But these intimate conversations belonged, as by right, to the
darkness of after dinner. The sunny mornings--and in the summer of
1899 the days were monotonously, illustriously sunny--would see them
on the tennis court, playing their practice singles. Enthusiasm more
and more possessed Daphne as she found her strokes getting stronger,
her eyes surer, and her feet swifter. She still ran shrieking from
side to side of the court as he placed the ball now in one corner and
now in another; and when she shrieked she apologised, promising "she
would not do that again." If he beat her with a malicious and
impossible ball she looked angrily at him through the strings of her
racket, and even threw out her tongue.
When the games were over, and he declared that he was thirsty, she
would say, "So'm I. Let's go and get some fizzy." And they would
walk back to the terrace, where she poured out the drink for him.
Always she remarked that when she was close to him, pouring out his
drink, he would be silent and almost painfully abstracted. That she
was encouraging him she knew, but could not cease from it; something
compelled her to show that she was happy in this fellowship and ready
to think of herself and him as a separated pair.
Soon her father took to coming and watching them at tennis. He must
learn, he said, whether there was anything in this noisy rumour of
his daughter's skill. As an outcome of his survey he was struck by
his daughter's exceedingly good form in the matter of tennis and her
exceedingly bad form in the matter of manners--shrieking and leaping
as she did whenever there was occasion for triumph or reprobation,
shouting "Oo!" and "Lordy!" and "Coo!" and even staring impudently at
the young man through the grill-window of her racket. The second
time he watched, an early evening after tea, he was strongly
impressed by the unconscious or subtly concealed way in which she was
throwing herself at this American boy. He pulled his moustaches over
it, sitting under the chestnut trees above the play. The thing
interested him as a philosopher and a student of human nature, and he
ruminated, detached from it, as though the girl were not his
daughter. In watching this attraction between a man and a maid,
thought he, he was very near to the acme of things. If to a vitalist
philosophy love was life at its greatest intensity, here was he
watching it break through and bud vividly. An unconscious youth and
girl didn't realise that this was the explanation of their genius for
love. Yes, life touched no higher point than this; and nuptials,
therefore, to those who could see, were a coronation ceremony of life.
These thoughts were interrupted by the game's early close. Young
Detmould had promised to meet his sister returning on the steamboat
from Treib; and Mr. Bruno was slightly disturbed to hear his daughter
call out: "Oh, must you go? What a shame! I'll come with you to the
gate."
"_Bon Dieu!_" thought Mr. Bruno. "That's going rather far."
The gate she meant was at the end of a narrow serpentine path that
threaded downward through the crowding firs. He allowed her five
minutes before following her; and then, lighting a cigar to fortify
him in a difficult interview, strolled along the path. She was
leaning, as he saw on turning the last bend, against the post of the
little swing gate, and sucking a large and ungovernable sweetmeat.
The American boy must have just disappeared, and Daphne be indulging
a reverie. This sight of his daughter resting against a gate and
symbolising the acme of things touched him. He called:
"Duffy."
She looked up, startled.
"Come back with me and be lectured."
She replied nothing, but sucked the abominable lollipop (thus
treating his promised lecture with scanty reverence), and taking her
elbow from the gate-post came to him. And it was as they were
walking back that he said:
"You're obviously throwing yourself at the head of that American
youth."
"Oh, I'm not!" she exclaimed.
"You said that like a Cockney serving-girl. I tell you you are
deliberately--whether in the body or out of it I can't say--throwing
yourself at the besotted young man, who's quite palpably in love with
you."
The sentence was music in Daphne's ears. She liked her father to
think that Henry Detmould was in love with her, and so said nothing
for fear of damaging the thought.
"Tell me, Duffy, what would you think of a bookseller who was so
unable to recognise a first edition that would one day be of some
value that he flung it into the twopenny box for the first loiterer
to buy?"
She provided the answer expected from her.
"I should think him a silly fool, I suppose."
"Well, but thou art the man--the creature, I mean."
"Daddy, I'm not. You're imagining it all. Besides, you might go on
saying that for ever. I must like some one one day."
"Yes; but, Duffy go slow, go slow. What you may think is love is
often self-hypnotism. You've always had a fairly clear brain, so
make sure first."
"But how does one make sure?"
"How? I don't know. I think time alone will test it for you. What
do you know of young Detmould? You've only met him for a week or
two. All I can say for him is that he has the grace to be much shyer
of encouraging you than you are of him."
"I've never encouraged him one bit."
"Not deliberately and vulgarly. But whether you know it or not, my
dear, you hang out teasing flags."
She ran upstairs to dress for dinner, and closed her bedroom door, as
if to add more privacy to her thoughts. She stood behind her window
and looked out.
How did one make sure?
What did she really feel? Certainly she wanted to keep her lure for
Henry, and her long thoughts about him. With this new interest life
had dyed itself very bright; and if a wand could wave it away so that
it had never been, everything would drop into paleness again. Up
till their arrival at Brunnen her book-thoughts had crowded her mind,
but now Henry had sent them below and occupied their room. In his
talks on the terrace at night he had given her more than any one else
in the world. Not only had he unveiled the wrongness in her approach
to art, but his wide-thrown learning had indirectly shamed her into
disturbing realisations. He talked of philosophy--and what did she
know of philosophy? Wrinkling his forehead, or pressing a hand on
his hair, he spoke of painters, sculptors, musicians, architects,
declaring that he who would be master of one art must be jack of them
all--and she knew hardly anything of the names he mentioned!
Greatness, she realised, as she listened in a humiliated silence, was
not born from dreaming on it, nor was it attained by the slothful who
read only what was easy. If you were to express your reaction to
life, you must aim at little else than all knowledge, so should it be
the reaction of a fine mind. All this he had given her. Was she in
love with him? She created a very private picture of herself lying
in Henry's arms, pressed against his heart. It sent a tremor of joy
through her.
But what did _he_ feel? There was that first night's staring at her.
There was his pointed choice of her to play tennis with, though
really she could be nothing more than a wild pupil. And sometimes
when he caught her eyes he swung his own away uncomfortably. But was
it only a passing attraction--a holiday flirtation? No, it didn't
seem like that. That strange agitation of his hands, when she stood
very close to him and poured out his drink--it didn't look like
flirting.
She stepped forward and stood on her loggia, staring over the lake at
the fir-woods climbing the opposite mountain. The evening was close,
and the water filmed and inert. A little boat with two people in it
was coming home to Brunnen from the Schillerstein. After watching it
for a while, she quickly turned her head leftward and upward to the
floor above--where Henry's window was. He was standing on his
balcony, looking down at her loggia. And he had seen her glance, and
awkwardly waved his hand, as if to show he was unembarrassed. She
pretended not to have recognised him, and retreated into her room.
That night there was dancing in the lounge. Daphne, with a Spanish
embroidered shawl about her shoulders, sat next her father, watching
the first waltz, and hoping Henry would soon come and ask her to
dance, that her father might be further persuaded of his love. But
not once did he come near her. He danced two or three dances with
his sister, and some more with a very pretty girl, whom Daphne had
often noticed. But she was not jealous of her, for Henry as he
waltzed seemed abstracted and mechanical.
Daphne was not left without partners. The most persistent suitor was
a tall, moustached Swiss, who, having once found her, was beyond
question lost in admiration of his discovery. She talked gaily to
him in French, but was thinking all the while: "Why doesn't Henry
come? Is he hurt about something? Did he think I snubbed him by not
answering his wave? I didn't mean to snub him--I was only shy...."
She tried a happier thought. "Perhaps he doesn't want to compromise
me by being seen so much with me, and this is so public. Yes, it's
that. It's a good sign, rather than a bad one." But when they
passed each other dancing, and he smiled a merry recognition, as if
there were nothing remarkable in their not dancing together, she
doubted again. "I shall know to-morrow morning, if he asks me to
play tennis with him as usual."
In the morning she dawdled on the terrace in the hope of his
invitation, but he passed her gaily, calling that he was going to
climb the Selisberg with his sister and Clarkson. Almost it appeared
as if he had made up his mind to avoid her. And in the evening,
after dinner, he, Elsie and Clarkson sat with her father and her, and
all discussed with perfect naturalness their adventures during the
day. Never did he attempt to escape from the shelter of a crowd. At
ten o'clock she retired to her bedroom with her wound. "Time is so
short. We shan't have more than a month here, and we are wasting
precious days. Henry, you know you want to be with me. You know you
do."
One day succeeded another without bringing back the former
intercourse. It was a mystery. Only when other people were with
them did they meet. And yet she knew all the while that he was
longing to have her alone. She would leave herself in places where
he was likely to arrive, and then, shy of appearing to have done it
on purpose, stroll away as soon as she saw him in the distance.
Sometimes when she was thus set for him, the moustached Swiss would
appear, and, though courteous to him, she would be thinking: "I don't
want you. I don't want you. I'm awfully sorry if you're in love
with me, because I know what it is to love without return. I'm
sorry." And as soon as possible she would escape.
Her father took her on carriage excursions to Tellsplatte and the
Einsiedeln Monastery, and Altdorf, and up the Furka Pass to the Rhone
Glacier; and on the same days Henry went climbing with Elsie and
their friend. A week of this mere friendliness heightened her doubt
to misery, and her love to passion. Not now did she bring it to
trial. She would not so insult it. She was madly in love with
Henry. She wanted Henry with his boyish features and shape and his
rich mind--his mind that blent with hers and fertilised it. She
wanted him for her exclusive possession, to imprison him in herself.
She was unable to read, unable to talk to people, and annoyed with
her father when he came to chat. Always she wished to be worrying
out the problem, "Does he love me?" sometimes answering it, "Yes, I
know he does, in spite of all," and at other times, "He did for a few
days, he really did, but not now." Or she refused herself so much
comfort as that, declaring, "No, he was never more than just
interested." And she would review every look she had seen in him,
and every sentence he had uttered, in quest of proofs that he had
loved her; and with a sunken heart decide that there was nothing that
she could twist into more than a transient interest. She played an
old childish game, "If I pass that post before some one speaks to me,
then he does love me," and if it went against her, refused to believe
in it. The terrace and the tennis court and its seat under the
chestnuts, and all the places where they had been together, clothed
themselves with pain. And if people in their innocence spoke to her
about Mr. Detmould, or "that young American," she felt she had a
proprietary interest in him, and gave information as one who spoke
with authority.
Her fist had clenched over the vow: "You shall come back to me first.
I won't go to you. Time may be short, but you shall come to me
first."
In the end, however, she went to him.
He was sitting quite alone in a dark corner of the long terrace, as
far as possible from the people round the string quartette.
Pretending not to see him, she wandered past.
"You look tired," came his voice from the obscurity.
"Oh ... hallo!"
He extended the chair that was next to him, leaving his arm along its
back.
"Why not sit down?"
After some meaningless hesitation she accepted the chair.
"I will--for a little," stuttered she, as he withdrew his arm. "But
it's cold, isn't it?"
"I don't think so."
It was a preamble to nothing; neither found more words. She looked
at the Spanish shawl, lying on her lap, and fiddled with its
embroidery. Something told her that Henry was agitated and trembling
internally, though nothing in his posture or movements suggested it;
only the foot of his crossed leg swung gently. At one moment she
knew that he was looking at her arms, and she scanned them herself.
Hard tennis had made them slenderer than usual, and exposure had
browned them; they were trembling.
"If you're cold," said Henry at last, "you'd better put your shawl
on. Let me put it round you."
He took it off her lap and, as she bent forward without looking at
him, placed it about her shoulders, careful not to touch her. She
leaned back in her chair.
"Do you think you've been playing too much tennis?" asked he.
"Oh, no. Why?"
"You look tired--and frailer."
"Then I certainly shan't play much more. It's my ambition to get
fatter."
"Oh, no!"
"Oh, yes!"
"No," he repeated. "You're all right as you are. I like your narrow
shoulders--and your slimness--and your childish clothes. I wouldn't
have you different."
As with such words they seemed to have fluttered very near to
something, both withdrew into silence.
"Elsie and I and Clarkson are going to climb the Mythen to-morrow."
Thus he deliberately broke the pause.
"Are you?"
"Yes.... Or I'm supposed to be going too. I'm not sure that I want
to. I feel I'd rather laze about here. We go away so soon."
"Do you?"
"In a fortnight's time."
She showed no feeling, though the shadow of a future pain fell near.
"We're going on a walking tour," he continued--"over the Furka Pass
and down into Brigue. I was tremendously keen on it, but the
prospect bores me now. However...."
"I wish you weren't going. It'll be rotten here without your sister
and you."
Henry uncrossed his legs and lit a cigarette.
"Have you ever thought," said he, "that one never discovers the truth
of how to live until it's too late to live?"
"What do you mean?"
"Well, I am twenty-five, and I've found no code by which one lives a
full life and yet hurts nobody. When I've read enough and thought
enough and got the brains to think out a philosophy of living, I
shall probably be too old to live."
Daphne nodded as if she partly understood.
After a silence that often moved with undelivered words, he
proceeded, gaining time between sentences by tending his cigarette:
"Take a hypothetical case. An artist of some sort--let us say a man
seeking to be a great, and, above all, a _true_ musician--wants to be
loyal to life as it calls him--knows that he _ought_ to be loyal to
it.... And it suddenly calls with a voice so sacred that it seems
almost like a religious call--through some love, I mean--it--it calls
him to the wilful snapping of all the world's inhibitions. He is not
in the happy position of possessing a religion to tell him that these
inhibitions are the laws of God. If he were, the problem would be
solved at once, and his duty plain.... But instead, he suspects that
they are things improperly thought out, and enforced by those who
have forgotten what it was like to love.... Well, a vision has
haunted all artists that their road to beauty is through lawlessness
and danger.... They have seen that Art is a sort of Mysticism,
because you will never attain to its highest places unless you are
ready to leave all and follow life.... And it isn't pure
selfishness, as people say, for timidity and selfishness and security
often pull on the other side.... Oh, but this is old stuff--much of
it is in your father's books--but it comes alive for one, when one is
going through what thousands have gone through before...."
"I don't think I understand," said Daphne.
With that he stopped like a train against the buffers.
Between ten and eleven that night she stood near her window--or out
on her loggia, laying hands on the balustrade and looking over the
lake tranced by the darkness.
"He _does_ love me. I'm sure of it. Just now he does. And I do
love him. I love him madly."
But why? Of his past or his full character she knew nothing; she had
only looked on his outward appearance, and into his mind with its
enthusiasm. But whether, to those who knew him in the deep, he was
good or bad she didn't care. She would almost like to be told of
sins he had committed, that she might assure him they were nothing to
her.
But what would come of it all?
"What do I really believe will happen? I suppose I really believe we
shall be separated when he goes, and perhaps come together in the
future, or perhaps not. But, of course, we shall part without
telling each other anything.... He couldn't very well speak, after
only knowing me a few weeks."
Strange that, too sunk in the joy of loving, she was not made
miserable by this sense of shortness. It had not yet got through her
exultation, or the little of it that flushed her feelings, by adding
poignance, sweetened them.
But what did he mean by that talk of the world's inhibitions, and of
timidity and selfishness and security pulling you back, and of not
hurting others? She could make nothing of this. If he yielded to
his love for her, how would he injure anybody or affront the world?
Was he perhaps engaged to a girl? Or--quick, heart-gripping
fear!--had he meant some one other than herself--some married woman,
perhaps--when he spoke of a love that called him? Was he only using
her as a friendly person to whom he could pour out his trouble?
"No, he meant _me_." Her heart steadied. "He meant me. I'm sure of
it. I can't tell why, but I know it."
Resolved to keep this certainty and to take it into her dreams, she
turned into the light of her bedroom, leaving the window wide open,
for the night was close, undressed, and got into bed. With a mind
studiously emptied, like a room for Henry to walk about in, she fell
asleep. Her dreams, as often happened, had nothing to do with him
whom she had tried to will into them. She dreamt that she was back
in the months before they came to Switzerland, wandering along the
roads of the Montmorency Forest, and watching the men quarrying the
yellow stone for the local villas, or the woodcutters stacking their
faggots. Once she was in a gloomy avenue of huge fir trees that
approached the gates of a château, and down the avenue came the girl
of her own age, herding her white goats. Of such places as Brunnen,
or of such people as she would meet there, she had as yet no
knowledge.... Now she was walking along a sun-spotted glade towards
St. Prix, where Miss Sims's class and Miss Vidella's spectacled stare
were awaiting her; and abruptly, without break in the sunlight, and
without wetting her in the least, the rain began to tear through the
branches. It was magnificent. Any second the thunder would come.
The first crash, with its rolling echoes, woke her.
She saw through her open window that it was early morning, and the
rain was rushing down in lines so perpendicular, so visible, and so
close as to seem like the warp of unmade linen. A flash of lightning
introduced another clap of thunder which repeated itself, for
interminable seconds, among the mountains and in the great basin of
the lake. There were rhythmical pauses in the rain, and when its
curtain was removed, the peaks, framed by her window, stood folded
round with clouds. She jumped up to watch. The storm's rhythm was
wonderful. For a few moments the clouds would dissipate, revealing
the snowfields rosy with sunrise, and then condense again, and there
would be thunder and the shattering curtain of rain.
The immediate message of the storm was one of hope. Henry was to
have gone climbing the Mythen to-day, and now, perhaps, he wouldn't
go. In mid-morning the weather would clear and they would play
tennis, or it would stay wet and they would find some sheltered place
to talk. Her watch said five o'clock; if only she could keep the
storm over Brunnen till Elsie and Henry had finally abandoned their
early start for the Mythen! But it began to pass, and in fifteen
minutes might never have been. Stepping on to the loggia she gave a
quick glance towards Henry's room; its sunblinds were up and its
French windows thrown open. Possibly he was getting ready--but, no,
surely he wouldn't go--he would make excuses to remain behind, and
after breakfast she would find him lingering on the terrace waiting
for her to appear. Free of his sister and Clarkson, he would suggest
their game of tennis, and when that was over they would walk together
with feigned naturalness along the winding path between the firs, and
he would abruptly ask her to let him row her over to the Rutli, and
once on the water they would glide to solitary places under the
farther bank.
Such would be their morning, and she dressed suitably for it. But in
the restaurant there was no Henry dawdling at his breakfast-table,
where she had hoped to see him, nor was he on the terrace or in the
lounge, when she wandered through them.
He had gone, then. He had gone with his sister to climb the Mythen.
She was stabbed by it. It meant worrying out all over again the
problem whether or not he was in love with her. "He must have made
any excuse to stay if he felt for me what I feel for him. Then he
_doesn't_." Seated on a chair on the terrace, she passed in review,
one, two, and three times, every symptom of love or every hint of
indifference he had shown the first day. And the evidence, after
this crowning incident of the Mythen, seemed to show that he liked
her a little, but knew none of the doubting, hungry, monopolising
love that was hers. It was a terrible verdict--and she didn't
believe it. "He _does_ love me, I know it. But why then did he go?"
Her father came and sat beside her, and she wished he would go away.
He went; but other people strolled up and started to be pleasant.
Some of them, deceived by her blithe answers, kept her in
conversation for long quarters of an hour, while her problem waited
where it was hidden, crying to her to return. At last, for fear of
being spoken to, she left the hotel and walked along the streets of
Brunnen.
In these streets, if she walked away from the lake, she could see the
twin points of the Mythen rising high above the broken sky-line. How
exactly like the two humps of a sitting camel they were! No, they
were too pointed--a little too conical for that. Sometimes they
looked like two pyramids, joined together as Siamese twins were
joined. Trees mantled them for a great way up, and then the points
rose naked. Through those trees, though they were miles away, one
could almost see the paths where he was climbing.
When she entered the restaurant for dinner that evening, a rapid,
careless, over-shoulder glance showed him talking gaily to his
sister. In that glance his profile had appeared to be almost ugly;
and, though surprised, she was pleased, half hoping that, by seeing
his plainness, she could be cured of her love and given relief from
its pains. But the thought was dead as soon as born.
Waiters cleared the lounge for dancing, but she did not want to
dance. And when the tall, moustached Swiss came seeking her for his
partner, she declared that she had resolved not to dance to-night.
Escaping from her father's side, she went and sat alone in the
comparative darkness of the terrace. It was deserted except for a
couple in the distance who were sitting out a dance. She left the
Spanish shawl on her lap, and, stretching her legs before her,
crossed one ankle over the other. There was an iron table beside
her, and she rested her elbow upon it. Her mood made her wish she
could light a cigarette like a man, and send up her thoughts in puffs
or rings of smoke.
She might have sat there fifteen minutes when Henry appeared and
walked towards her.
"You've deserted us," smiled he.
"Yes, I'm tired."
"So am I."
"Did you climb the Mythen?"
"Yes, to the very top. That's why I'm done for. So's Elsie. She's
danced two dances and gone to bed."
He sat on a chair the other side of the iron table. Taking a loose
silver matchbox from his waistcoat pocket, he lit a Swiss cigar and
laid the matchbox on the table.
"I thought possibly you wouldn't go," ventured Daphne, "when I saw
the storm this morning."
"I shouldn't have minded much if it had stayed a bit longer and
prevented our going. I was never very eager about it."
This led them into the accustomed silence; he was engrossed in
watching his smoke, and she, happy because he had sought her out,
picked up his matchbox and twisted it in her fingers, with her face
averted. Once, lest the silence became too noticeable, he said:
"I danced three dances with Miss Storry, and they were three too many
for any one so exhausted."
And Daphne, resolved to be generous, answered:
"I think she's such an awfully pretty girl."
"Yes. I suppose she is."
After that he returned to his smoke and Daphne to her playing with
his matchbox. The silence was next broken by Mr. Bruno, who walked
up behind a cigar.
"Ah, you, Mr. Detmould, being American, can afford to take your
holiday slowly, but my daughter and I, being English Imperialists,
will have to quicken the _tempo_ of ours, I'm afraid."
"What are you talking about, Daddy?" asked Daphne languidly, as he
drew up a chair.
He was talking about the privileges of belonging to an Imperialist
nation, he explained, and the chances it offered of conscientiously
shooting Dutchmen in their own country. Didn't she realise that, as
a loyal Englishwoman, she would soon be at war with the Transvaal?
"I'm not going to war with any one," she grumbled; and Henry, turning
towards her father, said that he had thought the news was better.
Her father then spread himself to be interesting, as, indeed, he
could be in such a matter as this. The French and German papers in
the lounge, said he, were so much more feminine and indiscreet than
the ponderous English journals. And they showed that the Transvaal
was arming to the eyebrows, and that trainloads of suspicious
packing-cases, labelled as farming implements, were pouring from
France and Germany--through Capetown, if you please--and up to
Pretoria. And the Boers were buying horses in every market, and
Europe's soldiers-of-fortune appearing in the Boer streets. And the
English, in their usual humorous way, had answered all this by
sending out two companies of engineers.
Henry inquired when the fighting would begin.
"When the rain comes, and the grass for the horses," said her father.
Henry nodded. The conception was picturesque.
"In September or October, I suppose," pursued Mr. Bruno. "As soon as
the veldt is right, old Kruger won't wait for us to send him an
ultimatum, he'll send his own instead. He'll say: 'Come on!' And I
expect we shall send out two more companies of engineers."
But Daphne, momentarily stimulated, was no longer interested. Had
all Europe been going to war it would not have found an inch of
resting-room in her mind, for her love was a monopolising and
unsociable tenant. Even the thought that this war might prevent
their visit to Italy was unimportant now. Italy was nothing. It lay
beyond the day when Henry and she should have parted. What mattered
was that their few remaining hours were flying, and fate seemed
determined that they should never be alone.
And in the next few days they did not meet except in the presence of
others. This was all the stranger, since Elsie Detmould had kept to
her bed for two days, having taken cold when climbing the Mythen.
Henry, one would have thought, would have been freer to seek out
Daphne. But he didn't, and she sat on terrace or in lounge, and an
unread book on her knees, arguing over and over again her old case.
On the Wednesday, three days before he went, he _did_ come for a
little while and sit beside her--the table between them as before.
And all his words, she dared to believe, hinted at warmer meanings
behind.
"I don't want to leave this place a bit," he grumbled.
"When are you going?"
"Saturday morning--soon after sunrise.... It's--it's not to be
thought."
Daphne turned her head towards those meeting mountains where the lake
appeared to finish in a dark corner. Up through them, as far as she
could remember, climbed the serpentine road to the Furka Pass. She
pictured Henry, with knapsack and alpenstock, bending to its steeper
slopes, till he reached the summit of the pass and ascended to the
ice-fields of the Rhone Glacier.
"Oh, but you'll enjoy going over the Furka. The view from the
glacier is too wonderful for words. I can imagine you on the ice."
"I wish you were coming too," he murmured.
"So do I. But we're staying here a little longer, and then going to
Grindelwald."
"Yes, I know."
"But will your sister be well enough to do all that walking?"
"Oh, yes, that's what she's come for. She was ill in the spring, and
was determined to get rid of it. She's always been a dashing sort."
Daphne was now seeing a picture of Henry's childhood, and feeling
jealous of Elsie and all those who had known him during the
twenty-five years before she did.
"Yes," continued Henry, "I've been looking it out on the map. We
shall be only about thirty miles apart, and yet have all the highest
mountains of the Bernese Oberland between us."
This could be met only with silence.
The next morning, Thursday, when she was strolling through the hotel,
she played on her pains by trying to imagine that it was Saturday,
and that Henry had already left. And as she looked at the places
where they had talked together, she knew she would not be able to
endure the hotel after he had gone; these places would hit her wound
too cruelly. Much better to be clear of Brunnen, seeing something
new! How could she get away? How could she ask her father to take
her away without betraying her secrets? Impossible as it seemed to
his incisive eyes, it must be attempted.
She found him on the seat above the empty tennis court with a book
and a cigar.
"Daddy," she began, sitting next to him. "Aren't you getting bored
with this place yet?"
"Not particularly. Are you?"
She thought it out.
"No. But I'm quite keen on moving on and seeing somewhere else....
I'm so afraid, you see, that this old war'll prevent us doing half of
what we planned--you said we'd have to speed up things a bit--so I
vote we go on to Grindelwald."
He did not turn and look at her in an enquiring surprise, but studied
the tennis court before him; and she knew that he had guessed
everything. He did not chaff her, saying, "Let's see, the American
boy goes on Saturday, doesn't he?" for he knew (and she could almost
feel his knowledge) that the matter had passed beyond chaff. Of his
gentleness he would erect between them a pretence of ignorance,
though each would know that neither believed in it.
"I shouldn't mind," said he. "I'm afraid I am rather apt to take
root where I can find a garden and book. When do you suggest going?"
"Well, not to-morrow, of course. But Saturday perhaps, or Sunday.
I'm awfully keen on seeing the other places."
"Saturday's the day after to-morrow, isn't it? Well, certainly if
you order it. You're in command of this expedition."
Dinner that evening showed Elsie back in her place; and Daphne, when
she followed the diners into the lounge, resolved to make much of
her. She had seen hardly anything of Henry's sister, what with their
climbing in the daytime and the attentions of Mr. Clarkson at night.
And for some reason she wanted Elsie Detmould to take away with her a
liking for Daphne Bruno. So now, since Elsie was sitting alone, she
took the wicker chair at her side and asked after her cold.
"I reckon I'd forgotten its existence till you mentioned it," drawled
Elsie pleasantly. "Two days in bed'll finish off the best of
colds.... But I was determined to be quit of it, as we've all this
marching ahead of us."
"Yes, I know. I'm sorry you're going so soon. Must you?"
"Yes, I guess we can't stay here all the time. We want to see other
places, and we haven't too long in Switzerland. I've got to get back
to my mother, and Henry's got to get back to his wife."
It was as if a revolver had been shot off in Daphne's ear.
But as instantaneous was the conviction that she must keep perfect
control of herself and show nothing to Elsie. Elsie had spoken quite
naturally and without malice, evidently having seen nothing more than
friendliness between her brother and Daphne. Daphne turned and
looked at her, laughing.
"I never knew he was married!"
"Married? Very much so. He was married four years ago."
Daphne frowned a humorous incredulity--as if the joke were getting
better.
"Four years? He doesn't look old enough."
"He married at twenty-one."
"I suppose he's a father, too. But I simply can't imagine it."
"No, he's not a father yet."
"He ought to have brought his wife with him, on a lovely holiday like
this."
"Ah, but she especially arranged that he should bring me. I'm really
recuperating from a breakdown."
"Awfully sporting of her," said Daphne.
"Yes, she's a good sort. And I guess she quite enjoys a holiday from
Henry. Husbands are a bit trying sometimes."
How Daphne kept up that conversation and her suitable smiling till
the moment when politeness allowed her to escape she never knew.
There must have been half an hour of it before she found herself in
her bedroom with the door closed.