CHAPTER EIGHT.

AN INOPPORTUNE REMINDER.

Life at a mountain hotel affected by our compatriots is very much like life on board a pa.s.senger ship, with the difference and manifest advantages that the Johnsonian definition of the latter does not apply to the former, and you can generally steer clear of a bore--unless he, or she, should happen to be too near you at table, that is. But life on the whole is a free and easy unconventional thing, and as a rule everybody knows everybody, and people who as neighbours at home would take about two years to get beyond the rigid afternoon call, and cup-of-weak-tea stage of social intercourse, here become as "thick as thieves" in the same number of days. A chance walk does it, or a seat in proximity at _table d'hote_; peradventure the fact that both venerate the same star Boanerges at home, or are alike enthusiastic believers in "General" Booth's scheme; or it may be that both hold in common a choice bit of scandal concerning some other person or persons in the house.

And then, as our said compatriots are nothing if not clique-ish, coteries will abound wherever these may be gathered together. There will be the chaplain's clique and the worldly clique; the clique that won't tolerate bores at any price, and that in which they reign paramount, and so on, and so on. But with all these dubious elements of weak humanity in active operation, life at such an hotel is rather a pleasant thing than otherwise, and to him who can derive diversion from the study of a heterogeneous crowd of his compatriots off their guard, vastly amusing.

Now with a gathering of this sort, three-fourths of it composed of the other s.e.x, such a fellow as Philip Orlebar was pretty sure to be in general request; and within forty-eight hours of his arrival he was on good terms with very nearly everybody in the house. In fact, he was in danger of becoming "the rage"; for, apart from his good looks and rather taking manners, the superior s.e.x was almost entirely represented by two or three quiet university men, a sprinkling of parsons, and a few contemporaries of General Wyatt. So, as was his wont, he threw himself with zest into the thing, determined to get all the fun out of it he could; and, truth to tell, he managed to get a good deal.

When Fordham, on the day of their arrival, predicted for himself a series of solitary undertakings, as far as his friend's company was concerned, he was foretelling no more than the truth. For an expedition _a deux_, he, Fordham, being the second, Philip was never available.

The Misses This wanted to be taken up the Cape-au-Moine, or the Misses That had organised a picnic to the Folli or the Cret de Molard; but why the deuce couldn't Fordham shake himself together and be sociable, and come too? To which the latter would tranquilly reply that the _role_ of universal flunkey was not congenial to his temperament.

Of late, however, Master Phil's popularity had been on the wane. While he was an open question, each and all the damsels up there "on spec,"

with but few exceptions, vied with each other to make things pleasant for him, and their mammas showed unimpeachable dentist's fronts in beaming approval of their efforts. But when he devoted himself to one, and one only, manifestly and exclusively, then it became surprising how suddenly all these little attentions cooled down; how the dimpling smile became an acidulated sneer, and the bell-like voice rang a hard note; how the mammas aforesaid awoke to the fact that he seldom went to church, and when he did it was only to sit near that Miss Wyatt.

"That Miss Wyatt," however, must be held to const.i.tute pre-eminently one of the few exceptions referred to above. If Philip Orlebar had concentrated all his attentions upon her with that blundering suddenness men will be guilty of under such circ.u.mstances, she certainly had not given him a lead; in fact, he was wont to complain bitterly to himself-- and sometimes to Fordham--that she treated him rather too calmly, might give him a few more opportunities. But Alma Wyatt was not the sort of girl who gives "opportunities."

Fordham's comment was characteristic.

"Oh! the divinity has a fault, then? See here, Phil. Supposing she had never come here, you would have cut out one of those other girls as your divinity, _pro tem_, and have planted her on a pedestal in the usual way. Now you see what sort of a crowd they are. Why do you think the other one more endowed with G.o.d-like attributes than they? I tell you all women are deadly alike, in spite of the spurious philosophical cant which affects to stamp them as an unknown quant.i.ty, inscrutable, mysterious, and so forth. The fact being that there is nothing incomprehensible about them or their ways except to such of ourselves who are greater fools than they. Now to me it is a perfectly safe conjecture how any given woman will act under any given circ.u.mstances."

"How do you get at it?"

"By starting on the sure basis that she will act with cussedness, either overt or concealed, be it remembered. But what I want you to see is, that as long as you go on setting up these clay idols _pro tem_, it's all right. Only don't come to me and ask me to help you to hang one of them round your neck for life. You'll find it a lumping heavy burden, my boy, I don't care who it is, even if it doesn't throttle you at the start."

Two days after the boating incident Philip was strolling in the garden of the hotel with Alma and her aunt. It was Sunday, and they had just returned from the little tabernacle where, during his month of office, the irrepressible Scott dispensed spiritual nourishment to his flock--or was supposed to--and whither it is to be feared that one of the trio had betaken himself in obedience to the vitiated motives ascribed to him by sundry disappointed mammas above mentioned.

"What do you think I heard some of them saying as we came out of church?" said Mrs Wyatt, with an amused smile. "That Mr Scott's sermon about the storm on Gennesaret was the finest ever preached."

"Ha-ha! So it was, in one sense," said Philip. "I know I was divided between an impulse to hurl a book at his head and to roar out laughing.

You should have seen the fellow grovelling at the bottom of the boat and screaming--Wasn't he, Miss Wyatt?"

"The poor man was rather frightened, certainly," replied Alma. "But I never for a moment expected we should live through it. In fact, I was horribly frightened myself--quite shaken all day yesterday."

"_You_!" cried Philip, in a blending of admiration and tenderness and incredulity. "I never heard such a libel in my life. But for your splendid nerve we should all have gone to the bottom, to a dead certainty. Even old Fordham admitted that much."

"No--no?" expostulated Alma, a tinge of colour suffusing her face.

"Please don't try and make a heroine of me. And, talking of Mr Fordham, you know I told you the other day I didn't like him, and you were very much offended with me."

"I might have been with any one else," he replied, meaningly.

"Well, now," she went on rather shyly, "I want to retract what I said then. I never saw a man behave so splendidly in an emergency as he did."

We dare not swear that the suspicion of a jealous pang did not shoot through Phil's loyal heart at this warmly-spoken eulogy. But if so, he did manful penance by promptly informing his friend. Fordham gave vent to a sardonic chuckle.

"That's a woman all over. She allows her deliberately-formed judgment to be clean overthrown by a mere fortuitous circ.u.mstance. From looking upon me with aversion and distrust the pendulum now swings the other way, and she invests me with heroic virtues because on one occasion I happen to demonstrate the possession of a negative quality--that of _not_ being afraid, or seeming not to be. Faugh! that's a woman all over! All impulse and featherhead."

Which was all poor Alma's warm-hearted little retraction gained from this armour-plated cynic; but she had the negative consolation of never knowing it.

"It isn't the first time I've seen him all there at a pinch; in fact, he got me out of a queer corner once when we were in China. I shouldn't be here or any where to-day, but for him. But it was a horrid business, and I can't tell you how he did it; in fact, I hardly like to think of it myself."

The look of vivid interest which had come over Alma's face faded away in disappointment.

"Have you been roaming the world long together?" she said.

"Perhaps a couple of years, on and off. We ran against each other first in the course of knocking about. It was at a bull-fight in Barcelona.

We had adjoining seats and got into conversation, and, as Britishers are few in the Peninsula, we soon became thick. But, you know, although he's the best fellow in the world once you know him, old Fordham has his cranks. For instance, he's a most thorough and confirmed woman-hater."

"I suppose he was badly treated once," said Mrs Wyatt. "Still, it strikes me as a foolish thing, and perhaps a little childish, that a man should judge all of us by the measure of one."

"I don't know, aunt," said Alma. "It may be foolish from a certain point of view, morbid perhaps; but I think it shows character. Not many men, I should imagine, except in books, think any of us worth grieving over for long; and the fact that one affair turning out disastrously should stamp its mark on a man's whole life shows that man to be endowed with a powerful capacity for feeling."

"Perhaps so," a.s.sented the old lady. "But, Alma, I don't know what Mr Orlebar will think of us taking his friend to pieces in this free-and-easy fashion."

"My dear Mrs Wyatt, there is really nothing to be uneasy about on that score," cried Philip. "We are not abusing him, you know, or running him down. And by the way, queer as it may seem, I know absolutely no more of Fordham's earlier life than you do. He may have had an 'affair,' or he may not. He has never let drop any clue to the mystery--if mystery there is."

"You see, auntie, how different men are to us poor girls," said Alma, with a queer little smile. "They know how to keep their own counsel.

No such thing as pouring out confidences, even to their closest friends!"

There was a vague something about her tone and look which struck Philip uncomfortably. He could not for the life of him have told why, yet the feeling was there. Not for the first time either. More than once had Alma shown indications of a very keen tendency to satire underlying her normal openness of ideas and the fascination of her utterly unaffected manner. For a few moments he walked by her side in silence.

It was a lovely day. The air was heavy with the scent of narcissus and roses; languid and glowing with the rich warmth of early summer. Great bees drowsily boomed from flower to flower, dipping into the purple pansies, hovering round a carnation, and now and again unwarily venturing within the spray of the sparkling fountain. A swallow-tail b.u.t.terfly on its broad embroidered wings fluttered about their faces so tamely, that by stretching out a hand they could almost have caught it.

Cliff and abrupt slope, green pastureland and sombre pine forest, showed soft and slumbrous in the mellow glow; while overhead, her burnished plumage shining in the sun, floated a great eagle, the rush of whose pinions was almost audible in the noontide stillness as the n.o.ble bird described her airy circles in free and majestic sweep. An idyllic day and an idyllic scene, thought Philip, with more than one furtive glance at the beautiful face by his side.

Then, as usual at such moments, in came the prose of life in the shape of the post. A green-ap.r.o.ned porter, a sheaf of letters in his hand, drew near.

"_Pour vous, Monsieur_!" he said, handing one to Philip.

When a man starts, or describes a ridiculous _pirouette_ at a street crossing because a hansom cabman utters a war-whoop in his ear, it is safe to a.s.sume that man's nerves to be--well, not in the state they should be. But the war-whoop of the hansom cab fiend athirst for-- bones, is nothing in the way of a test compared with the wholly unexpected receipt of an objectionable and unwelcome letter. When Philip took the missive from the porter's hand, a glance at the superscription was enough. A very dismayed look came over his countenance. He held the obnoxious envelope as though it might sting him, then crushed it hurriedly into his pocket. But not before he, and peradventure his companion, had seen that it was directed in a very slanting, pointed, and insignificant feminine hand.

Then the luncheon bell rang.

CHAPTER NINE.

"BEST TO BE OFF WITH THE OLD LOVE, BEFORE..."

Philip was not up to his usual form during luncheon. Any one in the secret would have said that that letter was burning a hole in his pocket. It seemed to affect his appet.i.te; it certainly affected his conversational powers. More than once he answered at random; more than once he relapsed into a spell of silence, almost of gloom, wholly foreign to his breezy and light-hearted temperament. Yet he was still in ignorance of its contents. He might have mastered them when he went up to his room at the ringing of the bell, yet he did not. Now, however, he wished that he had.

Fordham, glancing sharply at him across the table, more than three parts made up his mind as to the cause of this abnormal gravity and abstraction on the part of his volatile friend. He knew he had been wandering about with Alma Wyatt--the old lady had not been with them all the time--and was inclined to believe that the impulsive Phil had, contrary to his own advice, both hinted and outspoken, committed himself. At the same time he recognised that if that was so the answer had not been altogether satisfactory. In short, he decided that Master Phil had received a "facer," and chuckled internally thereat.

The lunch at last over, Philip gained his room. The first thing he did was to lock the door. Then, drawing the obnoxious missive from his pocket, he tore it open, with something that sounded very like a "cussword," and spread the sheet out on the table before him. The sheet? There were seven of them, all of the flimsiest paper, all closely written over on every side, in that thin, pointed, ill-formed hand. Well, he had got to go through them, so with a sort of effort he began.

"My own dear, dear old darling Phil,--It is just ages, months, years, centuries, since poor little I heard from you, you dreadfully awfully naughty, naughty boy!"

"Oh, Lord!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, turning the sheets over, in a kind of despair, as if to see how much more of this sort of thing was coming.