The girl's face clouded. "Why, mother, the best part of the afternoon is only just beginning," she objected. "Such a heavenly afternoon as it is, too."

"Let church slide, Mrs Daventer," urged Phil, impulsively. "Besides, if you're going away what does it matter!"

"That is a very earthly view to take of it, you unprincipled boy?" was the laughing reply. "Never mind, I needn't drag you two children back with me; so continue your walk while I go and sacrifice myself to save appearances. Perhaps I'll meet you somewhere about here afterwards, as you come back."

"I do think that mother of yours is one of the sweetest women I ever met--Laura," said Phil, as they turned to resume their stroll.

The girl's face flushed with pleasure. "You never said a truer thing than that," she replied.

"Rather not. Hallo! she'll be late. At least a quarter of an hour's walk, and there's that cracked old tin-kettle whanging away already."

A bell sounded upon the clear, pine-scented air. It was not a melodious bell--rather did it resemble the homely implement irreverently suggested. Then they continued their walk through the sunlit pastures; but Philip, whose ankle was by no means cured, began to limp.

"Stop. We must not go any further," said Laura. "You have been walking too much to-day as it is. We will sit down and rest."

"Let us get up on top of these rocks then," he suggested, as their walk had brought them to a pile of broken rocks overgrown with rhododendrons and bilberry bushes. These they clambered up, and came to a shut-in, mossy nook. One side was riven by a deep fissure through which a torrent roared. It was the very spot which had witnessed that stormy interview between Fordham and Mrs Daventer. Strange, indeed, was the irony of fate which had led these two hither.

"I tell you what it is, Laura," said Philip, throwing himself upon the ground; "it was awfully jolly of your mother to give me that invitation.

We'll have no end of a good time down there together--won't we, dear?"

and reaching out his hand he closed it upon hers. But this, after a momentary hesitation, she drew away.

"I hope we will," she answered, and over the dark, _piquante_ face there crept a most becoming flush. Very attractive too at that moment was that same face, with its luminous eyes and delicate, refined beauty.

Still to the physiognomist there was a certain hardness about the ripe red lips which was not altogether satisfactory. But this fault he who now looked upon them failed to realise.

He turned round quickly and fixed his eyes upon her face. There was something in her tone, her gesture, that disquieted him.

"Why, Laura! what is the matter? You speak as if you did not believe we would--have a good time, I mean. Why should we not? We shall be together, and I don't know what I should do if you were to go away from me now--darling."

"Stop, Phil. Don't say any more--at least not here," she added hurriedly. "You are much too impulsive, and you don't know me yet, although you think you do. Yes, we will have a good time--but--don't begin to get serious, that's a good boy."

Philip stared. But her unexpected rejoinder had its effect. Did she intend that it should? The fervour of his tone deepened as he replied--

"I won't say a word that you would rather I did not, dear. Not now, at any rate."

"You had better not, believe me," she replied, in a tone that was almost a caress, and with a smile that set all his pulses tingling. Very alluring she looked, her dark beauty set off by her dress of creamy white, by the languorous att.i.tude, so harmonious with the sunshine and surroundings. Overhead and around the great mountains towered, the mighty cone of the giant Matterhorn dominating them all as he frowned aloft from the liquid blue; the dull thunder of the seething Visp churning its way through emerald pasture-lands; the picturesque brown roofs of the _chalets_; the aromatic scent of the pines--all harmonising in idyllic beauty with the figure to which they const.i.tuted a frame, a background. Did it recall that other soft golden summer evening, not so very long ago either, when he listened to much the same answer framed by another pair of lips? Who may tell? For one nail drives out another, and a heart taken at the rebound is easily caught. Yet a.s.suredly it was a strange, a grim, irony of fate, that which brought these two hither, to this spot of all others, to enact this scene. But in such cycles do the events of life move.

CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN.

THE DROOP OF A SUNSHADE.

Alma Wyatt was at home again--was once more an inmate of the much-decried semi-detached which was an exact counterpart of all the Rosebanks, and Hollybanks, and Belmonts, and Heathfields, which go to line the regulation suburban road.

The said regulation road was ankle-deep in dust--even the foliage of the trees and garden patches, which fronted each monotonous row of villas, was dried and gasping, and sprinkled with the same powdery substance.

The atmosphere was of the stuffy, moist, enervating character inseparable from low-lying riverside resorts. Small wonder, then, that Alma, at home again now, should find herself drawing bitter contrasts between commonplace, c.o.c.kneyfied Surbiton, and the bounteous glories of the mighty Alps--the thunder of the mountain torrent, and the cool fragrance of the shadowy pine forest; the cloudless skies and the soaring peaks; the sheeny ice-slopes, and the blue, castellated ma.s.ses of the _seracs_, and, not least, the bracing exhilaration of the air.

"At home again! At _home_ again!"--as she kept bitterly repeating to herself. At home again, to enact the part of a b.u.t.t for her mother's nagging and ever-discontented tongue; at home again, to fall into the old _role_ of self-obliteration, to hold herself in readiness to sacrifice every inclination of her own, to devote all her time, all her energies, to the convenience of the family idol, her younger sister, and especially to look for no appreciation of, or thanks for, the same. And such is home!

How her soul sickened as she looked around on the mediocrity of it all-- the flat, ditchwater circ.u.mstances of life, the stagnation, the deadly monotony. There was the same narrow round, the same bi-weekly run up to Town on shopping intent, the same local gossip and feeble attempts at entertainment, the same evening visits from the same bevy of Constance's admirers--City youths mostly, all as like each other as the immaculacy of their collars, the sheen of their hats, the lack of expression in their countenances and the inanity of their conversation, could render them. These would redeem the time with some feeble singing and feebler wit, and evening after evening would Alma be called upon to sit it all out and endeavour to make herself agreeable. Constance on such occasions was in her element, but to the sucking Couttses and Barings and Rothschilds Alma was a stumbling-block and a wet blanket.

"Sort of garl, baai Jove, who ought to have a chappie built to her ordar, don't cher know. Ordinary fellar not good enough," the princ.i.p.al dry wag of the coterie was wont to remark.

When she had told Philip Orlebar she detested the place and everything to do with it, Alma had spoken no more than the literal truth. But if she detested it then, it strikes her now as ten times more detestable.

The suburban mediocrity, the much-belauded river--a mere muddy playground for 'Arry and 'Arriet--pall upon her with nauseous monotony.

Never did the hideous c.o.c.kney tw.a.n.g grate more offensively upon her ears, never did the obtrusive vulgarity of the low-cla.s.s Briton--the most irredeemably vulgar animal in the world--revolt her sensibilities as now, when contrasted with the pleasant speech and innately refined manners of the same cla.s.s of Continental peoples. a.s.suredly with no feeling of gladness or even contentment did Alma Wyatt return home.

This may have been wrong; it was undoubtedly lamentable. But, under the circ.u.mstances, it was very natural.

We should be sorry to make oath that apart from this pardonable discontent with her most uncongenial surroundings there was not another phase of canker eating into her mind and destroying its peace. We have, elsewhere, and more than once, emphasised the fact that a certain young reprobate, hight Philip Orlebar, was one of those dangerous persons of whom the opposite s.e.x is p.r.o.ne to become very fond. Now Alma's opportunities of doing so had been exceptional and many--and, in point of fact, she had so become.

Often now, in the stagnant monotony of her home life, does that bright young face rise up before her, as she first saw it, gazing with scarcely disguised admiration upon her own, as she has so frequently, so constantly seen it since--the sunny blue eyes, with their straight, frank glance, lighting up with a world of welcoming gladness when meeting her for the first time in the day or after a few hours' absence.

She sees it, too, as she saw it in the black, driving cloud, high up on the perilous rock _arete_ of the Cape au Moine, anxious on her account, otherwise fearless and resolute--she sees it, as she saw it in the sinking sunshine of that same day, tender, apprehensive, as its owner hung upon the reply which her lips should frame--but, oh, so attractive!

Again, she sees it as she saw it last--crushed, hopeless, despairing, and as it appears thus before her the proud, self-contained nature partially breaks down, and, being alone, she cannot repress a convulsive sob or two, and a few tears damp the handkerchief which she pa.s.ses rapidly over her eyes.

Does she ever regret--repent of her haste in thus giving him his _conge_! Does it ever occur to her that she may have judged him hastily, harshly--in fact, unheard? Well, her nature is a fearfully proud, a fearfully sensitive one. Did he not put a public slight upon her, make her the laughing stock of a number of nondescript people? Yet even here she cannot further justify herself in the idea that he had merely been amusing himself at her expense. The feeling was there, warm and genuine--as to that there could be no mistake whatever.

Characteristically, however, she proceeds to impale him upon the other horn of the dilemma. He had shown weakness. If that other girl had really any claim upon him, if there was really any engagement between them, he ought to have broken it off definitely and decisively before presuming to offer his affection to herself. Yes, he had been guilty of lamentable weakness--an unpardonable fault in Alma Wyatt's eyes.

There is even more behind, however, than all this. On hearing of his accident, did she not write him a letter of condolence--a really kind letter of sympathy and interest, asking to be informed how he got on--a letter, indeed, in which it was just possible for any man not actually a born fool to "read between the lines," affording him, with a little diplomacy, a chance of crying "Peccavi," and eventually reinstating himself? But how had he answered it? He had not answered it at all!

No, from that day to this he had not answered it. There could be no explanation. She had learned indirectly through those who were in the same hotel at the time, that his accident, though tiresome, was not serious--never sufficiently serious to incapacitate him for writing.

And she had been at Zinal long enough to have heard from him over and over again; added to which, every letter which had arrived there for her uncle and aunt, even some time after their departure, had been scrupulously forwarded and safely received. The postal arrangements could not be to blame; clearly, then, he had deliberately and of set purpose elected to take no notice of her letter.

Well, that dream was over. She felt a little hard--a little bitter. It was no easy matter to gain Alma's good opinion, but of Philip Orlebar she had managed to become very fond--more so, in fact, than she herself had suspected at the time. And sometimes now a satirical smile would curve her lips as she reflected bitterly that after all he had certainly shown no weakness in choosing to ignore her own gracious advance, and the reflection did not tend in any degree to restore either peace or contentment to herself.

Bearing in mind Alma's character and general temperament, it need hardly be said that concerning this, the great event of her trip abroad, she let fall neither word nor hint. She would, indeed, sometimes smile bitterly to herself as she pictured her mother's wrath and disgust did the latter become aware that she had refused the heir to a baronetcy--a poor one certainly, but still a baronetcy. Why, life would thenceforth cease to be worth living. It would be the last straw. And for this, in her heart of hearts, she admitted that, looking at it from a strictly mundane point of view, there was some excuse. The chances matrimonial, to a girl situated as she was, were poor enough, in fact they were mainly confined to the City youths of mediocre lineage and strictly limited incomes, who const.i.tuted her sister's sworn admirers, or a delicate handed and mustachioed curate who had for some time evinced an unmistakable partiality for herself. Still she was nothing if not characteristic. She was not going to sacrifice her clearly-formed judgment upon the altar of expediency. So she strove to dismiss Philip Orlebar from her mind, and to fall back into her old groove with what contentment she might.

That Alma did not "get on well at home" was not surprising--indeed, the wonder would have come in had things been the other way. The problematical amalgamation of oil and water was a trifle more conceivable than the existence of any cordiality or even a good understanding between herself and her mother. For the latter was not a lovable person. To start with, her brain power was of the scantiest order, her mind of the narrowest; it follows, therefore, that she was intensely, aggressively obstinate. And in the art of nagging she was a past mistress. She was one of those women to whom battle is as the air they breathe, and she had a knack of starting a fray gently, insidiously, sorrowfully even, as though marvelling herself that there should ensue any hostilities at all. Her younger daughter, Constance, then just eighteen, was an excellent replica of her in disposition--that is to say, had not a single redeeming point in her character; and, _pace_ the gushing philanthropist, there are such persons. But the girl, with her blue eyes and smooth skin, her golden hair and fresh complexion, was extremely pretty; and in stating this we have said all there is to be said for her; for as a set-off against these advantages she was selfish, wilful, and conceited to the last degree, as, indeed, was only natural, seeing that from her birth upward she had been thoroughly and consistently spoiled.

There were those who wondered whence Alma had inherited her fine character. Those in a position to speak--old General Wyatt for instance--declared that she had inherited all her father's good qualities and none of her mother's bad ones, whereas in the case of Constance the positions were exactly reversed.

"Alma, I want you to get on your hat, quick, and come along up the river," cried Constance, bursting in upon her sister one bright summer afternoon. The latter had sought out the coolest corner of the stuffy little drawing-room, and was busily engaged in the--to her in her then frame of mind--very congenial task of sticking a number of Alpine views into an alb.u.m. She had a touch of headache, and was not in the most amiable frame of mind herself. In fact the above invitation struck within her no responsive chord, and she said as much.

"Of course!" snapped the younger girl. "Isn't that always the way!

Here one has been indoors the whole day, and directly it gets cool enough to move you say you wont. Just because you know I want to.

Well--well. One never can get to the bottom of the selfishness of some people."

"Speak for yourself, Constance!" returned Alma, quickly but quietly.

"Does it never strike you that I may now and then feel tired, or disinclined for exertion. And I certainly feel that way this afternoon."

But the other's rejoinder was a shrill, jeering, ringing laugh.

"All very well," she cried, flinging her sailor hat into the air and catching it. "All very well. But that won't go down with me. Can't tear yourself away from those old Swiss photos. I know all about it.

By the way, which is the place you met _him_ in?" she jeered, going over to the table and feigning a deep interest in the views which lay ranged upon it ready for sticking in the book. "Which was it? You might as well tell a fellow, instead of being as close as Death itself. Which was it, Alma, and what's he like? You needn't keep it all so dark. I won't let on."

For the life of her, Alma could not restrain the colour which came into her face. She was in a rather unamiable mood just then, as we have said, and now she felt stung to retort.