“We shall have to manage somehow.”
It occurred to Miss Marley, with a wave of reassurance, that this was probably Winn’s usual way of managing.
“In any case,” she said firmly, “you can count on me to do anything you wish.”
Winn expressed no gratitude. He merely said:
“I shall introduce her to you this evening.”
Before he left Miss Marley he shook hands with her. Her hands were hard and muscular, but she realized when she felt his grip that he must have been extremely grateful.
CHAPTER XXIV
They went out early, before the sun was up, when the valley was an apricot mist and the mountains were as white as snowdrops in the spring. The head waiter fell easily into their habits, and provided them with an early breakfast and a parcel for lunch. Then they drove off through the biting, glittering coldness.
Sometimes they went far down the valley to Sils and on to the verge of the Maloja. Sometimes they drove through the narrower valleys to Pontresina and on into the impenetrable winter gloom of the Mortratsch glacier. The end was the same solitude, sunshine, and their love. The world was wrapped away in its winter stillness. The small Swiss villages slept and hardly stirred. In the hot noonday a few drowsy peasants crept to and from the barns where the cattle passed their winter life. Sometimes a woman labored at a frozen pump, or a party of skiers slipped rapidly through the shady streets, rousing echoes with their laughter; but for the most part they were as much alone as if the world had ceased to hold any beings but themselves. The pine-trees scented all the air, the snow dripped reluctantly, and sometimes far off they heard the distant boom of an avalanche. They sat together for long sunlit hours on the rickety wooden balcony of a friendly hospice, drinking hot spiced glüwein and building up their precarious memories.
There were moments when the hollow present snapped under their feet like a broken twig, and then the light in their eyes darkened and they ran out upon the safer path of make-believe.