“Is it! But only think what an unqualified—er—misstatement you have committed yourself to. Doesn’t that weigh on your conscience like lead?”
“No,” replied the sinner, unabashed. “It’s a clear case of the end justifying the means. And then—all’s fair in love and war,” he added, with a gleeful laugh.
“You dear Phil. You are very frivolous, you know,” she answered, abandoning her inquisitorial tone for one that was very soft and winsome. “Well, as we are here—thanks to your disgraceful stratagem—I suppose we must make the best of it.”
“Darling!” was the rapturous response—“Oh, hang it!”
The latter interpolation was evoked by the sudden appearance of the others around a bend of the road, necessitating an equally sudden change in the speaker’s attitude and intentions. But the sting of the whole thing lay in the fact that during that alteration he had caught Fordham’s glance, and the jeering satire which he read therein inspired him with a wildly insane longing to knock that estimable misogynist over the cliff then and there.
“Well, young people. You’ve got the start of us and kept it,” said the General, as they came up. His wife was mounted on a mule, which quadruped was towed along by the bridle by a ragged and unshaven Valaisan.
“Alma dear, why didn’t you wait for us at that last place—Niouc, isn’t it, Mr Fordham?” said the old lady, reproachfully. “We had some coffee there.”
“Which was so abominably muddy we couldn’t drink it—ha—ha!” put in the General. “But it’s a long way on to the next place—isn’t it, Fordham?”
“Never mind, auntie. I don’t want anything, really,” replied Alma. “I never felt so fit in my life. Oh!” she broke off, in an ecstatic tone. “What a grand bit of scenery!”
“Rather too grand to be safe just here?” returned Mrs Wyatt, “I’m afraid. I shall get down and walk.”