I had sat behind little Mrs. Audley who, turning to me, her face reddened by the rush of frosty air, exclaimed,—
“Wasn’t it glorious! I’ve been to Switzerland three times before. I passed my third test in skiing two years ago, but have never been on a big bob-run. That last double turn was most exciting, wasn’t it?”
I agreed, and we all four strolled together back to the hotel to tea.
Afterward, as I walked in the twilight upon the snowy path leading to the station of the funicular railway, I found myself surrounded by groups of young men and girls returning from skiing on the Grütsch Alp, and other places. But even these cheerful greetings and joyous conversations could not remove from my mind a new and entirely strange feeling of fascination that I felt was exercised over me by pretty Mrs. Audley. It was something magnetic, something indescribable, and, to me, wholly weird and uncanny. I had only spoken to her a few casual words. Yet I knew instinctively that into my careless and care-free life a new and disturbing element had entered.
CHAPTER II
A TEMPORARY BRIDE
Though I was not, as a rule, fond of society, it was impossible to resist the infection of the merry-making spirit at Mürren and in consequence I joined heartily in all the fun that was going forward. The night of the bob-sleigh trip found me playing the drum in the amateur jazz band—a dance-orchestra formed among the visitors each year, to carry on the dancing after midnight. Mrs. Audley and her husband came into the dance-hall of the Kürhaus just as the merriment began, and they danced together while I sat behind the drum with a little comic, flat-brimmed hat in imitation of George Robey, upon my head.
“Really your amateur band is more amusing than the professional one,” declared Audley, during the interval. “Last night we watched you. It seems that the visitors wait until you start up.”
“Well,” I laughed. “We try and keep things humming along until two, or even three o’clock. We like to play and the others like to dance.”
“My wife loves it,” he declared. “She’s only just been saying that she would like to join you.”
“Right!” I said, laughing. “She shall be our pianist tomorrow—if she will.”