CHAPTER XXIV
THE DOCTOR INTERVENES
The world is as little interested in the harvest another reaps of his success as in the dinner he ate yesterday.
Benny's flight for the great prize had been a pleasant interlude at Andana, an excitement which might be permitted to postpone for a day the necessary operations of skating, ski-ing and curling. But when the flight had been accomplished, the little colony returned with what zest it could to its pleasures. These, unhappily, were pursued but sadly on the day following the great event. A cold bitter wind blew up the valley from Visp, and the snow fell incessantly during the morning and again at night, as has been told.
Benny was not sorry that things should turn out so. He dreaded a new invasion of the chalet, and had very much to do before he could leave the country. It was true, as Harry Clavering had said, that splendid offers had been made to him by his own people, but there were other offers both from France and from Switzerland, and he spent a good deal of his morning trying to plan out a campaign which should satisfy all concerned. A little later on Dr. Orange came in as though by accident, and when Brother Jack had gone upstairs to begin the packing, the doctor broached a private affair in which he presupposed a mutual interest.
"By the way," he said, "you know that Lady Delayne has left here?"
Benny, who was in the act of lighting his pipe, threw the match into the fireplace and looked at the doctor sharply.
"Gone to London, hasn't she?"
The doctor thought not.
"No," he said, "they tell me it is to Italy. Her husband is there, you know."