第49章 CHAPTER XI(3)

When Julia made her appearance, a few minutes later, the table was already laid, and the waiter was coming in with the coffee.

"I thought we'd hurry up breakfast," her uncle explained, after she had kissed him and thanked him for the sunrise he had so successfully predicted--"because I knew you'd both be crazy to get out."He had not over-estimated their eagerness, which was so great, indeed, that they failed to note the excessive tranquility of his own demeanour. He ate with such unusual deliberation, on this exciting morning, that they found themselves at the end of their repast when, apparently, he had but made a beginning.

"Now you mustn't wait for me at all," he announced to them then. "I'm a little tired this morning--and Ithink I'd just like to lie around and smoke, and perhaps read one of your novels. But you two must get your things on and lose no time in getting out. This is the very best time of day, you know--for Alpine scenery.

I'd hate to have you miss any of it."

Under his kindly if somewhat strenuous insistence, they went to their rooms to prepare for an immediate excursion.

He was so anxious to have them see all there was to be seen that, when Julia returned, properly cloaked and befurred, and stood waiting at the window, he scolded a little.

"What on earth is that boy doing?" he exclaimed, with a latent snarl in his tone which was novel to her ear.

"He'll keep you here till noon!"

"He's shaving, I think. He won't be long," she replied, with great gentleness. After a moment's pause, she turned from the window and came gayly forward.

"Oh, I forgot: I was going to feed the birds.

There are several of them out there now." As she spoke, she busily broke up some of the rolls on the table.

Her face was bright with the pleasure of the thought.

"If you don't much mind, Julia," her uncle began, with almost pleading intonations, "I rather think I wouldn't feed those birds. The rule is there before our eyes, you know--and it's always been my idea that if you're at a hotel it's the correct thing to abide by its rules.

It's just an idea of mine--and I daresay, if you think about it, you'll feel the same way."The girl freed the last remaining bread-crumb from her gloves.

"Why, of course, uncle," she said, with promptitude.

Although there was no hint of protest in her tone or manner, he felt impelled to soften still further this solitary demonstration of his authority.

"You see I've been all round the world, my little girl,"he explained, haltingly, "and when a man's done that, and knocked about everywhere, he's apt to get finicking and notional about trifles every once in a while.""You're less so than anybody I ever knew," she generously interposed.

"Oh, no I'm not. You don't know me well enough yet;that's what's the matter. And you see, Julia--another thing just because you saw that lady throwing out bread, that aint a very good reason why you should do it.

You don't know what kind of a person she may be.

Girls have got to be so frightfully careful about all that sort of thing."Julia offered a constrained little laugh in comment.

"Oh, you don't know how careful I can be," she said.

"But you're not annoyed?" he entreated her--and for answer she came behind him, and rested an arm on his shoulder, and patted it. He stroked her hand with his own.

"That's something like the nicest niece in the world!"he exclaimed, with fervour.

When at last she and her brother had gone, he made short work of his breakfast, and drank his coffee at a gulp.

A restless activity suddenly informed his movements.

He lit a cigar, and began pacing up and down the room, biting his lips in preoccupation as he went. After a little, he opened a window, and ventured cautiously as far out on the balcony as was necessary to obtain a view of the street below. Eventually, he identified his nephew and niece among the pedestrians beneath him, and he kept them in sight till, after more than one tiresome halt at a shop window, they disappeared round a bend in the road.

Then he turned and came back into the room with the buoyant air of a man whose affairs are prospering.

He smiled genially to himself as he gathered from the table in one capacious hand all the pieces of bread his beloved niece had broken up, and advanced again to the open window.

Waiting here till one of the dingy gulls moving aimlessly about was headed toward him, he tossed out a fragment.

The bird dashed at it with a scream, and on the instant the whole squawking flock were on wing. He suffered the hubbub to proceed unappeased for a little while he kept a watchful though furtive eye on that balcony to the left, below. Unhappily he could not get out far enough to see whether the inner curtains of its window were drawn. He threw another bit of bread, and then looked at his watch. It was a few minutes past nine.

Surely people travelling to see scenery would be up by this hour.

The strategy of issuing just enough bread to keep the feathered concourse in motion commended itself to his mind.

As a precautionary measure, he took all the rolls remaining on the table, and put them in the drawer of a desk by the window.

It even occurred to him to ring for more bread, but upon consideration that seemed too daring. The waiter would be sufficiently surprised at the party's appetites as it was.

Half an hour later, his plan of campaign suddenly yielded a victory. Lady Cressage appeared on her balcony, clad in some charming sort of morning gown, and bareheaded.

She had nothing in her hands, and seemed indifferent to the birds, but when Thorpe flung forth a handful of fragments into the centre of their whirling flock, she looked up at him. It was the anxious instant, and he ventured upon what he hoped was a decorous compromise between a bow and a look of recognition.