The rack-and-pinion railway from Montricheux to the Dents de Loup wound upward like a single filament flung round the mountains by some giant spider. The miniature train, edging its way along the track, appeared no more than a mere speck as it crept tortuously up towards the top. At its rear puffed a small engine, built in a curious tilted fashion, so that as it laboured industriously behind the coaches of the train it reminded one ridiculously of a baby elephant on its knees.
Ann was leaning against the windowless framework of the railway carriage, watching the valleys drop away, curve by curve, as the train climbed. Far below lay the lake, a blue rift glimmering between pine-clad heights. Then a turn of the track and the lake was swept suddenly out of sight, while the mountains closed round—shoulder after green-clad shoulder, with fields of white narcissus flung across them like fairy mantles. The air was full of the fragrance of narcissus mingling with the pungent scent of fir and pine. Ann sniffed luxuriously and glanced round to where Tony was sitting.
“Doesn’t it smell clean and delicious?” she said, drawing in great breaths of the pine-laden air. “When I come up to the mountains I always wonder why on earth we ever live anywhere else.”
Tony smiled.
“You’d be the first to get bored if you didn’t live somewhere else—now that the winter sports are over,” he returned. “After all”—mundanely—“you can’t derive more than a limited amount of enjoyment from scenery, however fine. Besides, you must know this route by heart.”
“I do. But I love it! It’s different every time I come up here. I think”—knitting her brows—“that’s what is so fascinating about the Swiss mountains; they change so much. Sometimes they look all misty and unreal—almost like a mirage, and then, the very next day, perhaps, they’ll have turned back into hard-edged, solid rock and you can’t imagine their ever looking like dream-mountains again.”
Gradually, as they mounted, they left the verdant valleys, with their sheltered farms and châlets, behind. The pine-woods thinned, and now and again a wedge of frozen snow, lodged under the projecting corner of a rock, appeared beside the track. The wind grew keener, chill from the eternal snows over which it had swept, and sheer, rocky peaks, bare of tree or herbage, thrust upward against the sky.
Presently, with a warning shriek, the train glided into a tunnel cut clean through the base of a mighty rock. The sides dripped moisture and the icy air tore through the narrow passage like a blast of winter. Ann shivered in the sudden cold and darkness and drew her furs closer round her. She had a queer dread of underground places; they gave her a feeling of captivity, and she was thankful when the train emerged once more into daylight and ran into the mountain station. Tony helped her out on to the small platform.
“Which is it to be?” he asked, glancing towards where a solitary hotel stood like a lonely outpost of civilisation. “Tea first, or a walk?”
Ann declared in favour of the walk.