“Mr. Bower!” came Helen’s voice from the door of the cabane. “Why don’t you join us? And you, Mr. Spencer? Stampa, come here and eat at once.”
“To-morrow, at ten? Or now?” the old man whispered again.
“To-morrow—curse you!”
Stampa twisted himself round. “I am not hungry, fräulein,” he cried. “I ate chocolate all the way up the glacier. But do you be speedy. We have lost too much time already.”
Bower brushed past, and the guide stooped to recover his ice ax. Spencer, though troubled sufficiently by his own disturbing fantasies, did not fail to notice their peculiar behavior. But he answered Helen with a pleasant disclaimer.
“Christian kept his hoard a secret, Miss Wynton. I too have lost my appetite,” said he.
“Once we start we shall hardly be able to unpack the hamper again,” said Helen.
The American was trying her temper. She suspected that he carried his hostility to the absurd pitch of refusing to partake of any food provided by Bower. It was a queer coincidence that Spencer harbored the same notion with regard to Stampa, and wondered at it.
“I shall starve willingly,” he said. “It will be a just punishment for declining the good things that did not tempt me when they were available.”