"Hello, Jimmy! Deering has beaten Frank and we must arrange about our excursion to-morrow."
Jimmy frowned and hesitated. When he had talked to Laura before, Stannard had called him away, but he thought she did not mean him to stay and he went off. When he had gone Laura mused.
She knew Stannard was jealous for her. He did not allow her to join him when his young friends were about, and she did not want to do so. For the most part she lived with her mother's relations, who did not approve of Stannard and were not satisfied about her going to Canada.
To some extent Laura imagined their doubts were justified. She knew Stannard had squandered much of her mother's fortune, and now that her trustees guarded the small sum she had inherited, he was poor. Yet he belonged to good clubs and went to race meeting and shooting parties. It looked as if sport and gambling paid, and Laura saw what this implied. Yet her father was kind and when she was with him he indulged her.
She had remarked his calling Jimmy away. As a rule, his touch was very light, and she wondered whether he had meant to incite the young fellow by a hint of disapproval; but perhaps it was not his object and she speculated about Jimmy. He was now not the raw lad she had known in Switzerland, although he was losing something that at the beginning had attracted her. She thought he ought not to stay with Stannard and particularly with Deering, and she had tried to indicate the proper line for him to take. Well, suppose he resolved to go back to Lancashire? Laura knew her charm and imagined, if she were willing, she might go with Jimmy. Although he could not yet use his fortune, he was rich, and after a time would control the famous manufacturing house. Besides, he was marked by some qualities she liked. Laura got up with an impatient shrug, and blushed. She would not think about it yet. She was poor, but she was not an adventuress.
In the morning, Stannard, Deering and Jimmy started for the rocks. Their object was to follow the range and look for a line to the top of a peak they meant to climb another day. They lunched on the mountain, and in the afternoon stopped at the side of a gully that ran down to the glacier. The back of the gully was smooth, and the pitch was steep, but hardly steep enough to bother an athletic man. In places, banks of small gravel rested, although it looked as if a disturbing foot would send down the stones.
Some distance above the spot, the top of another pitch cut a background of broken rocks, streaked by veins of snow. The sun was on the rocks and some shone like polished steel, but the gully was in shadow and Jimmy had felt the gloom daunting. Deering pulled out his cigar-case. His face was red, his shirt was open and his sunburned neck was like a bull's.
"My load's two hundred pounds, and we have shoved along pretty fast since lunch," he said. "Anyhow, I'm going to stop and take a smoke."
"To lean against a slippery rock won't rest you much," Stannard remarked. "We'll get on to the shelf at the top of the slab."
"Then, somebody's got to boost me up," Deering declared, and when Stannard went to help, put his boot on the other's head and crushed his soft hat down to his ears.