Standing upon the plateau before the Palace Hotel, a stranger might have imagined himself upon the brink of an inland sea, whose feathery waves rolled noiselessly to his feet. Nothing could be seen of the panorama below, not a vineyard, nor a cottage; and while the Weisshorn reared itself majestically from the white fog, the lesser peaks were wreathed about as by trailing pillars of smoke.
In one hour or in two, said the experts, this sea of mist would drift up and envelop the heights. It might also be relied upon to obscure the fleeting forms of "the hares," and to play subtle tricks with the panting hounds—a prospect which was full of terror to the majority, but of great interest: (1) to a certain Bob Otway, who had persuaded Nellie Rider to be his partner in the promise of the day; and (2) to his friend, Dick Fenton, who had promised to fly with her sister Marjory, if not to the ends of the earth, at least to the chalet where lunch would be found at one o'clock precisely.
Fenton, as will be gathered from the foregoing, had been chosen for a hare, sharing the honour with Keith Rivers and that engaging performer, Miss Marjory Rider. Allowed five minutes' grace, these three, who wore fine scarlet sashes, set out at nine o'clock precisely, and quickly disappeared in the direction of the Park Hotel. Immediately they were gone, the concourse of indifferents, tempered by a few such experts as Bob Otway, lined up before the porch of the hotel, and prepared to carry itself with what grace it could. The light of it, conversationally considered, was Miss Bess Bethune, who, moving like a sprite amidst the company, assured each and all that something dreadful was about to happen at the Palace, and that the night would bear witness. When she had thus breakfasted upon horrors, she sought out Dr. Orange, and attached herself firmly to him, until she discovered that he preferred the seclusion of the skating rink, where he might hold out the tails of his threes to the delight of the elect. Bess hated him in the instant of that avowal; and, oh! the malignity of Fate, she was left to enjoy the society of Sir Gordon Snagg, who insisted upon treating her as a child, despite her thirteen years.
Perhaps Bess would have captured Bob Otway, but for the expert tactics of his vis-à-vis, Nellie Rider. Three seasons had Miss Nellie (and her sister) pirouetted vainly at Andana, and she was determined that the fourth should pay for all. The gossip of chosen friends, feeding upon the inflated estimates of rumour, declared that Master Bob had just come into a fortune of fifteen hundred a year—a tale, by the way, told also of his friend, Dick Fenton—and this sum being clearly in her mind and sweet romance, as it were, jangling the silver bells upon the neck of that good horse, Matrimony, she attached herself to Bob with the tenacious grip of an octopus (the words were Bess's), and so led him instanter to the heights, as to the place of execution duly appointed.
To be sure, they cared little for the paper-chase. Both were experts, and the delight of climbing could not be marred by any thought of direction or rendezvous. Sufficient to know that they were mounting far above the mists, winning their way steadily to the entrancing slopes and the golden fields of unbroken sunshine. When, at last, Bob discovered that they were lost, he added the intimation that it was a good thing too!
"We should have old Gordon Snagg on our backs if we'd stayed down there," he said. "I know the old bounder well—he always stops to tell you some yarn about his brother, the brewer, and falls down in the middle of it. He got me yesterday. That nut, Major Boodle, was with him and the lady, of course. Lady Coral-Smith's a pretty good weight when she's round your neck, but I'd sooner see her round the major's. Did you hear her trying to tell something about the 'little widow' this morning? Beastly shame, I call it—the little thing's all alone, and worth about two hundred of the rest of them. Now don't you think so yourself, Nellie?"
He had not called her Nellie before, and she remarked the circumstance, and pronounced it to be of good omen. Fearing no possible rival in the "little widow," Nellie could afford to be generous.
"She is very pretty, and very nice," she said. "I am sorry for her, because she has lost her husband—at least I should be, if I knew what kind of a husband he was. It's all guess-work with widows; you never quite know whether to be sorry or glad."
Bob laughed loudly.
"They're saying in the hotel that she hasn't lost him. Bess Bethune hints that he wouldn't be lost. That's a new sort of game, I suppose: trying to lose a husband and counting points against yourself when he turns up! Do you think you would like to play it when you are married?"