Greatheart | Page 6

but the laughter-loving mouth and pointed chin wholly redeemed it from the commonplace. She was a little brown thing like a woodland creature, and her dainty air and quick ways put Scott irresistibly in mind of a pert robin.
In reply to her question he told her that he had arrived only the night before. "And I am quite a tyro," he added. "I have been watching the luging on that slope, and thanking all the stars that control my destiny that I wasn't there."
She laughed, showing a row of small white teeth. "Oh, you'd love it once you started. It's a heavenly sport if the run isn't bumpy. Isn't this a glorious atmosphere? It makes one feel so happy."
She came and stood by his side to watch the skaters. Billy was seated on the bank, impatiently changing his boots.
"I'm not going to wait for you any longer, Dinah," he said. "I'm fed up."
"Don't then!" she retorted. "I never asked you to."
"What a lie!" said Billy, with all a brother's gallantry.
She threw him a sister's look of scorn and deigned no rejoinder. But in a moment the incident was forgotten. "Oh, look there!" she suddenly exclaimed. "Isn't that just like Rose de Vigne? She's always sure to appropriate the most handsome man within sight. I've been watching that man from my window. He is a perfect Apollo, and skates divinely. And now she's got him!"
Deep disgust was audible in her voice. Billy looked up with a sideways grin. "You don't suppose he'd look at a sparrow like you, do you?" he said. "He prefers a swan, you bet."
"Be quiet, Billy!" commanded Dinah, making an ineffectual dig at him with her foot. "I don't want him to look at me. I hate men. But it is too bad the way Rose always chooses the best. It's just the same with everything. And I long--oh, I do long sometimes--to cut her out!"
"I should myself," said Scott unexpectedly. "But why don't you. I'm sure you could."
She threw him a whimsical smile. "I!" she said. "Why that's about as likely as--" she stopped short in some confusion.
He laughed a little. "You mean I might as soon hope to cut out Apollo? But the cases are not parallel, I assure you. Besides, Apollo happens to be my brother, which makes a difference."
"Oh, is he your brother? What a good thing you told me!" laughed Dinah. "I might have said something rude about him in a minute."
"Like me!" said Billy, stumbling to his feet. "I made a most horrific blunder, didn't I, Mr. Studley? I called him a bounder!"
Dinah looked at him witheringly. "You would!" she said. "Well, I hope you apologized."
Billy stuck out his tongue at her. "I didn't then!" he returned, and skated elegantly away on one leg.
"Billy," remarked Dinah dispassionately, "is not really such a horrid little beast as he seems."
Scott smiled his courteous smile. "I had already gathered that," he said.
Her green eyes darted him a swift look, as if to ascertain if he were in earnest. Then: "That was very nice of you," she said. "I wonder how you knew."
He still smiled, but without much mirth. "A looker-on sees a good many things, you know," he said.
Dinah's eyes flashed understanding. She said no more.
CHAPTER III
THE SEARCH
When Isabel came slowly forth at length from the hotel door whither Biddy had conducted her, Scott was sitting alone on a bench in the sunshine.
He rose at once to join her. "Why, how quick you have been! Or else the time flies here. Eustace is still skating. I had no idea he was so accomplished. See, there he is!"
But Isabel set her haggard face towards the mountain-road that wound up beyond the hotel. "I am going to look for Basil," she said.
"It is waste of time," said Scott quietly.
But he did not attempt to withstand her. They turned side by side up the hard, snowy track.
For some time they walked in silence. At a short distance from the hotel, the road ascended steeply through a pine-wood, dark and mysterious as an enchanted forest, through which there rose the sound of a rushing stream.
Scott paused to listen, but instantly his sister laid an imperious hand upon him.
"I can't wait," she said. "I am sure he is just round the corner. I heard him whistle."
He moved on in response to her insistence. "I heard that whistle too," he said. "But it was a mountain-boy."
He was right. At a curve in the road, they met a young Swiss lad who went by them with a smile and salute, and fell to whistling again when he had passed.
Isabel pressed on in silence. She had started in feverish haste, but her speed was gradually slackening. She looked neither to right nor left; her eyes perpetually strained forward as though they sought