In the morning Hibbert realised he had done, perhaps, a foolish thing.
The brilliant sunshine that drenched the valley made him see this, and
the sight of his work-table with its typewriter, books, papers, and the
rest, brought additional conviction. To have skated with a girl alone
at midnight, no matter how innocently the thing had come about, was
unwise--unfair, especially to her. Gossip in these little winter resorts
was worse than in a provincial town. He hoped no one had seen them.
Luckily the night had been dark. Most likely none had heard the ring of
skates.
Deciding that in future he would be more careful, he plunged into work,
and sought to dismiss the matter from his mind.
But in his times of leisure the memory returned persistently to haunt
him. When he "ski-d," "luged," or danced in the evenings, and especially
when he skated on the little rink, he was aware that the eyes of his
mind forever sought this strange companion of the night. A hundred times
he fancied that he saw her, but always sight deceived him. Her face he
might not know, but he could hardly fail to recognise her figure. Yet
nowhere among the others did he catch a glimpse of that slim young
creature he had skated with alone beneath the clouded stars. He searched
in vain. Even his inquiries as to the occupants of the private chalets
brought no results. He had lost her. But the queer thing was that he
felt as though she were somewhere close; he _knew_ she had not really
gone. While people came and left with every day, it never once occurred
to him that she had left. On the contrary, he felt assured that they
would meet again.
This thought he never quite acknowledged. Perhaps it was the wish that
fathered it only. And, even when he did meet her, it was a question how
he would speak and claim acquaintance, or whether _she_ would recognise
himself. It might be awkward. He almost came to dread a meeting, though
"dread," of course, was far too strong a word to describe an emotion
that was half delight, half wondering anticipation.
Meanwhile the season was in full swing. Hibbert felt in perfect health,
worked hard, ski-d, skated, luged, and at night danced fairly often--in
spite of his decision. This dancing was, however, an act of subconscious
surrender; it really meant he hoped to find her among the whirling
couples. He was searching for her without quite acknowledging it to
himself; and the hotel-world, meanwhile, thinking it had won him over,
teased and chaffed him. He made excuses in a similar vein; but all the
time he watched and searched and--waited.
For several days the sky held clear and bright and frosty, bitterly
cold, everything crisp and sparkling in the sun; but there was no sign
of fresh snow, and the ski-ers began to grumble. On the mountains was an
icy crust that made "running" dangerous; they wanted the frozen, dry,
and powdery snow that makes for speed, renders steering easier and
falling less severe. But the keen east wind showed no signs of changing
for a whole ten days. Then, suddenly, there came a touch of softer air
and the weather-wise began to prophesy.
Hibbert, who was delicately sensitive to the least change in earth or
sky, was perhaps the first to feel it. Only he did not prophesy. He knew
through every nerve in his body that moisture had crept into the air,
was accumulating, and that presently a fall would come. For he responded
to the moods of Nature like a fine barometer.
And the knowledge, this time, brought into his heart a strange little
wayward emotion that was hard to account for--a feeling of unexplained
uneasiness and disquieting joy. For behind it, woven through it rather,
ran a faint exhilaration that connected remotely somewhere with that
touch of delicious alarm, that tiny anticipating "dread," that so
puzzled him when he thought of his next meeting with his skating
companion of the night. It lay beyond all words, all telling, this queer
relationship between the two; but somehow the girl and snow ran in a
pair across his mind.
Perhaps for imaginative writing-men, more than for other workers, the
smallest change of mood betrays itself at once. His work at any rate
revealed this slight shifting of emotional values in his soul. Not that
his writing suffered, but that it altered, subtly as those changes of
sky or sea or landscape that come with the passing of afternoon into
evening--imperceptibly. A subconscious excitement sought to push
outwards and express itself ... and, knowing the uneven effect such
moods produced in his work, he laid his pen aside and took instead to
reading that he had to do.
Meanwhile the brilliance passed from the sunshine, the sky grew slowly
overcast; by dusk the mountain tops came singularly close and sharp; the
distant valley rose into absurdly near perspective. The moisture
increased, rapidly approaching saturation point, when it must fall in
snow. Hibbert watched and waited.
And in the morning the world lay smothered beneath its fresh white
carpet. It snowed heavily till noon, thickly, incessantly, chokingly, a
foot or more; then the sky cleared, the sun came out in splendour, the
wind shifted back to the east, and frost came down upon the mountains
with its keenest and most biting tooth. The drop in the temperature was
tremendous, but the ski-ers were jubilant. Next day the "running" would
be fast and perfect. Already the mass was settling, and the surface
freezing into those moss-like, powdery crystals that make the ski run
almost of their own accord with the faint "sishing" as of a bird's wings
through the air.