“You must come and see the speed-skaters,” she urged, with her hand on his arm. “It’s the thing I told you about most. And I believe we’ve won the second prize. The Russian and Pole have got the first, of course; They were absolutely perfect, but we were rather good. Why did you rush off, and what are you looking like that for? Is anything the matter? You’re not — ” her voice faltered suddenly — “you’re not angry, are you?”
“No, I’m not angry,” said Winn, recklessly, “and nothing’s the matter, and I’ll go wherever you want and see what you want and do what you want, and I ran away because I was a damned fool and hate a fuss. And I see you’re going to ask me if I liked it awfully. Yes, I did; I liked it awfully. Now are you satisfied?” He still hadn’t said anything, he thought, that mattered.
“Oh, yes,” she said slowly, “of course I’m satisfied. I’m glad you liked it awfully; I liked it awfully myself.”
CHAPTER XVI
The valley of the Dischmatal lies between two rather shapeless mountains; it leads nowhere, and there is nothing in it.
Winn gave no reason for his wish to walk there with Lionel except that it was a quiet place for a talk. They had been together for twenty-four hours and so far they had had no talk. Lionel had expected to find a change in Winn; he had braced himself to meet the shock of seeing the strongest man he knew pitilessly weakened under an insidious disease. He had found a change, but not the one he expected. Winn looked younger, more alert, and considerably more vigorous. There was a curious excitement in his eyes which might have passed for happiness if he had not been so restless. He was glad to see Lionel, but that wasn’t enough to account for it. Winn looked ten years younger and he had something up his sleeve.
Lionel had his own theory as to what that something might be, but he wouldn’t have expected it to make Winn look younger. He couldn’t help being afraid that Winn had found out Estelle. There had always been the chance that he might never find her out; he was neither reflective nor analytical, and Lionel was both. Winn might have been content simply to accept her as lovely and delightful, an ideal wife — not a companion, but a beautiful, fluttering creature to be supplied with everything it wanted. If he had done that he wouldn’t have waked up to the fact that the creature gave him nothing whatever back — beyond preening its feathers and forbearing to peck. Lionel respected and loved women, so that he could afford to feel a certain contempt for Estelle, but he had always feared Winn’s feeling any such emotion. Winn would condemn Estelle first and bundle her whole sex after her. Lionel hardly dared to ask him, as he did at last on their way through Dorf, what news he had of his wife.
“What news of Estelle?” Winn asked indifferently. “None particularly. She doesn’t like Peter’s language. My people seem to have taken to him rather, and I hear he’s picked up parts of the Governor’s vocabulary. It’ll be jolly hearing him talk; he couldn’t when I left. Estelle’s taken up religion. It’s funny, my mother said she would, before we were married. My mother’s got a pretty strong head; Estelle hasn’t, she was keen about the Tango when I left; but I dare say religion’s better for her; hers is the high church kind. Up there is the valley — funny sort of place; it’ll remind you of the hills — that’s one reason why I brought you out here — that and the hotel being like a fly paper. Davos is like all the places where our sort of people go — fashion or disease — it don’t matter a penny which — they’re all over the place itself, in and out of each other’s pockets, and yet get a mile or two out and nobody’s in sight. Funny how people like each other. I don’t like ’em, you know. I hate ’em.”
In the early February afternoon the valley lay before them singularly still and white. There were no fir-trees on the sides of the abrupt snow slopes, and it took Winn some time to rediscover a faint pathway half blotted out by recent snow.
A few minutes later the road behind them vanished, everything dropped away from them but the snow, and the low gray skies. A tiny wind slipped along the valley; it was strange not to see it, for it felt like the push of a Presence, in the breathless solitude. A long way off Lionel could hear a faint noise like the sound of some one choking.