"I say, Fordham. We're getting up an expedition for to-morrow, and
you've got to come," cried Phil, bursting into his friend's room just
before dinner one evening.
"Have I?" replied the latter leisurely, turning round with a half-soaped
visage, and razor arrested in mid-air. "But, Phil, it's rather lucky
you didn't swoop down in such hurricane method upon a more nervous man
than yours truly, or it's wildly hunting for sticking plaster he'd be at
this moment. And now, for my enlightenment, who's _we_?"
"Oh, the Ottleys and the Wyatts and one or two more. We want to start
early, cross the lake by steamer and get as far up that valley on the
other side as we can."
"To Novel? Yes, and then?"
"Why then we are going to charter a boat and row back in the cool of the
evening."
"Not a bad scheme. Who do you say are going, beside the inseparables?"
"One of the Miss Milnes--the pretty one--and that fellow Scott."
"Scott, the devil-dodger?"
"Yes. The Ottleys have asked him. I can't think why, for he's a rank
`outsider.'"
"Most of the `shepherds' appointed to administer `Dearly beloved
brethren' to their countrywomen in this otherwise favoured land are, my
dear chap. But it's all the better for you. He can take the two Ottley
nymphs off your hands while you offer _latria_ to the fair Inkermann--no
Alma--I beg your pardon."
"But--but hang it, that's just what the beggar won't do," blurted Phil
in desperation. "Fact is he's always in the way, and really it's
contemptible, you know; but what's to be done with a cad like that, who
ignores a snub that another fellow would knock you down for--or try to?
You'll come along, old man, won't you?"
"Let's see. There's the General, he's too old and don't count. Then
there's yourself and the parson; and they want a third donkey--I mean
beast of burden. Two won't be enough to sling all the panniers they'll
want along. I'm afraid, Phil, you mustn't count upon me, unless you can
manage to supply the missing steed first."
"Bosh, Fordham! You won't be wanted to carry anything."
"Not, eh? Let's see again. Four females--that means eight wraps,
putting it at the lowest computation. Add to that the delicate
creatures' rations--for you can't get anything eatable or drinkable at
Novel--and sunshades, which they _must_ have for crossing the lake,
don't you know, and which they'll discard directly they begin to walk.
And there's all the amateur-commissionaire business into the bargain.
No, no, Phil. Having given the matter my most careful consideration, I
regret to say that I am unable to undertake it--as the publisher said
when he `chucked' the budding author's MS."
"You old savage! If you weren't shaving I'd `chuck' all the boots and
bolsters in the room at your head."
"Well, I've done now, so you can begin. But, I say, Phil," he went on,
tranquilly, "how long have we been here?"
Philip Orlebar's handsome head was well through the open window at that
moment. His friend therefore found it necessary to repeat the question.
"Eh--what? How long? Oh, about ten days, haven't we?"
"I believe we have," rejoined the other in the same silky tone. "And,
my dear boy, doesn't it strike you that you are getting on ra-ather
rapidly?"
"No. Why?"
"Nothing. Only that even the charm of my improving conversation does
not avail to keep your head within that window, when some inexplicable
instinct--for you couldn't possibly have _seen_ her--warns you that your
divinity is on the terrace below. And yet, in a few minutes more you
will be seated by her side for at least an hour--such being
unfortunately the length of _table d'hote_, and after that may safely be
counted upon to pass the residue of the evening not a hundred yards
apart from her by any means."
"Well, I'm only one of a crowd then," retorted Philip, with a dash of
irritation. "Those confounded Ottley girls are always on hand--a good
deal too much so."
"Are they? Look here now, Phil. What is there about that girl that
makes a difference between her and any other girl?"
"Ah! You--even you, you old ruffian, own that there is a difference?"
"Not so fast, my dear chap. I asked _you_ the question. But if you
want me to answer it myself, I reply `Nothing.'"
"What? You don't see any difference?"
"Not a particle," responded his tormentor, blandly. Philip stared for a
moment. He hardly knew what to say. Then:
"Well, with all your shelliness, you crustaceous old cuss, I gave you
credit for more discrimination. Why, confound it all, look at her
alongside the rest of the crowd here. Isn't she a head and shoulders
above them all--in every particular?"
"H'm, h'm! Oh, yes! no doubt. But that isn't saying very much. She
looks thoroughbred, I admit, and talks well, and has some ideas--not bad
ones, either; not that I've ever been favoured with them myself, for
I've never laid myself out for that honour. Women, you see, are like
children. As long as you keep them at arm's length they respect you.
Directly you have ever so little to do with them, then good-bye to your
peace, for they will allow you none; then, presto, the collar is round
your neck and you find yourself cast for the _role_ of general poodle
before you know where you are. It's fetch-and-carry, will-you-do-this
and would-you-mind-doing-that. And then you are expected to act the
sympathetic listener to all their infernal egotistic fads; and God help
you if at any moment you forget the sympathetic part of it. But to
return to our sheep. You think this particular girl an angel, because
she's good-looking and thoroughbred, and has a hovering sort of
suggestion about her of being an ill-used mortal and welcoming a
sympathetic spirit, and all that sort of thing. Then, again, you run
against her up here, where you're both of you showing at your best
because you've neither of you anything in the world to put you out--
splendid weather, lovely country, good old times all round--sort of
paradise in which she stands out as the Eve to you, and I daresay you as
the Adam to her. That's not life, my dear fellow; that's not life. A
mere summer idyll and no more. Can't possibly last, you know."
"And why the deuce can't it last?" said Phil, who had been listening
somewhat impatiently to this harangue.
Fordham emitted a short, dry guffaw.
"Well now, can it? I put it to you. Just run over all the `happy
couples' within the circle of your acquaintance: to how many of them is
life a summer idyll, or any sort of idyll at all? You needn't go
further than this house, which at present contains a good few
`yoke-fellows,' to use a thoroughly expressive term. If you haven't yet
found time to observe them, just keep your eyes open for the next day or
two--if you can divert those killing orbs from the adorable Alma, that
is--and a place like this is good for observations of the kind, because
the subjects of them are always more or less off their guard. Putting
it at the lowest computation, eight marriages out of every ten are
abject failures--the other two very dubious."
"Oh, indeed! And how many are there that turn out satisfactorily?" said
Phil, ironically.
"Perhaps one in five thousand."
"Oh--well--it's something to have got you to admit that much. Now why
shouldn't I, for instance, hit off that one?"
"Why shouldn't you? Well now, Phil, I put it to you as one not wholly
unacquainted with sporting matters. What would you say to a fellow who
should ask you to take tickets in a lottery where the chances were five
thousand to one against you--or rather to take one ticket, and that at
the price of all you were worth? You'd vote him drunk, of course. Yet
if I know anything of my fellow-creatures, you are in a fair way towards
perpetrating that identical suicidal imbecility. Now, what do you say?
Chuck your expedition across the lake to-morrow, and let's go on to
Zermatt now instead of a week or so later. That, or your fate is
sealed."
"No you don't, old chap; no you don't," said Phil, who, far from being
offended by the other's ill-conditionedness, was hugely pleased thereat,
since it confirmed and encouraged certain hopes he had already more than
half shaped. "By Jove, I never had such a good time in my life as I've
been having here. Too soon to cut it just yet."
Fordham's shoulders went up in an expressive shrug as he turned away to
the door.
"Don't say you weren't shown the cliff you proposed to jump over," he
said. "Jump now, and be--blessed to you."
"By the way, Fordham," said Phil, "isn't it a deuced rum thing? The old
General knows my governor well--or rather did, years ago."
"Did he?" was the sharp reply, as the speaker faced suddenly round. "Ah
well--yes--it is queer. But the world's a pretty small one. There goes
the second bell," he added, in his normally unconcerned tones, as he
again turned to the door.
His manner struck even Philip, though faintly. But for the fact that
Fordham was literally a man in an iron mask, Philip could have sworn
that the tone was a startled one. That, however, was absurd, anyhow.
Fordham was not even acquainted with Sir Francis. The two had met and
become intimate merely as travelling companions.
"Well, Mr Fordham, what do you think of these young people's plan for
to-morrow?" said General Wyatt as they met at table.
"Not a bad one. The valley of the Morge is well worth walking up, but
you must start from here so as to catch the early steamer."
"Make old Fordham go with us. He says he won't," said Phil, in an
undertone, to Alma Wyatt, next to whom he was seated, for the change of
places had been effected satisfactorily to all parties concerned. "You
can get round him if any one can."
"I don't know so much about that," she answered, with a smile. "I'll
try, though." Then across the table, "Why do you say `_you_ must start
early,' Mr Fordham, as if you weren't going with us? You really must
come. The gentians, they say, are lovely up that valley. We are quite
reckoning on you."
"To carry the gentians?" he rejoined drily. "Or to pick them?"
"Neither. You shall talk to us while we pick them. And you shall not
carry anything, and we'll promise to be very good and give no trouble."
Few men could have stood this appeal, or the look which accompanied it.
Phil felt quite hot. Though used to his friend's ways, he thought him
an ill-conditioned dog at that moment. Had he not unequivocally snubbed
his--Phil's--divinity? But the said divinity rather enjoyed it than
otherwise. For, in spite of the extremely derogatory deliverances we
have just heard from Fordham's lips concerning her, Alma Wyatt was the
only woman in the hotel to whom he had addressed a spontaneous remark;
and she, so far from being offended at his brusqueness or taciturnity,
looked upon him as a character, to be studied with avidity.
"To put it on other grounds," she went on gaily. "Uncle will be quite
lost without you. What will become of him all day with no one to argue
with?" She could not have ventured upon safer ground. Fordham, though
he detested women, by no means extended his antipathy to his own sex,
and when away from the obnoxious skirts no man was better company. He
was a power in the smoking-room, and as a travelling companion very
nearly perfect. He and General Wyatt had become great friends during
their short acquaintance, and now as it struck him that the old man had
probably been relying upon his company for the proposed undertaking, his
mind was made up.
"Well, General, I shall be happy to make one of the party," he said.
"And after all, if it's a case of rowing back across the lake, another
oar won't come out of place."
"Don't you think it very dangerous to cross the lake in a small boat?"
struck in the Infliction, at his elbow.
"Not if the weather's fine."
"Ah, but don't you think storms come up very suddenly on this lake?"
"Oh, Lord," said Phil in an undertone, "the Gadfly is getting her sting
into old Fordham."
"Be quiet, she'll hear you," replied Alma, trying to hide a laugh.
"Besides, I want to enjoy the fun."
But while Fordham was ruminating over a suitable extinguisher, a mild
clergyman on the opposite side of the table struck in eagerly, and
requested to know if that was really the case, and further manifested
such a desire for information on that particular subject that the
Infliction turned to him with reinvigorated purpose, and the rest were
spared. The good man had only arrived that evening, and little knew
what floodgates he was opening.