"No!" the eyegla.s.s agreed languidly. "Pity they give you such a beastly dinner!"

And Denry agreed hastily that it was.

Soon they were chatting of places, and somehow it came out of Denry that he was going to Montreux. The eyegla.s.s professed its indifference to Montreux in winter, but said the resorts above Montreux were all right, such as Caux or Pridoux.

And Denry said:

"Well, of course, should n't think of stopping in Montreux. Going to try Pridoux."

The eyegla.s.s said it wasn't going so far as Switzerland yet; it meant to stop in the Jura.

"Geneva's a pretty deadly place, ain't it?" said the eyegla.s.s after a pause.

"Ye-es," said Denry.

"Been there since that new esplanade was finished?"

"No," said Denry. "I saw nothing of it."

"When were you there?"

"Oh! A couple of years ago."

"Ah! It was n't started then. Comic thing! Of course they 're awfully proud in Geneva of the view of Mont Blanc."

"Yes," said Denry.

"Ever noticed how queer women are about that view? They 're no end keen on it at first, but after a day or two it gets on their nerves."

"Yes," said Denry. "I 've noticed that myself. My wife..."

He stopped because he did n't know what he was going to say.

The eyegla.s.s nodded understandingly. "All alike," it said. "Odd thing!"

When Denry introduced himself into the two-berth compartment which he had managed to secure at the end of the carriage for himself and Nellie, the poor tired child was as wakeful as an owl.

"Who have you been talking to?" she yawned.

"The eyegla.s.s johnny."

"Oh! Really!" Nellie murmured, interested and impressed. "With him, have you? I could hear voices. What sort of a man is he?"

"He seems to be an a.s.s," said Denry. "Fearfully haw-haw. Could n't stand him for long. I 've made him believe we 've been married for two years."

II

They stood on the balcony of the Hotel Beau-Site of Mont Pridoux. A little below, to the right, was the other hotel, the Metropole, with the red-and-white Swiss flag waving over its central tower. A little below that was the terminal station of the funicular railway from Montreux.

The railway ran down the sheer of the mountain into the roofs of Montreux, like a wire. On it, two toy trains crawled towards each other, like flies climbing and descending a wall. Beyond the fringe of hotels that const.i.tuted Montreux was a strip of water, and beyond the water a range of hills white at the top.

"So these are the Alps!" Nellie exclaimed.

She was disappointed; he also. But when Denry learnt from the guide-book and by enquiry that the strip of lake was seven miles across, and the highest notched peaks ten thousand feet above the sea and twenty-five miles off, Nellie gasped and was content.

They liked the Hotel Beau-Site. It had been recommended to Denry, by a man who knew what was what, as the best hotel in Switzerland. "Don't you be misled by prices," the man had said. And Denry was not. He paid sixteen francs a day for the two of them at the Beau-Site, and was rather relieved than otherwise by the absence of finger-bowls.

Everything was very good, except sometimes the hot water. The hot-water cans bore the legend "hot water," but these two words were occasionally the only evidence of heat in the water. On the other hand, the bedrooms could be made sultry by merely turning a handle; and the windows were double. Nellie was wondrously inventive. They breakfasted in bed, and she would save b.u.t.ter and honey from the breakfast to furnish forth afternoon tea, which was not included in the terms. She served the b.u.t.ter freshly with ice by the simple expedient of leaving it outside the window of a night! And Denry was struck by this housewifery.

The other guests appeared to be of a comfortable, companionable cla.s.s, with, as Denry said, "no frills." They were amazed to learn that a chattering little woman of thirty-five, who gossiped with everybody, and soon invited Denry and Nellie to have tea in her room, was an authentic Russian Countess-inscribed in the visitors' lists as "Comtesse Ruhl (with maid), Moscow." Her room was the untidiest that Nellie had ever seen, and the tea a picnic. Still, it was thrilling to have had tea with a Russian Countess. (Plots! Nihilism! Secret police! Marble palaces!) Those visitors' lists were breath-taking. Pages and pages of them; scores of hotels, thousands of names, nearly all English-and all people who came to Switzerland in winter, having naught else to do!

Denry and Nellie bathed in correctness as in a bath.

The only persons in the hotel with whom they did not "get on" nor "hit it off" were a military party, chiefly named Clutterbuck, and presided over by a Major Clutterbuck and his wife. They sat at a large table in a corner-father, mother, several children, a sister-in-law, a sister, a governess, eight heads in all; and while utterly polite they seemed to draw a ring round themselves. They grumbled at the hotel; they played bridge (then a newish game); and once, when Denry and the Countess played with them (Denry being an adept card-player) for shilling points, Denry overheard the sister-in-law say that she was sure Captain Deverax would n't play for shilling points. This was the first rumour of the existence of Captain Deverax; but afterwards Captain Deverax began to be mentioned several times a day. Captain Deverax was coming to join them, and it seemed that he was a very particular man. Soon all the rest of the hotel had got its back up against this arriving Captain Deverax.

Then a Clutterbuck cousin came, a smiling, hard, fluffy woman, and p.r.o.nounced definitely that the Hotel Beau-Site would never do for Captain Deverax. This cousin aroused Denry's hostility in a strange way.

She imparted to the Countess (who united all sects) her opinion that Denry and Nellie were on their honeymoon. At night in a corner of the drawing-room the Countess delicately but bluntly asked Nellie if she had been married long. "No," said Nellie. "A month?" asked the Countess smiling. "N-no!" said Nellie.

The next day all the hotel knew. The vast edifice of make-believe that Denry and Nellie had laboriously erected crumbled at a word, and they stood forth, those two, blushing for the criminals they were.

The hotel was delighted. There is more rejoicing in a hotel over one honeymoon couple than over fifty families with children.

But the hotel had a shock the same day. The Clutterbuck cousin had proclaimed that owing to the inadequacy of the bedroom furniture she had been obliged to employ a sofa as a wardrobe. Then there were more references to Captain Deverax. And then at dinner it became known-Heaven knows how!-that the entire Clutterbuck party had given notice and was seceding to the Hotel Metropole. Also they had tried to carry the Countess with them, but had failed.

Now, among the guests of the Hotel Beau-Site there had always been a professed scorn of the rival Hotel Metropole, which was a franc a day dearer and famous for its new and rich furniture. The Metropole had an orchestra twice a week, and the English Church services were held in its drawing-room; and it was larger than the Beau-Site. In spite of these facts the clients of the Beau-Site affected to despise it, saying that the food was inferior and that the guests were sn.o.bbish. It was an article of faith in the Beau-Site that the Beau-Site was the best hotel on the mountainside, if not in Switzerland.

The insolence of this defection on the part of the Clutterbucks! How on earth _could_ people have the face to go to a landlord and say to him that they meant to desert him in favour of his rival?

Another detail: the secession of nine or ten people from one hotel to the other meant that the Metropole would decidedly be more populous than the Beau-Site, and on the point of numbers the emulation was very keen.

"Well!" said the Beau-Site, "let 'em go! With their Captain Deverax!

We shall be better without 'em!" And that deadliest of all feuds sprang up-a rivalry between the guests of rival hotels. The Metropole had issued a general invitation to a dance, and after the monstrous conduct of the Clutterbucks the question arose whether the Beau-Site should not boycott the dance. However, it was settled that the truly effective course would be to go with critical noses in the air, and emit unfavourable comparisons with the Beau-Site. The Beau-Site suddenly became perfect in the esteem of its patrons. Not another word was heard on the subject of hot water being coated with ice. And the Clutterbucks, with incredible a.s.surance, slid their luggage off in a sleigh to the Metropole, in the full light of day, amid the contempt of the faithful.

III

Under the stars the dancing section of the Beau-Site went off in jingling sleighs over the snow to the ball at the Metropole. The distance was not great, but it was great enough to show the inadequacy of furs against twenty degrees of mountain frost, and it was also great enough to allow the party to come to a general final understanding that its demeanour must be cold and critical in the gilded halls of the Metropole. The rumour ran that Captain Deverax had arrived, and every one agreed that he must be an insufferable b.o.o.by, except the Countess Ruhl, who never used her fluent exotic English to say ill of anybody.

The gilded halls of the Metropole certainly were imposing. The hotel was incontestably larger than the Beau-Site, newer, more richly furnished. Its occupants, too, had a lordly way with them, trying to others, but inimitable. Hence the visitors from the Beau-Site, as they moved to and fro beneath those crystal chandeliers from Tottenham Court Road, had their work cut out to maintain the mien of haughty indifference. Nellie, for instance, frankly could not do it. And Denry did not do it very well.

Denry nevertheless did score one point over Mrs. Clutterbuck's fussy cousin.

"Captain Deverax has come," said this latter. "He was very late. He 'll be downstairs in a few minutes. We shall get him to lead the cotillon."

"Captain Deverax?" Denry questioned.

"Yes. You 've heard us mention him," said the cousin, affronted.

"Possibly," said Denry. "I don't remember."