The Dark Tower Part 20

Winn looked past him; he was tired with the long night's strain, and he had no white ideal to be a rapture in his heart. He loved Claire not because she was perfection, but because she was herself. She was faultless to Lionel, but Winn didn't care whether she was faultless or not. He didn't expect perfection or even want it, and he wasn't the man to be satisfied with an ideal; but he wanted, as few men have ever wanted for any women, that Claire should be happy and safe.

"I've told you once," he said; "you might know I shouldn't change. I've got one or two little jobs to see to about Bouncing's funeral. That woman's half a little cat and half an abject fool. Still, you can't help feeling a bit sorry for her. I dare say I can get things done by lunch-time; then I'll drive over the Fluella. I'll put up at the Kulm; but don't bother to write till you've got something settled. I'm not going to mess about saying good-by to people. You can tell Miss Rivers when I'm gone."

"Look here," Lionel urged, "you can't do that; you must say good-by to her properly. She was awfully sick at your not turning up at the ball.

After all, you know, you've seen a lot of her, and she particularly likes you. You can't jump off into s.p.a.ce, as if you were that old chap in the Bible without any beginning or any end!"

Winn stuck his hands in his pockets and looked immovably obstinate.

"I'm d.a.m.ned if I do," he replied. "Why should I? What's the use of saying good-by? The proper thing to do when you're going away is to go.

You needn't linger, mewing about like somebody's pet kitten."

Lionel poured out the whiskey before replying, and pushed a gla.s.s in Winn's direction; then he said:

"Don't be a fool, old chap; you'll have to say good-by to her. You don't want to hurt her feelings."

"What's it to you whether I hurt her feelings or not?" Winn asked savagely.

There was a moment's sharp tension. It dropped at the tone of Lionel's quiet voice.

"It's a great deal to me," he said steadily; "but I know it's not half as much to me as it is to you, old Winn."

"Oh, all right," said Winn after a short pause. "I suppose I'll say it if you think I ought to. Only stand by if you happen to be anywhere about. By the by, I hope I shall have some kind of a sc.r.a.p with Roper before the morning's over. I shall enjoy that. Infernal little beast, I caught him out last night. I can't tell you how; but unless he's off by the eight o'clock to-morrow, he's in for punishment."

Lionel laughed.

"All right," he said; "don't murder him. I'm going to turn in now. Sorry about Bouncing. Did he have a bad time, poor chap?"

"No," said Winn, "not really. He had a jolly sight harder time living; and yet I believe he'd have swopped with me at the end. Funny how little we know what the other fellow feels!"

"We can get an idea sometimes," Lionel said in a queer voice, with his back to his friend. Winn hastened to the door of his room. He knew that Lionel had an idea. He said, as he half closed the door on himself:

"Thanks awfully for the whiskey."

CHAPTER XX

Unfortunately, Winn was not permitted the pleasure of punishing Mr.

Roper in the morning. Mr. Roper thought the matter over for the greater part of an unpleasantly short night. He knew that he could prepare a perfect case, he could easily clear himself to his pupil, he could stand by his guns, and probably even succeed in making Mrs. Bouncing stand by hers; but he didn't want to be thrashed. Whatever else happened, he knew that he could not get out of this. Winn meant to thrash him, and Winn would thrash him. People like Winn could not be manipulated; they could only be avoided. They weren't afraid of being arrested, and they didn't care anything about being fined. They d.a.m.ned the consequences of their ferocious acts; and if you happened to be one of the consequences and had a const.i.tutional shrinking from being d.a.m.ned, it was wiser to pack early and be off by an eight o'clock train.

Winn was extremely disappointed at this decision; it robbed him of something which, as he thought, would have cleared the air. However, he spent a busy morning in a.s.sisting Mrs. Bouncing. She was querulous and tearful and wanted better dressmakers and a more becoming kind of mourning than it was easy to procure in Davos. It seemed to Winn as if she was under the impression that mourning was more important to a funeral than a coffin; but when it came to the coffin, she had terrible ideas about lilies embroidered in silver, which upset Winn very much.

Mr. Bouncing had always objected to lilies. He considered that their heavy scent was rather dangerous. Mrs. Bouncing told Winn what everybody in the hotel had suggested, and appeared to expect him to combine and carry out all their suggestions, with several other contradictory ones of her own.

During this crisis Maurice Rivers markedly avoided Mrs. Bouncing. He felt as if she might have prevented Mr. Bouncing's death just then. It was a failure of tact. He didn't like the idea of death, and he had always rather counted oh the presence of Mr. Bouncing. He was afraid he might, with Mr. Bouncing removed, have gone a little too far.

He explained his position to Winn, whom he met on one of his many errands.

"One doesn't want to let oneself in for anything, you know," he a.s.serted. "I'm sure, as a man of the world, you'd advise me to keep out of it, wouldn't you? It's different for you, of course; you were poor Bouncing's friend."

Winn, whose temper was extremely ruffled, gave him a formidable glance.

"You get into things a bit too soon, my boy," he replied coldly, "and get out of 'em a bit too late."

"Oh, come, you know," said Maurice, jauntily, "I'm not responsible for poor old Bouncing's death, am I?"

"I don't say you are," Winn continued, without looking any pleasanter.

"Bouncing had to die, and a jolly good thing for him it was when it came off; his life wasn't worth a row of pins. But I wasn't talking about him; I was talking about her. If you really want my advice, I'll tell you plainly that if you want to go the pace, choose women one doesn't marry, don't monkey about with the more or less respectable ones who have a right to expect you to play the game. It's not done, and it's beastly unfair. D' you see my point?"

Maurice wondered if he should be thoroughly angry or not. Suddenly it occurred to him that Winn was waiting, and that he had better see his point and not be thoroughly angry.

"Yes, I dare say I did go a little far," he admitted, throwing out a manly chest; "but between you and me, Staines, should you say our friend Mrs. B. _was_ respectable or not?"

"She isn't my friend," said Winn, grimly; "but as she ought to be yours, I'll trouble you to keep your questions to yourself."

The idea of being angry having apparently been taken out of Maurice's hands, he made haste to disappear into the hotel.

Winn walked on into the village. It was the last time he intended to go there. There was nothing peculiarly touching about the flat, long road, with the rink beneath it and the mountains above. The houses and shops, German pensions and crowded balconies had no particular charm. Even the tall, thin spire of the church lacked distinction; and yet it seemed to Winn that it would be difficult to forget. He stopped at the rink as he returned to pick up his skates. He told himself that he was fortunate when he discovered Claire, with Lionel on one side of her and Ponsonby on the other; he had wanted the help of an audience; now he was going to have one. Claire saw him before the others did, and skated swiftly across to him.

"But why don't you put your skates on?" she said, pointing to them in his hand. "You're not much good there, you know, on the bank."

"I'm not much good anywhere, as far as that goes," said Winn, quickly, before the others came up. Then he said in a different voice, "I hope you enjoyed your dance last night."

Claire paused the briefest moment before she answered him; it was as if she were trying quickly to change the key in which she spoke in order to meet his wishes, and as if she did not want to change the key.

"Yes, I did," she said, "most awfully. It was a heavenly dance. I was so sorry you couldn't come, but Captain Drummond told me why."

Winn confounded Lionel under his breath for not holding his tongue; but he felt a warmth stir in his heart at the knowledge that, no matter what was at stake, Lionel would not suffer the shadow of blame to attach itself to him. It had been one of Winn's calculations that Claire would be annoyed at his disappointing her and think the less of him because she was annoyed. He was not a clever calculator.

"Of course I understood," Claire went on; "you had to be with poor Mr.

Bouncing. It was just like you to stay with him." She had said a good deal, considering that Mr. Ponsonby and Lionel were there. Still, Winn did not misunderstand her. Of course she meant nothing.

"Well," he said, holding out his hand, "I'm extremely glad, Miss Rivers, to have run across you like this, because I'm off this afternoon to St.

Moritz. I want to have a look at the Cresta."

Claire ignored his outstretched hand.

"Oh," she cried a little breathlessly, "you're not going away, are you?

But you'll come back again, of course?"

"I hope so, I'm sure, some day or other," said Winn. Then he turned to Ponsonby. "Have you been down the Cresta?" he asked.

Mr. Ponsonby shook his head.

"Not from Church Leap," he replied. "I've got too much respect for my bones. It's awfully tricky; I've gone down from below it. You don't get such a speed on then."