Delaine forced a smile.
"Poor Old World! I wonder if you will ever be fair to it again, or--or to the people bound up with it!"
She looked at him, a little discomposed, and said, smiling:
"Wait till you meet me next in Rome!"
"Shall I ever meet you again in Rome?" he replied, under his breath, as though involuntarily.
As he spoke he made a determined pause, a stone's throw from the rippling stream that marks the watershed; and Elizabeth must needs pause with him. Beyond the stream, Philip sat lounging among rugs and cushions brought from the car, Anderson and the American beside him. Anderson's fair, uncovered head and broad shoulders were strongly thrown out against the glistening snows of the background. Upon the three typical figures--the frail English boy--the Canadian--the spare New Yorker--there shone an indescribable brilliance of light. The energy of the mountain sunshine and the mountain air seemed to throb and quiver through the persons talking--through Anderson's face, and his eyes fixed upon Elizabeth--through the sunlit water--the sparkling grasses--the shimmering spectacle of mountain and summer cloud that begirt them.
"Dear Mr. Arthur, of course we shall meet again in Rome!" said Elizabeth, rosy, and not knowing in truth what to say. "This place has turned my head a little!"--she looked round her, raising her hand to the spectacle as though in pretty appeal to him to share her own exhilaration--"but it will be all over so soon--and you know I don't forget old friends--or old pleasures."
Her voice wavered a little. He looked at her, with parted lips, and a rather hostile, heated expression; then drew back, alarmed at his own temerity.
"Of course I know it! You must forgive a bookworm his grumble. Shall I help you over the stream?"
But she stepped across the tiny streamlet without giving him her hand.