Nobody Part 126

"Don't unpractically catch cold, while you are studying natural developement."

"I am perfectly warm. I think it is great fun to be kept here over night. Such a nice little place as it is, and such a nice little hostess. Do you notice how neat everything is? O Philip!--here is somebody else coming!"

"Coming to the inn?"

"Yes. O, I'm afraid so. Here's one of these original little carriages crawling along, and it has stopped, and the people are getting out.

Poor storm-stayed people, like ourselves."

"They will come to a fire, which we didn't," said Philip, leaving his post now and placing himself at the back of Lois's chair, where he too could see what was going on in front of the house. A queer little vehicle had certainly stopped there, and somebody very much m.u.f.fled had got out, and was now helping a second person to alight, which second person must be a woman; and she was followed by another woman, who alighted with less difficulty and less attention, though she had two or three things to carry.

"I pity women who travel in the Alps with their maids!" said Mr.

Dillwyn.

"Philip, that first one, the gentleman, had a little bit--just a little bit--the air of your friend, Mr. Caruthers. He was so m.u.f.fled up, one could not tell what he was like; but somehow he reminded me of Mr.

Caruthers."

"I thought Tom was _your_ friend?"

"Friend? No. He was an acquain'tance; he was never my friend, I think."

"Then his name raises no tender a.s.sociations in your mind?"

"Why, no!" said Lois, with a gay little laugh. "No, indeed. But I liked him very well at one time; and I--_think_--he liked me."

"Poor Tom!"

"Why do you say that?" Lois asked merrily. "He is not poor; he has married a Dulcimer. I never can hear her name without thinking of Nebuchadnezzar's image! He has forgotten me long ago."

"I see you have forgotten him," said Dillwyn, bending down till his face was very near Lois's.

"How should I not? But I did like him at one time, quite well. I suppose I was flattered by his attentions, which I think were rather marked. And you know, at that time I did not know you."

Lois's voice fell a little; the last sentence being given with a delicate, sweet reserve, which spoke much more than effusion. Philip's answer was mute.

"Besides," said Lois, "he is a sort of man that I never could have liked beyond a certain point. He is a weak character; do you know it, Philip?"

"I know it. I observe, that is the last fault women will forgive in a man."

"Why should they?" said Lois. "What have you, where you have not strength? It is impossible to love where you cannot respect. Or if you love, it is a poor contemptible sort of love."

Philip laughed; and just then the door opened, and the hostess of the inn appeared on the threshhold, with other figures looming dimly behind her. She came in apologizing. More storm-bound travellers had arrived--there was no other room with a fire ready--would monsieur and madame be so gracious and allow the strangers to come in and get warm and dry by their fire? Almost before she had finished her speech the two men had sprung towards each other, and "Tom!"--"Philip DilIwyn!"--had been cried in different tones of surprised greeting.

"Where did you come from?" said Tom, shaking his friend's hand. "What a chance! Here is my wife. Arabella, this is Mr. Dillwyn, whose name you have heard often enough. At the top of this pa.s.s!--"

The lady thus addressed came in behind Tom, throwing off her wrappings, and throwing each, or dropping it as it was taken off, into the hands of her attendant who followed her. She appeared now to be a slim person, of medium height, dressed very handsomely, with an insignificant face, and a quant.i.ty of light hair disposed in a mysterious manner to look like a wig. That is, it looked like nothing natural, and yet could not be resolved by the curious eye into bands or braids or any defined form of fashionable art or artifice. The face looked fretted, and returned Mr. Dillwyn's salutation discontentedly.

Tom's eye meanwhile had wandered, with an unmistakeable air of apprehension, towards the fourth member of the party; and Lois came forward now, giving him a frank greeting, and holding out her hand. Tom bowed very low over it, without saying one word; and Philip noted that his eye shunned Lois's face, and that his own face was all shadowed when he raised it. Mr. Dillwyn put himself in between.

"May I present my wife, Mrs. Caruthers?"

Mrs. Caruthers gave Lois a look, swift and dissatisfied, and turned to the fire, shivering.

"Have we got to stay here?" she asked querulously.

"We couldn't go on, you know," said Tom. "We may be glad of any sort of a shelter. I am afraid we are interfering with your comfort, Philip; but really, we couldn't help it. The storm's awful outside. Mrs.

Caruthers was sure we should be overtaken by an avalanche; and then she was certain there must be a creva.s.se somewhere. I wonder if one can get anything to eat in this place?"

"Make yourself easy; they have promised us dinner, and you shall share with us. What the dinner will be, I cannot say; but we shall not starve; and you see what a fire I have coaxed up for you. Take this chair, Mrs. Caruthers."

The lady sat down and hovered over the fire; and Tom restlessly bustled in and out. Mr. DilIwyn tended the fire, and Lois kept a little in the background. Till, after an uncomfortable interval, the hostess came in, bringing the very simple fare, which was all she had to set before them. Brown bread, and cheese, and coffee, and a common sort of red wine; with a bit of cold salted meat, the precise antecedents of which it was not so easy to divine. The lady by the fire looked on disdainfully, and Tom hastened to supplement things from their own stores. Cold game, white bread, and better wine were produced from somewhere, with hard-boiled eggs and even some fruit. Mrs. Caruthers sat by the fire and looked on; while Tom brought these articles, one after another, and Lois arranged the table. Philip watched her covertly; admired her lithe figure in its neat mountain dress, which he thought became her charmingly; admired the quiet, delicate tact of her whole manner and bearing; the grace with which she acted and spoke, as well as the pretty deftness of her ministrations about the table. She was taking the part of hostess, and doing it with simple dignity; and he was very sorry for Tom. Tom, he observed, would not see her when he could help it. But they had to all gather round the table together and face each other generally.

"This is improper luxury for the mountains," Dillwyn said.

"Mrs. Caruthers thinks it best to be always provided for occasions.

These small houses, you know, they can't give you any but small fare."

"Small fare is good for you!"

"Good for _you_," said Tom,--"all right; but my--Arabella cannot eat things if they are _too_ small. That cheese, now!--"

"It is quite pa.s.sable."

"Where are you going, Philip?"

"Bound for the AEggischhorn, in the first place."

"You are never going up?"

"Why not?" Lois asked, with her bright smile. Tom glanced at her from under his brows, and grew as dark as a thundercloud. _She_ was ministering to Tom's wife in the prettiest way; not a.s.suming anything, and yet acting in a certain sort as mistress of ceremonies. And Mrs.

Caruthers was coming out of her apathy every now and then, and looking at her in a curious attentive way. I dare say it struck Tom hard. For he could not but see that to all her natural sweetness Lois had added now a full measure of the ease and grace which come from the habit of society, and which Lois herself had once admired in the ladies of his family. "Ay, even _they_ wouldn't say she was n.o.body now!" he said to himself bitterly. And Philip, he saw, was so accustomed to this fact, that he took it as a matter of course.

"Where are you going after the AEggischhorn?" he went on, to say something.

"We mean to work our way, by degrees, to Zermatt."

"_We_ are going to Zermatt," Mrs. Caruthers put in blandly. "We might travel in company."

"Can you walk?" asked Philip, smiling.

"Walk!"

"Yes. We do it on foot."

"What for? Pray, pardon me! But are you serious?"

"I am in earnest, if that is what you mean. We do not look upon it in a serious light. It's rather a jollification."

"It is far the pleasantest way, Mrs. Caruthers," Lois added.

"But do you travel without any baggage?"