The Silent Barrier Part 29

"That sounds nice, but----"

"It demands a.n.a.lysis, so I have failed doubly."

"I don't feel up to talking like a character in one of Henry James's novels. And you were much more amusing last night. Have you seen Miss Jaques this morning?"

"No. That is, I don't think so."

"Do you know her?"

"No."

"It would be a kind thing if someone told her that there are other places in Switzerland where she will command the general admiration she deserves."

"I am inclined to believe that there is a man in the hotel who can put that notion before her delicately."

Spencer possessed the unchanging gravity of expression that the whole American race seems to have borrowed from the Red Indian. Mrs. de la Vere's eyes twinkled as she gazed at him.

"You didn't hear what was said last night," she murmured. "Where Millicent Jaques is concerned, delicacy is absent from Mr. Bower's make-up--is that good New York?"

"It would be understood."

This time he smiled. Mrs. de la Vere wished to be a friend to Helen.

Whatsoever her motive, the wish was excellent.

"You are severe," she pouted. "Of course I ought not to mimic you----"

"Pray do. I had no idea I spoke so nicely."

"Thank you. But I am serious. I have espoused Miss Wynton's cause, and there will be nothing but unhappiness for her while that other girl remains here."

"I hope you are mistaken," he said slowly, meeting her quizzing glance without flinching.

"That is precisely where a woman's point of view differs from a man's," she countered. "In our lives we are swayed by things that men despise. We are conscious of sidelong looks and whisperings. We dread the finger of scorn. When you have a wife, Mr. Spencer, you will begin to realize the limitations of the feminine horizon."

"Are you asking me to take this demonstrative young lady in hand?"

"I believe you would succeed."

Spencer smiled again. He had not credited Mrs. de la Vere with such fine perceptiveness. If her words meant anything, they implied an alliance, offensive and defensive, for Helen's benefit and his own.

"Guess we'll leave it right there till I've had a few words with Miss Wynton," he said, dropping suddenly into colloquial phrase.

"A heart to heart talk, in fact." She laughed pleasantly, and opened her cigarette case.

"Tell you what, Mrs. de la Vere," he said, "if ever you come to Colorado I shall hail you as a real cousin!"

Then a silence fell between them. Bower was walking out of the hotel.

He pa.s.sed close in front of the gla.s.s part.i.tion, and might have seen them if his eyes were not as preoccupied as his mind. But he was looking at Stampa, and frowning in deep thought. The guide heard his slow, heavy tread, and turned. The two met. They exchanged no word, but went away together, the lame peasant hobbling along by the side of the tall, well dressed plutocrat.

"How odd!" said Mrs. de la Vere. "How exceedingly odd!"

CHAPTER XIII

THE COMPACT

"Now, what have you to say? We are safe from meddlers here."

Bower spoke curtly. Stampa and he were halfway across the narrow strip of undulating meadow land which shut off the hotel from the village.

They had followed the footpath, a busy thoroughfare bombarded with golf b.a.l.l.s on fine mornings, but likely to be unfrequented till the snow melted. Receiving no answer, Bower glanced sharply at his companion; but the old guide might be unaware of his presence, so steadily did he trudge onward, with downcast, introspective eyes.

Resolved to make an end of a silence that was irksome, Bower halted.

Then, for the first time, Stampa opened his lips. "Not here," he said.

"Why not? We are alone."

"You must come with me, Herr Baron."

"That is not my t.i.tle."

"It used to be. It will serve as well as any other."

"I refuse to stir a yard farther."

"Then," said Stampa, "I will kill you where you stand!"

Neither in voice nor feature did he exhibit any emotion. He merely put forward an all-sufficing reason, and left it at that.

Bower was no coward. Though the curiously repressed manner of the threat sent a wave of blood from his face to his heart, he strode suddenly nearer. Ready and eager to grapple with his adversary before a weapon could be drawn, he peered into the peasant's care lined face.

"So that is your plan, is it?" he said thickly. "You would entice me to some lonely place, where you can shoot or stab me at your own good pleasure. Fool! I can overpower you instantly, and have you sent to a jail or a lunatic asylum for the rest of your life."

"I carry no knife, nor can I use a pistol, Herr Baron," was the unruffled answer. "I do not need them. My hands are enough. You are a man, a big, strong man, with all a man's worst pa.s.sions. Have you never felt that you could tear your enemy with your nails, choke him till the bones of his neck crackled, and his tongue lolled out like a panting dog's? That is how I too may feel if you deny my request. And I will kill you, Marcus Bauer! As sure as G.o.d is in Heaven, I will kill you!"

Fear now lent its blind fury to the instinct of self preservation.

Bower leaped at Stampa, determined to master him at the first onslaught. But he was heavy and slow, inert after long years of physical indolence. The older man, awkward only because of his crippled leg, swung himself clear of Bower's grip, and sprang out of reach.

"If there be any who look, 'tis you who risk imprisonment," he said calmly, with a touch of humor that a.s.suredly he did not intend.

Bower knew then how greatly he had erred. It was a mistake ever to have agreed to meet Stampa alone--a much greater one not to have waited to be attacked. As Stampa said truly, if anyone in the village had seen his mad action, there would be testimony that he was the aggressor. He frowned at Stampa in a bull-like rage, glowering at him in a frenzy of impotence. This dour old man opposed a grim barrier to his hopes. It was intolerable that he, Mark Bower the millionaire, a man who held within his grasp all that the material world has to give, should be standing there at the mercy of a Swiss peasant. Throughout the dreary vigil of the night he had pondered this thing, and could find no loophole of escape. The record of that accursed summer sixteen years ago was long since obliterated in the history of Marcus Bauer, the emotional youth who made love to a village belle in Zermatt, and posed as an Austrian baron among the English and Italians who at that time formed the select band of climbers in the Valais. But the short-lived romance was dead and buried, and its memory brought the taste of Dead Sea ashes to the mouth.

Marcus Bauer had become a naturalized Englishman. The mock barony was replaced by a wealth that might buy real t.i.tles. But the crime still lived, and woe to Mark Bower, the financial magnate, if it was brought home to him! He had not risen above his fellows without making enemies. He well knew the weakness and the strength of the British social system, with its strange complacency, its "allowances," its hysterical prudery, its queer amalgam of Puritanism and light hearted forbearance. He might gamble with loaded dice in the City, and people would applaud him as cleverer and shrewder than his opponents. His name might be coupled with that of a pretty actress, and people would only smile knowingly. But let a hint of his betrayal of Etta Stampa and its attendant circ.u.mstances reach the ears of those who hated him, and he would sink forthwith into the slough of rich parvenus who eke out their lives in vain efforts to enter the closely guarded circle from which he had been expelled.

If that was the only danger, he might meet and vanquish it. The unscrupulous use of money, backed up by the law of libel, can do a great deal to still the public conscience. There was another, more subtle and heart searching.

He was genuinely in love with Helen Wynton. He had reached an age when position and power were more gratifying than mere gilded Bohemianism.