“Rather,” said Philip. “Every one turns in ridiculously early, but what’s the good of that when just as you are dropping off to sleep somebody comes into the room above you and practices for the next day’s walk during about two hours, in a pair of regulation nail boots? I’ve been having a bad time of late. Getting no exercise in the daytime, I find it hard to sleep at night, and there’s always some one stumping about overhead. I was obliged to ring up the night porter at last and send him up to inform the gentleman overhead that I should take it as very kind of him if he would defer his rehearsal of step-cutting, jumping crevasses, etc, until he could practise upon real ice the next day. Well, the porter went, for I heard his voice through the floor. I asked him in the morning if the gentleman had sworn a great deal or only a little. ‘Gentleman?’ he said, in mild surprise. ‘It was not a gentleman, it was a lady.’”
“Wasn’t she awfully sorry?” said Laura.
“She may have been, but she didn’t seem so. By way of impressing me with the honour I ought to consider it to be lulled to sleep by the tread of her fairy feet, I am bound to record that she made rather more row than before.”
“Who was it? Do you know?”
“I don’t. I had my suspicions, but they were only suspicions.”
“Well, it couldn’t have been either of us,” laughed Mrs Daventer, “for we happen to be on the same floor. But to whom do your suspicions point?”
“I fancy it must have been one of those two grim spinsters who have been keeping me supplied with sacred literature.”
“No—have they?” said the girl, a swift laugh darting from her dark eyes. “I know who you mean, though I don’t know their names. They are dreadful old people. I notice at table they never have the same next-door neighbours two days running. I suppose they force their ideas on that head upon everybody, judging from the scraps of conversation that float across.”
“I ought to be grateful to them,” went on Philip. “Every day I found a fresh tract slipped under my door. The titles, too, were uniformly appropriated to the sojourner in Zermatt. ‘Where are you going to climb to-day?’ or ‘Looking Upward.’ ‘The Way that is Dark and Slippery,’ which reminded me of that high moraine coming down from the Rothhorn the other night. But what really did hurt my feelings was one labelled, ‘On whomsoever it Shall Fall it shall Grind him to Powder.’ It seemed too personal. I felt that they were poking fun at my misfortune, don’t you know, and it didn’t seem kind. But it occurred to me that they meant well. They meant to amuse me, and assuredly they succeeded. By the way, these interesting documents bore the injunction: ‘When done with, pass this on to a friend.’ Wherefore, Miss Daventer, I shall feel it my duty to endow you with the whole lot.”
“I must decline the honour. I couldn’t think of depriving you of so valuable a possession,” was the laughing reply. “But we are wandering dreadfully from the point. Why do you think it was one of those old things who was walking about over your head?”