'Well, I hope she didn't show it him before she returned it,' said the other.
January in London, with few exceptions, had been a month of raw and foggy days—days that were bitter cold, with the coldness of a damp cloth, and stuffy with the airlessness of that which a damp cloth covers. Far otherwise was it at Davos, where morning after morning, after nights of still, intense cold, the sun rose over the snow-covered hills, and flamed like a golden giant, rejoicing in his strength, through the arc of crystalline blue. Much snow had fallen in December, but when the fall was past, the triumphant serenity of the brilliant climate reasserted itself. The pines above the long, one-streeted village had long ago shaken themselves clear of their covering, and stood out like large black holes burned in the hillside of white. Day after day the divine windlessness of the high Alpine valley had communicated something of its briskness to those fortunate enough to be there, and the exhilaration of the atmosphere seemed to percolate into minds of not more than ordinary vivacity.
The village itself lies on a gentle down gradient of road, some mile in length, where Alpine chalets jostle with huge modern hotels. Below lies the puffy little railway which climbs through the pinewoods above the town, and communicates in many loops and detours with the larger routes; and straight underneath the centre of the village is the skating-rink, where happy folk all day slide with set purpose on the elusive material, and with great content perform mystic evolutions of the most complicated order. Others, by the aid of the puffy railway, mount to the top of the hills above the town, and spend enraptured days in sliding down again on toboggans to the village of Klosters. Motion, in fact, of any other sort than that of walking is the aim and object of Davos life—an instinct dictated and rendered necessary by the keen exhilaration of the air. At no other place in the world, perhaps, is the sluggard so goaded to physical activity; at no other, perhaps, is the active brain so lulled or intoxicated into quiescence. It lies, in fact, basking and smiling, while the rejuvenated body, free from the low and cramping effects of thought, goes rejoicing on its way.
Charlie, by reason of his malady, had been debarred from taking either much or violent exercise; he had been told to be out always and to be idle usually. This he found extremely easy, for his mother was there to be idle with him, and Sybil was there to furnish entertainment for both. With her usual decision and eye for fitness, she had seen at once that for the present there was only one thing in the world worth doing—namely, skating. She skated extremely badly, but with an enjoyment that was almost pathetic, in consideration of the persistence of 'frequent fall.' Thus, morning after morning, she, setting out at earlier hours, would be followed down to the rink by Charlie and his mother, where they would lunch together, returning to the hotel before dark fell for the cosy brightness of the long winter evenings.
Mrs. Brancepeth was a widow, cultivated, intelligent, and gifted with a discernment that was at times really rather awkward to herself, though never to those to whom she applied it, since she never used what her intuition had enabled her to see, to their discomfort. This gift put her into very accurate possession of the state of affairs between Charlie and Sybil; it was clear to her, that is to say, that Sybil was wiling him back into the desire to live, waking his dormant interests, as if by oft-repeated little electric shocks of her own vitality, charming him back into life. She knew, of course, the state of her son's feelings towards Sybil, and did her the justice of allowing that, not byword or look, direct or indirect, did she ever hold herself out as the prize for which life was worth living. Indeed, Mrs. Brancepeth admired with all the highly-developed power of appreciation that was in her the constant effacement of herself which Sybil practised—effacement, that is, of the personal element, while by all healthy and impersonal channels she tried to rekindle his love for life. Whatever was—so Sybil's gospel appeared to run—was worth attention. Her own falls on the ice were matters for amused comment; the outside edge was per se a thing of beauty; the stately march of the sun was enough to turn one Parsee. Enthusiastic, vitally active as Sybil always had been, it required less penetration than Mrs. Brancepeth possessed to see that her amazing flood of vitality was deliberately outpoured for the sake of Charlie. This was the more evident to her by the fact that Sybil, when alone with her, subsided, sank into herself, and rested from an effort. At times, indeed, when Charlie was not there, she was almost peevish, which, in a woman of equable temper, is a sure sign of some overtaxed function. Such an instance occurred, so Mrs. Brancepeth thought, on an evening shortly before Bilton arrived at Davos. In the six weeks that they had now spent there, the elder woman had got to know the younger very well, to like her immensely, and to respect, with almost a sense of awe, the extreme cleverness with which she managed her affair. The 'affair' was briefly, to her mind, to make Charlie take a normal interest in life again, without exciting an abnormal interest in herself—to transfer his affection, in fact, from herself to life.
They had dined together that evening at their small table at the Beau Site, and Sybil had traced loops on the tablecloth with a wineglass, and sketched threes and brackets to a centre with the prong of a fork.
'Yes, it sounds silly,' she said, 'but it is the most fascinating thing in the world to try to do anything which you at present believe yourself incapable of doing. I have no eye for colour at all, therefore two years ago I took violently, as Charlie remembers, to painting. I have no eye for balance, therefore now I spend my day in trying to execute complicated movements which depend entirely on it.'
Charlie's eye lit up.
'The quest of the impossible,' he said. 'How I sympathize!'
This 'was direct enough; with returning health he had got far greater directness. Mrs. Brancepeth waited for Sybil's reply; it came as direct as his.