultra-sensitive in regard to the use of such agents.
Yet, watching the bent and crippled old man waiting there in the snow, a sense of pity and mourning chilled his heart with ice cold touch.
"If I were Stampa's son, if that dead girl were my sister, how would I settle with Bower?" he asked, clenching his pipe firmly between his teeth. "Well, I could only ask God to be merciful both to him and to me."
"Good gracious, Mr. Spencer! why that fierce gaze at our delightful valley?" came the voice of Mrs. de la Vere. "I am glad none of us can give you the address of the Swiss clerk of the weather--or you would surely slay him."
He turned. Convention demanded a smile and a polite greeting; but Spencer was not conventional. "You are a thought reader, Mrs. de la Vere," he said.
"'One of my many attractions,' you should have added."
"I find this limpid light too critical."
"Oh, what a horrid thing to tell any woman, especially in the early morning!"
"I have a wretched habit of putting the second part of a sentence first. I really intended to say--but it is too late."
"It is rather like swallowing the sugar coating after the pill; but I'll try."
"Well, then, this crystal atmosphere does not lend itself to the obvious. If we were in London, I should catalogue your bewitchments lest you imagined I was blind to them."
"That sounds nice, but----"
"It demands analysis, so I have failed doubly."
"I don't feel up to talking like a character in one of Henry James's novels. And you were much more amusing last night. Have you seen Miss Jaques this morning?"
"No. That is, I don't think so."
"Do you know her?"
"No."
"It would be a kind thing if someone told her that there are other places in Switzerland where she will command the general admiration she deserves."
"I am inclined to believe that there is a man in the hotel who can put that notion before her delicately."
Spencer possessed the unchanging gravity of expression that the whole American race seems to have borrowed from the Red Indian. Mrs. de la Vere's eyes twinkled as she gazed at him.
"You didn't hear what was said last night," she murmured. "Where Millicent Jaques is concerned, delicacy is absent from Mr. Bower's make-up--is that good New York?"
"It would be understood."
This time he smiled. Mrs. de la Vere wished to be a friend to Helen. Whatsoever her motive, the wish was excellent.
"You are severe," she pouted. "Of course I ought not to mimic you----"
"Pray do. I had no idea I spoke so nicely."
"Thank you. But I am serious. I have espoused Miss Wynton's cause, and there will be nothing but unhappiness for her while that other girl remains here."
"I hope you are mistaken," he said slowly, meeting her quizzing glance without flinching.
"That is precisely where a woman's point of view differs from a man's," she countered. "In our lives we are swayed by things that men despise. We are conscious of sidelong looks and whisperings. We dread the finger of scorn. When you have a wife, Mr. Spencer, you will begin to realize the limitations of the feminine horizon."
"Are you asking me to take this demonstrative young lady in hand?"
"I believe you would succeed."
Spencer smiled again. He had not credited Mrs. de la Vere with such fine perceptiveness. If her words meant anything, they implied an alliance, offensive and defensive, for Helen's benefit and his own.
"Guess we'll leave it right there till I've had a few words with Miss Wynton," he said, dropping suddenly into colloquial phrase.
"A heart to heart talk, in fact." She laughed pleasantly, and opened her cigarette case.
"Tell you what, Mrs. de la Vere," he said, "if ever you come to Colorado I shall hail you as a real cousin!"
Then a silence fell between them. Bower was walking out of the hotel. He passed close in front of the glass partition, and might have seen them if his eyes were not as preoccupied as his mind. But he was looking at Stampa, and frowning in deep thought. The guide heard his slow, heavy tread, and turned. The two met. They exchanged no word, but went away together, the lame peasant hobbling along by the side of the tall, well dressed plutocrat.
"How odd!" said Mrs. de la Vere. "How exceedingly odd!"
