Quietly seated at a restaurant table, beneath the awning, Annie Clarke and Gertrude Milner took a cup of tea to warm themselves, watching, without troubling, the figures of their daughters ever growing smaller, as they proceeded over the sharp rocks, along the torrent, towards the glacier.
Around them at the tables some were taking tea, others were drinking beer, and others writing on post cards. People arrived continuously from the road behind the bridge where the carriages were halted, and others arrived from the glacier. Everywhere nothing but German was to be heard, and the very waitresses of the inn were fräulein who did not understand a word of English or French.
"Even here all are Germans," murmured Gertrude with a sneer, as she sipped her tea.
"And Jews! What a nuisance, dear," added the very Catholic Annie.
Mabel and Vittorio had almost reached the goal. As they approached the way became more dangerous amid the great rocks which had to be jumped, and from which it was easy to slip. Mabel's high heels made her hesitate and vacillate every moment. Frowning and anxious about making a stupid fall, she ended by placing her two hands in Vittorio's, although at first she had refused any support; then in three leaps she reached the opening of the ice grotto with him. He made her climb the last boulder, lifting her like a child, as he deposited her on a mound of earth, and so gracefully that she smiled at him adorably to thank him. The immense wall stood over their heads; through two enormous clefts they perceived its fearsome height and profundity. The enormous walls were dripping icy water, and drops of icy water fell from the arch of the cleft, whence was formed the strange grotto. Near at hand, beneath a colossal and sinuous streak of ice, which was the tail of the glacier, the torrent bubbled forth mysteriously and sped away. They penetrated beneath the white arch that overwhelmed them, amid the ice that surrounded them with a cold embrace; the gelid drops fell on their cheeks and foreheads. Vittorio felt Mabel's hand trembling a little as it sought his.
"Would you rather go out?" he asked, guessing her secret wish.
"I would rather," she replied at once.
They completed the short circuit of the grotto and left. She was pale as if she breathed with difficulty under the immense wall; and she breathed deeply, in fact, when once again she was on rocks in the open air. She perceived a little road that climbed among the boulders to the right.
"Come," she said, approaching Vittorio.