The Silent Barrier Part 24

"It is rather shocking," said Helen.

"I suppose so. Of course, there are prizes in life that cannot be measured by monetary standards."

He was not looking at the Orlegna now, and the girl by his side well knew it. The great revelation that flooded her soul with light while crossing the Forno came back with renewed power. She did not pretend to herself that the words were devoid of a hidden meaning, and her heart fluttered with subtle ecstasy. But she was proud and self reliant, so proud that she crushed the tumult in her breast, so self reliant that she was able to give him a timid smile.

"That deals with the second head of the indictment, then," she said lightly. "Now for the first. Why did you select the Engadine for your holiday?"

"If I could tell you that, I should know something of the occult impulses that govern men's lives. One minute I was in London, meaning to go north. The next I was hurrying to buy a ticket for St. Moritz."

"But----" She meant to continue, "you arrived here the same day as I did." Somehow that did not sound quite the right thing to say. Her tongue tripped; but she forced herself to frame a sentence. "It is odd that you, like myself, should have hit upon an out of the way place like Maloja. The difference is that I was sent here, whereas you came of your own free will."

"I guess you are right," said he, laughing as though she had uttered an exquisite joke. "Yes, that is just it. I can imagine two young English swallows, meeting in Algeria in the winter, twittering explanations of the same sort."

"I don't feel a bit like a swallow, and I am sure I can't twitter, and as for Algeria, a home of sunshine--well, just look at it!" She waved a hand at the darkening panorama of hills and pine woods, all etched in black lines and ma.s.ses, where rocks and trees and houses broke the dead white of the snow mantle.

They happened to be crossing a bridge that spans the Orlegna before it takes its first frantic plunge towards Italy. Bower, who had quickened his pace, took the gesture as a signal, and sent an answering flourish. Helen stopped. He evidently wished to overtake them.

"More explanations," murmured Spencer.

"But he was mistaken. I was calling Nature to witness that your simile was not justified."

"Tell you what," he said in a low voice, "if this storm has blown over by the morning, meet me after breakfast, and we will walk down the valley to Vicosoprano for luncheon. There is a diligence back in the afternoon. We can stroll there in three hours, and I shall have time to clear up this swallow proposition."

"That will be delightful, if the weather improves."

"It will. I will compel it."

Bower was nearing them rapidly. A constrained silence fell between them. To end it, Helen cried:

"Well, are you feeling duly humbled, Mr. Bower?"

He did not seem to understand her meaning. Apparently, he might have forgotten that Stampa still lived. Then he roused his wits with an effort. "Not humbled, but elated," he said. "Have I not led you to feats of derring-do? Why, the Wragg girls will be green with envy when they hear of your exploits."

He swung round the corner to the bridge. After a smiling glance at Spencer's impa.s.sive face, he turned to Helen. "You have come out of the ordeal with flying colors," he said. "That flower you picked on the way up has not withered. Give it to me as a memento."

The words were almost a challenge. The girl hesitated.

"No," she said. "I must find you some other souvenir."

"But I want that--if----"

"There is no 'if.' You forget that I took it from--from the boulder marked by a cross."

"I am not superst.i.tious."

"Nor am I. Nevertheless, I should not care to give you such a symbol."

She caught Bower and Spencer exchanging a strange look. These men shared some secret that they sedulously kept from her. Perhaps the American meant to enlighten her during their projected walk to Vicosoprano.

Stampa and the others approached. Together they climbed the little hill leading to the summit of the pa.s.s. In the village they said "Good night" to the two guides and Karl.

Helen promised laughingly to make the acquaintance of Johann Klucker's cat at the first opportunity. She was pa.s.sing through a wicket that protects the footpath across the golf links, when she heard Stampa growl:

"_Morgen fruh!_"

"_Ja!_" snapped Bower.

She smiled to herself at the thought that things were going to happen to-morrow. She was right. But she had not yet done with the present day. When she entered the cozy and brilliantly lighted veranda of the hotel, the first person her amazed eyes alighted upon was Millicent Jaques.

CHAPTER XI

WHEREIN HELEN LIVES A CROWDED HOUR

"Millicent! You here!" Helen breathed the words in an undertone that carried more than a hint of dismay.

It was one of those rare crises in life when the brain receives a presage of evil without any prior foundation of fact. Helen had every reason to welcome her friend, none to be chilled by her unexpected presence. Among a small circle of intimate acquaintances she counted Millicent Jaques the best and truest. They had drifted apart; but that was owing to Helen's lack of means. She was not able, nor did she aspire, to mix in the society that hailed the actress as a bright particular star. Yet it meant much to a girl earning her daily bread in a heedless city that she should possess one friend of her own age and s.e.x who could speak of the golden years when they were children together,--the years when Helen's father was the prospective governor of an Indian province as large as France; when the tuft hunters now gathered in Maloja would have fawned on her mother in hope of subsequent recognition.

Why, then, did Helen falter in her greeting? Who can tell? She herself did not know, unless it was that Millicent rose so leisurely from the table at which she was drinking a belated cup of tea, and came toward her with a smile that had no warmth in it.

"So you have returned," she said, "and with both cavaliers?"

Helen was conscious of a queer humming noise in her head. She was incapable of calm thought. She realized now that the friend she had left in London was here in the guise of a bitter enemy. The veranda was full of people waiting for the post. The snow had banished them from links and tennis court. This August afternoon was dark as mid-December at the same hour. But the rendezvous was brilliantly lighted, and the reappearance of the climbers, whose chances of safety had been eagerly debated since the snow storm began, drew all eyes.

Someone had whispered too that the beautiful woman who arrived from St. Moritz half an hour earlier, who sat in her furs and sipped her tea after a long conversation with a clerk in the bureau, was none other than Millicent Jaques, the dancer, one of the leading lights of English musical comedy.

The peepers and whisperers little dreamed that she could be awaiting the party from the Forno. Now that her vigil was explained, for Bower had advanced with ready smile and outstretched hand, the Wraggs and Vavasours and de la Veres--all the little coterie of gossips and scandalmongers--were drawn to the center of the hall like steel filings to a magnet.

Millicent ignored Bower. She was young enough and pretty enough to feel sure of her ability to deal with him subsequently. Her cornflower blue eyes glittered. They held something of the quiet menace of a creva.s.se. She had traveled far for revenge, and she did not mean to forego it. Helen, whose second impulse was to kiss her affectionately, with excited clamor of welcome and inquiry, stood rooted to the floor by her friend's strange words.

"I--I am so surprised----" she half stammered in an agony of confused doubt; and that was the only lame phrase she could utter during a few trying seconds.

Bower frowned. He hated scenes between women. With his first glimpse of Millicent he guessed her errand. For Helen's sake, in the presence of that rabbit-eared crowd, he would not brook the unmerited flood of sarcastic indignation which he knew was trembling on her lips.

"Miss Wynton has had an exhausting day," he said coolly. "She must go straight to her room, and rest. You two can meet and talk after dinner." Without further preamble, he took Helen's arm.

Millicent barred the way. She did not give place. Again she paid no heed to the man. "I shall not detain you long," she said, looking only at Helen, and speaking in a low clear voice that her stage training rendered audible throughout the large hall. "I only wished to a.s.sure myself that what I was told was true. I found it hard to believe, even when I saw your name written up in the hotel. Before I go, let me congratulate you on your conquest--and Mr. Mark Bower on his," she added, with clever pretense of afterthought.

Helen continued to stare at her helplessly. Her lips quivered; but they uttered no sound. It was impossible to misunderstand Millicent's object. She meant to wound and insult in the grossest way.

Bower dropped Helen's arm, and strode close to the woman who had struck this shrewd blow at him. "I give you this one chance!" he muttered, while his eyes blazed into hers. "Go to your room, or sit down somewhere till I am free. I shall come to you, and put things straight that now seem crooked. You are wrong, horribly wrong, in your suspicions. Wait my explanation, or by all that I hold sacred, you will regret it to your dying hour!"

Millicent drew back a little. She conveyed the suggestion that his nearness was offensive to her nostrils. And she laughed, with due semblance of real amus.e.m.e.nt. "What! Has she made a fool of you too?"

she cried bitingly.

Then Helen did exactly the thing she ought not to have done. She fainted.