THE VISITORS' BOOK
It was quite true. They were caught like rats in a trap, and Ann's heart
sank. She had lived long enough to know that there are always a certain
number of censorious people sufficiently ungenerous and narrow-minded to
make mischief out of any awkward happening, no matter how innocently it may
have occurred.
"Can't you think of any way out, Tony?" she said at last. "I--I don't seem
to know what to do." She looked round her vaguely, feeling confused and
unnerved by the awkwardness of their predicament.
"There's not a châlet within reach, or I'd go off there for the night,"
answered Tony, adding with a twinkle in his eyes: "And although I might, of
course, sleep outside, if you preferred--on the top of the Roche d'Or, for
instance!--I'm afraid it wouldn't help matters much, as my frozen corpse
would require about as much explaining away as the fact that we've stayed
the night here."
He had never felt less like joking, but he was rewarded by seeing a faint
smile relax the strained expression on her face.
"Don't worry, Ann," he pursued, tucking a friendly arm into hers. "No one
need ever know. But I could kick myself for landing you into this mess.
It's all my fault. If I hadn't gone fooling about at the top of that ravine
and come to grief we should be buzzing comfortably homeward in the train."
"You did it for me," cried Ann quickly. Now that the first shock of
realisation was over she was recovering her usual cheery outlook on things.
"You mustn't blame yourself. It's no one's fault. It's just--"
"The cussedness of things," vouchsafed Tony, as she paused.
"Yes, Just that. Well"--she gave her shoulders a slight shrug as though she
were shaking off a burden--"we may as well make the best of things. At
least we shall see the sunset up here. It's supposed to be rather
wonderful, isn't it?"
"I believe the sun_rise_ is the special thing to see. You'll have to get
up early to-morrow, ma'am." He paused a moment, then went on with frank
admiration: "Ann, you're a real little sport! There isn't one girl in
twenty would have taken this business as well as you have. They'd have
been demanding my head on a charger."
"It wouldn't be any use making a fuss about a pure accident," she returned
philosophically. "Let's just enjoy it--the sunset and the moonrise and
everything else. Oh! I do hope they'll give us a decent dinner! You did us
out of our tea by tumbling over the precipice--don't make a habit of it,
please, Tony!--and I'm simply starving."
He nodded.
"I'll go and order some grub--and book rooms." He paused uncertainly. "By
the way, I'll have to enter our names in the hotel register, I suppose?"
"Our names?" Ann flushed nervously. "Oh, you can't--I mean--"
"Don't worry," he said soothingly. "I shan't enter us under our own names,
of course. What do you say to Smith--nice, inoffensive sort of name, don't
you think? 'G. Smith and sister'--I think that'll meet the necessities of
the case."
Ann giggled suddenly.
"It's all rather funny if it wasn't so--so--"
"Improper," supplied Tony obligingly.
"Call it unconventional," she supplemented. "It sounds better. And now do
go and order some food for 'G. Smith and sister.' Sister is literally
starving."
Half an hour later they were light-heartedly demolishing an excellent
dinner, and the manager of the Hotel de Loup was congratulating himself
upon the acquisition of two unexpected guests during the slack season.
Afterwards they made another pilgrimage up to the Roche d'Or to watch the
sunset.
When they had reached the top, Ann stood quietly at Tony's side, not
speaking. The wonderful beauty of the scene enthralled her, and words
would have seemed almost a profanation, breaking across the deep, stirless
silence which wrapped them round. Away to their right the golden disc of
the sun was sinking royally westward, bathing the mountains in a flood of
lambent light, and piercing the darkening blue of the sky with quivering
shafts of scarlet and orange and saffron. Across the snow-fields shimmered
a translucent rosy glow, so that they seemed no longer bleak and desolate,
but lay spread like an unfurled banner of glory betwixt the great peaks
which sentinelled them round. Presently the sun dipped below the rim of
the horizon, and the splendour faded swiftly. It was as if some one had
suddenly closed the doors of an opened heaven, shutting away the brief
vision of its radiance.
In the faint, chill light of the risen moon, Ann turned to go, still in
silence. She felt awed by the beauty of it all. For the time being she had
forgotten the untoward circumstances which had brought her here, forgotten
even Tony, except that she was vaguely conscious he was beside her, another
human being, sharing with her the deep, eternal quiet of the mountains and
the flaming glory of the setting sun. Then his arm slipped through hers, as
they began the steep descent, and at the boyish, friendly touch of it, she
came back to earth.
"Oh, Tony, I'm almost glad we missed the last train," she said softly,
"It's been so wonderful."
"Yes, it's been wonderful," he assented, and there was a queer, excited
note in his voice. "It's been wonderful to be up here with you--right away
from the rest of the world."
Instinctively she drew a little away from him.
"I wish you wouldn't," she said hastily.
"Wouldn't what?" He linked his arm in hers more firmly. "Help you down this
hill? You might trip if I didn't. It's a very rough track"--blandly.
Inwardly Ann admitted to a feeling of helplessness. Tony eluded reproof
with a skill that was altogether baffling. Now, as usual, having said what
he wanted to say, he retreated behind a fence of raillery.
"You know quite well I didn't mean that," she said indignantly.
"What did you mean, then? That I'm not to make love to you?"
"It isn't fair of you," she urged. "Not now--here."
"No, I suppose it isn't," he acknowledged equably. "But I'm going to do it,
all the same. Probably I'll never get you to myself again--alone on the
top of the world. But I'll promise you one thing"--his voice deepened to a
sudden gravity. "This is going to be the last time I make love to you. If
you say 'no' to me now, I shall accept it, and it will be 'no' for always."
Ann's heart beat a little more quickly.
"Tony--" she began protestingly.
"No. Hear me out. I know what's the matter. You don't trust me. You're
afraid, if you marry me, that I'll let you down--as my father let my mother
down. But I won't! I swear it." He stood still and, slipping his arm from
under hers, took both her hands in his and held them tightly. "If you'll
marry me, Ann, I promise you that I'll give up gambling--every form of
it--from this day forth."
"You couldn't!" she broke in hastily.
"I could do anything--for you," he answered simply. "Because I love you."
There was something very touching in the boyish declaration. Ann looked
up and saw his face in the moonlight, white and rather stern. It made her
think of the face of some young knight of bygone days taking a sacred vow
before he set forth to seek and find the Holy Grail.
He bent down to her.
"Ann, darling," he said gently. "I love you so much. Won't you marry me?"
She felt her heart contract. He had asked her many times before--sometimes
half jestingly, sometimes with a sudden imperious passion that would fain
have swept everything before it. But this was different. There was a
gravity, an earnestness in his speech which she could not lightly brush
aside. Alone here, under the wide sky, with only God's open spaces round
them, it seemed to her as though his question and her answer to it must
partake of the same solemnness as vows exchanged within the hallowed walls
of a sanctuary.
She wished intensely that she could give him the answer he desired. And,
beyond that, she felt the urge of Virginia's trust in her. Here was her
chance. At a word from her he was willing to renounce the one thing for
which he craved--the thing that had wrecked his father's life, and which
might some day wreck his own. Ought she to say that word--promise to marry
him, even though she had no love to give him? Her mind seemed to be going
round and round in a maze of uncertainty and doubt.
And then suddenly the remembrance of what Lady Susan had said rushed over
her: _"A woman may throw her whole life's happiness into the scales, and
still fail to turn the balance. Without love--the love that can forgive
seventy times seven, and then not be tired--she'll certainly fail_."
The words steadied her. "_Without love_--" and she had no love to give
Tony. Not the love that a woman should bring to the man she will call
husband. Out of the turmoil of her mind this one thought emerged clear and
irrefutable. And in that moment, for good or ill, her decision was taken.
"Tony." She spoke very gently, sore at heart for the pain she knew she must
inflict. "I must say no, dear. If I loved you, I'd say yes very gladly. But
I don't love you--not like that."
"And you won't marry me?"
"No, I can't marry you."
"Then that's finished." He spoke brusquely. "I shan't ask you again, so you
needn't worry. Come along, we'll get back to the hotel. If we're going to
watch the sunrise to-morrow, we'd better turn in early. And this air makes
one confoundedly sleepy. I believe I could sleep the clock round."
His abrupt return to the commonplace left her feeling confused and
disconcerted. It almost seemed as though she must have dreamed the brief
conversation which had just taken place. It was incredible that a man could
ask you to marry him, promise to forswear a deadly vice that was born
in his blood, and then--almost in the same breath, as it were--casually
vouchsafe the information that he "could sleep the clock round"!
He had linked his arm in hers again, and was piloting her skilfully down
the uneven pathway. She stole a glance at his face. But she could learn
nothing whatever from his expression. Apparently he was solely concerned
with the matter of conducting her back to the hotel in safety.
They parted in the hall at the foot of the stairs.
"I hope you'll sleep all right," said Tony, smiling down at her. "I'm
afraid you'll find it a bit of a picnic, though, without any of the
'comforts of home'!"
He had hardly finished speaking when the hotel door swung open, and a man
came striding in from outside. As he paused on the threshold to pull off
the heavy coat he was wearing, he shot a casual glance in the direction
of the two people standing together by the staircase. Then, his gaze
concentrating suddenly, he stared at Tony with an odd intentness.
"Good-night, Tony." Ann's voice travelled softly to his ears, and at the
sound of it the man transferred his gaze from Tony's face to hers. He
himself remained standing unobserved in the curtained shadow of the entry,
and, when Ann had gone upstairs, Tony passed him on the way to his own room
on the ground floor without noticing his presence.
The man's glance followed him speculatively. Strolling across to the
bureau, he opened the visitors' book, flicking over the leaves till he came
to the current page. He ran his fingers down the list of names, pausing
abruptly at the last inscription: "_G. Smith and sister_." Followed the
illuminating word, "_London_."
With a brief, ironical smile he closed the book. Then he, too, took his
way to bed, and presently the Hotel de Loup was wrapped in the profound
stillness of night.