Running Water Part 10

The fascination of the mountains was upon her. Something new had come into her life that morning which would never fail her to the very end, which would color all her days, however dull, which would give her memories in which to find solace, longings wherewith to plan the future.

This she felt and some of this her friend understood.

"Yes," he said. "You understand the difference it makes to one's whole life. Each year pa.s.ses so quickly looking back and looking forward."

"Yes, I understand," she said.

"You will come back?"

But this time she did not answer at once. She stood looking thoughtfully out over the bridge of the Argentiere. It seemed to Chayne that she was coming slowly to some great decision which would somehow affect all her life. Then she said--and it seemed to him that she had made her decision:

"I do not know. Perhaps I never shall come back."

They turned away and went carefully down the slope. Again her leading guide, who on the return journey went last, was perplexed by that instinct for the mountain side which had surprised him. The technique came to her so naturally. She turned her back to the slope, and thus descended, she knew just the right level at which to drive in the pick of her ax that she might lower herself to the next hole in their ice-ladder.

Finally as they came down the rocks by the great couloir to the glacier, he cried out:

"Ah! Now, mademoiselle, I know who it is you remind me of. I have been watching you. I know now."

She looked up.

"Who is it?"

"An English gentleman I once climbed with for a whole season many years ago. A great climber, mademoiselle! Captain Chayne will know his name.

Gabriel Strood."

"Gabriel Strood!" she cried, and then she laughed. "I too know his name.

You are flattering me, Jean."

But Jean would not admit it.

"I am not, mademoiselle," he insisted. "I do not say you have his skill--how should you? But there are certain movements, certain neat ways of putting the hands and feet. Yes, mademoiselle, you remind me of him."

Sylvia thought no more of his words at the moment. They reached the lateral glacier, descended it and crossed the Glacier d'Argentiere. They found their stone-enc.u.mbered pathway of the morning and at three o'clock stood once more upon the platform in front of the Pavillon de Lognan.

Then she rested for a while, saying very little.

"You are tired?" he said.

"No," she replied. "But this day has made a great difference to me."

Her guides approached her and she said no more upon the point. But Chayne had no doubt that she was referring to that decision which she had taken on the summit of the peak. She stood up to go.

"You stay here to-night?" she said.

"Yes."

"You cross the Col Dolent to-morrow?"

"Yes."

She looked at him quickly and then away.

"You will be careful? In the shadow there?"

"Yes."

She was silent for a moment or two, looking up the glacier toward the Aiguille d'Argentiere.

"I thank you very much for coming with me," and again the humility in her voice, as of one outside the door, touched and hurt him. "I am very grateful," and here a smile lightened her grave face, "and I am rather proud!"

"You came up to Lognan at a good time for me," he answered, as they shook hands. "I shall cross the Col Dolent with a better heart to-morrow."

They shook hands, and he asked:

"Shall I see no more of you?"

"That is as you will," she replied, simply.

"I should like to. In Paris, perhaps, or wherever you are likely to be. I am on leave now for some months."

She thought for a second or two. Then she said:

"If you will give me your address, I will write to you. I think I shall be in England."

"I live in Suss.e.x, on the South Downs."

She took his card, and as she turned away she pointed to the Aiguille d'Argentiere.

"I shall dream of that to-night."

"Surely not," he replied, laughing down to her over the wooden bal.u.s.trade. "You will dream of running water."

She glanced up at him in surprise that he should have remembered this strange quality of hers. Then she turned away and went down to the pine woods and the village of Les Tines.

CHAPTER VIII

SYLVIA PARTS FROM HER MOTHER

Meanwhile Mrs. Thesiger laughed her shrill laugh and chatted noisily in the garden of the hotel. She picnicked on the day of Sylvia's ascent amongst the sham ruins on the road to Sallanches with a few detached idlers of various nationalities.

"Quite, quite charming," she cried, and she rippled with enthusiasm over the artificial lake and the artificial rocks amongst which she seemed so appropriate a figure; and she shrugged her pretty shoulders over the eccentricities of her daughter, who was undoubtedly burning her complexion to the color of brick-dust among those stupid mountains. She came back a trifle flushed in the cool of the afternoon, and in the evening slipped discreetly into the little Cercle at the back of the Casino, where she played baccarat in a company which flattery could hardly have termed doubtful. She was indeed not displeased to be rid of her unsatisfactory daughter for a night and a couple of days.

"Sylvia won't fit in."

Thus for a long time she had been accustomed piteously to complain; and with ever more reason. Less and less did Sylvia fit in with Mrs.

Thesiger's scheme of life. It was not that the girl resisted or complained. Mrs. Thesiger would have understood objections and complaints. She would not have minded them; she could have coped with them. There would have been little scenes, with accusations of ingrat.i.tude, of undutifulness, and Mrs. Thesiger was not averse to the excitement of little scenes. But Sylvia never complained; she maintained a reserve, a mystery which her mother found very uncomfortable. "She has no sympathy," said Mrs. Thesiger. Moreover, she would grow up, and she would grow up in beauty and in freshness. Mrs. Thesiger did her best. She kept her dressed in a style which suited a younger girl, or rather, which would have suited a younger girl had it been less decorative and extreme.

Again Sylvia did not complain. She followed her usual practice and shut her mind to the things which displeased her so completely, that they ceased to trouble her. But Mrs. Thesiger never knew that secret; and often, when in the midst of her chatter she threw a glance at the elaborate figure of her daughter, sitting apart with her lace skirts too short, her heels too high, her hat too big and too fancifully trimmed, she would see her madonna-like face turned toward her, and her dark eyes thoughtfully dwelling upon her. At such times there would come an uncomfortable sensation that she was being weighed and found wanting; or a question would leap in her mind and bring with it fear, and the same question which she had asked herself in the train on the way to Chamonix.