FROM their windows, high up and at the front of the big hotel, Julia looked down upon the Lake of Geneva.
She was in such haste to behold it that she had not so much as unbuttoned her gloves; she held her muff still in her hand. After one brief glance, she groaned aloud with vexation.
Beyond the roadway, and the deserted miniature pier of Territet, both dishevelled under melting and mud-stained snow, there lay a patch of water--motionless, inconspicuous, of a faded drab colour--which at some small distance out vaguely ceased to look like water and, yet a little further out, became part and parcel of the dull grey mist.
Save for the forlorn masts of a couple of fishing boats, beached under the shelter of the pier, there was no proof in sight that this was a lake at all. It was as uninspiring to the eye as a pool of drippings from umbrellas in a porch.
While her uncle and brother occupied themselves with the luggage being brought up by the porters, she opened a window and stepped out upon the tiny balcony.
A flaring sign on the inner framework of this balcony besought her in Swiss-French, in the interests of order, not to feed the birds. The injunction seemed meaningless to her until she perceived, over by the water, several gulls lazily wheeling about. They were almost as grey as the fog they circled in. Suddenly they seemed to perceive her in turn, and, swerving sharply, came floating toward the hotel, with harsh, almost menacing cries.
She hurried in, and shut the window with decision.
It seemed to her that the smile with which, as she turned, she was able to meet her uncle's look, was a product of true heroism.
Apparently this smile did not altogether delude him.
"Oh, now, you mustn't get down on your luck,"he adjured her. "We're going to be awfully cozy here.
Have you seen your room? It's just there, in a little alley to the right of the door. They say it has an even finer view than these windows. Oh, you needn't laugh--this is the best view in the world, I'm told by those who know.
And as a winter-resort, why----"
"I say, look here!" The interruption came from Alfred, who, having gone out on one of the balconies, put in his head now to summon them. "Come here! Here's some fun."He pointed out to Thorpe the meaning of the inscription on the sign, and then pulled him forward to observe its practical defiance. A score of big gulls were flapping and dodging in excited confusion close before them, filling their ears with a painful clamour. Every now and again, one of the birds, recovering its senses in the hurly-burly, would make a curving swoop downward past the rows of windows below, and triumphantly catch in its beak something that had been thrown into the air.
Thorpe, leaning over his railing, saw that a lady on a balcony one floor below, and some yards to the left, was feeding the birds. She laughed aloud as she did so, and said something over her shoulder to a companion who was not visible.
"Well, that's pretty cool," he remarked to his niece, who had come to stand beside him. "She's got the same sign down there that we've got. I can see it from here.
Or perhaps she can't read French."
"Or perhaps she isn't frightened of the hotel people,"suggested the girl. She added, after a little, "I think I'll feed them myself in the morning. I certainly shall if the sun comes out--as a sort of Thanksgiving festival, you know."Her uncle seemed not to hear her. He had been struck by the exceptional grace of the gestures with which the pieces of bread were flung forth. The hands and wrists of this lady were very white and shapely. The movements which she made with them, all unaware of observation as she was, and viewed as he viewed them from above, were singularly beautiful in their unconstraint. It was in its way like watching some remarkable fine dancing, he thought.
He could not see much of her face, from his perch, but she was tall and fashionably clad. There was a loose covering of black lace thrown over her head, but once, as she turned, he could see that her hair was red.
Even in this fleeting glimpse, the unusual tint attracted his attention: there was a brilliancy as of fire in it.
Somehow it seemed to make a claim upon his memory.
He continued to stare down at the stranger with an indefinable sense that he knew something about her.
Suddenly another figure appeared upon the balcony--and in a flash he comprehended everything. These idiotic, fighting gluttons of gulls had actually pointed out to him the object of his search. It was Lady Cressage who stood in the doorway, there just below him--and her companion, the red-haired lady who laughed hotel-rules to scorn, was the American heiress who had crossed the ocean in his ship, and whom he had met later on at Hadlow.
What was her name--Martin? No--Madden. He confronted the swift impression that there was something odd about these two women being together. At Hadlow he had imagined that they did not like each other. Then he reflected as swiftly that women probably had their own rules about such matters.
He seemed to have heard, or read, perhaps, that females liked and disliked each other with the most capricious alternations and on the least tangible of grounds.
At all events, here they were together now. That was quite enough.
The two ladies had gone in, and closed their window.
The sophisticated birds, with a few ungrateful croaks of remonstrance, had drifted away again to the water.
His niece had disappeared from his elbow. Still Thorpe remained with his arms folded on the railing, his eyes fixed on the vacant balcony, below to the left.
When at last he went inside, the young people were waiting for him with the project of a stroll before dinner.
The light was failing, but there was plenty of time.
They had ascertained the direction in which Chillon lay;a servant had assured them that it was only a few minutes' walk, and Alfred was almost certain that he had seen it from the window.
