Nellie, dumb with excitement and amazement, swept towards them.
"Look out!" cried the Captain.
In vain! He himself might perhaps have escaped, but he could not abandon his Countess in the moment of peril, and the Countess could only move after much thought and many efforts, being scarce more advanced than Nellie. Nellie's wilful planks quite ignored the curve, and, as it were afloat on them, she charged off the track, and into the Captain and the Countess. The impact was tremendous. Six skis waved like semaphores in the air. Then all was still. Then, as the beholders hastened to the scene of the disaster, the Countess laughed and Nellie laughed. The laugh of the Captain was not heard. The sole casualty was a wound about a foot long in the hinterland of the Captain's unique knickerbockers. And as threads of that beautiful check pattern were afterwards found attached to the wheel of Nellie's pole, the cause of the wound was indisputable. The Captain departed home chiefly backwards, but with great rapidity.
In the afternoon Denry went down to Montreux and returned with an opal bracelet, which Nellie wore at dinner.
"Oh! What a ripping bracelet!" said a girl.
"Yes," said Nellie. "My husband gave it me only to-day."
"I suppose it's your birthday or something," the inquisitive girl ventured.
"No," said Nellie.
"How nice of him!" said the girl.
The next day Captain Deverax appeared in riding breeches. They were not correct for ski-running, but they were the best he could do. He visited a tailor's in Montreux.