The Vision of Desire Part 8

"Improper," supplied Tony obligingly.

"Call it unconventional," she supplemented. "It sounds better. And now do go and order some food for 'G. Smith and sister.' Sister is literally starving."

Half an hour later they were light-heartedly demolishing an excellent dinner, and the manager of the Hotel de Loup was congratulating himself upon the acquisition of two unexpected guests during the slack season.

Afterwards they made another pilgrimage up to the Roche d'Or to watch the sunset.

When they had reached the top, Ann stood quietly at Tony's side, not speaking. The wonderful beauty of the scene enthralled her, and words would have seemed almost a profanation, breaking across the deep, stirless silence which wrapped them round. Away to their right the golden disc of the sun was sinking royally westward, bathing the mountains in a flood of lambent light, and piercing the darkening blue of the sky with quivering shafts of scarlet and orange and saffron. Across the snow-fields shimmered a translucent rosy glow, so that they seemed no longer bleak and desolate, but lay spread like an unfurled banner of glory betwixt the great peaks which sentinelled them round. Presently the sun dipped below the rim of the horizon, and the splendour faded swiftly. It was as if some one had suddenly closed the doors of an opened heaven, shutting away the brief vision of its radiance.

In the faint, chill light of the risen moon, Ann turned to go, still in silence. She felt awed by the beauty of it all. For the time being she had forgotten the untoward circ.u.mstances which had brought her here, forgotten even Tony, except that she was vaguely conscious he was beside her, another human being, sharing with her the deep, eternal quiet of the mountains and the flaming glory of the setting sun. Then his arm slipped through hers, as they began the steep descent, and at the boyish, friendly touch of it, she came back to earth.

"Oh, Tony, I'm almost glad we missed the last train," she said softly, "It's been so wonderful."

"Yes, it's been wonderful," he a.s.sented, and there was a queer, excited note in his voice. "It's been wonderful to be up here with you--right away from the rest of the world."

Instinctively she drew a little away from him.

"I wish you wouldn't," she said hastily.

"Wouldn't what?" He linked his arm in hers more firmly. "Help you down this hill? You might trip if I didn't. It's a very rough track"--blandly.

Inwardly Ann admitted to a feeling of helplessness. Tony eluded reproof with a skill that was altogether baffling. Now, as usual, having said what he wanted to say, he retreated behind a fence of raillery.

"You know quite well I didn't mean that," she said indignantly.

"What did you mean, then? That I'm not to make love to you?"

"It isn't fair of you," she urged. "Not now--here."

"No, I suppose it isn't," he acknowledged equably. "But I'm going to do it, all the same. Probably I'll never get you to myself again--alone on the top of the world. But I'll promise you one thing"--his voice deepened to a sudden gravity. "This is going to be the last time I make love to you. If you say 'no' to me now, I shall accept it, and it will be 'no' for always."

Ann's heart beat a little more quickly.

"Tony--" she began protestingly.

"No. Hear me out. I know what's the matter. You don't trust me. You're afraid, if you marry me, that I'll let you down--as my father let my mother down. But I won't! I swear it." He stood still and, slipping his arm from under hers, took both her hands in his and held them tightly. "If you'll marry me, Ann, I promise you that I'll give up gambling--every form of it--from this day forth."

"You couldn't!" she broke in hastily.

"I could do anything--for you," he answered simply. "Because I love you."

There was something very touching in the boyish declaration. Ann looked up and saw his face in the moonlight, white and rather stern. It made her think of the face of some young knight of bygone days taking a sacred vow before he set forth to seek and find the Holy Grail.

He bent down to her.

"Ann, darling," he said gently. "I love you so much. Won't you marry me?"

She felt her heart contract. He had asked her many times before--sometimes half jestingly, sometimes with a sudden imperious pa.s.sion that would fain have swept everything before it. But this was different. There was a gravity, an earnestness in his speech which she could not lightly brush aside. Alone here, under the wide sky, with only G.o.d's open s.p.a.ces round them, it seemed to her as though his question and her answer to it must partake of the same solemnness as vows exchanged within the hallowed walls of a sanctuary.

She wished intensely that she could give him the answer he desired. And, beyond that, she felt the urge of Virginia's trust in her. Here was her chance. At a word from her he was willing to renounce the one thing for which he craved--the thing that had wrecked his father's life, and which might some day wreck his own. Ought she to say that word--promise to marry him, even though she had no love to give him? Her mind seemed to be going round and round in a maze of uncertainty and doubt.

And then suddenly the remembrance of what Lady Susan had said rushed over her: _"A woman may throw her whole life's happiness into the scales, and still fail to turn the balance. Without love--the love that can forgive seventy times seven, and then not be tired--she'll certainly fail_."

The words steadied her. "_Without love_--" and she had no love to give Tony. Not the love that a woman should bring to the man she will call husband. Out of the turmoil of her mind this one thought emerged clear and irrefutable. And in that moment, for good or ill, her decision was taken.

"Tony." She spoke very gently, sore at heart for the pain she knew she must inflict. "I must say no, dear. If I loved you, I'd say yes very gladly. But I don't love you--not like that."

"And you won't marry me?"

"No, I can't marry you."

"Then that's finished." He spoke brusquely. "I shan't ask you again, so you needn't worry. Come along, we'll get back to the hotel. If we're going to watch the sunrise to-morrow, we'd better turn in early. And this air makes one confoundedly sleepy. I believe I could sleep the clock round."

His abrupt return to the commonplace left her feeling confused and disconcerted. It almost seemed as though she must have dreamed the brief conversation which had just taken place. It was incredible that a man could ask you to marry him, promise to forswear a deadly vice that was born in his blood, and then--almost in the same breath, as it were--casually vouchsafe the information that he "could sleep the clock round"!

He had linked his arm in hers again, and was piloting her skilfully down the uneven pathway. She stole a glance at his face. But she could learn nothing whatever from his expression. Apparently he was solely concerned with the matter of conducting her back to the hotel in safety.

They parted in the hall at the foot of the stairs.

"I hope you'll sleep all right," said Tony, smiling down at her. "I'm afraid you'll find it a bit of a picnic, though, without any of the 'comforts of home'!"

He had hardly finished speaking when the hotel door swung open, and a man came striding in from outside. As he paused on the threshold to pull off the heavy coat he was wearing, he shot a casual glance in the direction of the two people standing together by the staircase. Then, his gaze concentrating suddenly, he stared at Tony with an odd intentness.

"Good-night, Tony." Ann's voice travelled softly to his ears, and at the sound of it the man transferred his gaze from Tony's face to hers. He himself remained standing un.o.bserved in the curtained shadow of the entry, and, when Ann had gone upstairs, Tony pa.s.sed him on the way to his own room on the ground floor without noticing his presence.

The man's glance followed him speculatively. Strolling across to the bureau, he opened the visitors' book, flicking over the leaves till he came to the current page. He ran his fingers down the list of names, pausing abruptly at the last inscription: "_G. Smith and sister_." Followed the illuminating word, "_London_."

With a brief, ironical smile he closed the book. Then he, too, took his way to bed, and presently the Hotel de Loup was wrapped in the profound stillness of night.

CHAPTER VI

THE MAN WITH THE SCAR

The sun poured down on to the balcony, and even though the gaily striped sun-blind had long since been lowered the heat was intense. But in the clear, dry atmosphere of Switzerland it could never be too hot to please Ann--she was a veritable sun-worshipper--and she lay back on a wicker _chaise-longue_, basking contentedly in the golden warmth while she awaited Lady Susan's return from Evian. From below came the drowsy crooning of the lake, as the water lapped idly against the stones that edged it--a lake of a blue so deep as to be almost sapphire.

Ann's eyes rested affectionately on the scene. She had grown to love Lac Leman and the mountains amid which it lay. Opposite her, on the far side of the water, the beautiful Savoy range sloped upwards from the sh.o.r.e, brooding maternally above the villages which fringed the borders of the lake, while to her left the snow-capped Dents du Midi, almost dazzling in the brilliant sunshine, guarded the gracious valley of the Rhone.

It was very calm, and peaceful, and sunshiny. Here at Montricheux one could easily imagine oneself shut away for ever from all that was hard and difficult and sordid--enclosed within a charmed circle of enchanted mountains where life slipped effortlessly on from day to day. This morning Ann felt peculiarly aware of the peaceful atmosphere prevailing. It struck her how smoothly and easily the last few months had pa.s.sed. To-day seemed typical of all the days which had preceded it. A little work--quite pleasant work, for Lady Susan--a measure of play, sunshine, the keen joy of beautiful surroundings--these things had made up six months of a strangely tranquil existence.

And now, as she sat communing with herself, she was conscious of a queer foreboding that this unruffled period of her life had run its course and was drawing to an end. Almost, it seemed to her, she could hear a low rustle amongst the winds of life--the faint, muttering stir which presages a storm.

Only once before had she experienced a similar sensation of foreboding, a few weeks prior to the death of her father and the subsequent discovery that she and Robin were left practically penniless. She had felt then as though a definite epoch in her life was approaching its close, and something new and difficult impending. And, in that instance, her premonition had been only too accurately fulfilled.

She tried to shake off the odd feeling of presentiment which obsessed her.

But it persisted, and it was a real relief when at last the opening of a door and the sound of voices in the hall heralded Lady Susan's return.