'Yes, my lord!' answered the man, cheerily. 'The good English rifle indeed was lost; but it seems to me that the Herr Marquis did not make wholly a bad exchange!'
'No, indeed,' said his master, as he paused and looked down to where the towers and spires of Hohenszalras glimmered like mere points of glittering metal in the sunshine far below.
They were now at the highest altitude at which gemsbocks are found, and the business of the day commenced as they sighted what looked like a mere brown speck against the greyness of the opposite glacier. Before the day was done Sabran had shot to his own gun eight chamois on the heights, and some score of ptarmigan and black-cock on the lower level. He saw more than one kuttengeier and lammergeier, but, in deference to the traditions of the Szalras, did not fire on them. The healthful fatigue, the rarefied air, the buoyant exhilaration which comes with the atmosphere of the great heights, made him feel happy, and gave him back all his confidence in the present and the future. When he rested on a ledge of rock, listening to Otto's hunter's tales, and making a frugal meal of some hard biscuit and a draught of Voslauer, he wondered at himself for having so recently been beguiled by the febrile excitations of Paris, or having desired the fret and wear of a public career. What could be better than this life was? To have sought to leave it was folly and ingratitude. The peace and the calm of the great mountains which she loved so well seemed to descend into his soul.
It was twilight when they reached the lower slopes of the hills, the jägers loaded with game, he and Otto walking in front of them. From the still far-off islet oh the lake, and from the belfry of the Schloss, the Ave Maria was chiming; the deep-toned bells of the latter ringing the Emperor's Hymn.
Talking gaily with Otto, with that frank kindliness which endeared him to all these mountaineers, he approached the house slowly, fatigued with the pleasant tire of a healthy and vigorous man after a long day's pastime on the hills, and entered by a back entrance, which led through the stables into the wing of the building where his own private rooms were situated. He took his bath and dressed himself for the evening, then went on his way across the vast house to the white salon, where his wife and her aunt were usually to be found at the time of the children's hour before dinner. With some words on his lips to claim her praise for having spared the vultures, he pushed aside the portière and entered, but the words died on his tongue, half spoken.
His wife was there, but before the hearth, seated with her profile turned towards him, also was Olga Brancka. His wife, who was standing, came towards him.
'My cousin Olga took us by surprise an hour ago. The telegram must have missed us which she says she sent yesterday from Salzburg.'
Her eyes had a cold gaze as she spoke; her sense of the duties of hospitality and of high breeding had alone compelled her to give any form of welcome to her guest. Madame Brancka, playing with a feather screen, looked up with a little quiet self-satisfied smile.
'Unexpected guests are the most welcome. When there is an old proverb, pretty if musty, all ready made for you, Réné, why do you not repeat it? I am truly sorry, though, that my telegram miscarried. I suspect it comes from Wanda's old-fashioned prejudice against having a wire of her own here from Lienz. I dare say they never send you half your messages.'
Sabran had mechanically bowed over the hand she held out to him, but he scarcely touched it with his own. He was deadly pale. The amazement that her effrontery produced on him was stupefaction. Versed in the ways of women and of the world though he was, he was speechless and helpless before this incredible audacity. She looked at him, she smiled, she spoke, like the most innocent and unconscious creature. For a moment an impulse seized him to unmask her then and there, and hound her out of his wife's presence; the next he knew that it was impossible to do so. Men cannot betray women in that way, nor was he even wholly free enough from blame himself to have the right to do so. But an intense rage, the more intense because perforce mute, seized him against this intruder by his hearth. Only to see her beside his wife was an intolerable suffering and shame. When he recovered himself a little, feeling his wife's gaze upon him, he said with some plain incredulity in his contemptuous words: