Miss Raby and Elizabeth were seated together in the lounge of the
_Hôtel des Alpes_. They had walked up from the _Biscione_ to see
Colonel Leyland. But he, apparently, had walked down there to see
them, and the only thing to do was to wait, and to justify the wait
by ordering some refreshment. So Miss Raby had afternoon tea, while
Elizabeth behaved like a perfect lady over an ice, occasionally
turning the spoon upside down in the mouth when she saw that no one
was looking. The under-waiters were clearing cups and glasses off the
marble-topped tables, and the gold-laced officials were rearranging
the wicker chairs into seductive groups of three and two. Here and
there the visitors lingered among their crumbs, and the Russian
Prince had fallen asleep in a prominent and ungraceful position. But
most people had started for a little walk before dinner, or had
gone to play tennis, or had taken a book under a tree. The weather
was delightful, and the sun had so far declined that its light had
become spiritualized, suggesting new substance as well as new colour
in everything on which it fell. From her seat Miss Raby could see
the great precipices under which they had passed the day before; and
beyond those precipices she could see Italy--the Val d'Aprile, the Val
Senese and the mountains she had named "The Beasts of the South." All
day those mountains were insignificant--distant chips of white or grey
stone. But the evening sun transfigured them, and they would sit up
like purple bears against the southern sky.
"It is a sin you should not be out, Elizabeth. Find your friend if you
can, and make her go with you. If you see Colonel Leyland, tell him I
am here."
"Is that all, ma'am?" Elizabeth was fond of her eccentric mistress, and
her heart had been softened by the ice. She saw that Miss Raby did not
look well. Possibly the course of love was running roughly. And indeed
gentlemen must be treated with tact, especially when both parties are
getting on.
"Don't give pennies to the children: that is the only other thing."
The guests had disappeared, and the number of officials visibly
diminished. From the hall behind came the genteel sniggers of those two
most vile creatures, a young lady behind the bureau and a young man in
a frock coat who shows new arrivals to their rooms. Some of the porters
joined them, standing at a suitable distance. At last only Miss Raby,
the Russian Prince, and the concierge were left in the lounge.
The concierge was a competent European of forty or so, who spoke
all languages fluently, and some well. He was still active, and had
evidently once been muscular. But either his life or his time of life
had been unkind to his figure: in a few years he would certainly
be fat. His face was less easy to decipher. He was engaged in the
unquestioning performance of his duty, and that is not a moment for
self-revelation. He opened the windows, he filled the match-boxes, he
flicked the little tables with a duster, always keeping an eye on the
door in case any one arrived without luggage, or left without paying.
He touched an electric bell, and a waiter flew up and cleared away
Miss Raby's tea things. He touched another bell, and sent an underling
to tidy up some fragments of paper which had fallen out of a bedroom
window. Then "Excuse me, madam!" and he had picked up Miss Raby's
handkerchief with a slight bow. He seemed to bear her no grudge for her
abrupt departure of the preceding evening. Perhaps it was into his hand
that she had dropped a tip. Perhaps he did not remember she had been
there.
The gesture with which he returned the handkerchief troubled her
with vague memories. Before she could thank him he was back in the
doorway, standing sideways, so that the slight curve of his stomach was
outlined against the view. He was speaking to a youth of athletic but
melancholy appearance, who was fidgeting in the portico without. "I
told you the percentage," she heard. "If you had agreed to it, I would
have recommended you. Now it is too late. I have enough guides."
Our generosity benefits more people than we suppose. We tip the
cabman, and something goes to the man who whistled for him. We tip
the man who lights up the stalactite grotto with magnesium wire, and
something goes to the boatman who brought us there. We tip the waiter
in the restaurant, and something goes off the waiter's wages. A vast
machinery, whose existence we seldom realize, promotes the distribution
of our wealth. When the concierge returned, Miss Raby asked: "And what
is the percentage?"
She asked with the definite intention of disconcerting him, not because
she was unkind, but because she wished to discover what qualities, if
any, lurked beneath that civil, efficient exterior. And the spirit of
her inquiry was sentimental rather than scientific.
With an educated man she would have succeeded. In attempting to reply
to her question, he would have revealed something. But the concierge
had no reason to pay even lip service to logic. He replied: "Yes,
madam! this is perfect weather, both for our visitors and for the hay,"
and hurried to help a bishop, who was selecting a picture postcard.
Miss Raby, instead of moralizing on the inferior resources of the
lower classes, acknowledged a defeat. She watched the man spreading
out the postcards, helpful yet not obtrusive, alert yet deferential.
She watched him make the bishop buy more than he wanted. This was the
man who had talked of love to her upon the mountain. But hitherto
he had only revealed his identity by chance gestures bequeathed to
him at birth. Intercourse with the gentle classes had required new
qualities--civility, omniscience, imperturbability. It was the old
answer: the gentle classes were responsible for him. It is inevitable,
as well as desirable, that we should bear each other's burdens.
It was absurd to blame Feo for his worldliness--for his essential
vulgarity. He had not made himself. It was even absurd to regret
his transformation from an athlete: his greasy stoutness, his big
black kiss-curl, his waxed moustache, his chin which was dividing
and propagating itself like some primitive form of life. In England,
nearly twenty years before, she had altered his figure as well as his
character. He was one of the products of "The Eternal Moment."
A great tenderness overcame her--the sadness of an unskilful demiurge,
who makes a world and beholds that it is bad. She desired to ask pardon
of her creatures, even though they were too poorly formed to grant it.
The longing to confess, which she had suppressed that morning beside
the bed of Signora Cantù, broke out again with the violence of a
physical desire. When the bishop had gone she renewed the conversation,
though on different lines, saying: "Yes, it is beautiful weather. I
have just been enjoying a walk up from the _Biscione_. I am stopping
there!"
He saw that she was willing to talk, and replied pleasantly: "The
_Biscione_ must be a very nice hotel: many people speak well of it.
The fresco is very beautiful." He was too shrewd to object to a little
charity.
"What lots of new hotels there are!" She lowered her voice in order not
to rouse the Prince, whose presence weighed on her curiously.
"Oh, madam! I should indeed think so. When I was a lad--Excuse me one
moment."
An American girl, who was new to the country, came up with her hand
full of coins, and asked him hopelessly "whatever they were worth." He
explained, and gave her change: Miss Raby was not sure that he gave her
right change.
"When I was a lad----" He was again interrupted, to speed two parting
guests. One of them tipped him; he said, "Thank you." The other did not
tip him; he said, "Thank you," all the same but not in the same way.
Obviously he had as yet no recollections of Miss Raby.
"When I was a lad, Vorta was a poor little place."
"But a pleasant place?"
"Very pleasant, madam."
"Kouf!" said the Russian Prince, suddenly waking up and startling
them both. He clapped on a felt hat, and departed at full speed for a
constitutional. Miss Raby and Feo were left together.
It was then that she ceased to hesitate, and determined to remind him
that they had met before. All day she had sought for a spark of life,
and it might be summoned by pointing to that other fire which she
discerned, far back in the travelled distance, high up in the mountains
of youth. What he would do, if he also discerned it, she did not know;
but she hoped that he would become alive, that he at all events would
escape the general doom which she had prepared for the place and the
people. And what she would do, during their joint contemplation, she
did not even consider.
She would hardly have ventured if the sufferings of the day had not
hardened her. After much pain, respectability becomes ludicrous. And
she had only to overcome the difficulty of Feo's being a man, not the
difficulty of his being a concierge. She had never observed that
spiritual reticence towards social inferiors which is usual at the
present day.
"This is my second visit," she said boldly. "I stayed at the _Biscione_
twenty years ago."
He showed the first sign of emotion: _that_ reference to the _Biscione_
annoyed him.
"I was told I should find you up here," continued Miss Raby. "I
remember you very well. You used to take us over the passes."
She watched his face intently. She did not expect it to relax into an
expansive smile. "Ah!" he said, taking off his peaked cap, "I remember
you perfectly, madam. What a pleasure, if I may say so, to meet you
again!"
"I am pleased, too," said the lady, looking at him doubtfully.
"You and another lady, madam, was it not? Miss----"
"Mrs. Harbottle."
"To be sure; I carried your luggage. I often remember your kindness."
She looked up. He was standing near an open window, and the whole
of fairyland stretched behind him. Her sanity forsook her, and she
said gently: "Will you misunderstand me, if I say that I have never
forgotten your kindness either?"