II
JIMMY'S APOLOGY
In the morning Jimmy leaned, rather moodily, against the terrace wall. There was no garden, for the hotel occupied a narrow shelf on the hillside, and from the terrace one looked down on the tops of dusky pines. The building was new, and so far the guests were not numerous, but the manager claimed that when the charm of the neighborhood was known, summer tourists and mountaineers would have no use for Banff.
Perhaps his hopefulness was justified, for all round the hotel primeval forest met untrodden snow, and at the head of the valley a glacier dropped to a calm green lake. A few miles south was a small flag-station, and sometimes one heard a heavy freight train rumble in the woods. When the distant noise died away all was very quiet but for the throb of falling water.
Jimmy had not enjoyed his breakfast, and when he lighted a cigarette the tobacco did not taste good. He admitted that he had been carried away, and now he was cool he reflected that his rashness had cost him a large sum and he had given Stannard another note. He was young, and had for a year or two indulged his youthful craving for excitement, but he began to doubt if he could keep it up. After all, he had inherited more than he knew from his sternly business-like and rather parsimonious ancestors. Although the Leyland cotton mills were now famous in Lancashire, Jimmy's grandfather had earned day wages at the spinning frame.
Jimmy felt dull and thought a day on the rocks would brace him up. Since his object for the Canadian excursion was to shoot a mountain-sheep and climb a peak in the Rockies, he ought to get into trim. Stannard could play cards all night and start fresh in the morning on an adventure that tried one's nerve and muscle, but Jimmy admitted he could not. When he loafed about hotel rotundas and consumed iced drinks he got soft.
After a time, Laura Stannard crossed the veranda and went along the terrace. Her white dress was fashionable and she wore a big white hat. Her hair and eyes were black, her figure was gracefully slender, and her carriage was good. Jimmy thought her strangely attractive, but did not altogether know if she was his friend, and admitted that he was not Laura's sort. It was not that she was proud. Something about her indicated that her proper background was an old-fashioned English country house; Jimmy felt his was a Lancashire cotton mill. Laura did not live with Stannard, but she joined him and Jimmy in Switzerland not long before they started for Canada. Stannard was jealous about his daughter and had indicated that his friends were not necessarily hers. Jimmy had grounds to think Stannard's caution justified.
For a minute or two Jimmy left the girl alone. He imagined if Laura were willing to talk to him she would let him know. She went to the end of the terrace, and then turning opposite a bench, looked up and smiled. Jimmy advanced and when he joined her leaned against the low wall. Laura studied him quietly and he got embarrassed. Somehow he felt she disapproved; he imagined he did not altogether look as if he had got up after a night's refreshing sleep.
"You got breakfast early," she remarked.
"That is so," Jimmy agreed. "A fellow at my table argues about our slowness in the Old Country and sometimes one would sooner be quiet. Then I thought I'd go off and see if I could reach the ice-fall on the glacier; after the sun gets hot the snow is treacherous. Anyhow, you have come down as soon as me."