Part 15 (2/2)

Certain side speculations lent a savour to the satisfaction with which he viewed this state of affairs. He found many little signs to confirm the suspicion that the two ladies had been the readier to make much of Julia because they were not overkeen about each other's society. The bright, sweet-natured girl had come as a welcome diversion to a couple who in seclusion did battle with tendencies to yawn. He was not quite convinced, for that matter, that the American lady always went to that trouble. She seemed to his observation a wilful sort of person, who would not be restrained by small ordinary considerations from doing the things she wanted to do. Her relations with her companion afforded him food for much thought. Without any overt demonstrations, she produced the effect of ordering Lady Cressage about. This, so far as it went, tended to prejudice him against her. On the other hand, however, she was so good to Julia, in a peculiarly frank and buoyant way which fascinated the girl, that he could not but like her. And she was very good to Alfred too.

There was, indeed, he perceived, a great deal of individuality about the friends.h.i.+p which had sprung up between Miss Madden and his nephew. She was years his senior--he settled it with himself that the American could not be less than seven-and-twenty,--yet Alfred stole covert glances of admiration at her, and seemed to think of nothing but opportunities for being in her company as if--as if--Thorpe hardly liked to complete the comparison in his own thoughts. Alfred, of course, said it was all on account of her wonderful hair; he rather went out of his way to dilate upon the enthusiasm her ”colour scheme”--whatever that might mean--excited in him as an artist. The uncle had moments of profound skepticism about this--moments when he uneasily wondered whether it was not going to be his duty to speak to the young man. For the most part, however, he extracted rea.s.surance from Miss Madden's demeanour toward the lad. She knew, it seemed, a vast deal about pictures; at least she was able to talk a vast deal about them, and she did it in such a calmly dogmatic fas.h.i.+on, laying down the law always, that she put Alfred in the position of listening as a pupil might listen to a master. The humility with which his nephew accepted this position annoyed Thorpe upon occasion, but he reasoned that it was a fault on the right side. Very likely it would help to keep the fact of the lady's seniority more clearly before the youngster's mind, and that would be so much gained.

And these apprehensions, after all, were scarcely to be counted in the balance against the sense of achieved happiness with which these halcyon days kept Thorpe filled. The initiatory dinner had gone off perfectly.

He could have wished, indeed, that Julia had a smarter frock, and more rings, when he saw the imposing costumes and jewelled throats and hands of his guests--but she was a young girl, by comparison, he reflected, and there could be no doubt that they found her charming. As for Alfred, he was notably fine-looking in his evening-clothes--infinitely more like the son of a n.o.bleman, the gratified uncle kept saying to himself, than that big dullard, the Honourable Balder. It filled him with a new pleasure to remember that Alfred had visiting cards presenting his name as D'Aubigny, which everybody of education knew was what the degenerate Dabney really stood for. The lad and his sister had united upon this excellent change long ago at Cheltenham, and oddly enough they had confessed it to their uncle, at the beginning of the trip, with a show of trepidation, as if they feared his anger. With radiant gayety he had relieved their minds by showing them his card, with ”Mr. Stormont Thorpe” alone upon it. At the dinner table, in the proudest moment of his life, he had made himself prouder still by thinking how distinguished an appearance his and Alfred's cards would make together in the apartment below next day.

But next day, the relations between the two parties had already become too informal for cards. Julia went down to see them; they came up to see Julia. Then they all went for a long walk, with luncheon at Vevey, and before evening Alfred was talking confidently of painting Miss Madden.

Next day they went by train to St. Maurice, and, returning after dark, dined without ceremony together. This third day--the weather still remaining bright--they had ascended by the funicular road to Glion, and walked on among the swarming luegers, up to Caux. Here, after luncheon, they had wandered about for a time, regarding the panorama of lake and mountains. Now, as the homeward descent began, chance led the two young people and Miss Madden on ahead.

Thorpe found himself walking beside Lady Cressage. He had upon his arm her outer wrap, which she said she would put on presently. To look at the view he must glance past her face: the profile, under the graceful fur cap, was so enriched by glowing colour that it was, to his thought, as if she were blus.h.i.+ng.

”How little I thought, a few months ago,” he said, ”that we should be mountaineering together!”

”Oh, no one knows a day ahead,” she responded, vaguely. ”I had probably less notion of coming to Switzerland then than you had.”

”Then you don't come regularly?”

”I have never seen either Germany or Switzerland before. I have scarcely been out of England before.”

”Why now”--he paused, to think briefly upon his words--”I took it for granted you were showing Miss Madden around.”

”It 's quite the other way about,” she answered, with a cold little laugh. ”It is she who is showing me around. It is her tour. I am the chaperone.” Thorpe dwelt upon the word in his mind. He understood what it meant only in a way, but he was luminously clear as to the bitterness of the tone in which it had been uttered.

”No--it didn't seem as if it were altogether--what I might call--YOUR tour,” he ventured. They had seen much of each other these past few days, but it was still hard for him to make sure whether their freedom of intercourse had been enlarged.

The slight shrug of the shoulders with which, in silence, she commented upon his remark, embarra.s.sed him. For a moment he said nothing. He went on then with a renewed consciousness of risk.

”You mustn't be annoyed with me,” he urged. ”I've been travelling with that dear little niece of mine and her brother, so long, that I've got into a habit of watching to notice if the faces I see round me are happy. And when they're not, then I have a kind of fatherly notion of interfering, and seeing what's wrong.”

She smiled faintly at this, but when he added, upon doubtful inspiration--”By the way, speaking of fathers, I didn't know at Hadlow that you were the daughter of one of my Directors”--this smile froze upon the instant.

”The Dent du Midi is more impressive from the hotel, don't you think?”

she remarked, ”than it is from here.”

Upon consideration, he resolved to go forward. ”I have taken a great interest in General Kervick,” he said, almost defiantly. ”I am seeing to it that he has a comfortable income--an income suitable to a gentleman of his position--for the rest of his life.”

”He will be very glad of it,” she remarked.

”But I hoped that you would be glad of it too,” he told her, bluntly. A curious sense of reliance upon his superiority in years had come to him.

If he could make his air elderly and paternal enough, it seemed likely that she would defer to it. ”I'm talking to you as I would to my niece, you know,” he added, plausibly.

She turned her head to make a fleeting survey of his face, as if the point of view took her by surprise. ”I don't understand,” she said. ”You are providing an income for my father, because you wish to speak to me like an uncle. Is that it?”

He laughed, somewhat disconsolately. ”No--that isn't it,” he said, and laughed again. ”I couldn't tell, you know, that you wouldn't want to talk about your father.” ”Why, there's no reason in the world for not talking of him,” she made haste to declare. ”And if he's got something good in the City, I'm sure I'm as glad as anyone. He is the sort that ought always to have a good deal of money. I mean, it will bring out his more amiable qualities. He does not s.h.i.+ne much in adversity--any more than I do.”

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