"Thank you," Eva said to the manager and got up and Michael stood, as did Mr. Heggener, although with difficulty.

Mr. Heggener looked after his wife, his eyes sad, as though he never expected her to return. "Another cognac?" He put his hand on the bottle.

"No, thank you."

Mr. Heggener played idly with the bottle, twisting it on the table. "I suppose," he said, "you've heard that I'm dying?"

"I've heard."

"I'm a medical rarity," Mr. Heggener said, almost with relish at the distinction. "I have tuberculosis. Nowadays almost instantly curable by antibiotics. But I seem to have the honor of being afflicted by a new, clever, resistant strain. The hazards of progress. No matter. I have had a good life, I am no longer young and I am for the moment in a state of remission, as the doctors call it, that I am enjoying these days, when all things again seem possible to me. If it weren't for Eva, I'd gladly just turn my head to the wall and go. But she means a great deal to me. More than I show to anyone. Maybe more than I show to her."

He must have been drinking before he came downstairs, Michael thought, talking to me like that.

"She has her seasonal young men," Mr. Heggener went on matter-of-factly. "You, I would say, are infinitely more acceptable than the ones who have gone before you . . ."

"Mr. Heggener . . ." Michael began.

"Please don't protest, Mr. Storrs. I have gone through too much and have worn too thin to indulge in that worst of passions-jealousy. She is more like a beloved daughter to me than a wife, if you, at your age, can understand that. However, let me say . . ." He stopped, then spoke after another pause. "By the way, do you hunt, Mr. Storrs?"

"What has that got to do with it?" Michael asked, bewildered.

"I have hunted a great deal in my life. That stag whose head is over the fireplace in the cottage which Mrs. Heggener has offered you was shot by me. It is one of the passions of my life. I have no patience with the pseudo-humanitarians who eat steak and deplore the killing of game. Which would you rather be-a stag shot down with one shot on a green hillside, or a poor castrated steer dragged squealing into a slaughterhouse? Well, I won't argue the case. However, as I was saying, I am a hunter and I killed a man. An accident, naturally, such as happens every hunting season. One of my best friends. Unfortunately, he had degraded my wife. We both attended his funeral. This was in Austria, some time ago. The deer are plentiful in Vermont. Perhaps we can hunt together when the season opens. Eva says you are considering staying here permanently. I'm sure you would not regret it if you decide in our favor. The autumns here are magnificent."

Eva Heggener came back into the dining room, her black gown swishing around her legs, the pearls and the gold brooch shining in the firelight.

"Anything wrong, dear?" Mr. Heggener asked.

"Nothing," Eva said. "An old friend of mine from Boston. She wanted to know if she could have rooms for her family over the holiday. You know them-the Hortons."

"Charming family," Mr. Heggener said. "Charming. And now, dear, if you don't mind, I'd appreciate it if you helped me upstairs and turned on a little Brahms while we prepare for bed. Ah-Eva has told me you play backgammon. Perhaps we can have a game or two tomorrow evening. And now goodnight, and thank you for a most enjoyable evening."

"I thank you," Michael said stiffly. "Goodnight, madam. Goodnight, sir."

"Goodnight, Michael," Eva said. With her husband leaning on her for support, the blanket floating loosely around his shoulders, she led him slowly out of the dining room.

Michael sat stiffly for a moment. "Whew!" he said to himself.

There were footsteps behind him and he turned. Rita came toward him from the kitchen. "Is there anything more you need, Mr. Storrs?"

"I thought you'd gone to bed."

"I don't like to leave while there's anybody in the dining room. Is there anything . . . ?"

"Nothing, thank you, Rita."

Rita began to clear the table. "You look disturbed, Mr. Storrs," she said.

"Me?" he said. "What would I have to be disturbed about?"

"Then goodnight, Mr. Storrs. Sleep well." Carrying glasses and the bottle of cognac on a tray, she went out, turning out the lights as she went.

Michael didn't move, then rubbed his eyes wearily. From above he heard the opening strains of the Brahms Variations on a Theme by Haydn. He looked up at the ceiling and smiled wryly, then dropped his head on his chest and sat staring into the fire, listening to the faint music from the room two floors above him.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN.

"You cost me a good hour's sleep," Cully grumbled as Michael came out of the hotel. It was just a little past dawn. The tops of the mountains were rosy, but the valley was still in shadow. The slalom poles were stowed in back of the ski school pickup truck. Michael had prevailed upon Cully to put them up so that they could see how well Rita could handle a descent with gates set close together. Michael had skied again with Rita, a whole morning, and now it was time to find out how she would do on a real course. Skiing, even very good skiing, was one thing, but running gates was another. So Cully had arranged with Harold Jones for the lift to start an hour earlier than usual so that they would have a clear slope for the test.

Michael had gone to bed early, to be fresh for the morning. He had not been disturbed. The Heggeners still were in their rooms on the third floor of the lodge because Mr. Heggener was waiting for an antique chair he had picked out himself to be reupholstered, saying crankily, playing the invalid, "I want everything to be in place so when I walk in I'll feel completely at home."

So there had been no nighttime visits from Eva. And the Heggeners had dined in their rooms, so Michael had eaten alone and spent the evenings reading. He had seen Mr. Heggener, at a distance, walking, with his cane, once or twice, but they had not spoken to each other since their dinner together. They had not as yet played backgammon.

Michael had skied twice more with Eva, but she hadn't said anything about her husband's conversation over the dinner table and Michael had not brought the matter up, although he thought about it constantly and was both eager and reluctant to know more about the frail Austrian gentleman. In his mind he couldn't quite accept him as an American. No American had ever confided in him that he had shot a very good friend because he had degraded his wife Michael had started giving small hints about position on skis and the distribution of weight to Eva, and meticulous and controlled as she was in everything, she had been quick to follow his instructions and after one swift run had said, gaily, "By the end of the season you'll have made me a skier."

"You were a skier before you ever saw me."

"I mean a skier," she said.

Cully drove over the rough roads, the old pickup bumping on broken springs, his weather-beaten face wrinkled in a scowl. "I don't know how you talked me into this," he said, sounding surly. "I've never done it for anybody else."

"Come on, now, Dave," Michael said, jolting on the broken passenger's seat, "the kid's in heaven."

"I'm not," Cully said. He was, Michael had found out, unwilling to give the appearance of softness in any way and he always made it seem that any act of generosity on his part surprised him unpleasantly.

When they arrived at the parking lot, Rita was waiting for them, her skis on. She must have walked here in the dark to meet us, Michael thought, as he waved to her.

They pulled out the slalom poles and, with Cully carrying half of them and Michael the other half, started toward the lift, with Rita skating alongside them, her face tense with excitement. Harold Jones saw them approaching and started the lift. "What the hell are you doing here at this hour," he asked his daughter. Obviously, Rita had kept the morning's experiment secret from her father.

"They're going to see how well I do in a slalom, Daddy," Rita said.

"Love of God," Jones grumbled. "What the hell next?" But he held the chair for her. As Michael and Cully stepped into their skis, Rita went up alone.

"Racing now." Harold Jones looked disapprovingly up at his daughter being carried up the mountain. "As though there isn't enough trouble. Sometimes I wish I'd been bom on the lone prairie with not a hill within a thousand miles. Now, listen, Dave," he said to Cully, "don't give her any wild ideas about how great she is. If she's lousy I depend upon you to tell her so."

"Don't worry, Harold," Cully said, as he slipped into the chair that Jones held back for him, "the truth will out. And thanks for getting up so early."

"I don't know why I did it," Jones said as he let the chair go. "If I'd known it was for Rita, I'd've stayed in bed. Still no broken bones, young fella?" Jones said to Michael as Michael sat down and adjusted the slalom poles.

"Give me time," Michael said.

"She thinks you're Godalmighty wonderful," Jones said. "My kid. Just don't teach her no somersaults." He gave Michael's chair an v extra hard push and the chair swung as it began to climb.

Cully and Rita were already going across the traverse on the top of the hill when Michael arrived at the end of the lift and skied off it. He saw that Cully was heading for the Black Knight. He hurried after them and caught up with Cully. Rita, not encumbered by the slalom poles, was ahead of them. "Dave," Michael said in a low voice, so that Rita couldn't hear him, "why don't you start her on something more mellow?"

"Might as well know the worst right off," Cully said.

Rita helped them place the gates on the clear slope after the glade with the boulder in the middle of it. At least, Michael saw, as she skied surely on the steep face, she doesn't suffer from vertigo.

They put in twenty-eight gates. Michael and Cully would mark off the finish line, about fifty yards above a path for pedestrians that a snowcat had made across the slope.

"All right, Rita," Cully said, "now you climb up, it'll warm up your legs, and when I give you the signal, like this"-he raised his arm and then suddenly brought it down-"you start. Got it?"

"Got it," Rita said, in a whisper, her voice trembling just a little bit. She started to climb, herringboning up the slope alongside the course.

"It's good of you, Dave," Michael said, "to take time to watch the kid."

"I'm not doing you any favors," Cully said. "Anything to get out of that damned office." He was watching Rita climb. "Pretty strong for a skinny kid like that. How much you guess she weighs?"

"One five, one seven," Michael said. "Around there."

Cully nodded. "Lucky there's no wind. Blow her right away. I weighed one seventy when I raced. Over two hundred now. Christ!" He stared up at Rita, who was nearing the top of the slope. "My kids're fat already," he said. "And Norma's built more like her. There's no telling about Nature." He gestured toward the figure in red above them. "It's a funny thing," he said reflectively. "I guess I must have seen that girl ski again and again through the years and it never occurred to me that she ought to be racing with the other kids. I guess it takes an outsider, like you, to see things that you just take for granted if you stay in one place. And I've always liked her and her whole family, too." He stared sternly at Michael. "One tip. Don't fool around with her. On or off the hill. Her father'll have your ass." "Dave," Michael said, protesting, "she's only sixteen years old." "That never stopped you before."

"I'm a different man these days."

"I'll believe it when I see it," Cully said.

The sun had hit the slope by now and Michael turned to face it, grateful for the warmth. Down below, on the path, he saw Mr. Heggener approaching. He recognized him by the old-fashioned black shiny cloth coat with the mink collar and by the soft green Tyrolean hat. For a man who professed to dislike Austria as much as he, he certainly liked to dress Austrian. Michael waved to him and Mr. Heggener waved back, then stopped walking and leaned on his cane and looked up at where Rita was now nearing the top of the course.

Michael turned back to watch her as she poised herself even with a tree that Cully had designated as the beginning of the run. Cully raised his arm and Rita crouched, ready. Then Cully dropped his arm sharply and the girl took off, skating, into the first gate. She came down fast, snaking expertly through the gates, hitting most of the poles with her shoulder to cut the turns shorter, knocking some of them out of the snow in her passage.

"Not bad, eh?" Michael said, watching the flying red figure.

"Not bad at all," Cully said. He made a little grimace, which showed that he was surprised and impressed.

Rita swept through the last gate and got into the egg position and pumped, her poles tucked straight out behind her, under her armpits, as she crossed between the two men and skidded to a stop.

From below, there came a faint sound of clapping. Mr. Heggener had taken off his gloves and was applauding.

"How did it look from the valley, gentlemen?" Rita asked as she climbed back toward them. She was panting, but not too hard.

"Okay," Cully said. "How did it feel?"

"Like first place in the Kandahar," Rita said, laughing and gasping a little at the same time.

"Well," Cully said, "you have one important thing. Self-confidence. Why'd you say you never've raced before?"

"I haven't. But when they have the poles up I practice. When I have the time."

Cully looked at her severely, his eyebrows lowered, as though she had deliberately deceived him. "There's a race in ten days. There're some good college kids who come for them every weekend. This'll be the first of the season, you may have a little jump on them, being up here all the time and all. I'll put you in it if you want."

Rita looked inquiringly at Michael. "Mr. Storrs, do you think I should . . . ?"

"What've you got to lose?" Michael said.

"My job, for one thing. Mrs. Heggener doesn't like skiing waitresses. Last year two of them broke their legs in the middle of the season and we were shorthanded in the dining room till the end of the year."

"I'll talk to Mrs. Heggener," Cully said. "If you're as good as I think you may be, with some coaching, it might be a nice bit of publicity for the hotel."

"Just promise you won't break your leg," Michael said.

"I promise," Rita said. "Put me in, please, Mr. Cully."

"I'll ask Swanson to take you out a couple of times to show you a few things that might cut your time a second or so. He's the best coach in town."

"I don't want to be a bother," Rita said. "Mr. Storrs has been awfully helpful."

"Leave Mike to the older ladies," Cully said. "The only thing he could teach you'd be how to crash. Everyone going back to town? We can pile into the pickup."

"I'll walk, thanks," Michael said. He had seen that Mr. Heggener hadn't moved and seemed to be waiting for company on the footpath.

"I think I'll give the hill one more workout," Rita said, "while the poles're still up."

"Don't worry about them when you're through," Cully said. "I'll have the patrol pick them up when they come down in the afternoon." He set off down the hill, skiing easily, without poles, as did Michael, since they had both carried the slalom markers up.

"Mr. Storrs," Rita said, "I don't know how to thank you and Mr. Cully . . ."

"Rita," Michael said, "you can do me a favor. You can call Mr. Cully Mr. Cully until you're fifty, but I wish you'd call me Michael. You make me feel ninety years old."

"Okay," Rita said shyly. "Mr. . . . Michael." Embarrassed, she turned and started climbing quickly up the hill toward the top of the slalom course.

Michael watched her for a moment, then skied down to the footpath, where Mr. Heggener was standing.

"Good morning, sir," Michael said, as he came to a stop just above the path.

"It is a good morning," Mr. Heggener said. "Best time of the day." '

"You're up awfully early."

Heggener shrugged. "Sleeping is not my strong point these days. Oh ... I have a message for you. Two, to be exact. Eva can't ski today. Too busy, she says. I'm not quite sure at just what. I was to tell you if I happened to run into you. And two-your friends arrived."

"So early?"

"They said they drove all night. A very handsome lady." Heggener looked up to where Rita, now a red dot on the white glare of the snow, was nearing the top of the slope. "Quite a sight on a beautiful morning like this-that pretty little girl drifting like a feather down that hill."

"She was doing some pretty fast drifting."

"I noticed. By the way, how're you getting back to the hotel?"

"On foot, I'm afraid," Michael said. "I came out in Cully's truck." "Good," Mr. Heggener said. "Then we can walk back together. If you don't mind."

"My pleasure," Michael said politely and got out of his skis and put them over his shoulder. They started walking back toward town, Mr. Heggener moving with surprising briskness, taking deep, satisfying breaths of the cold, thin air. "Ah, the mountains," Mr. Heggener said, sighing. "I'm devoted to everything about them. The crispness of the air, the color of the shadows, the sound the snow makes under your boots. It was the purest luck that I fell in love with a woman who shared my . . . ah . . . dedication ... to the heights. The happiest days of my life. . . ." He sighed again. "A morning like this makes me nostalgic for my own skiing days. Tell me, Mr. Storrs, have you ever made the run from Zermatt, under the Matterhorn in Switzerland down to Cervinia, in Italy?"

"Twice," Michael said.