“Hang it all!” I exclaimed, flinging my unlucky paper into a corner, and becoming aware too late that Van Blarcom was observing me with a grin.
“I’ve got the black butterflies, as the French say,” I explained savagely. “This mountain travel is maddening; one might as well be a snail.”
“Sure, a slow train’s tiresome,” agreed Van Blarcom. “Specially if you’re not feeling overpleased with life anyway,” he added, with a knowing smile.
An angry answer rose to my lips, but the Mont Cenis tunnel opportunely enveloped us, and in the dark half-hour transit that followed I regained my self-control. It was not worth while, I decided, to quarrel with the fellow, to break his head or to give him the chance of breaking mine. After all, I thought low-spiritedly, what right had I to look down on him? We were pot and kettle, indistinguishably black. It was true that he had perjured himself upon the liner; but so, in spirit if not in words, had I!
Thus reflecting, I saw the train emerge from the tunnel, felt it jar to a standstill in the station of Modane, and, in obedience to staccato French outcries on the platform, alighted in the frontier town. Followed by Van Blarcom and preceded by our porters, I strolled in leisurely fashion towards the customs shed. The air was clear, chilly, invigorating; snowy peaks were thick and near. And the scene was picturesque, dotted as it was with mounted bayonets and blue territorial uniforms—reminders that boundary lines were no longer jests and that strangers might not enter France unchallenged in time of war.
Van Blarcom’s elbow at this juncture nudged me sharply.
“Say, Mr. Bayne,” he was whispering, “look over there, will you? What do you know about that?”
I looked indifferently. Then blank dismay took possession of me. Across the shed, just visible between rows of trunks piled mountain high, stood Miss Esme Falconer, as usual only too well worth seeing from fur hat to modish shoe.
“Ain’t that the limit,” commented the grinning Van Blarcom; “us three turning up again, all together like this? Well, I guess she won’t have to call a policeman to stop you talking to her. You know enough this time to steer pretty clear of her. Isn’t that so?”
But I had wheeled upon him; the coincidence was too striking!