“Yes.”
“I haven't been there yet. I've been through Cambridge. But Oxford I am keeping until I get back. Your English institutions interest me more than anything in Europe. It's a cumbrous old bit of machinery, and won't stand comparison with ours; but we seem to live for the sake of our institutions, whereas you let yours rip and make use of them when they serve your purpose.”
He lit another cigar from the stump of the old one, and continued,—
“I come from Chicago. It is a go-ahead place, and, if it were near the sea, could become the capital of the world, when Universal Federation sets in. I love it, as perhaps you love Oxford. You have literature—'literae humaniores' you call it at Oxford—in your blood, and I have business in mine. I am a speculator in a small way. I have just floated a company—got it shipshape before I sailed—for a patent process of making white lead. Now, I am as keen upon that white lead as if it were a woman. It has kept me awake at nights, and danced before my eyes during the day. I have dreamed of every ship flying American colours painted with my white lead. To make a pile out of it was quite secondary to the poetry of it. Now I bet you don't see any poetry at all in a patent white lead process—in making the land hum with it.”
“What about the neat glamour?” asked Raine, smiling.
“Ah! There's a difference. I have got this all out of my own head. It is a bit of me. Whereas the Alps aren't—” He stared at them innocently—“Not a little bit.”
The sound of the gong for the mid-day meal reached them, resonant through the rarefied air. They rose and walked together towards the hotel.
“I guess I'll come and sit next to you, if you have no objection,” said Mr. Hockmaster.
“Do,” replied Raine cordially, “I shall be delighted.”
They lunched together, and in the afternoon walked to the Boissons and back, a pleasant three hours' excursion. Raine did not wish to absent himself from the hotel for a longer time, being anxious concerning posts. But no letters came for him, save a couple of business communications from Oxford. He was troubled about his father's health, and longing for a line from Katherine. He began to reflect that perhaps, after all, he had come on a fool's errand to Chamonix. Poor little Felicia would have to be disillusioned sooner or later. If the Lucerne plan had fallen through, owing to his father's illness, there was no chance of sparing her the ultimate revelation of the love between himself and Katherine. He could not remain at Chamonix indefinitely; to take up other quarters at Geneva would only set the whole pension speculating; and Raine knew full well that the speculation of a whole pension is perilous to the most Calphurnian reputation.