On a coign of vantage overlooking the steep slope the pale lady stood with her face turned toward the Bürgenstock. She watched Paul as he stalked angrily down the hillside, and in her mind compared him with the monster she had just avoided. She gazed after him till he reached the slip, where a small boat was ready for him; and she lingered on while he stepped lightly into the skiff, picked up the oars, and rowed away in the style an Eton man never forgets. Motionless she remained, until he disappeared behind a fringe of larches that crept close to the shelving shore. Then slowly, as with regret, she turned to resume her stroll.
A faint colour had stolen into her cheeks; the wonderful eyes had grown very bright and wistfully tender and deep. The rare old lace on her bosom fluttered with her quickened breath, as softly she murmured:
"Ah! My entrancing one, now I have seen thee—and I understand!" And the larches by the shore trembled as if in sympathetic emotion as the gentle breeze echoed her sigh.
A half-hour later the big green touring-car spluttered on its noisy way again; but its tonneau contained no partie carrée. A smartly clipped poodle perched in the centre of the wide seat—on one side of him lounged the shapeless green form of the pork-packer, on the other side gracefully reposed the Comtesse de Boistelle.
And if the complacent admiring glances which Schwartzberger heavily bestowed on the lady of his choice were perhaps too redolent of the proprietorship in which a successful pork-packer might indulge, they were at least small coins in the mart of love, which is Springtime in Lucerne.
Up the lake Paul rowed briskly, working off his ill-humour in the sheer exertion of his favorite sport. The splendid play of his powerful muscles carried his light craft rapidly over the blue water, until he reached a secluded little bay where he had often gone to escape from troublesome travellers at the hotel. Beaching his skiff, he threw himself at full length on the rocky shore, where he lay quite still, drinking in the beauty of the prospect.
Occasionally the wind bore to him from some distant ridge or hidden glen the tinkling of a cow-bell, as the herd wandered here and there grazing upon the green uplands. Once—for an instant only—a mirage appeared upon the southern sky, as if in mute testimony to the transitory character of all earthy things, the fleeting phases of human life. It seemed to Paul, with a score of years dimming the vista of his young manhood, not more shadowy and unreal than the wonderful scenes in which years before he had played all too brief a part.
Little by little, as he lay motionless, the sun stole toward the zenith. But to Paul, alone with his memories, the earth seemed bathed in a luminous pall—a mysterious golden shroud.