High Noon | Page 5

guess. Make up a foursome with us and I'll promise you this old place won't be half slow. When it comes to making things hum, nobody's got anything on the Countess."
"Damned bounder!" growled Paul under his breath; and aloud: "Thanks, I have an engagement. Awfully sorry, and all that, you know." And he rose, as if to end the interview.
"I'll bet you've got a date with that queen you were just talking to. Verdayne, you're the foxy one. Well, I can't say you haven't got good taste, anyhow, though she's a little too quiet for me."
"Talking with whom?" inquired Paul, in a cold voice.
"Why, that lady that just left here. She nearly ran into me getting away."
"Schwartzberger," answered Paul, with great deliberation, as he folded his newspaper, "I believe that a lively imagination is as necessary to the ideal management of the pork-packing industry as to all other business activities. Permit me to observe that I can predict for you no cessation of the remarkable results you have achieved in your chosen profession." And with a short nod he started down the path.
Schwartzberger's beady eyes blinked after Paul a moment.
"These Englishmen always do get up in the air over nothing," thought the pork-packer, as he gazed after Paul with a puzzled look on the wide expanse of his countenance. Then he turned his great bulk and waddled ponderously into the hotel, in search of his particular friend, the Comtesse de Boistelle.
Toward the landing on the lake Paul descended, with his heels biting viciously into the gravel at every step.
"Confound these beastly people!" he growled. "Why are they allowed to roam about the earth, making hideous the beautiful places." His soul revolted at even the suggestion that he could have thought for any but his beloved Lady--his Queen whom he had not seen for more than a score of years, and would never, on this fair planet, behold again.
On a coign of vantage overlooking the steep slope the pale lady stood with her face turned toward the B��rgenstock. She watched Paul as he stalked angrily down the hillside, and in her mind compared him with the monster she had just avoided. She gazed after him till he reached the slip, where a small boat was ready for him; and she lingered on while he stepped lightly into the skiff, picked up the oars, and rowed away in the style an Eton man never forgets. Motionless she remained, until he disappeared behind a fringe of larches that crept close to the shelving shore. Then slowly, as with regret, she turned to resume her stroll.
A faint colour had stolen into her cheeks; the wonderful eyes had grown very bright and wistfully tender and deep. The rare old lace on her bosom fluttered with her quickened breath, as softly she murmured:
"Ah! My entrancing one, now I have seen thee--and I understand!" And the larches by the shore trembled as if in sympathetic emotion as the gentle breeze echoed her sigh.
* * * * *
A half-hour later the big green touring-car spluttered on its noisy way again; but its tonneau contained no partie carr��e. A smartly clipped poodle perched in the centre of the wide seat--on one side of him lounged the shapeless green form of the pork-packer, on the other side gracefully reposed the Comtesse de Boistelle.
And if the complacent admiring glances which Schwartzberger heavily bestowed on the lady of his choice were perhaps too redolent of the proprietorship in which a successful pork-packer might indulge, they were at least small coins in the mart of love, which is Springtime in Lucerne.
* * * * *
Up the lake Paul rowed briskly, working off his ill-humour in the sheer exertion of his favorite sport. The splendid play of his powerful muscles carried his light craft rapidly over the blue water, until he reached a secluded little bay where he had often gone to escape from troublesome travellers at the hotel. Beaching his skiff, he threw himself at full length on the rocky shore, where he lay quite still, drinking in the beauty of the prospect.
Occasionally the wind bore to him from some distant ridge or hidden glen the tinkling of a cow-bell, as the herd wandered here and there grazing upon the green uplands. Once--for an instant only--a mirage appeared upon the southern sky, as if in mute testimony to the transitory character of all earthy things, the fleeting phases of human life. It seemed to Paul, with a score of years dimming the vista of his young manhood, not more shadowy and unreal than the wonderful scenes in which years before he had played all too brief a part.
Little by little, as he lay motionless, the sun stole toward the zenith. But to Paul, alone with his memories, the earth seemed bathed in a