“He is a wonderfully kind man,” she reflected. “I hope I wasn’t too emphatic, but one had to make him quite understand. Even now we shall have to talk it over again. Oh dear! Oh dear! how I wish Ralph and I were really engaged, then one wouldn’t be so tongue-tied. I shall only be twenty in the spring, and there will still be a year to wait.”
The road passed now through a wood, and something in its green depths of shade made her think of a wood near Southbourne where they had once spent a happy midterm holiday with the Herefords, during her school days.
“How I wish I were at school again now,” she thought sadly. “It was all so happy and easy there, with none of these worries and misunderstandings. And yet I don’t either, for if I were still at school Ralph would not have spoken to me that Sunday, that wonderful Sunday.”
She fell into a happy dream, and was startled when Bruce Wylie suddenly appeared at the carriage door and resumed his place beside her.
“She was thinking of that boy,” he reflected with annoyance. “This business will make our task even more disagreeable.”
“You look tired,” he said, “when we reach the Hotel Bel Oiseau I will order some tea to be got ready while we go on to the best point of view.”
“But are you sure we shall have time. We must not miss that train,” said Evereld.
“Oh, plenty of time. It’s all down hill going back, and besides the horse must rest, and the driver will certainly expect to drink our health in the vin du pays.”
His manner set her mind at rest, and indeed for a time she forgot all else in the wonderful panorama that opened out before them as Mont Blanc and the Chamounix Valley came into view. It was a scene to remember for a lifetime, and Evereld, with her young heart and her clear conscience, was able to revel in its beauty, and to cast off altogether all petty cares and vexations.
These, however, returned when they went back to the Hotel Bel Oiseau; a mistake had been made—or so Bruce Wylie told her—as to the tea, and it took a long time in coming. Then there was yet another delay because the coachman had mysteriously disappeared, and when at last the horse was put in and they turned back to Vernayaz, Evereld was certain that they had allowed very scanty time for the descent.