The Hosts of the Air Part 36

He went back to his blanket and when he awoke in the morning the great Alpine storm was still raging. But he bathed and refreshed himself and found a store of clothing better than that of the forester. It did not fit him very well, nevertheless he was neatly arrayed in civilian attire and he went to the kitchen, meaning to put himself to use and cook the breakfast. But Suzanne was already there, and she saluted him with stern and rebuking words.

"I reign here," she said. "Go back and talk to Mademoiselle Julie. Since we're alone and are likely to be so, for G.o.d knows how long, it's your duty to see that she keeps up her spirits. I'd have kept you two apart if I could, but it has been willed otherwise, and maybe it's for the best."

"What has happened shows it's for the best, Suzanne. And, as you know, you've never had any real objection to me except that I'm not a Frenchman. And am I not becoming such as fast as possible?"

"You don't look very much like one, but you act like one and often you talk like one."

"Thanks, Suzanne. That's praise coming from you."

"Now be off with you. My mistress is surely in the great room, and if you care for her as much as you pretend, you will see that she is not lonely, and don't talk nonsense, either."

John, chuckling, withdrew. As Suzanne had predicted he found Julie in the large room, and she was quite composed, when she bade him good morning.

"I see that the storm goes on," she said.

"So much the better. It is raising higher the wall between us and our enemies. Our fire has burned out in the night, leaving only coals, but there is a huge store of wood in the back part of the lodge."

He brought in an armful of billets to find her fanning the coals into a blaze.

"You didn't think, sir," said she, "did you, that I mean to be a guest here, waited upon by you and Suzanne?"

"But Suzanne and I are strong and willing! Don't lean too near that blaze, Julie! You'll set your beautiful hair on fire!"

"And so you think my hair beautiful?"

"Very beautiful."

"It's not proper for you to say so. We're not in America."

"Nor are we in France, where young girls are surrounded by triple rows of bra.s.s or steel. We're in a snowstorm on top of a high mountain in Austria. There are no conventions, and Suzanne, your guardian, is in the kitchen."

"But I can call her and she'll come."

"She'd come, I know, but you won't call her. There, our fire is blazing beautifully, and we don't have to nurse it any longer. You sit here in this chair, and I'll sit there in that chair at a respectful distance.

Now you realize that we are going to be here a long time, don't you Julie?"

"Miss Julie or Mademoiselle Julie would be better and perhaps Mademoiselle Lannes would be most fitting."

"No, I've said Julie several times and as it always gives me a pleasant thrill I'm sure it's best. I intend to use it continually hereafter, except when Suzanne is present."

"You're taking a high stand, Mr. John."

"John is best also."

"Well, then--John!"

"I'm taking it for your good and my pleasure."

"I wonder if Suzanne is ready with the breakfast!"

"You needn't go to see. You know it's not, and you know, too, that Suzanne will call us when it is ready. A wonderfully capable woman, that Suzanne. She didn't look upon me with favor at first, but I believe she is really beginning to like me, to view me perhaps with approval as a sort of candidate."

"Look how the snow is coming down!"

"But that's an old story. Let's go back to Suzanne."

"Oh no. She's coming for us."

It was true. The incomparable Suzanne stood in the doorway and summoned them to breakfast.

CHAPTER XIII

THE DANGEROUS FLIGHT

It snowed all that day and all the next night. The lateness of the season seemed to add to the violence of the storm, as if it would make one supreme effort on these heights before yielding to the coming spring. Many of the pines were blown down, and the snow lay several feet deep everywhere. Now and then they heard thunderous sounds from the gorges telling them that great slides were taking place, and it was absolutely certain now that no one from the valley below could reach the lodge for days.

The sight from the windows of the house, when the driving snow thinned enough to permit a view, was magnificent. They saw far away peak on peak and ridge on ridge, clothed in white, and sometimes they beheld the valley filled with vast clouds of mists and vapors. Once John thought he caught a glimpse of Zillenstein, a menacing gray shadow far below, but the clouds in an instant floated between and he was not sure.

Yet it was a period of enchantment in the life of John Scott. Their very isolation on the mountain, with Suzanne there in the double role of servant and guardian, seemed to draw Julie and him more closely together. The world had practically melted away beneath their feet. The great war was gone for them. He was only twenty-two, but his experience had made him mentally much older, and she, too, had gained in knowledge and command of herself by all through which she had pa.s.sed.

She showed to John a spirit and courage which he had never seen surpa.s.sed in any woman, and mingled with it all was a lightness and wit that filled the whole house with sunshine, despite the great storm that raged continually without. In the music-room was a piano, and she played upon it the beautiful French "little songs" that John loved. There were books and magazines in plenty, and now he read to her and then she read to him. Sometimes they sat in silence and through the thick gla.s.s of the windows watched the snow driving by.

The hours were too few for John. He served her as the crusader served his chosen lady. The spirit of the old knights of chivalry that had descended upon him still held him in a spell that he did not wish to break. Often she mocked at him and laughed at him, and then he liked her all the better. No placid, submissive woman, shrinking before the dangers, would have pleased him. In her light laughter and her banter, even at his expense, he read a n.o.ble courage and a lofty soul, and in their singular isolation it was given to him to see her spirit, so strong and yet so rarely sweet in a manner that the circ.u.mstances of ordinary life could never have brought forth. And the faithful Suzanne, still in her double role of servant and guardian, served and guarded them both.

John at this time began to feel a more forgiving spirit toward Auersperg. It might well be that this man of middle years, so thoroughly surrounded by old, dead things that he had never seen the world as it really was, had been bewitched. A sort of moon madness had made him commit his extraordinary deed, and John could view it with increasing tolerance because he had been bewitched himself.

He made another and more extended survey of their stores and confirmed his first opinion that the lodge was furnished in full princely style.

They need not lack for any of the comforts, nor for many luxuries, no matter how long they remained.

On the morning of the third day the storm ceased and they looked out upon a white, shining world of snow, lofty and impressive, peaks and ridges outlined sharply against a steel-blue sky. John had found a pair of powerful gla.s.ses in the lodge and with them he was now able to make out Zillenstein quite clearly. Clothed in snow, a castle all in white, it was nevertheless more menacing than ever.

John believed that Muller would surely come, and many and many a time he thought over the problem how to deal with him. But the new, windless day pa.s.sed and there was no sign of the forester. John himself went forth, breaking paths here and there through the snow, but he discovered nothing. He began to believe that Muller had been forced to take shelter at the start of the storm and could not now return. His hope that it was so strong that his mind turned it into a fact, and Muller disappeared from his thoughts.

The garage, besides the great automobile, contained a smaller one, but John kept the limousine in mind. He intended when the time came to escape in it with the two women, if possible. There might be a road leading down the other side of the mountain, and toward Italy. If so, he would surely try to get through when the melting of the snow permitted.

Meanwhile he devoted himself with uncommon zest to household duties. He cleared new paths about the lodge, moved in much of the wood where it would be more convenient for Suzanne, cleaned and polished the guns and revolvers in the little armory, inspected the limousine and put it in perfect order, and did everything else that he could think of to make their mountain castle luxurious and defensible.

Julie often joined him in these tasks, and John did not remonstrate, knowing that work and occupation kept a mind healthy. Wrapped in her great red cloak and wearing the smallest pair of high boots that he could find in the lodge, she often shoveled snow with him, as he increased the number of runways to the small outlying buildings, or to other parts of their domain. Thus they filled up the hours and prevented the suspense which otherwise would have been acute, despite their comfortable house.

She continually revealed herself to him now. The sh.e.l.l that encloses a young French girl had been broken by the hammer of war and she had stepped forth, a woman with a thinking and reasoning mind of uncommon power. It seemed often to John that the soul of the great Lannes had descended upon this slender maid who was of his own blood. Like many another American, he had thought often of those marshals of Napoleon who had risen from obscurity to such heights, and of them all, the republican and steadfast Lannes had been his favorite. Her spirit was the same. He found in it a like simplicity and courage. They seldom talked of the war, but when they did she expressed unbounded faith in the final triumph of her nation and of those allied with it.

"I have read what the world was saying of France," she said one day when they stood together on the snowy slope. "We hear, we girls, although we are mostly behind the walls. They have told us that we were declining as a nation, and many of our own people believed it."

"The charge will never be made again against the French Republic," said John. "The French, by their patience and courage in the face of preliminary defeat and their dauntless resolution, have won the admiration of all the world."