The Princess Passes Part 35

"That, and something more."

"Good imp! The thermometer is rising. But I feel a beast to have got you into this sc.r.a.pe. If it hadn't been for me, you wouldn't have known that a mule-path existed on Mont Revard."

"I'm not sorry we came. This will be something to remember always.

It's a real adventure. Afterwards we shall get the point of view."

"I wish we could get one now," said I. "But the prospect isn't cheerful. Molly Winston's prophecy is being fulfilled. She was certain that sooner or later I should be lost on a mountain; and her sketch of me, curled up in sleeping-sack and tent, toasting my toes before a fire of twigs, and eating tinned soup, steaming hot, made me long to lose myself immediately. But, alas! a peasant child near Piedimulera is basking at this moment in my woolly sack, and battening on my Instantaneous Breakfasts."

"Don't think of them," said the Boy. "That way madness lies. A chapter in my book shall be called, 'How to be Happy though Freezing.'"

"What would be your definition of the state, precisely?"

"Being with Somebody you--like."

My temperature bounded up several degrees, thanks to these amends, but our sole comfort was in each other, since Joseph had no hope to give.

At this moment he parted the mist-curtain to remark that he could find no traces of a path or landmark of any kind.

Hours dragged on, and we were still wandering aimlessly, as one wanders in a troubled dream. We were chilled to the bone, and as it was by this time late in the afternoon, I began to fear that we should have to spend the night on the mountain-side. Revard was wreaking vengeance upon us for taking his name in vain. We had made naught of him as a mountain; now he was showing us that, were he sixteen thousand feet high instead of four, he could scarcely put us to more serious inconvenience.

I was growing gravely anxious about the Boy, though the bitter cold and great fatigue had not quenched his spirit, when the smell of cattle and the m.u.f.fled sound of human voices put life into the chill, dead body of the mist. A house loomed before us, and I sprang to the comforting conclusion that we had stumbled upon one of the outlying offices of the hotel, but an instant showed me my mistake. The low building was a rough stone chalet with two or three cowherds outside the door, and these men stared in surprise and curiosity at our ghostly party.

"Are we far from the hotel?" I asked in French, but no gleam of understanding lightened their faces; and it was not until Joseph had addressed them in the most extraordinary patois I had ever heard, that they showed signs of intelligence. "Hoo-a-long, hoo-a-long, walla-ha?"

he remarked, or words to that effect.

"Squall-a-doo, soo-a-lone, bolla-hang," returned one of the men, suddenly wound up to gesticulate with violence.

"He says that the hotel is about half an hour's walk from here,"

Joseph explained to me, looking wistful. And my own feelings gave me the clue to that look's significance.

"Thank goodness!" I exclaimed heartily. "But it would be tempting Providence to pa.s.s this house, which is at least a human habitation, without resting and warming the blood in our veins. Perhaps we can get something to eat for ourselves and the donkeys--to say nothing of something to drink."

Another exchange of words like brickbats afforded us the information, when translated, that we could obtain black bread, cheese, and brandy; also that we were welcome to sit before the fire.

I pushed the Boy in ahead of me, but he fell back. The stench which struck us in the face as the door opened was like an evil-smelling pillow, thrown with good aim by an unseen hand. Mankind, dog-kind, cow-kind, chicken-kind, and cheese-kind, together with many ingredients unknown to science, combined in the making of this composite odour, and its strength sent the Boy reeling into my arms.

"No, I can't stand it," he gasped. "I shall faint. Better freeze than suffocate."

But I forced him in; and in five minutes, to our own self-loathing, we had become almost inured to the smell. Eat we could not, but we drank probably the worst brandy in all Europe or Asia, and slowly our blood began once more to take its normal course. A spurious animation soon enabled the Boy to start on again; one of the cowherds pointed out the path, and for a time all went well with our little band, even f.a.n.n.y and Souris having revived on black crusts of mediaeval bread. But the half-hour in which we had been told we might cover the distance between chalet and hotel lengthened into an hour. The mist grew greyer, and thicker, and darker, misleading us almost as cleverly as its sophisticated English cousin, a London fog. Again and again we lost our way. Owing to the fatigue of the Boy and Innocentina, and the utter dejection of the unfortunate little donkeys, we could not walk fast enough to keep our blood warm, and my tweeds, in which I was b.u.t.toned to the chin, seemed to afford no more protection than newspaper.

When I remarked this to the Boy he replied with a faint chuckle that he felt like a newspaper himself--"a newspaper," he repeated, shivering, "with the smallest circulation in the world. And if it weren't for your dressing-gown there wouldn't be any circulation left at all."

The day, which had begun in summer and ended in winter, was darkening to night when Joseph, who was in advance, cried out that he had flattened his nose against something solid, which was probably the wall of the hotel. No blur of yellow light penetrated the gloom, but a few minutes of anxious groping brought us to a door--rather an elaborate, pretentious door, which instantly dispelled all fear that we had come upon another chalet, or perchance a barn.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

CHAPTER XXV

The Americans

"Is the gentleman anonymous? Is he a great unknown?"

--SHAKESPEARE.

While Joseph and Innocentina remained outside with the animals, the Boy and I entered a long, dark corridor, dimly lighted at the far end.

Half-way down we came upon a porter, whose look of surprise would have told us (if we had not learned through bitter experience already) that Mont Revard's season was over. He guided us to the door of a large salon, which he threw open with an air of wishing to justify the hotel; and despite the load of weariness under which the Boy was almost fainting, he whipped the dressing-gown off in a flash, shook the snow from his panama, squaring his little shoulders, and re-entered civilisation with a jauntiness which denied exhaustion and did credit to his pride. Nevertheless, he availed himself of the first easy-chair, and dropped into it as a ripe apple drops from its leafy home into the long gra.s.s.

The porter scampered off to send us the landlord, and to see to the comfort of Joseph and Innocentina, until they and their charges could be definitely provided for. While we waited--the Boy leaning back, pale and silent, in an exaggerated American rocking-chair, I standing on guard beside him--there was time to look about at our surroundings.

The room was immense, and on a warm, bright day of midsummer might have been delightful, with its polished mosaic floor, its painted basket chairs and little tables, and its standard lamps with coloured silk shades. But to-day a stuffy, red-curtained bar-parlour would have been more cheerful.

At first, I thought we were alone in the waste of painted wicker-work, for there had been dead silence on our entrance; but hardly had we settled ourselves to await the coming of the landlord, when a movement at the far end of the big, dim room told me that it had other occupants. Two men in knickerbockers were sitting on low chairs drawn close to a fireplace, and both were looking round at us with evident curiosity.

As the Boy's chair had its high back half-turned in their direction, all they could see of him was a little hand dangling over the arm of the chair, and a small foot in a stout, workmanlike walking boot, laced far up the ankle. I stood facing them; and though the sole illumination came flickering from a newly kindled fire, or filtered through the red shades of three large lamps, not only could they see what manner of man I was, but I could study their personal characteristics.

In these I was conscious of no lively interest; but as the men continued to gaze over their shoulders at me, and the Boy's chair, I decided that they were from the States. They were both young, clean-shaven, good-looking; with clear features, keen eyes, and prominent chins, reminiscent of the attractive "Gibson type" of American youth.

"Well," said one to the other, turning away from his brief but steady inspection of the newcomers, "I thought we were the only two fools stranded here for the night in this weather, but it seems there are a couple more."

Their voices had a carrying quality which brought the words distinctly to our ears. Suddenly the "rocker" was agitated, and the Boy's feet came to the ground. Nervously, he jerked the chair round so that its back was completely turned to the men at the other end of the room.

His eyes looked so big, and his face was so deeply stained with a quick rush of colour, that I feared he was ill.

"Anything wrong?" I asked, bending towards him, with my hand on his chair.

"Nothing. I was only--a little surprised to hear people talking, that's all. I thought we had the room to ourselves."

His voice was a whisper, and I pitched mine to his in answering. "So did I at first, but it seems two countrymen of yours are before us. I wonder if they have had adventures to equal ours? Probably we shall find out at dinner, for this looks the sort of hotel to herd its guests together at one long table."

The Boy's hand closed sharply on the arm of his chair. "I'm too tired to dine in public," said he, still in the same m.u.f.fled voice. "I shall have something to eat in my room--if I ever get one."

"If that's your game," said I, "I'll play it with you. We'll ask them to give us a sitting-room of sorts, and we'll dine there together like kings."

"No, no. You must go down. I shall have my dinner in bed. I'm worn out. What are--those men at the other end of the room like?"

"Like sketches from New York _Life_," I replied. "One is dark, the other fair, with a deep cleft in his chin, and a nose so straight it might have been ruled. Better take a look at them. Perhaps you may have met at home."

"All the more reason for not looking," said the Boy. "Thank goodness, here comes the landlord."

We could have had twenty rooms if we wished, for, said our host, throwing a glance across the salon, he had only two other guests besides ourselves. They had come up by the funicular, meaning to walk next morning down to Chambery, but whether they could do so or not depended on the weather. In any case, the hotel would close for the season in a few days now, and the funicular cease to run. Fires should be laid in our rooms immediately, and we should be made comfortable, but as for our animals, unfortunately there were no stables attached to the hotel, no accommodation whatever for four-footed creatures.

They would have to go back to the chalet, where they and their drivers could be put up for the night.

"That will not do for Innocentina," exclaimed the boy quickly. In his eagerness he raised his voice slightly, and the two young men at the other end of the salon seemed waked suddenly to renewed interest in us and our affairs. But the Boy's tone fell again instantly. "Innocentina must have a room at this hotel," he went on. "The chalet will be bad enough for Joseph. For her it would be impossible. Joseph won't mind taking the donkeys down and caring for them this one night, for Innocentina's sake."

"If know Joseph, it will afford him infinite satisfaction; and the more intense his physical suffering, the happier he'll be in the thought that he is bearing it for her," I replied. "I'll go out and break the news to the poor chap."

The Boy sprang up. "No, no; don't leave me alone!" he cried. Then, as I looked surprised, he added, more quietly: "I mean I'll go with you, and talk to Innocentina. Meanwhile, our things can be sent up to our rooms."