 CHAPTER XI. A SHADOW OF NIGHT. This villain, he dares—I know not half he dares—but remove him—quick, Robert Browning. So early was it still. I feared we had come before the brotherhood were a stirrer to receive visitors. But as I looked up at the great grey, silent building, the noble head of a magnificent St. Bernard dog appeared in the doorway. At the top of steep stone steps, there could not have been a more appropriate welcome to this remote dwelling of a devoted band. And when the dog, after gazing gravely at the newcomers, vanished into darkness, I knew that he had gone in to tell of our arrival. I was right, too, for once within he uttered a deep bell-note, more sonorous and more musical than lies in the throats of common dogs, and was answered by a distant baying. One could not say that these majestic animals barked. There was as indisputable a difference between an ordinary bark and the sound they made as between a barrel-instrument played in the streets and a grand cathedral organ. Joseph had visited the hospice many times, and knew the etiquette for strangers. He bade me go in and ring the bell at the grill unless I should meet one of the monks before reaching it. I mounted the steps, entered the wide doorway which had framed the dog's head, and found myself in a vast dusky corridor, resonant with strange echoings, and mysterious with flitting shadows which might be ghosts of the past or live beings of the present. As my eyes grew accustomed to the gloom, I saw that there were numerous persons in this great hall, tall monks in flowing robes of black, beggars come to solicit alms or breakfast, and dogs, many dogs, who crowded round me with a waving of huge tails and a gleaming of brown jeweled eyes in the dusk. I did not need to ring the bell of the iron gate beyond which, according to Joseph, no woman has ever passed. One of the monks came to me, a tall, spare young man with a grave face, soft in expression, yet hardened in outline by a rigorous life and exposure to extreme cold. He gave me welcome in French, with here and there an interpolation of Down Turk be quiet, Jupiter. Would I like breakfast, he asked? And then, yes, certainly. To see the chapel, the bibliotech, the monastery museum, and the alpine garden, there would be plenty of time for this and still to reach Aosta. Another monk was called and an introduction affected. I was taken into a handsomely decorated refectory, where I opened my eyes in some astonishment at sight of the imp, drinking coffee from a shallow bowl nearly as big as his childish head. In a sentina was no doubt at this moment shocking Joseph by some new depravity in the Salomonchee, where humbler folk were entertained with the same hospitality as their so-called betters. The brat set down his bowl and saw me, as I subsided into a chair on the opposite side of the long, narrow table. His face flushed and the brilliant blue eyes clouded, but he deigned to acknowledge our acquaintance with a slight bow. I didn't suppose you would have started yet, said I. I thought the same thing about you, he retorted. We got off very quietly from the cantina. Ah, you wished to steal a march on me. I broke in. But really, my young friend, you need not have feared that I should impose myself upon you as a travelling companion. My one object in making this excursion is, if not to enjoy my own society, at any rate to experiment with it. Therefore I have two objects in making mine, the boy interrupted. One is to avoid men. The other is to find materials for writing a book with no men in it, only places. It will not be owing to me if you fail in the former, said I. As for the latter, naturally it will depend upon yourself. What shall you call it? A child tacking notes? Or in search of the grail? He blushed vividly. I haven't decided on the name yet, but it can't matter to you, as I do not expect you to buy the book when it comes out. Nor need you be afraid that you will figure in the pages. If I were to call my book, in search of anything, it would be in search of peace. With this the strange child rose from the table, and bowing, departed, leaving me lost in wonder at him. He was but an infant, and an impertinent infant at that. Yet suddenly I had had a glimpse through the great sea-blue eyes of a soul, weary after some tragic experience. At least this was the impression which flashed into my mind, with the one look I surprised before lashes hid its secret. But in a moment I was laughing at myself, ridiculous to have such a thought in connection with a slip of a boy, seventeen at most. I lingered over my breakfast, so that the brat might have finished his sightseeing and got away before my tour of the hospice began. He and I had had the table to ourselves at first, but I sat so long that others came in, evidently persons who had spent the night at the monastery. There was a Russian family, of so many daughters that I wondered their parents had found names for them all. A couple of German women in plaid blouses so terrible that they set me speculating. Had the material been chosen by their husbands, with a view of alienating all masculine admiration, as a Japanese girl when married, blackened her teeth, or had the ladies inflicted the frightful things upon themselves by way of penance for some grievous sin, I should have liked to ask, especially as one of the wearers was very pretty, with a large Madonna loveliness. But under my dreaming eyes she began eating honey with her knife, and I sprang from the table hastily. As I paused I heard two stolid cockneys asking each other why the dickens they had come to this beastly cold god-forsaken hole, with nothing but a lot of ugly mountains to see. There was better sport in Oxford Street. I should not have considered it murder if I had killed them where they sat, but I refrained, rather than soil my hands. After all, if a primrose on a river's brim, but a yellow primrose was to them, what did it matter to me? I visited the Bibliotheque which was haunted by a fragrance intoxicating to book-lovers of dead centuries, leather bindings, and parchment. I saw the piano given by the king when he was Prince of Wales. The fine collection of coins and early Roman remains found in the neighbourhood of the monastery. I dropped a Louis into the box of offerings in the chapel, and then was taken by a mild-eyed, frail-looking monk to see some of the rooms allotted to guests at the hospice. Seeing them I was inclined to wish that I had pushed on through the darkness last night and reached this mountain top to sleep. I liked the wane-scotted walls, the white canopied beds, but most of all I liked the deep-set windows with their view of the silent lake, a sleep in the bosom of the mountains and dreaming of the sky. On most of the walls were votive offerings in the shape of pictures, sent to the monks by grateful visitors in far-off countries. One was an engraving which had adorned the nursery in my youth, and had been a never-failing source of curiosity to me. It was Gustave Doré's Christian martyrs, and I had once been deprived of pudding at the nursery dinner because I had remarked, with a reverence wholly unintentional, that one of the lions seemed ill and anxious to climb up the wall and get away from the nasty martyrs. Thus it is that children are misunderstood by their elders, and now, as I gazed at the same picture on the monastery wall, I felt again all the old, impotent rebellion against injustice and misplaced power. Later I wandered through the pathetically interesting alpine garden, carefully kept by the monks, and then, sure that by this time the brat and his cavalcade must be far on their way, I started, with Joseph and Finnois, to stroll down the pass towards Aosta. I had promised Jack and Molly to tell them in my letters whether it would be possible for them, with a motor, to go by some of the routes which I chose. Over the St. Bernard from Martigny to the Hospice they could not have ventured, even in the stealthy fly-by-night manner in which they had done the St. Goddard and the Samplan. For on the St. Bernard the road was always narrow, often stony and dangerous. Beyond on the other side even carriages cannot yet pass, descending to Aosta, though in another year the new road will be finished. As it is, for many a generation, pilgrims from the Hospice to Italy have been obliged to go down as far as the mountain village of San Remy, either on foot or muleback. Thus there was no hope for Mercedes there. I went swinging down the steep and winding path, my heart chanting a psalm to the mountains. Mountains like confederals with carved graceful spires, mountains like frozen waves left by some great sea when the world was chaos, mountains like leaning powers of Pisa, mountains like sentinel titans, mountains silver-gray, mountains dark red. The Pan di Sucre was strangest of all in form perhaps, and Joseph distressed me much by remarking guilelessly that it and other white shapes at which he pointed looked exactly like frosted wedding cakes. It was true they did, but they looked like nobler things also, and I resented having so cheap a simile put into my head. With every step the way grew more glorious. This was an enchanted land. I could hardly believe that thousands of travellers had seen it before, and would again. I felt as if I had fallen Sinbad-like into a valley undiscovered by man, and like Sinbad's valley this sparkled to my dazzled eyes with countless gems. Not all cold white diamonds like his, but gems of every color, the rocks through which our path was cut glowed with rainbow hues like different precious metals blended. This effect struck me at first in the brilliant sunshine which alone kept me from being nipped with cold, as puzzling, but in a moment I had solved the jewel mystery of the mountains. The rocks were of porphyry and marble and granite spangled with mica, and overall spread in patches a lichen of rose and green and yellow like chipped rubies and emeralds among gold filings. So wild and splendid was the scene, composed and painted by a peerless master, that I slackened my pace reluctant to leave so much splendor behind. But despite all delaying, we came after a time down to tree-level. The landscape changed, the diamond spray of miniature cataracts dashed over high cliffs, among balsamic pine forests. The sunshine brought out the intense green of moss and fern. We met porters struggling up the height with luggage on their backs, and fat women riding depressed mules. It was very medieval, and I had the sensation of having walked into a picture, round the corner of it, into the best part which you know must be there, though it can't be seen by outsiders. It took us an hour and a half to walk the eleven kilometers down to Saint-Rémy, where we lunched well and drank the sparkling wine of the country, which may have been meritricious, but tasted good. There was a douane, or we had now passed out of Switzerland into Italy, and my mule-pack was examined with curiosity. But why I should have been questioned with insistence as to whether I were concealing sausages, I could not guess, unless a swashbuckling German princeling who married into our family eight generations ago was using my eyes or windows at the time. I need not have feared that the best of the journey would be over at Saint-Rémy, for the road which broadened there, and became navigable for motor-cars as well as horse-drawn vehicles, wound down still among the stupendous mountains capped with snow, jagged peaks of dark granite and purple porphyry which glowed crimson in contrast with the dazzling snow. We did not leave Saint-Rémy till long past one, and as we descended upon lower levels the sun grew hot. More than once I called a halt, and we had a delicious rest under a tree, in some exquisite glade a little removed from the roadside. It was during one of these, while Pinot cropped an indigestible branch. That Joseph opened his heart, and told me his life's history. It had been more or less adventurous, and it had held a tragedy, for Joseph had loved, and the fair had jilted him on the eve of their marriage, or a prosperous baker. This fellow-feeling, for had we not both been thrown over for tradesmen, made me wondrous kind towards Joseph, and when I had drawn from him the fact that his great ambition was to own three donkeys and start in business for himself, I secretly determined to see what could be done towards forwarding this end. We did not hurry, and while we were still far above Aosta, the shadows lengthened and thinned, like children who have grown too fast. We exchanged chestnuts for pines, and the pure ethereal blue of Italy burned in the sky. Everywhere was rich abundance of color. The green of trees and grass was luscious. Even the shadows were of a translucent purple. Below us the valley of Aosta lay so dreamily lovely, so peaceful, that one could imagine their only happiness and prosperity. I remarked this to Joseph, and he smiled his melancholy smile. It is beautiful, he said, and when you are down at the bottom you will not be disappointed in the country. But for happiness it is no better than elsewhere. Wait till you see the Cretan. There is a Cretan in almost every family. And not long ago there was a dreadful murder in the neighborhood of Aosta. The criminal has not yet been caught. He is supposed to be hiding somewhere in the mountains. And the police cannot find him. There is a printed notice out, warning people to beware of the murderer. So I read in a newspaper not long ago. And I have heard that the inhabitants of all these little hamlets we see here and there dare not go from village to village after dark for fear of being attacked. Then if we should happen to be belated we might have an adventure, I said. Indeed it is not at all unlikely, monsieur. No doubt the man is desperate. And if he saw a chance to get a change of clothing, a mule, and some money, he might risk attacking even two travellers from behind. But we shall arrive at Aosta before dark. And I am afraid, a warrant you're not afraid of danger, that we shall get no such sport, monsieur. Even as he spoke there came with the wind blowing up from the valley, a loud, long-drawn shriek of fear or distress uttered by a woman. We looked at each other, Joseph and I, and then without a word set off running down the hill in the direction of the cry. Again it came. Amois, amois. We could hear the words now, and then a wild, inarticulate scream. I bounded down the winding white road where the evening shadows lay, and Joseph followed somehow dragging Finnois. At least I am sure that he would not have left his beloved beast behind. And so at last we turned a sharp bend of the path, thickly fringed with a dense wood, where suddenly, in a centina, sprang almost into my arms. She ran to me blindly, not seeing who it was, but knowing by instinct that help was at hand. A robber, a murderer, she panted. Oh, save! And then I think she fainted. I have a vague recollection of tossing her to Joseph and plunging into the dim wood, where something moved half hidden by the crowding trees. It was the donkeys I saw at first, and then I came full upon a man, dressed all in the brown of the tree-trunks, so that at a distance he would not be seen among them, in the dusk. He had the rucksack I had noticed at the Contina de Prots in one hand, and with the other he had just drawn a knife from the belt under his coat. On the ground crouched the boy, shielding his bowed face with a slim blue-surge arm. CHAPTER XII My little body is a weary of this great world. Shakespeare. This was the tableau photographed on my retina as I sprang forward, but I drew the revolver, which had occasioned Winston's mirth, when Molly gave it to me at Brigg. And in an instant the picture had dissolved. The man in brown dropped the rucksack and ran, as I have never seen man run before. Ran as if he wore seven-legged boots. My revolver was not loaded, and all the cartridges were among my shirts and collars on Finwa's back. Therefore I could pursue him with nothing more dangerous than anathemas, unless I had deserted the boy, who seemed at first glance to be almost as near fainting as in a sentina. Reluctantly letting the man go free I bent over the little figure in blue, still on its knees. Are you hurt? I asked in real anxiety, such as I had not thought it possible to feel for the brat. No, only my arm. He rung it so. And perhaps I have twisted my knee. I don't know yet. He pushed me back and I fell down. I lifted him up and supported him for a moment. He leaning against me, the color drained from cheeks and lips. But suddenly it streamed back, even to his forehead. And raising his head from my shoulder where it had lain for a few seconds, he unwound himself gently from my arm. I'm all right now, thank you awfully, he said. I believe you have saved my life and innocentinas. You see, we fought with the man for our things. And when he saw that he couldn't steal them without a struggle, he whipped out a knife and—and then you came. Oh, he was a coward to attack two—two people so much weaker than himself, and then to run away when a stronger one came. I kept Joseph's story to myself and hoped that the boy had not heard it. Perhaps after all this lurking beast of prey had not been the murderer in hiding. The place was desolate and evening was falling. Some tramp or a thievish peasant, taking advantage of the murder scare, might easily have dared this attack. And when I glanced at the picnic array under a tree nearby, I was even less surprised than before at the thing which had happened. The mouse-colored packed donkey had been denuded of his load, and the most elaborate teabasket I had ever seen, finer even than mollies, was open on the ground. If the cups, plates, and saucers, the knives, spoons, and forks, were not silver, they were masquerading hypocrites. And I now discovered that the large dark object which I had seen innocent Tina putting into the rucksack, at this moment half on half off, was a very handsome traveling bag. It was gaping wide, the mouth fixed in position with patent catches, and it lay where the disappointed thief had flung it, tumbled on its side, with a quantity of gold and crystal fittings scattered round about. On the gold backs of the brushes and the tops of the bottles was an intricate monogram traced in small turquoises. By Joe, I exclaimed, do you travel with these things? What madness to spread them out in the woods by an unreflected mountain road! That is to offer too much temptation even to the honest poor. I know, said the boy meekly, it was stupid to picnic in such a place, but we had come fast. With this he had the grace to look a little shame faced, knowing that I knew why he had come fast. And we were tired. It was so beautiful here, and seemed so peaceful that we never thought of danger at this time of day. We had just begun to pack up our things to move on again. When there was a rustling behind us, the crackling of a branch under a foot, and that wretch sprang out. I was frightened, but I hate being a coward, and I just made up my mind he shouldn't have our things. Innocentina screamed, and I struck at the man with the stick she uses to drive Fanny and Suri. Then he got out his knife, and Innocentina screamed a good deal more. And I don't quite know what did happen after that, till you came. Well, I'm thankful I was near, I said. And I must say that, though it was foolhardy to make such display of valuables, you were a plucky little David to defend your belongings against such a goliath. I admire you for it. The boy flushed with pleasure. Oh, do you really think I was plucky? He asked. Everything was so confused, I wasn't sure. I'd rather be plucky than anything. Thank you for saying that, almost as much as for saving our lives. And I'm dreadfully sorry I called you a brute last night. It was only because I called you a brat. I fully deserved it, and will cry quits if you don't mind. Now I'd better see how the fainting lady is, and then I'll help you get your things together. How are the knee and arm? Nothing much wrong with them, after all, I think, said the boy, limping a little as he walked by my side back to the road, where I had left Innocentina with Joseph. We had taken but a few steps when they both appeared, the young woman white under her tan, her eyes big and frightened. She was herself again very thankful for so good an end to the adventure, and voluably ashamed of the weakness to which she had given way. In the midst of her explanations and enquiries, however, I noticed that she took time now and then to throw a glance at my mulitair, not scornful and defiant, as on the day before, but grateful and mildly feminine. In conclave we agreed to say nothing in Aosta of the grim encounter, lest our lives should be made miserable by gendarm and much red tape. But Joseph, less diplomatic than I, had not scrupled to seize the moment of Innocentina's recovery, to pour into her ears the story of the escaped criminal and the excitement in which she had plunged the neighbouring country. She was anxious to hurry on as quickly as possible, lest night should overtake her party on the way, and still pale and tremulous she sprang eagerly to the work of gathering up the scattered belongings. While she and Joseph put the tea-basket to rights, the boy and I rearranged the gorgeous spittings of the bag, and discovered that not even a single bottle-top was missing. What a burden to carry on a donkey's back I laughed. You are a regular bow-brummel. Why not? pleaded the boy. I like pretty things, and this is very convenient. It is no trouble for its surrey. When the bag is in the rucksack no one would suspect that it is valuable. I have carried all this luggage so ever since Lucerne had never had any bother before. What, you two started from Lucerne? Yes, I had Innocentina and the donkeys come up from the Riviera to meet me there. We have been a long time on the way, weeks, before we have stopped wherever we liked, and as long as we liked. Until today we haven't had a single real adventure. I was wishing for one. But now, well, I suppose most adventures are disagreeable when they are happening, and only turn nice afterwards in memory. Like caterpillars when they become butterflies. But look here, my young friend David. Lest you meet another Goliath, I really think you'd better put up with the proximity. I don't say society, of that hateful animal man, as far as Aosta. Joseph and I will either keep a few yards in advance, or a few yards in the rear. Not to annoy you with our detestable company. But please don't be revengeful and treated the ex brat. You have been so good to us. Don't be un-good now. I suppose one may hate men, yet be grateful to one man. Anyhow, till one finds him out. I can't very well find you out between here and Aosta, can I? So we may be friends, if you'll walk beside me, neither behind nor in front. I am excited and feel as if I must have someone to talk to. But I am a little tired of conversation with innocent Tina. I know all she has ever thought about since she was born. It's a bargain, then, said I. We're friends and comrades, until Aosta. After that. Each goes his own way. He finished my broken sentence. As ships pass in the night. But this little sailing boat won't forget that the big bark came to its help, in a storm which it couldn't have weathered alone. Do you know, said I, as we walked on together, the mule at here and the donkey-girl behind us with the animals? You are a very odd boy. I suppose it is being American. Are all American boys like you? Yes, said he, twinkling. All. I am cut on exactly the same pattern as the rest. And he smiled a charming smile, of which I could not resist the curious fascination. Did you never meet any American boys till you met me? I can't remember having any real conversation with one. Except once. His mother had asked me in his presence. It was in New York. How I liked America. And I had answered that it dazzled me. That the only yearning I felt was for something dark and quiet. And small and uncomfortable. She was rather pleased. But the boy put a string across the drawing-room door when I went out, and tripped me up. Then we had a little conversation. Quite a short one. But full of repartee. That's my solitary experience. I should have wanted to trip you up for that speech, too. So you see the likeness is proved. It is a funny thing. I know very few Englishmen. I've met several, but, as you say, I never had any real conversation with them. Maybe if you had, you wouldn't be so down on your sex when it has reached adolescence. I'm afraid there isn't much difference in men, whatever their country. But it's their attitude towards women which I hate. I laughed. What do you know about that? I have a sister, said he, after a minute's pause. And he did not laugh. She and I have been tremendous chums all our lives. There isn't a thing she has done or a thought she has had that I don't know. And the other way round, of course. Twins, I asked. She is twenty-one. Oh, four or five years older than you. The boy evidently did not take this as a question. She is, unfortunately, an heiress, he said. Money has brought misery upon her, and threw her on me. For if she suffers, I suffer too. She used to believe in everybody. She thought men were even more sincere and upright than women, because their outlook on life was larger. And so it was easy for her to be deceived. When she came out, she wasn't quite eighteen. You see, we have no father or mother, only a lazy old guardian uncle. And she thought everyone was wonderfully kind to her. So she was very happy. I suppose there never was a happier girl. For a while. But by and by she began to find out things. She discovered that the man who seemed the nicest only cared for her money. Not for her at all. How could she be sure of that? It was proved over and over again, in lots of ways. But if she is a pretty and charming girl, I think she is only odd, like me. People don't understand her, especially men. They find her strange, and men don't like girls to be strange. Don't they? I thought they did. Think for yourself. Have you ever been at all in love? And if you have, wasn't the girl quite conventional? Just a nice sweet girl, who was pretty and who flirted, and who was too properly brought up ever to do or to say anything to surprise you? Well, I admitted, my mind reviewing this portrait of Helen, which was really a well-sketched likeness. Now you put it in that way. I confess the girl I've cared for most was of the type you describe. I can see that now, though I didn't think of it then. No, you wouldn't. Men don't. My sister soon learned that she wasn't really the sort of girl to be popular, though she had dozens of proposals. Heaps of flowers every day. Had to split up each dance several times at a ball. And all that kind of thing. It was a shock to find out why. To her face they called her Princess. And she was pleased with the nickname at first poor thing. She took it for a compliment to herself. But she came to know that behind her back it was different. She was the Manitou Princess. You see, the money, or most of it, came because father owned the biggest silver mines in Colorado. And he named the principal one Manitou after the Indian spirit. I shan't forget the day when a man she'd just refused told her the vulgar nickname. And a few other things that hurt. But I don't know why I'm talking to you like this. I wanted to get away from you yesterday, because I don't care to meet people. Everything seems different now, though. I suppose it's because you saved our lives. I feel as if you weren't exactly a new person. But as if I'd known you a long time. I have the same sort of feeling about you for some queer reason, said I. Are we also to know each other's names? No, he answered quickly. That was spoil the charm. For there is a charm, isn't there? But we won't call each other brat and brute any more. That's ancient history. I'll be for you just boy. I think I will call you man. But you hate man. I don't hate you. If I were a girl I might. But as it is I don't. I like you, man. And I like you, boy. We are pals now. Shall we shake hands? We did. I could have crushed his little brown paw, if I had not manipulated it carefully. After that we did not talk much. By and by he was tired, and remounted his donkey. But we still kept side by side, innocentina sending at intervals a perfunctory cry of fanny Annie from a distance, by way of keeping the small brown Anne to her work. So we reached the beautiful valley of Aosta, as the transparent azure veil of the Italian dusk was drawn, and out of that dusk glimmered now and then, as if born of the shadows, strange, stunted and misshapen forms, gnome-like creatures, who stood aside to let us pass along the road. It was as if the brownie club were out for a night excursion, and I remembered my militeer's lecture about the Creighton of this happy valley. These were some of them, going back to town from their day's work in the fields. I had set my mind upon stopping at a hotel of which Joseph had told me, extolling its situation at a distance from Aosta Ville. The wonderful mountain pictures its windows framed, and a certain pastoral primitiveness, not derogatory to comfort, which I should find in the menage. But when my late enemy and new chum remarked that he was going to the Mont Blanc, I hesitated. And you, he asked? Oh, I, well I had thought, but it doesn't matter. I see what you mean. Would it be disagreeable for you if I were in the same hotel? On the contrary, but you. I know now that we shall never rub each other up the wrong way again. Besides, we shan't have the chance. I suppose you go on somewhere else to-morrow. No, I want to stop a day or two. Some friends have asked me to tell them about the sights of the neighborhood, and what sort of motoring roads there are nearby. I'm stopping too. So after all, the little sailing boat and the big bark aren't going to pass each other this night. They are to anchor in the same harbor for a while. And here's the harbor, said I, for we had come down from the hills into a marvellous old town of ancient towers and arches, with a background of white mountains. Molly should have been satisfied. I had obeyed her instructions to the letter, and I was in Aosta at last. CHAPTER XIII If you climb to our castle's top, I don't see where your eyes can stop, Robert Browning. Our hotel had a big logea, as large as a good sized room, and we dined in it, with a gorgeous stage-setting. The mountains floated in mid-sky, pearly pale, and magical under the rising moon. The little circle of light from our pink-shaded candles on the table, I say hour because boy and I dined together, gave to the picture a bizarre effect, which French artists loved to put on canvas, a blur of golden-rose artificial light, blending with the silver-green radiance of a full moon. I don't know what we had to eat, except that there were trout from the river, and luscious strawberries and cream. But I know that the dinner seemed perfect, and that the head waiter, a delightful person, brought a champagne, with a long-handled saucepan wrapped in an immaculate napkin, to do duty as an ice-pale. I wondered why I had not come long ago to this place, named in honor of Augustus Caesar, and why everybody else did not come. The ex-brat was in the same frame of mind. We talked of more things than are dreamed of in philosophy, other people's philosophy, and there was not a book which was a dear friend of mine that was not a friend of this strange child's. We sat until the moon was high and the candle slow. I felt curiously happy and excited, a mood no doubt due in part to the climate of Al Osta, in part to the discovery of the congenial spirit, where I had least expected to find one. Last night we had been at best on terms of arm neutrality. Tonight we were friends, and would continue friends, though we parted tomorrow. But parting was not what we thought of at the moment. On the contrary, half to our surprise, we found ourselves planning to see Al Osta in each other's company. After ten o'clock, when deliciously fatigued, I was on my way to my room along a great arcaded balcony which ran the length of the house. I met Joseph, lying in wait for me. My conscience pricked. I had forgotten to send the poor tired fellow-definite instructions for the next day. He had come to solicit them. But if I could judge by moonlight, he looked far from jaded. Indeed he had an air of alertness. For him almost of gaiety. You and Finwa can have a rest tomorrow in the day after, said I. While I do some sight-seeing, I hear that I shall need one day at least for the town, and another for a drive to the chateau and show-places of the neighborhood. I hope you will be able to amuse yourself. Mr. must not think of me. I shall do very well, dutifully replied Joseph. It is a pity that you and innocent Tina do not get on. Otherwise, ah, perhaps I should tell Mr. that I may have misjudged the young woman a little. It seems a question of bringing up more than real badness of heart. It is her tongue that is in fault. And I am not even sure that with good influences she might not improve. I have been talking to her, Mr., of religion. She is black Catholic, and I Protestant. But I think that some of my arguments made a certain impression upon her mind. After this I gave myself no further anxiety about Joseph's to-morrow, but went to bed and dreamed of fighting for the boy's life, gulliver-like, against a band of infuriated brownies. My first morning thought was to look out of all four windows at the mountains. My next to ring for a bath. Now, as a rule, your morning tub is a function you are not supposed to describe in detail. But not to picture the ceremony as performed at Aosta is to pass by the place without giving the proper dash of local color. I rang. A girl appeared who struck me as singularly beautiful. But I discovered later that all girls are more or less beautiful at Aosta. The propriety of this morning visit was ensured by the white cap, which was, so to speak, an adequate chaperone. On my request for a bath, the beauty looked somewhat agitated. But after reflection said that she would fetch one, and vanished, tripping lightly along the balcony. Twenty minutes then passed, and at the end of that time the young lady returned, almost obliterated by an enormous linen sheet which engulfed her like an avalanche. She was accompanied by a man and a boy, staggering under a strange object which resembled a vast arm chair, of the grandfather variety. When placed on the floor I became aware that it was a kind of cross between a throne and a bath tub, and having seen the huge sheet flung over it, I still rested in doubt as to the latter's purpose. The man and boy, who had not stood upon the order of their going, returned after an embarrassing absence with pails of water, the contents of which, to my surprise, they flung upon the sheet. I tried to explain that, if this were a bath, I perforated without the family linen. But the fam-decham seemed so shocked at these protestations that I ceased uttering them, and determined to make the best of things as they stood. When I was again alone, after several rehearsals, I found a way of accommodating the human form to the hybrid receptacle, and was amazed at its luxuriousness. The secret of this lay in the sheet, which was scented with lavender, and protected the body from contact with a cold-base metal which hundreds of other bodies must have touched before. Twas mine, tis his, and has been slaved to thousands, might be said of a hotel bath tub, as well as of a stolen purse, and having once known the linen-lined bath of Aosta, I was promptly spoiled for common, unlined tubs. This was a lesson not to form hasty opinions. But, being a normal man, I shall no doubt continue to do so until the day of my death. The boy and I broke our fast together on the logia, which was even more entertaining as a salamanche by morning than by night. When the coffee was exquisite, the hot foaming milk had but lately been drawn from its original source, a little biscuit-colored alderney with the pleating eyes of that fair nymph stricken to heatherhood by jealous Juno. The strawberries and figs came to the table from the hotel garden, and so did the luscious roses, which filled a bowl in the center of our small white table. This was Arcadia, the very simplicities of the hotel endeared it to our hearts, and there was no real comfort lacking which we could have obtained in London or in Paris. After breakfast we set off with our cameras to the town, a walk of ten or fifteen minutes. It was strange in this pilgrimage of line how often I found myself running back into the feudal or middle ages, as far removed from the familiar bustle of modern days, as if an iron door had been shut and padlocked behind me. There was little of the twentieth century in Aosta, named by Augustus the Rome of the Alps, except the monument to Lois Chasseur and the bookshops, which seemed extraordinarily well supplied with the best literature of all countries. The type of face we met was primitive, scarcely one which would have been out of place on some old Roman coin. Here at the end of a narrow shadowed street where St. Anselm first saw the light, it must have been with difficulty. We came upon a magnificent archway, built to do honor to Augustus Caesar's defeat of the brave Salassus, four and twenty years before the world had a savior. A few steps further on, and we were under the majestic mass of the Port of Pretoria, or we were crossing a Roman bridge, or gazing at the ruins of Roman ramparts, or we lost our way in searching for the amphitheater, and found ourselves suddenly skipping over centuries into the middle ages, represented by the mysterious Tour Bramapham, the Tour de Prison, or the Tour de la Prue, round which Xavier Maistre wrote his pathetic dialogue. Then there was the cathedral with its extraordinary painted façade, like a great colored picture book, and the tall cross, straddling a spring in a paved street, put up in thanksgiving by the Ostens when they joyfully saw Calvin's back for the last time. We spent all day in sightseeing, and had another moonlight evening on the Lodgia. We were great pals now, boy and I. I had never met anyone in the least like him. At one moment he was a human boy, almost a child. At another his brain leaped beyond mine, and he became a poet or a philosopher. Again he was an elfin sprite, a creature for whom Puck was the one thinkable name. There was a single thing only, about which you could always be sure. He would never be twice the same. Still though we were friends, boy and man we remained. He kept his name a secret, and he had forbidden me to mention mine. Nor had he spoken of his route or destination after Aosta. As to this I was curious for I knew now that it would be a wrench to part with the strange little being whose ears I had tingled to box three days or was it three years ago. Already he had done me good, though I had hardly reached the point of confessing as much to myself. As a plain matter of fact I could not have exchanged his quaint companionship for that of my lost love, how she would have hated this idyllic Arcadia, how treachery would have been, how weary after a day's tour among relics of past ages, and how much she would have preferred Bond Street to the Arch of Augustus, or the park to our snow mountains in Green Valley. Even Davos she would have found intolerable had it not been for the tobogganing, the dances, and the theatricals, in all of which she had played a leading part. Deep down in the darkest corner of my soul I now knew that I would not have fallen in love with Helen Blantok had I first met her in Aosta. The boy and I agreed that our head-waiter was one of the nicest men we had ever met, and when he pledged his personal honour that a day's wandering among neighbouring castles would be very repaying, we determined to bolt the five he most recommended in one gulp on our second and last afternoon. If he could he would have sent us spinning like teetotems from one concentric ring of historic chateau to another, until goodness knows how far from Aosta, Finnois, Suri, and Fanny Annie we should have ended. He would also have dispatched us on a two or three days excursion to Cormeur, and I fear that his respect for us went down like mercury in a chilled thermometer when he understood that we had not come to the country to do any of the famous climbs. He named so many, dear to the hearts of my Alpine Club acquaintances, that it would have taken us well into the new year to accomplish half, and he accepted with mild disapproving resignation our fiat that there were other parts of the world worth seeing, as we had to cover a radius of many miles. In our rounds of visiting at the few sample chateau we had selected from the waiters list. We decided to spare our legs and those of the animals. It was hardly playing the game we had set out to play. We two strangely met friends, to amble conventionally from show house to show house, in a carriage, with guidebooks in our hands, like everyday tourists. Nevertheless we did this unworthy thing. Perhaps therefore I deserved the punishment which fell upon me. Little did I dream when I flippantly spoke of our expedition, as driving out to pay calls, how nearly my thoughtless words were to be realized. We started immediately after an early Dégénée, sitting side by side in a little low-swung carriage, a superior Fyton, or poor relation of a Victoria. The day was hot, but a delicious breeze came to us from the snow mountains, and there was a peculiar buoyancy in the air. Our first castle was Sare, the Chateau Royal, an enormous brown building with a disproportionately high tower. This hunting lodge of the king would have been grimly ugly, were it not for its rocky throne, high above the riverbed, and its background of glistening white mountains. The huge pile looked like a sleeping dragon with its hundreds of window eyes, clothes-lidded, and I could not imagine it an amusing place for a house-party. I was glad that the boy was not animated with that wild mania for squeezing the last drop from the orange of sight-seeing, which makes some travelling companions so depressing. The castle was closed to visitors, yet many people would have insisted on climbing the steep hill, for the barren satisfaction of saying that they had been there. I rejoiced that my little pal was not one of these, but I should have been more prudent had I waited. We drove on, after a pause for inspection, along a road which would have rejoiced the motor-loving heart of Jack Winston, and I made a note to tell him what a magnificent tour he might have in this enchanted country one day with his car, tooling down from Milan. As I mentally arranged my next letter to the Winston's, the boy gave a little cry of delight. Oh, what a queer, delightful place. It's all towers just held together by a thread of castle. It must be immobile. I looked up and beheld on a high hill an extraordinary chateau. Something like four chest-castles grouped together at the corners of a square heap of dice. It does not sound an attractive description, yet the place deserves that adjective. It was charming and wonderfully livable. Among its vineyards commanding such a view as is given to few showplaces in the world. The descendants of the original family have restored it and lived there, don't they? Ask the boy in Italian of the coche. The man answered that this was the case, and was inspired by my evil genius to inquire if the same monsieur would like to go over the chateau. Is it allowed? The boy questioned eagerly. But certainly. Shall I drive up to the house? It will be only an all-little ten minutes. Without waiting for my answer, the boy took my consent for granted and said yes. Instantly we left the broad white road and began winding up a narrow, steep and stony way among vineyards. The coche's all-little ten minutes lengthened into half an hour. But at last we halted before a garden-gate, a high, uncompromising, reserved-looking gate. The fellow must be mistaken, said I. This place has not the air of encouraging visitors. But before the words were out of my mouth, the enterprising coche had rung the gate-bell. After an interval a gardener appeared and betrayed such mild and genuous surprise at sight of us that I wished ourselves anywhere else than before the portals of the chateau Dymaville. Gladly would I have whipped up our fat, barrel-shaped nag and driven into the nearest rabbit-hole. But it was too late. The gardener took the inquiry as to whether visitors were admitted. With the gravity he would have given to a question in the catechism. Is your name N or M? Can one see your master's house? Oh, without doubt! One could see the house. Would Les Monsieur kindly accompany him? His aspect wept. And mine, unless it belied me, copied his. Isn't it hateful? I asked Soto Voce of the boy. Expecting sympathy which I did not get. No, I think it's great fun, said he. But I'm sure they are not in the habit of showing the house. You can tell by the man's manner. He's non-plussed. I should think no one has ever had the cheek to apply for permission before. Then they ought to be complimented because we have. I was silenced, though far from convinced. But if you have made an engagement with an executioner, it is a point of honour not to sneak off and leave him in the lurch. When he has taken the trouble to sharpen his axe and put on his red suit and mask for your benefit. We arrived after a walk through a pretty garden. Upon a terrace where there was a marvellous view, the gardener showed it to us solemnly, we pacing after him all round the chateau, as if we played a game. At the open front door we were left alone for a few minutes, heavy with suspense, while our guide held secret conclave with a personable woman who was no doubt a housekeeper. Astonished but civil, with dignified Italian courtesy, she finally invited us in. And I was coward enough to let the boy lead. I, following with a casual air, meant to show that I had been dragged into this business against my will. That I was, in fact, the tale of a comet which must go where the comet leads. There inside the castle were traces that the family had fled with precipitation. Here was a bicycle leaning abject against a wall. There an open book thrown on the floor. Here a fallen chair. There a dropped piece of sewing. Once or twice in England I had stayed in a famous show-house, and my experience on the public Thursdays there had taught me what these people were enduring now. At Waldron Castle we had been hunted from pillar to post. If we darted from the hall into a drawing-room, the public would file in before we could escape to the Boudoir. The lives of foxes in the hunting season could have been little less disturbed than ours. And we were practically only safe, in our own or each other's bedrooms. Indeed any port was precious in a storm. By the time that the boy and I had been led, like stalled oxen, through a long series of living-rooms, I, knowing that the rightful inhabitants were panting in wardrobes, my nerves were shattered. I admired everything, voluably but hastily, and broke into fireworks of adjectives, always edging a little nearer to the exit. Though not, I regret to say, invariably aided by the boy, he indeed seemed to find an impish pleasure in my discomforture. During the round I was dimly conscious that the entire staff of servants, most of the maids, and embarrassingly beautiful, flitted after us like the ghosts who accompanied Dante and his guide on their tour of the seven circles. As at last we returned to the square entrance hall. They melted out of sight, still like shadows. And I had a final moment of extreme anguish. When at the door the housekeeper refused the ten francs I attempted to press into her haughty Italian palm. No more afternoon calls on Chateau from me after that experience, I gasped. When we were safely seated in the home-like vehicle which I had not sufficiently appreciated before. Oh, I shall be disappointed if you won't go with me to the Chateau of Saint-Pierre, which we saw in the photograph. That quaint mass of towers and pinnacles, on the very top of a peaked rock, said the boy. I've been looking forward to it more than to anything else, but I shan't have the courage to do it alone. Courage, I echoed, after the brazen way in which you stalked through the scattered belongings of the family at Ima View, you would stop at nothing. In other words, I suppose you think me a typical Yankee boy. But I really was nervous, and inclined to apologize to somebody for being alive. That's why I can't go through another such ordeal without company. Yet I wouldn't miss this eleventh-century castle, or a bag of your English sovereigns. If only it had been left alone and not restored, I groaned. In that case we should meet no one but bats. We? Then you will go with me? I suppose so, I sighed. It can't add more than a dozen gray hairs. And what are they among so many? A few kilometers further on we reached the Bazaar Montaguele, from which sprouted a still more bizarre chateau. From our low level it was impossible to tell where the rock stopped and where the castle began, so deftly had man seized every point of vantage offered by nature, and points they literally were. The ascent from the road to the chateau was much like climbing a fire escape to the top of a New York skyscraper. But we earned the right to cry Excelsior, at last. Had we not by that moment been speechless, history now repeated itself. I rang. The castle gate was opened, but this time by a major domo, who had already in some marvelous way learned that strangers might be expected. Never was so appallingly hospitable a man. And I trusted that even the boy suffered from his kindness. Madame La Baronne, who was away for the afternoon, would chide him if guests were allowed to leave her house without refreshment. Eat we must, and drink we must, in the beautiful hall evidently used as a sitting-room by the absent chateau. Her wine and her cakes were served on an ancient silver tray, almost as old as the family traditions. And it was not until we had done to both such justice as the major domo thought fair, that he would consent to let us go further. The house was really of superlative interest, though spoiled here and there by eccentric modern decoration. Much of the window-glass had remained intact through centuries. The walls were twelve feet thick, the oak-beam ceilings magnificent. And the secret stairways and rooms in the thickness of the walls bewildering. But when our conductor began leading us into the bedrooms, in daily use by the ladies of the castle, my gorge rose. This is awful, I said. I can't go on. What if Madame La Baronne returns and finds a strange man and a boy in her bedroom? Good heavens! Now he's opening the door of the bath. We must go on, whispered the boy, convulsed with silent laughter. If we don't, the major domo won't understand our scruples. He'll think we're tired and don't appreciate the castle. It would never do to hurt his feelings when he has been so kind. To the bitter end, then, I answered desperately. And no sooner were the words out of my mouth than the bitter end came. It consisted of a collision with the Baronne's dressing-jacket, which hung from a hook and tapped me on the shoulder with one empty frilled sleeve in soft admonition. I could bear no more. One must draw the line somewhere. And I drew the line at intruding upon ladies' dressing-jackets in their most sacred fastnesses. If I had been a woman, my pent-up emotion at this moment would have culminated in hysterics. But being a man, I merely bolted, trembling as I fled, over my absent hostess' bedroom slippers. I scuttled down a winding flight of tower stairs, broke incontinently into a lighted region which turned out to be a kitchen, startled the cook, apologized incoherently, and somehow found myself, like Alice in Wonderland, back in the Great Entrance Hall. There, starting at every sound, lest a returning family party should catch me lurking. I awaited the boy. We left, finally showering franks and compliments. But I crawled out a decrepit wreck, and refused pitilessly to do more than view the exterior of other chateau. It was evening when we saw our White Hotel once more, and a haze of starlight dusted the sky and all the blue distance with silver powder. CHAPTER XIV And then they came to the turnstile of night. Rudyard Kipling. This was to be our last night at Aosta. Perhaps our last night together. For the boy's plans kept his name company in some secret hidey-hole of his mind. As for the third time we dined on the logia, before the rising of the moon, we drifted into talk of intimate things. It was I who began it. I harked back to the broken conversation, which had first made us friends, and to his chance sketch of Helen Blamtalk and her type. In that connection I ventured to bring up the subject of his sister. But you said about her disillusionment. Interested me very much, I told him. You see, I've just come through and experienced something like it myself. Do you mind talking about her? Not in this place, and this mood. And to you, he answered. But first, what disillusioned you? Disappointment in someone I cared for, and believed in. It was the same with my sister. Poor princess. Yes, poor princess. Was it a man-friend who disappointed you? A woman. The old story. As a matter of fact, she threw me over because another fellow had a lot more money than I. Horrid creature. Oh, just an ordinary, conventional, well- brought-up girl. Now you see I have as much right to a grudge against women as your sister, the princess, has against men. But I don't believe the girl could have been as cruel to you as this man I'm thinking of was to her. They'd known each other for years, since childhood. He used to call her his little sweetheart. When she was ten and he was fifteen, how was she to dream that even when he was a boy he didn't really like her better than other little girls, that already he was making calculations about her money? She thought he was different from the others, that he cared for herself. They were engaged. The bridesmaids asked, the true so ready, the invitations out for the wedding, and then, one night she overheard a conversation between him and a cousin of his, who was to be one of her bridesmaids, only a few words, but they told everything. It was the other girl he loved, and had always loved. But he was poor and so, well, you can guess the rest. My sister broke off her engagement the next day, though the man went on his knees to her, and vowed he had been mad. Then she left home at once, and soon she was taken very ill. She loved that workless scoundrel so much. I don't know. I don't think she knows. It was the destruction of an ideal which was terrible. She had clung to it. She had said to herself, Many men may be false, and mercenary, and unscrupulous, but this one is true. Suddenly he had ceased to exist for her. She stood alone in the world, in the dark. Except for you. Except for me and a few friends, one girl especially, who was heavenly to her, but the dearest girlfriend can't make up for the loss of trust in a lover. That's true. By Jove I thought I had been roughly used, but it's nothing to this. I feel as if I knew your sister somehow. I wonder since you and she are such pals that you can bear to leave her. She wanted to be alone. She said she didn't feel at home in life any more, and it made her restless to be with anyone who knew her trouble, anyone who pitied her. I was ill too, from sympathy I suppose, and she thought a tramp like this would do me good. So it has. Being close to nature, especially among mountains, as I've been for weeks now, makes one's troubles, and even one's sister's troubles, seem small. You are young to feel that. My soul isn't as young as my body. Maybe that's why nature is so much to me. I am more alive when I'm away from big towns. Sunrises and sunsets are more important than the rising and falling of money markets. They, and the wind in the trees, what things they say to you. You can't explain. You can only feel. And when you have felt, when you have heard color and seen sounds, you are never quite the same, quite as sad again. I mean if you have been sad. I've said all that, precisely that, to myself lately, I exclaimed, forgetting that I was a man talking to a child. The strange little person whom I had apostrophized as Brat seemed not only an equal, but a superior. I found myself intensely interested in him, and all that concerned him. Odd that you too should have thought that thing about color and sound. This evening blue, for instance. Do you hear the music of it? Yes, I'm not sure it isn't that which has made me answer your questions. But now let's talk of something else. Or better still, let's not talk at all for a while. We were silent, and I wondered if the boy's thoughts ran with mine, or if he had closed and locked the secret door in his brain and listened dreamily to the sweet evening voices of this valley of musical bells. Suddenly into the many sounds of the silence broke a loud and jarring note, the trampling of men's feet and horse's hoofs, loud laughter and the jingling of accoutrements. We looked over the balustrade to see a battalion of soldiers marching at ease, on their way back from some mountain maneuvers, and as we gazed down they stared up, a young fellow shouting to the boy that he had better join them. It's like life calling one back, said the strange child. I suppose one must always go on, somewhere else. And we, we must go on, though it is sweet here. It was what I was thinking of just now, I answered. Are we to part company? The boy laughed. An odd little laugh. Why, that depends, said he abruptly. On where you are going? I've planned to walk back over the St. Bernard to Martigny, and so by way of the tetnoir to Chamonix. That name, Chamonix, has always been to my ears as Stevenson says, like the horns of Elfland or Crimson Lake. I want to come face to face with Mont Blanc, of which I've only seen a far off mirage, long ago when I was a little chap at Geneva. What are your plans? If I ever had any, I've forgotten them, said I. Look here, little pal. Shall we join forces as far as, as far as... The turnstile, he finished, my broken sentence. Where is the turnstile? At the place, whatever it may be, where we get tired of each other, isn't that what you meant? According to my present views, that place might be at the other end of the world. You must remember, it was never I who tried to get away from you. At the canteen it deproats, I... Don't let's remember to that time. Then I didn't know that you were you. That makes all the difference. You looked as if you might be nice, but I've learned not to trust first impressions, especially of men, grown-up men. There are such lots of people one drifts across who are not real people at all, but just shells, with little rattling nuts of dull imitation ideas inside, taken from newspapers or borrowed from their friends. Fancy what it would be to see glorious places with such a companion. It would drive me mad. I determined not to make acquaintances on this trip, but you, why I feel now as if it would be almost insulting you, to call you an acquaintance. We are, oh, I'll take your word, we're pals, and something big that's overall meant us to be pals. I don't mind telling you, man, that I should miss you if we parted now. We won't part, I said quickly. We'll jog along together. Have a cigarette? I'm going to smoke a pipe, because I feel contented. Between puffs of that pipe, an instrument which I strongly but vainly recommended to the boy. I told him of my night drive over the Senn-Goddard, as it was his whim to consider names of no importance. I did not mention that of Jack and Molly Winston, but spoke of them merely as my friends. Could we do the St. Bernard at night? He asked eagerly. Yes, we could, if we saved ourselves by driving up from here to Saint-Rémy, after Dejeuner. Otherwise it would mean being on foot all day and all night, too. We could send Joseph, in a centena, and the animals on very early tomorrow morning, to the hospice, where they might rest till evening. The good monks would give us a meal of some sort about six, and at seven we could leave the hospice. There would be an interval of starry darkness, and then we should have the full moon. It would be like finding out wonderful new qualities in your friends, which you never guessed they had. Thus the boy, and a few moments later the details of our journey were arranged. Joseph and innocent Tina were interrupted in the midst of ardent attempts to convert each other, to be told what was in store for them. They did not appear averse to the arrangement, but they did not be told what was in store for them. They did not appear averse to the arrangement. For a slight pout of the young women's hardly counted, there was no doubt that a journey adieu would offer infinite opportunities for religious disputation. As were the little pal and me, we carried out the first part of our program to the letter. Two barrel-shaped nags, instead of one, took us to San Remy, the little mountain village whose men are exempt from conscription, and called poetically yet literally, soldiers of the snow, further up the jeweled way, our little Victoria could not venture, and we trod the steep path side by side, the boy stepping out bravely, the top of his Panama on a level with my ear. Some magnetic cord of communication between his brain and mine telegraphed back and forth, without personal intervention on either part, my keen enjoyment of the scene, and his. We did not talk much, but each knew what the other was feeling. Most people disappoint you by their lack of capacity to enjoy nature, in moments which are superlative to you, moments which alone would repay you for the whole trouble of living through blank years, but this boy's spirit responded to beauty, up to an extreme point which was highly satisfactory. I saw it in the exaltation on his little sunburned face. Joseph and Innocentina were ostentatiously delighted to greet us at the hospice. They and the animals had had their evening meal, and were ready to start when we wished. We went to the refectory and dined in company with many persons of many nationalities, who had just arrived from the Swiss and Italian valleys. Some of them manipulated their food strangely, as I had noticed here before, and boy confided to me his opinion that it was a pity human beings were still obliged to eat with their mouths, like the lower animals. It's a disgrace to one's face, which ought to be exclusively for better things. It's really too primitive, this penny in the slot sort of arrangement. There ought to be a tiny trap door in one's chest somewhere, so that one could just slip food in unobtrusively, had a meal, and go on talking and laughing as if nothing had happened. We were not long in dining, but by the time we came out again into the biting cold, late afternoon had changed to early evening. It was sunset. The great mountain shapes of glittering red gold were clear as the profiles of goddesses against a sky of rose. One, the grandest goddess of all, wore on her proud head a crown of snow, which sparkled with diamond coruscations. Rainbow tinted in the pink light. Below her golden forehead hovered a thin cloud veil of pale ilac, and we had gone a long way down the mountain, before the ineffable color burned to ashes of rose. Then darkness caught and engulfed us. In the valley of death, the rushing of the river in its ravine was like the voice of night, not a separate sound at all, for hearing it was to hear the silence. By and by we grew conscious of a faint gradual revealing of the mountain tops, which for a time had been black jagged pieces cut out from the spangled fabric of a starry sky. A ripple of pearly light wavered over them, like a reflection of the unseen river mirrored for the lady of Shalott. It was a strange living light beating with a visible pulse, and it slowly grew until its white radiance had extinguished the individual lamps of the stars. Waterfalls flashed out of darkness, like white laughing nymphs, flinging off black masks and dominoes. Silver goblets and diamond necklaces were flung into the river bed, and vanished forever with a mystic gleam. If there's a heaven, can there be anything in it better than this little pal? I asked. There can be God, he said. I'm a pagan, sometimes in the sun, but never on a night like this. Then one knows things one isn't sure of at other times. Why, I suppose there isn't really a world at all. God is simply thinking of these things, and of us. So we and they seem to be. We are his thoughts. The mountain, and the river, and the wildflowers are his thoughts. It's just as if an author writes a story. In the story, all the people and the things which concern them are real. But you close the volume, and they simply don't exist. Only God doesn't close the volume, I think, until the next is ready. I wonder whether we'll both come into the next story. Who knows. Perhaps you'll wander into one story, and I'll get lost in another. A certain sadness fell upon me, born partly of our talk, partly of the poignant beauty of the night. We came to the canteen of the proats, fast asleep in its lonely valley. And so we went on and on, our souls tuned to music and poetry by the song of the stars and the beauty of the night. But slowly a change stole over us. For a long time I was only dimly conscious of it, in a puzzled way, in myself. Why was it that my spirit stood no longer on the heights? Why did the moonlight look cold and metallic? Why had the rushing sound of the river got on my nerves? Like the monotonous crying of a fretful child. Why did our frequent silences no longer tingle with a meaning, which there was no need to express in words? Why was my brain empty of impressions as a squeezed sponge of water? Why, in fact, though everything was outwardly the same, why was all, in reality, different? Oh, man, I'm so hungry, side boy. By Jove, that's what's been the matter with me this last half hour, and I didn't know it, said I. I feel as if I could form a hollow square all by myself. I only wish there was something to form it round. But there isn't, except a few chocolate creams I bought in Aosta, because I respected their old age poor things. Perhaps even decrepit chocolates are better than nothing. Let's give them honourable burial, unless you want them all to yourself, as you did the chicken at Dejeuner, and the room at the Continent to Proats. Oh, you must have thought I was selfish. But truly, I don't think I am. It wasn't that. Only, I can't explain. You needn't, said I. I was kidding. A most appropriate treatment for a man of your size. What I want is food, not explanations. The chocolates, which proved to be eighteen in number, were fairly divided, boy refusing to accept more than his half. We each ate one with distaste, because the celebrated right spot was not to be pacified by unsuitable sacrifices, but presently it relented and demanded more. Appeased for the moment, the spot allowed us to proceed, but incredibly soon it began again to clamour. We ate several more chocolates, though our gorge rose against them as a means of refreshment. Still, Borg-Sanpierre, where we were sooner or later to sleep, was far away, and for the third time we were driven to chocolate. It was a loathsome business, eating the remaining morsels of our supply, and we felt that the very name of the food would in future be abhorrent to us. The night had become unfriendly, the pass of Via Dolorosa, and the last drop was poured into our cup of misery at Borg-Sanpierre. We had wired from the hospice for rooms, and expected to find the little Dejeunerre cheerfully lighted. The plump landlady amusingly surprised to see the guests who had lately brought dissension into her house, returning peaceably together. But the roadside inn was asleep like a comfortable white goose with its head under its wing. Not a gleam in any window, saved the bleak glint of moonlight on glass. Joseph and Innocentina were behind us with their charges, whose stored crusts of bread they had probably shared. I knocked at the door. No responsive sound from within. I pounded with my walking-stick. A thin imp of echo mocked us, and my worst passions roused by this inhospitality falling on top of nine chocolate creams. I almost beat the door down. Two sleepy eyelid windows flew up, and a moment later a little servant who had served me the other afternoon appeared at the door like a frightened rabbit at bay. I demanded the wherefore of this reception. I demanded rooms and food and reparation. What, was I the mister who had telegraphed from the hospice? But Madame had answered that she had not a room in the house. The carriage of a large party of very high nobility had broken down late in the afternoon, and they were remaining for the night, until the damage could be repaired. What to do? But there was nothing, unless Les Monsieur would sleep one on the sofa, the other on the floor, in the room of the Deschanais. I suppose we'll have to put up with that accommodation, then. What do you say, boy? I asked. I would rather go on, he replied, in a tone of misery, tempered by desperate resignation, as if he had been giving orders for his own funeral. Go on where? I inquired grimly. I don't know. Anywhere. Anywhere means, in this instance, the open road. Well, I'm not so very cold, are you? And I'm sure they'll give us a little bread and cheese here. I think it would be wiser to stop, said I. We might see the ghost of Napoleon eating the Deschanais. Isn't that an inducement? Not enough. I assure you that I don't snore or howl in my sleep, and you could have the sofa to curl up on. Yes, but I'd rather go on. You and Joseph can stop. Innocentina and I will be all right. I was annoyed with the child. I felt that he fully deserved to be taken at his word, and deserted on the pass. But I had not the heart to punish him. If anything should happen to the poor babe in the wood, I would never forgive myself, and besides, it would have been hopeless to seek sleep with visions of disaster to this little pal of mine, painting my brain red. Of course I won't do anything of the kind, I said crossly. If one party goes on, both will go on. I then snappishly ordered food of some sort. Any sort, except chocolate. And having, after a blank interval, obtained enough bread, cheese, and ham for at least ten persons, I divided the rations with Joseph and Innocentina, who had now come up. We had a short halt for rest and refreshment, taken simultaneously, and presently set out again, with a vague idea of plodding on as far as Orsierre. The boy refused so obstinately to ride his donkey. I believed because I must go on foot, that Innocentina, warded, did frightful execution among her favorite saints. Joseph reproved her. She retorted by calling him a black heretic, envowing that she had a right to talk as she pleased to her own saints. It was not his affair. Thus it was that our chastened cavalcade left the Dégionné. After this, our journey was punctuated by frequent pauses. The donkeys were tired. Everybody was cross. But the calm indifference of the glorious night was as irritating as must have been the icily regular, splendidly null perfection of Maud herself. Only the boy kept up any pretense of spirits, and I knew well that his counterfeited buoyancy was merely to distract attention from guilt. If it had not been for him, we should have been tucked away in some corner or other of the Dégionné. No doubt he would have dropped. Had he not feared, and I told you so. We were still some miles on the wrong side of Orcière, when Innocentina came running up from behind, exclaiming that a dreadful thing, an appalling thing, had happened. No, no, not an accident to Joseph Marcos. A trouble far worse than that. Nothing to the moulay-poulaison. Ah, but how could she break the news? It was that in some way, some mad, magical way only to be accounted for by the intervention of evil spirits, probably attracted by the heretic presence of Joseph. The rucksack containing the fitted bag had disappeared. If she were to be killed for it, she, Innocentina, could not tell how this great calamity had occurred. I thought that after such an alarming preface, the boy would laugh when the mountain had brought forth its mouse, but he did no such thing. His little face looked anxious and forlorn in the white moonlight, and all for a mere bag, which was an absurd article of luggage, at best, for an excursion such as his. I can't lose it, he said. There are things in it which I wouldn't have anyone see, which I couldn't replace. Your sister the Princess will buy you another. I tried to console him. This is her bag. She would feel dreadfully a bit were gone. Besides, my diary notes, or the book I want to write are in it. I would give a thousand dollars to get it again. Or more. I shall have to go back. No, you won't, I said. As to that, I shall put my foot down. If anyone goes, nobody shall go but myself. I won't have it. I—and I won't have you go, if I'm forced to snatch you up and put you in my pocket. When I get you safely to Orsier, I don't mind a bit. No, no, you needn't say it. If we must go on to Orsier, I'll pay someone to come back from there and search. Why shouldn't I be the one? I'm not tired, only rather cross. And for all you know, I may be in urgent need of the reward you mean to offer. You must be satisfied with your virtue. I have my own reasons. And—and I suppose I'm my own master. By Job I exclaimed, laughing. Eaton would have done you a lot of good. You would have had some of your girly whims knocked out of you there, my kid. I wonder if that would have done me good. It isn't too late to try. You haven't passed the age. I daresay travelling with you will have much the same effect, said the boy. Suddenly become an imp again. I think I'll just sample that experiment first. But I do want my bag. Dash your bag. I'll lend you some night-things out of the mule-pack. The lost treasure is sure to turn up again, like all bad pennies, to-morrow. We reached Orsier and roused the people of the inn with comparative ease. They could give us accommodation, but the man of the house looked dubious when he heard that a runner must at once be found to search for a travelling bag lost nobody knew where. Tomorrow morning, when it is light, he began. But boy cut him short. Tomorrow morning may be too late. I will give five thousand francs to whoever finds my bag, and brings it back with everything in it undisturbed. The man opened his eyes wide, and I formed my lips into a silent whistle. I thought the boy exceedingly foolish to name such a reward, when the bag and its gold fittings could not have been worth more than a hundred pounds, and an offer of three hundred francs would have been ample. What could the strange little person have in his precious bag, which he valued as the immediate jewel of his soul? And why would he not let me be the one to find it? Thus keeping his five thousand francs in his pocket, he had his reasons for soothe, however it was not my business. It must have been after three o'clock, by the time I fell asleep in a queer little room, where you had but to sit up in bed and stretch out your arm, to reach anything you wanted. I dreamed of journeying through the night with the boy, but I forgot his lost bag. Nor when I waked in full morning light did I recall its tragic disappearance. I found that it was nearly eight, and bounded out of bed, performing my toilet with maimed rights, since baths were not comio foe at Orciere. The kid will be asleep still, I'll bet, I said to myself. But looking out of the window at that moment, I saw him in conversation with Joseph Innocentina, and apparently half the inhabitants of the village. I hurried down and learned that the bag, still a lost bag, had set all Orciere on fire with excitement. The searchers had returned empty-handed, having gone back as far as the canteen at Proats, and on the oath of Innocentina, more than once alas. The rucksack and its contents had been secure on the gray back of Suri, when we passed the canteen. Desolate as was the great St. Bernard at night. Late as had been the hour when the bag vanished. Evidently someone had found and gone off with it. Nevertheless many young persons of both sexes were eager to try their luck in a second quest. The boy, who had been up for hours, had it in mind to wait at Orciere until his treasure should be found, or hope abandoned. But I suggested going on at once to Martinie. There we could have hand-bills printed, offering a large reward, and these could be distributed over the country. The d'Légence drivers would help in the work, and we could also advertise in a local paper. To this proposal the little pal consented, and we started off again, upon our way, a sadder if not a wiser party. It was late afternoon when we straggled into Martinie. Now are far away Alpine Rome, with its crumbling towers and castles. Our remote heights, where a gray monastery was ever mirrored in the blue eye of the mountain lake, seemed like phases of a dream. Friends of the boys, nameless to me, like all links with his outside life, had stopped lightly at the hotel where Molly, Jack, and I had stayed. He therefore proposed to go to the same house, and this jumped with my inclination, for the hotel had a cheerful and home-like individuality which I liked, pitying the little pal's distress. Though I chaffed him for it, I undertook the business of getting out the hand-bills I had suggested, and arranging for an advertisement in a paper with a local circulation. I had to visit the post office, engaging in a long discussion with the officials who controlled the diligence. And the business occupied more than an hour. In mercy to boy, I had not delayed for any selfish attention to personal comfort, and trapping back through an inch of white dust to the hotel. I was still as travel-worn as on our arrival in the town nearly two hours ago. I had forbidden the tired child to accompany me, and by this time he would no doubt be refreshed with a bath and a change of clothing, as fortunately not all his personal belongings had been contained in the ill-fated bag. He would be impatiently waiting for me at the hotel door, perhaps, and I quickened my steps in haste to give him details of my doings. Entering the garden, I had to bound on to the grass to escape being run over by a pair of horses, prancing round the curve at my back. I turned with a basilisk glare intended for the coachman, but instead met the astonished gaze of the very last eyes I could possibly have expected. My glare melted into a smile, but not one of my best, though the eyes which called it forth were alluringly beautiful. Contessa, I exclaimed, is this you or your astral body? Lord Lane, the lovely lady of the eyes, responded, but no, it is not possible. Just as I was about to protest that it was not only possible, but certain, I caught sight of the boy in the doorway, as at the Contessa's word the carriage came to a sudden halt, reaching out to me two little grey suede hands. The slim figure at the door drew back a step, as if involuntarily, but there was no getting round it. My Italian beauty had made boy a present of my name, whether he wanted it or not. CHAPTER XV Enter the Contessa. She was the smallest lady alive, made in a piece of nature's madness, too small almost for the life and gladness that overfilled her. Robert Browning. Here was a case of Mohammed en route to pay his respects to the mountain, being met halfway by the object of his pilgrimage, though to liken the Contessa de Ravello to a mountain is perhaps to brutalize a poetic license. She is a fairy of a woman, a pocket Venus, Gaeta is her name, and her sponsors in baptism must have been endowed with prophetic souls, for she is the very spirit of irresponsible childlike gaity, not that she has a sense of humor. There is all the difference in the world between a sense of humor and a sense of fun, and truth to tell, the Contessa had no more humor than a frolic some kitten. She had always been in a frolic of some sort when I had known her in Davos, whether she had gone because she thought it would be what you call a lark, and she was in a frolic now, judging by her merry laughter when she saw me. Her great wine-brown eyes were laughing, her full cupid lips were laughing, and more than all, the two deep round dimples in the olive cheeks were laughing. Even the little rings of black hair on her low forehead seemed to quiver with murk, as her head moved with quick bird-like gestures. She was dressed all in gray, and the cut steel buttons on her dress twinkled as if they, too, were in the joke. "'Fancy meeting you here, of all places,' she said, in her pretty English, lisping but correct. It is a good gift from the saints. We have had such stupid adventures, and we have been so bored. We were evidently the handsome, slightly moustached woman of thirty-five, and the thin, darkly-door man of fifty, who were with the Contessa in the carriage. And a moment later she had introduced me to the Baron and Baronessa, denivoli. I echoed the name with some interest. Have I the pleasure of meeting the inventor of the new airship, which is so much talked about?' I asked. "'That is my brother Paolo,' replied the Baron, unbending slightly. "'He will join us later,' added the Baronessa, with a quick look at the pretty and rich little widow, which betrayed to me a secret. She then turned a dark, disapproving gaze upon me, which told another, and I could have laughed aloud. They want to novel my poor little Contessa, for brother Aronaut, and they don't countenance chance meetings with strange young men,' I said to myself, greatly amused. If they can see through the dust and suspect in me a possible rival for the absent, they have sharp eyes, or keen imaginations, and I may be in for a little fun. We were at the hotel door, and I was allowed to help the Contessa out, though the elder lady preferred the aid of the concierge, for the moment Gaeta had forgotten the claims of her companions and remembered only mine, it is a butterfly way of hers to forget easily, and flutter with delight in a new corner of the garden, just because it is new. You are staying here? How nice," she exclaimed, without giving me time to answer. We should have arrived last night, but we had an accident to our carriage, a broken wheel. It was coming down from the hospice of St. Bernard, which we had been to visit. Oh, not to please me. Do not think it. It was the Baron here, in dim ages his people and the saint were cousins, though the idea of a saint having cousins seems actually sacrilegious, doesn't it? I do not love monks. I only respect them, which is so disagreeable. But the Baron took us. Dio Mio, I have no warm blood left. It was frozen up there, and then, that our carriage should have broken down at a little place, the wrong end of nowhere. Borgs and something. We had to stop all night. Fancy me without my maid, who was to meet me here. I do not know if my dress is not on wrong side before. Later we all have to go on to Chamonix, and then to Aix-les-Bann. I've taken a villa there for a month. You must come and see me. Thus she chattered on as we entered the hotel, and then suddenly her bright eyes fell upon the boy, who had retired near the stairway. There he stood, with a book in his hand, and an unwanted color in his brown cheeks, glowing red under the strange blue jewels of his eyes. What a divine boy, the Countess half whispered to me, not taking her gaze from him. He is exactly like a wonderful painting by some old master of my own dear country. What eyes! They are better and bigger sapphires than any I own, though I have some famous ones. And how strange they are, looking out of his brown face, from under such black lashes too. Oh, a picture, certainly. He is not like a modern every-day boy at all. He can't be English, of that I'm sure. And yet— He is American, I said, when she paused thoughtfully, the boy at his distance, reading or pretending to read as he stood, but you are right, he is very far from being an every-day boy. You know him, then? We've been travelling companions for days, and have got to be tremendous pals. How old is he, asked the Countess a deep glow of interest and curiosity kindling in her warm brown eyes? I don't know. He has talked freely about himself only once or twice, though we've discussed together most other subjects under the sun. How deliciously mysterious! Mysterious, yes, that's the word for him. He has mysterious eyes. A mysterious face. There is a shadow upon it. That is part of the fascination, is it not? I am sure he is fascinating. Extraordinarily so. I have never met anyone at all like him. He might be a boy tasso, but he has suffered. He is not a child any more, though his face is smooth as mine. He must be eighteen or nineteen? I should give him less, though he has read and thought a tremendous lot for a boy. Men are not judges of age, thank heaven. Women are. I will have it that your friend is nineteen. I should be too silly to take an interest in him were he less, if it were not motherly, and that wouldn't be entertaining. You see, I am already twenty-two. You look eighteen, I said, and it was true. Widow as she was it was not possible to think of the Contessa as a responsible grown woman. I told you that you were no judge of age. I was married at eighteen, a widow at nineteen, dio mio, but it all seems a long time ago already. Lord Lane, you must introduce me to your friend, the boy. Here was a dilemma, but I got out of it by telling the truth, which is usually, in the end, the best policy. Many wise opinions to the contrary notwithstanding. You will laugh, I said, but I don't know his name. Not possible. True, nevertheless, like most things that seem impossible. Nor does he know mine, unless he heard you speak it driving up to the hotel. He was at the door. Men are extraordinary, but introduce him. You can manage somehow. It's not his name I care for. It is those eyes. I shall invite him to come and see me in aches. Please bring him to me now. The Baron is arranging about our rooms, and there is sure to be a misunderstanding of some sort, as we had engaged for last night and did not come. The Baronessa? Oh, never mind. She had better listen to her husband. She is my friend, and is soon to be my guest, but she has got upon my nerves today. Thus bidden I could do no less than walk away down the hall to where the boy stood with his book, leaning against the baluster. I've done all I could about the bag, I said. The people in the post office seemed hopeful that the big reward would do the trick. Thank you. You are very good, he returned. Something in his tone made me look at him closely. There was a change in him, though for my life I could not have told what it was or why it had come. There was ice in his voice, though I had spent nearly two dusty unwashed hours in his service, while he refreshed himself at pleasure. I hope it will be all right. I went on, rather heavily. Look here, that pretty little fairy would like to know you. She's the Contessa di Revello. Come along and be introduced. The boy flung up his head, his blue eyes flashing. Why, am I to be dragged at her chariot wheels? He demanded. Oh, rot, my child, don't put on heirs. Men twice your age would snatch at such a chance. I can't tell what I may be capable of when I'm twice my age. It's difficult enough to know myself now. But I know... Come on, do. Like the dear little old pal you really are, I cut in. You don't want to put me in a false position, do you? Besides, I'd like particularly to get your opinion on the Contessa. I may have to ask your advice about something connected with her later. I spedched him, though with not too good a grace. You don't know my name, he said, with a return of impishness, as we walked together towards the Contessa. I think that you have the advantage of me in that way now. If you call it an advantage, I had a presentiment that you weren't plain mister, so I'm not surprised. You may tell your countess that my name is Lawrence. Christian Name or Pagan Name Make the Christian Name Roy In another moment I was introducing Mr. Roy Lawrence to the Contessa de Revello, and as they stood eyeing each other, the fairy Gata, pulsing with coquetry through all her hot-blooded Italian veins, the boy aloof and critical, I was struck with a picture that the two figures made. The boy had three or four inches more of height than the Contessa, and looked almost tall beside her, though I had thought of him as small. Her round dimpled face seemed no older than his oval brown one, in this moment of his gravity, and the haughty air of a young prince which he wore now, consciously or unconsciously, had a certain provoking charm, for a spoiled beauty used to conquest. The big blue stars which lit his face expressed a resolve not to yield to any blandishment, and this no doubt peaked Gata, before whom all the boys and youths at Davos had gone down like grass before the scythe. Helen Blantok came after she had left the place, otherwise she might have had to fight for her rights as queen. But as it was, she had been without rivals, and probably had known few dangerous ones elsewhere. Never had I seen her take such real pains to be charming to a grown man, as she took with this silent boy, during the few moments that her friends spent in wrestling with the landlord. What lamps she lit in the windows of her eyes, suddenly raising their curtains on dazzling glances. What rosy flags she hung out in his honor, on dimpled cheeks. What rich display of pearls and coral her cupid mouth gave him. But all in vain, so far as any change in his cold young face showed. I had seen it warm for a gleam of light on the wing of a swooping bird, or an effect of cloud shadow on a mountain, as it would not warm for this galaxy of bewitchments. And his quiet civility was but a sharper pinprick I should fancy, to a woman's vanity. The little scene was not long in playing, however. Soon the baronessa swept to her friend's side and bore her away, like a large steam-tug making off against wind and tide, with a dainty sailing-yacht. Ignoring the subject of the lady, Boyd began questioning me about the business of the bag, thanking me again more cordially for what I had done, when I had answered. I must have a bath and change now, said I at last. At what time shall we dine? We. You will be dining with your new friend. She's an old friend, if one counts by time of acquaintance. And charming, as you've seen. Still, we're rather tired, perhaps, and not up to dinner-pitch. I'm not sure but we'd get on better alone together, you and I. I've taken a private sitting-room, and I'm going to dine there. Will you have me with you? If you like. It will be a good opportunity to get your advice. The boy did not answer, but when we sat at table and had talked for a while of indifferent things, he said abruptly, What were you going to ask me? Your advice as to whether it would be well to fall in love with a little Contessa. Has she money? Hang it all. Do you think I'm the kind of man to want a woman for her money? I've known you about six days. Don't hedge. Can't six days tell you as much as six years? Such six days as we've had. Yes, it's true. I would stake a good deal that you're not that kind of man. I don't know why I said it. Something hateful made me. The Contessa is very pretty. Could you fall in love with her? It would be an interesting experiment to try. If you think so, you must already have begun. No, not yet. I assure you I have an open mind. But it's an odd coincidence meeting her like this. I was making the fact that she has a house at Monte Carlo. An excuse for going down there sooner or later, as an end to my journey. Now she is to be in Chamonix, and she intends to invite us both, it seems, to visit her in Ex-Leban, where she has taken a villa. The boy looked at me suddenly, with a slight start. She is going to Chamonix, so she says. And she will invite you to visit her at her villa in Ex-Leban? You, too. You said yesterday you wanted to go to Ex, as you had never been, and we planned an expedition by the mule path up Mont-Rivard. I know, but, but would you visit the Contessa? We might amuse ourselves. She would be well chaperoned, no doubt by the Baronessa. There is a brother of the barons in the background. Probably he'll turn up at Ex. Certainly he will, if his relatives have any control over his action. He's no other, it turns out, than Paolo D'Nivoli, the young Italian whose airship invention has been made a fuss about lately. It would be rather a joke to try and cut him out with the Contessa, if one could. Oh, cut him out! The boy seemed thoughtful, though you aren't in love with her. Yes. I see. Will you go, if I do? That is, if she really asks us. I expected him to flash out a refusal, but he brooded under a deep shadow of eyelashes for a while, looking half cross, half mischievous, and finally said, I'll think it over.