The steamer _Mont Blanc_ was sweeping round the rather dangerous
promontory just beyond La Tour de Peilz.
The fine vessel was a brave sight as she sped arrowlike over the
turquoise breast of Lake Leman, her straight stem shearing up a great
scintillating blade of water on either side, her powerful paddles
lashing up a long line of creaming rollers, hissing and curving away in
her wake. From stem to stern she was gay with bunting, for this was but
her second trip after being laid up through the winter season, and there
was a spick-and-span newness about everything, from the whiteness of her
commodious hurricane deck to the dazzling glass and luxurious lounges of
her airy and spacious saloon.
The day was perfect. Not a cloud was in the arching heavens, not a
ripple on the blue surface of the lake, which mirrored forth the hoary
crowns of the Savoy Alps as though they were cut in steel. The great
forest-clad slopes were rich in their velvety verdure, rising from the
water's edge on the Savoy side; and a dazzling snow shroud still covered
the Dent du Midi half-way down to its base. On the Swiss shore the
straggling towns and multitudinous villas lying among the fresh greenery
of vineyards looked mere pigmy toys beneath the slopes of the great
mountains. And from the same bosky slopes came ever and anon the glad,
joyous shout of the cuckoo. It was June--but only just June--and the
air, balmy and life-giving, knew no suspicion of sultriness.
"I say, Phil, my boy, it's about time to collect our traps. We go off
at the next stage but one--Hallo! What has become of the fellow?" broke
off the speaker, turning to discover that his friend had left his side.
"Ah! there he is. At it again too. By George, the dog's
irreclaimable!"
The said "dog" had withdrawn some yards from the speaker, and was
standing with his back against the bulwarks apparently lost in
contemplation of the scenery of the Savoy side. But he had chosen a
very odd place for his study of Nature, for between the latter and
himself, in the direction of his gaze, were multifold heads--and hats,
and between these heads--and hats--and the canvas awning was a space of
barely half a yard. Yet he seemed to gaze with rapt attention at
something--or somebody. "I say, Phil, who is _she_, this time?" The
suddenness of the question, the dry chuckle, the faintly sneering
intonation, produced much the same effect on the gazer as the lash upon
the half-broken thoroughbred. He started.
"Confound it, Fordham, you needn't make a fellow jump so," he retorted
petulantly, with a slight flush. "Can't a fellow look around him, I
should like to know?"
"Oh, certainly he can. This is a free country--in fact `Liberte et
Patrie' is the Cantonal motto. You may even see it displayed at this
moment--in triplicate too--among the bunting adorning this gallant
craft. Ah--I see the point of attraction now--and this time, 'pon my
life, Phil, I think there's some excuse--for _you_," he added, sticking
his glass into his eye and sending a critical look into an apparently
unconscious group opposite.
Philip Orlebar laughed, his good-humour quite restored. Indeed, it was
never for long that he and that enviable attribute parted company.
Although the regular tourist season had not yet set in, the steamer's
decks still contained a sprinkling of all those nationalities which you
would be sure to find represented there at that time of the day and of
the year. Keen-faced Americans "doing" Europe with infinite zest and a
Gladstone bag apiece; stolid Germans in long black coats--a duplicate of
the latter invariably slung through the strap of their double
field-glasses; a stray Muscovite noble, of refined manner and slightly
_blase_ aspect; a group of English youths equipped with knapsack and
alpenstock, bound for some mountain expedition with their Swiss tutor;
and last but not least--in their own estimation at any rate--great in
the importance of their somewhat aggressive sense of nationality, a
muster of Britons numerically equalling all the other races and kindreds
put together. There was the inevitable clergyman with his inevitable
wife--the latter austere of visage, as became a good Evangelical in a
land where the shops were kept open on the Sabbath. There was the
British matron clucking around with her _posse_ of daughters--which
guileless damsels were being convoyed about the Continent to a like end
as that which caused their mammas and grandmammas to be shipped off on
the voyage round the Cape in the days of good old John Company. There
were the regulation old maids, of the blue-stocking persuasion, Byron in
hand, gazing yearningly upon the distant but gradually nearing walls of
classic Chillon. And here and there, elderly but erect, natty of
attire, and countenance darkly sunburnt beneath the turbanlike puggaree
enshrouding his summit, stalked unmistakably the half-pay Anglo-Indian.
Upon one face in the group Fordham's eyeglass, following his companion's
gaze, critically if somewhat contemptuously, came to a standstill. It
was in profile at that moment, but whether in profile or full it was a
face bound to attract attention. The regular features and short upper
lip fully satisfied every requirement exacted by the canons of beauty.
The eyes, large and earnest, now blue, now grey, according to the light
under which they shone, rather imparted the idea that their possessor
was inclined to take life seriously, and there was character in the
strongly marked arching brows. A sheen of dark-brown hair rippled back
in waves beneath a broad-brimmed sailor hat to roll into a heavy knot
over the back of the neck.
"Well, you cynical old humbug," said Orlebar, emphasising his words with
an almost imperceptible nudge of the elbow. "Isn't _that_ about good
enough to meet with even your approval?"
"H'm! No doubt. But what I wanted to impress upon you was that in less
than ten minutes we shall have to quit this ship. So that if you've any
loose gear among your traps--and I believe you have--now is the time to
make it fast."
The bell hanging in the steamer's bows now began to peal, to the
accompaniment of the slackening beat of her paddles as, slowing down to
half-speed, she glided majestically up to the Clarens landing-stage.
Philip Orlebar, turning a deaf ear to his companion's warning, had left
that mentor's side, and was strolling with finely assumed carelessness
towards the gangway--for the object of his attention, and already more
than incipient adoration, had risen and was moving in the same
direction. If she was about to land there, as seemed probable, might he
not, by standing nigh at hand, obtain some chance clue as to her
identity and destination?
But they met face to face in the little crowd--met with a suddenness
which brought a slightly disconcerted look to his somewhat speaking
countenance. Her large eyes encountered his, however, fearlessly and
with an air of surprised inquiry, for in his eagerness she might be
excused for thinking him on the point of addressing her.
There were few passengers to be landed at Clarens, and she was not one
of them; fewer still to embark, and in barely a couple of minutes the
_Mont Blanc_ was speeding on her way again.
"Heavens alive, man?" said Fordham, veiling the faint sneer with which
he had been watching the movements of his impressionable friend. "If
you don't collect your traps the chances are all in favour of half of
them being left on board. We shall be at Montreux in three minutes."
Again the bell gave forth its warning note, again the beat of the
paddles slackened, as the _Mont Blanc_--sweeping so close in shore that
any one of the groups lounging about in the gardens of the villa-like
_pensions_, sloping down to the water's edge, could have chucked a
walnut on to her decks as she sped by--rapidly neared the poplar-fringed
landing-stage. Then a great splashing of paddle-wheels as the engines
were reversed, a throwing of warps and a mighty bustling, and the vessel
was stationary.
"Confound that fellow!" grumbled Fordham, as his friend did not appear.
"Directly his eye lights upon a fresh `skirt' his wits are off
woolgathering on the spot."
"_Embarquement_!" sung out the bronzed skipper from the bridge.
"_Allons, allons, messieurs et mesdames! Depechez vous, s'il vous
plait. Nous sommes deja en retard_!" he added, testily.
The last embarking passenger was on board, and while the gangway plank
was in the act of withdrawal the defaulter emerged from below, laden
with loose luggage. He was not slow about his movements then. A couple
of leaps and he stood panting and flurried on the pier beside his
companion, who had taken the precaution of landing everything that he
could lay hands on.
"I s-say, old man," stuttered Philip Orlebar, relinquishing to the care
of mother earth--or rather the pavement of the landing-stage--the
impedimenta which he had rescued at the cost of such flurry and risk.
"W-w-what became of her? Did she come ashore?"
"What became of _her_? Why by this time _she's_ half-way to Territet,
laughing fit to die over the ridiculous figure you cut; in short, the
wholly astonishing attitudes you struck, hurtling through the air with a
Gladstone under each arm and half a score of telescopes and bundles and
flying straps dancing about you like a kettle of beans tied to a dog's
tail."
"Did I look such a fool as that? Hang it, I suppose I must have looked
a bit grotesque though, eh, Fordham?"
"Infernally so," was the consoling reply. "In fact, I noticed _her_
looking over the side, taking particular stock of you in your admirably
acted _role_ of escaped lunatic. _Ah, bonjour, Francois! Ca va bien,
hein_!" broke off the speaker in response to the smiling
_commissionaire_ who stepped forward at that moment to take charge of
their luggage.
"_Tenez, Francois_," went on Fordham, at the conclusion of the string of
hearty inquiries with which the man had greeted him, for they were old
acquaintances. "_Vous allez nous emballer ces colis la sur la poste
des Avants. Faut qu'ils nous rejoignent demain. Sans faute, mon brave,
n'est ce pas_?"
"_Mais oui, Monsieur Fordhamme. Restez seulment tranquille. Vous
pouvez y compter. Ah, vous allez monter par le Chauderon? Et bien--
belle promenade, messieurs, et je vous remercie bien. Au revoir,
messieurs_!"
"That seems a good sort of chap," began Philip Orlebar, dubiously, as
they turned away. "But, hang it all, is it safe--don't cher know?"
"What? The luggage? Rather. You may trust Francois to see a matter of
this kind through. He is a good chap--most of these fellows are. They
have a name among the British for being keen on _pourboires_--in a word,
grasping. But show me the true-born Briton of the same class who in a
race for gratuities couldn't give them long odds, and beat them at that.
It's not to be done, I tell you. And now, Phil, we've plenty of time.
First a cool _lager_ at yonder _cafe_, then for our stroll up the
Chauderon. And that said stroll on an afternoon like this is enough to
make a man feel the pleasure of living, if anything is."