"Good heavens!" said Scott. "And is that serious too?"

"Don't laugh!" protested Dinah. "Of course it's serious. He—he won't even look at me this morning." The sound of tears came suddenly into her voice. "I was waiting for you on the verandah a little while ago, and—and he went by with Rose and never glanced my way. All because—because—oh, I am a little fool!" she declared, with an angry stamp of the foot as she walked.

"He's the fool!" said Scott rather shortly. "I shouldn't bother myself over that if I were you."

"I can't help it," said Dinah, her voice squeaking on a note half-indignant, half-piteous. "I—I behaved so idiotically, just like a raw schoolgirl. And I hate myself for it now!"

Scott looked at her for the first time since the beginning of her confidences. "Do you know, Miss Bathurst," he said, "I have a suspicion that you are much too hard on yourself. Of course I don't know what happened, but I do know that my brother is much more likely to have been in the wrong than you were. The best thing you can do is simply to dismiss the matter from your mind. Behave as if nothing had happened! Cut him next time! It's far the best way of treating him."

Dinah smiled woefully. "And he will spread himself at Rose's feet like all the rest, and never come near me again."

Scott frowned a little. "Miss de Vigne won't have the monopoly, I can assure you."

"She will," protested Dinah. "She knows how to flirt without being caught. I don't."

"Thank the gods for that!" said Scott with fervour. "So he tried to flirt, did he? And you objected. Was that it?"

"Something like that," murmured Dinah, with hot face averted.

"Then in heaven's name, continue to object!" he said, with unusual vehemence. "You did the right thing, child. Don't be drawn into doing what others do! Strike out a straight line for yourself, and stick to it! Above all, don't be ashamed of sticking to it! No woman was ever yet the better or the more attractive for cultivating her talent for flirting. Don't you know that it is your very genuineness and straightforwardness that is your charm?"

Dinah looked at him in sheer surprise. "I haven't got any charm," she said. "That's just the trouble. It was only my dancing that made your brother fancy I had last night."

Scott's frown deepened, became almost formidable, then suddenly vanished in a laugh. "That's just your point of view," he said. "Perhaps it's a pity to open your eyes. But whatever you do, don't try to humour my brother's whims! It would be very bad for him, and you certainly wouldn't gain anything by it. Put up with me for a change, and come to tea instead!"

A flash of gaiety gleamed for a moment in Dinah's eyes. It was the first he had seen that morning. "I'll come," she said, "if Lady Grace will let me. But I think I had better ask first, don't you?"

"Perhaps it would be safer," agreed Scott. "Tell her my sister is an invalid! I don't think she will object. I made the acquaintance of the doughty Colonel last night."

"You know he isn't a bad sort," said Dinah. "He is much nicer than Lady Grace or Rose. Of course he's rather stuck up, but that's only natural. He's lived so long in India, and now he's a J.P. into the bargain. It would be rather wonderful if he were anything else. Billy can't bear him, but then Billy's a boy."

"I like Billy," observed Scott.

"Yes, and Billy likes you," she answered warmly. "He's quite an intelligent boy."

"Evidently," agreed Scott, with a smile. "Now here is the village! Where do I post my letters?"

Dinah directed him with cheerful alacrity. She was feeling much happier; her tottering self-respect was almost restored.

"He is a dear little man!" she said to herself with enthusiasm, as she waited for him to purchase some stamps.

"You've done me no end of good," she said frankly to the man himself as they turned back.

"I am very pleased to hear it," said Scott. "And it is extremely kind of you to say so."

"It's the truth," she maintained. "And, oh, you haven't been smoking all this time. Don't you want to?"

He stopped at once, and took out his cigarette-case. "Now you mention it, I think I do. But I mustn't dawdle. I have got to get back to Isabel."

Dinah waited while the cigarette kindled. Then, with a touch of shyness, she spoke.

"Mr. Studley, has—has your sister been an invalid for long?"

He looked at her. "Do you want to hear about her?"

"Yes, please," said Dinah. "If you don't mind."

He began to walk on. It was evident that the hill was something of a difficulty to him. He moved slowly, and his limp became more pronounced. "No, I should like to tell you about her," he said. "You were so good yesterday, and I hadn't prepared you in the least. I hope it didn't give you a shock."

"Of course it didn't," Dinah answered. "I'm not such a donkey as that. I was only very, very sorry."

"Thank you," he said, as if she had expressed direct sympathy with himself. "It's hard to believe, isn't it, that seven years ago she was—even lovelier than the beautiful Miss de Vigne, only in a very different style?"

"Not in the least," Dinah assured him. "She is far lovelier than Rose now. She must have been—beautiful."

"She was," said Scott. "She was like Eustace, except that she was always much softer than he is. You would scarcely believe either that she is three years younger than he is, would you?"

"I certainly shouldn't," Dinah admitted. "But then, she must have come through years of suffering."

"Yes," Scott spoke with slight constraint, as though he could not bear to dwell on the subject. "She was a girl of intensely vivid feelings, very passionate and warmhearted. She and Eustace were inseparable in the old days. They did everything together. He thought more of her than of anyone else in the world. He does still."

"He wasn't very nice to her last night," Dinah ventured.

"No. He is often like that, and she is afraid of him. But the reason of it is that he feels her trouble so horribly, and whenever he sees her in that mood it hurts him intolerably. He is quite a good chap underneath, Miss Bathurst. Like Isabel, he feels certain things intensely. Of course he is five years older than I am, and we have never been pals in the sense that he and she were pals. I was always a slow-goer, and they went like the wind. But I know him. I know what his feelings are, and what this thing has been to him. And though I am now much more to Isabel than he will probably ever be again, he has never resented it or been anything but generous and willing to give place to me. That, you know, indicates greatness. With all his faults, he is great."

"He shouldn't make her afraid of him," Dinah said.

"I am afraid that is inevitable. He is strong, and she has lost her strength. Her marriage too alienated them in the first place. She had refused so many before Basil Everard came along, and I suppose he had begun to think that she was not the marrying sort. But Everard caught her almost in a day. They met in India. Eustace and she were touring there one winter. Everard was a senior subaltern in a Ghurka regiment—an awfully taking chap evidently. They practically fell in love with one another at sight. Poor old Eustace!" Scott paused, faintly smiling. "He meant her to marry well if she married at all, and Basil was no more than the son of a country parson without a penny to his name. However, the thing was past remedy. I saw that when they came home, and Isabel told me about it. I was at Oxford then. She came down alone for a night, and begged me to try and talk Eustace over. It was the beginning of a barrier between them even then. It has grown high since. Eustace is a difficult man to move, you know. I did my level best with him, but I wasn't very successful. In the end of course the inevitable happened. Isabel lost patience and broke away. She was on her way out again before either of us knew. Eustace—of course Eustace was furious." Scott paused again.

Dinah's silence denoted keen interest. Her expression was absorbed.

He went on, the touch of constraint again apparent in his manner. It was evident that the narration stirred up deep feelings. "We three had always hung together. The family tie meant a good deal to us for the simple reason that we were practically the only Studleys left. My father had died six years before, my mother at my birth. Eustace was the head of the family, and he and Isabel had been all in all to each other. He felt her going more than I can possibly tell you, and scarcely a week after the news came he got his things together and went off in the yacht to South America to get over it by himself. I stayed on at Oxford, but I made up my mind to go out to her in the vacation. A few days after his going, I had a cable to say they were married. A week after that, there came another cable to say that Everard was dead."

"Oh!" Dinah drew a short, hard breath. "Poor Isabel!" she whispered.

"Yes." Scott's pale eyes were gazing straight ahead. "He was killed two days after the marriage. They had gone up to the Hills, to a place he knew of right in the wilds on the side of a mountain, and pitched camp there. There were only themselves, a handful of Pathan coolies with mules, and a shikari. The day after they got there, he took her up the mountain to show her some of the beauties of the place, and they lunched on a ledge about a couple of hundred feet above a great lonely tarn. It was a wonderful place but very savage, horribly desolate. They rested after the meal, and then, Isabel being still tired, he left her to bask in the sunshine while he went a little further. He told her to wait for him. He was only going round the corner. There was a great bastion of rock jutting on to the ledge. He wanted to have a look round the other side of it. He went,—and he never came back."

"He fell?" Dinah turned a shocked face upon him. "Oh, how dreadful!"

"He must have fallen. The ledge dwindled on the other side of the rock to little more than four feet in width for about six yards. There was a sheer drop below into the pool. A man of steady nerve, accustomed to mountaineering, would make nothing of it; and, from what Isabel has told me of him, I gather he was that sort of man. But on that particular afternoon something must have happened. Perhaps his happiness had unsteadied him a bit, for they were absolutely happy together. Or it may have been the heat. Anyhow he fell, he must have fallen. And no one ever knew any more than that."

"How dreadful!" Dinah whispered again. "And she was left—all alone?"

"Quite alone except for the natives, and they didn't find her till the day after. She was pacing up and down the ledge then, up and down, up and down eternally, and she refused—flatly refused—to leave it till he should come back. She had spent the whole night there alone, waiting, getting more and more distraught, and they could do nothing with her. They were afraid of her. Never from that day to this has she admitted for a moment that he must have been killed, though in her heart she knows it, poor girl, just as she knew it from the very beginning."

"But what happened?" breathed Dinah. "What did they do? They couldn't leave her there."

"They didn't know what to do. The shikari was the only one with any ideas among them, and he wasn't especially brilliant. But after another day and night he hit on the notion of sending one of the coolies back with the news while he and the other men waited and watched. They kept her supplied with food. She must have eaten almost mechanically. But she never left that ledge. And yet—and yet—she was kept from taking the one step that would have ended it all. I sometimes wonder if it wouldn't have been better—more merciful—" He broke off.

"Perhaps God was watching her," murmured Dinah shyly.

"Yes, I tell myself that. But even so, I can't help wondering sometimes." Scott's voice was very sad. "She was left so terribly desolate," he said. "Those letters that you saw last night are all she has of him. He has gone, and taken the mainspring of her life with him. I hate to think of what followed. They sent up a doctor from the nearest station, and she was taken away,—taken by force. When I got to her three weeks later, she was mad, raving mad, with brain fever. I had the old nurse Biddy with me. We nursed her between us. We brought her back to what she is now. Some day, please God, we shall get her quite back again; but whether it will be for her happiness He only knows."

Scott ceased to speak. His brows were drawn as the brows of a man in pain.

Dinah's eyes were full of tears. "Oh, thank you for telling me! Thank you!" she murmured. "I do hope you will get her quite back, as you say."

He looked at her, saw her tears, and put out a gentle hand that rested for a moment upon her arm. "I am afraid I have made you unhappy. Forgive me! You are so sympathetic, and I have taken advantage of it. I think we shall get her back. She is coming very, very gradually. She has never before taken such an interest in anyone as she took in you last night. She was talking of you again this morning. She has taken a fancy to you. I hope you don't mind."

"Mind!" Dinah choked a little and smiled a quivering smile. "I am proud—very proud. I only wish I deserved it. What—what made you bring her here?"

"That was my brother's idea. Since we brought her home she has never been away, except once on the yacht; and then she was so miserable that we were afraid to keep her there. But he thought a thorough change—mountain air—might do her good. The doctor was not against it. So we came."

"And do you never leave her?" questioned Dinah.

"Practically never. Ever since that awful time in India she has been very dependent upon me. Biddy of course is quite indispensable to her. And I am nearly so."

"You have given yourself up to her in fact?" Quick admiration was in Dinah's tone.

He smiled. "It didn't mean so much to me as it would have meant to some men, Miss Bathurst,—as it would have meant to Eustace, for instance. I'm not much of a man. To give up my college career and settle down at home wasn't such a great wrench. I'm not especially clever. I act as my brother's secretary, and we find it answers very well. He is a rich man, and there is a good deal of business in connection with the estate, and so on. I am a poor man. By my father's will nearly everything was left to him and to Isabel. I was something of an offence to him, being the cause of my mother's death and misshapen into the bargain."

"What a wicked shame!" broke from Dinah.

"No, no! Some people are like that. They are made so. I don't feel in the least bitter about it. He left me enough to live upon, though as a matter of fact neither he nor anyone else expected me to grow up at the time that will was made. It was solely due to Biddy's devotion, I believe, that I managed to do so." He uttered his quiet laugh. "I am talking rather much about myself. It's kind of you not to be bored."

"Bored!" echoed Dinah, with shining eyes. "I think you are simply wonderful. I hope—I hope Sir Eustace realizes it."

"I hope he does," agreed Scott with a twinkle. "He has ample opportunities for doing so. Ah, there he is! He is actually skating alone. What has become of the beautiful Miss de Vigne, I wonder."

They walked on, nearing the rink. "I'm not going to be horrid about her any more," said Dinah suddenly. "You must have thought me a perfect little cat. And so I was!"

"Oh, please!" protested Scott. "I didn't!"

She laughed. "That just shows how kind you are. It doesn't make me feel the least bit better. I was a cat. There! Oh, your brother is calling you. I think I'll go."

She blushed very deeply and quickened her steps. Sir Eustace had come to the edge of the rink.

"Stumpy!" he called. "Stumpy!"

"How dare he call you that?" said Dinah. "I can't think how you can put up with it."

Scott raised his shoulders slightly, philosophically. "Doesn't the cap fit?" he said.

"Not a bit," Dinah declared with emphasis. "I have another name for you that suits you far better."

"Oh! What is that?" he looked at her with smiling curiosity.

Dinah's blush deepened from carmine to crimson. "I call you—Mr. Greatheart," she said, her voice very low. "Because you help everybody."

A gleam of surprise crossed his face. He flushed also; but she saw that though embarrassed, he was not displeased.

He put a hand to his cap. "Thank you, Miss Bathurst," he said simply, and turned without further words to answer his brother's summons.

Dinah walked quickly on. That stroll with Scott had quite lifted her out of her depression.



CHAPTER IX

THE RUNAWAY COLT

"It really is very tiresome," complained Lady Grace. "I knew that child was going to be a nuisance from the very outset."

"What has she done now?" growled the Colonel.

He was lounging in the easiest chair in the room, smoking an excellent cigar, preparatory to indulging in his afternoon nap. His wife reclined upon a sofa with a French novel which she had not begun to read. Through the great windows that opened on to the balcony the sunshine streamed in a flood of golden light. Rose was seated on the balcony enjoying the warmth. Lady Grace's eyes rested upon her slim figure in its scarlet coat as she made reply.

"These people—these Studleys—won't leave her alone. Or else she runs after them. I can't quite make out which. Probably the latter. Anyhow the sister—who, I believe is what is termed slightly mental—has asked her to go to tea in their private sitting-room. I have told her she must decline."

"Quite right," said the Colonel. "What did she say?"

Lady Grace uttered a little laugh. "Oh, she was very ridiculous and high-flown, as you may imagine. But, as I told her, I am directly responsible to her mother for any friendships she may make out here, and I am not disposed to take any risks. We all know what Mrs. Bathurst can be like if she considers herself an injured party."

"A perfect she-dragon!" agreed the Colonel. "I fancy the child herself is still kept in order with the rod. Why, even Bathurst—great hulking ox—is afraid of her. Billy isn't, but then Billy apparently can do no wrong."

"She certainly loves no one else," said Lady Grace. "I never met anyone with such an absolutely vixenish and uncontrolled temper. I am sorry for Dinah. I have always pitied her, for she certainly works hard, and gets little praise for it. But at the same time, I can't let her run wild now she is off the rein for a little. It wouldn't be right. And these people are total strangers."

"I believe they are of very good family," said the Colonel. "The title is an old one, and Sir Eustace is evidently a rich man. I had the opportunity for a little talk with the brother yesterday evening. A very courteous little chap—quite unusually so. I think we may regard them as quite passable." His eyes also wandered to the graceful, lounging figure on the balcony. "At the same time I shouldn't let Dinah accept hospitality from them, anyhow at this stage. She is full young. She must be content to stay in the background—at least for the present."

"Just what I say," said Lady Grace. "Of course if the younger brother should take a fancy to her—and he certainly seems to be attracted—it might be a very excellent thing for her. Her mother can't hope to keep her as maid of all work for ever. But I can't have her pushing herself forward. I was very glad to hear you reprimand her so severely this morning."

"She deserved it," said the Colonel judicially. "But at the same time if there is any chance of what you suggest coming to pass, I have no wish to stand in the child's way. I have a fancy that she will find the bondage at home considerably more irksome after this taste of freedom. It might, as you say, be a good thing for her if the little chap did fall in love with her. Her mother can't expect much of a match for her."

"Oh, if that really happened, her mother would be charmed," said Lady Grace. "She is a queer, ill-balanced creature, and I don't believe she has ever had the smallest affection for her. She would be delighted to get her off her hands, I should say. But things mustn't move too quickly, or they may go in the wrong direction." Again her eyes sought her daughter's graceful outline. "You say Sir Eustace is rich?" she asked, after a moment.

"Extremely rich, I should say. He has his own yacht, a house in town as well as a large place in the country, and he will probably get a seat in Parliament at the next election. I'm not greatly taken with the man myself," declared Colonel de Vigne. "He is too overbearing. At the same time," again his eyes followed his wife's, "he would no doubt be a considerable catch."

"I don't mean Dinah to have Sir Eustace," said Lady Grace very decidedly. "It would be most unsuitable. Yes, what is it?" as a low knock came at the door. "Come in!"

It opened, and Dinah, looking flushed and rather uncertain, made her appearance.

"I wish you would have the consideration not to disturb us at this hour, my dear Dinah," said Lady Grace peevishly. "What is it you want now?"

"I am sorry," said Dinah meekly. "But I heard your voices, so I knew you weren't asleep. I just came in to say that Billy and I are going luging if you don't mind."

"What next?" said Lady Grace, still fretful. "Of course I don't mind so long as you don't get up to mischief."

"Dinah, come here!" said the Colonel suddenly.

Dinah, on the point of beating a swift retreat, stood still with obvious reluctance.

"Come here!" he repeated.

She went to him hesitatingly.

He reached up a hand and grasped her by the arm. "Were you eavesdropping just now?" he demanded.

Dinah started as if stung. "I—I—of course I wasn't!" she declared, with vehemence. "How can you suggest such a thing?"

"Quite sure?" said the Colonel, still holding her.

She wrenched herself from him in a sudden fury. "Colonel de Vigne, you—you insult me! I am not the sort that listens outside closed doors. How dare you? How dare you?"

She stamped her foot with the words, gazing down at him with blazing eyes.

The Colonel stiffened slightly, but he kept his temper. "If I have done you an injustice, I apologize," he said. "You may go."

And Dinah went like a whirlwind, banging the door behind her.

"Well, really!" protested Lady Grace in genuine displeasure.

Her husband smiled somewhat grimly. "A vixen's daughter, my dear! What can you expect?"

"She behaves like a fishwife's daughter," said Lady Grace. "And if she wasn't actually eavesdropping I am convinced she heard what I said."

"So am I," said the Colonel drily. "I was about to tax her with it. Hence her masterly retreat. But she was not deliberately eavesdropping or she would not have given herself away so openly. I quite agree with you, my dear. A match between her and Sir Eustace would not be suitable. And I also think Sir Eustace would be the first to see it. Anyhow, I shall take an early opportunity of letting him know that her birth is by no means a high one, and that her presence here is simply due to our kindness. At the same time, should the rather ludicrous little younger brother take it into his head to follow her up, so far as family goes he is of course too good for her, but I am sorry for the child and I shall put no obstacle in the way."

"All the same she shall not go to tea there unless Rose is invited too," said Lady Grace firmly.

"There," said the Colonel pompously, "I think that you are right."

Lady Grace simpered a little, and opened her novel. "It really wouldn't surprise me to find that she is a born fortune-hunter," she said. "I am certain the mother is avaricious."

"The mother," said Colonel de Vigne with the deliberation of one arrived at an unalterable decision, "is the most disagreeable, vulgar, and wholly objectionable person that I have ever met."

"Oh, quite," said Lady Grace. "If she were in our set, she would be altogether intolerable. But—thank heaven—she is not! Now, dear, if you don't mind, I am going to read myself to sleep. I have promised Rose to go to the ice carnival to-night, and I need a little relaxation first."

"I suppose Dinah is going?" said the Colonel.

"Oh, yes. But she is nothing of a skater." Lady Grace suddenly broke into a little laugh. "I wonder if the redoubtable Mrs. Bathurst does really beat her when she is naughty. It would be excellent treatment for her, you know."

"I haven't a doubt of it," said the Colonel. "She is absolutely under her mother's control. That great raw-boned woman would have a heavy hand too, I'll be bound."

"Oh, there is no doubt Dinah stands very much in awe of her. I never knew she had any will of her own till she came here. I always took her for the meekest little creature imaginable."

"There is a good deal more in Miss Dinah than jumps to the eye," said the Colonel. "In fact, if you ask me, I should say she is something of a dark horse. She is just beginning to feel her feet and she'll surprise us all one of these days by turning into a runaway colt."

"Not, I do hope, while she is in my charge," said Lady Grace.

"We will hope not," agreed the Colonel. "But all the same, I rather think that her mother will find her considerably less tame and tractable when she sees her again than she has ever been before. Liberty, you know, is a dangerous joy for the young."

"Then we must be more strict with her ourselves," said Lady Grace.



CHAPTER X

THE HOUSE OF BONDAGE

Dinah ran swiftly down the corridor to her own room.

As a matter of fact, she had intruded upon the Colonel and Lady Grace in the secret hope of finding a propitious moment for once again pressing her request to be allowed to accept Scott's invitation to tea. Her failure to do so added fuel to the flame, arousing in her an almost irresistible impulse to rebel openly.

The fear of consequences alone restrained her, for to be escorted home in disgrace after only a week in this Alpine paradise was more than she could face. All her life the dread of her mother's wrath had overhung Dinah like a cloud, sometimes near, sometimes distant, but always present. She had been brought up to fear her from her cradle. All through her childhood her punishments had been bitterly severe. She winced still at the bare thought of them; and she was as fully convinced as was Lady Grace that her mother had never really loved her. To come under the ban of her displeasure meant days of harsh treatment, nor, now that her childhood was over, had the discipline been relaxed. She never attempted to rebel openly. Her fear of her mother had become an integral part of herself. Her spirit shrank before her fits of violence. But for her father and Billy she sometimes thought that home would be an impossible place.

But her affection for her father was of a very intense order. Lazy, self-indulgent, supremely easy-going, yet possessed of a fascination that had held her from babyhood, such was Guy Bathurst. Despised at least outwardly by his wife and adored by his daughter, he went his indifferent way, enjoying life as he found it and quite impervious to snubs.

"I never interfere with your mother," was a very frequent sentence on his lips, and by that axiom he ruled his life, looking negligently on while Dinah was bent without mercy to the wheel of tyranny.

He was fond of Dinah,—her devotion to him made that inevitable—but he never obtruded his fondness to the point of interference on her behalf; for both of them were secretly aware that the harshness meted out to her had much of its being in a deep, unreasoning jealousy of that very selfish fondness. They kept their affection as it were for strictly private consumption, and it was that alone that made life at home tolerable to Dinah.

For upon one point her father was insistent. He would not part with her unless she married. He did not object to her working at home for his comfort, but the idea of her working elsewhere and making her living was one which he refused to consider. With rare self-assertion, he would not hear of it, and when he really asserted himself, which was seldom, his wife was wont to yield, albeit ungraciously enough, to his behest.

Besides Dinah was undoubtedly useful at home, and would certainly grow out of hand if she left her.

Not very willingly had she agreed to let her go upon this Alpine jaunt with the de Vignes, but Billy had been so keen, and the invitation would scarcely have been extended to him alone.

The whole idea had originated between the heads of the two families, riding home together after a day's hunting. Dinah had chanced to come into the conversation, and the Colonel, comparing her with that of his own daughter and being stirred to pity, had suggested that the two children might like to join them on their forthcoming expedition. Bathurst had at once accepted the tentative proposal, and had blurted forth the whole matter to his assembled family on his return with the result that Billy's instant and eager delight had made it virtually impossible for his mother to oppose the suggestion.

Dinah had been delighted too, almost deliriously so; but she had kept her pleasure to herself, not daring to show it in her mother's presence till the actual arrival of the last day. Then indeed she had lost her head, had sung and danced and made merry, till some trifling accident had provoked her mother's untempered wrath and a sound boxing of ears had quite sobered her enthusiasm. She had fared forth finally upon the adventure with tearful eyes and drooping heart, her mother's frigid kiss of farewell hurting her more poignantly than her drastic punishment of an hour before. For Dinah was intensely sensitive, keenly susceptible to rebuke and coldness, and her warm heart shrank from unkindness with a shrinking that was actual pain.

She knew that the little social world of Perrythorpe looked down upon her mother though not actually refusing to associate with her. Bathurst had married a circus-girl in his green Oxford days; so the story went,—a hard, handsome woman older than himself, and fiercely, intensely ambitious. Lack of funds had prevented her climbing very high, and bitterly she resented her failure. He had never done a day's work in his life, but, unlike his wife, he had plenty of friends. He was well-bred, a good rider, a straight shot, and an entertaining guest. He knew everyone within a radius of twenty miles, and was upon terms of easy intimacy with the de Vignes and many others who received him with pleasure, but very seldom went out of their way to encounter his wife.

Dinah shrewdly suspected that this fact accounted for much of the bitterness of her mother's outlook. Her ambition had apparently died of starvation long since, but her resentment remained. Her hand was against practically all the world, including her daughter, whose fairy-like daintiness and piquancy were so obvious a contrast to the somewhat coarse and flashy beauty that had once been hers. For all that Dinah inherited from her mother was her gipsy darkness. Mrs. Bathurst was not flashy now, and any attempt at personal adornment on Dinah's part was always very sternly repressed. She had met and writhed under the eye of scornful criticism too often, and she distrusted her own taste. She was determined that Dinah should never be subjected to the same humiliation.

She humiliated her often enough herself. It was the only means she knew of asserting her authority; for she had no intention of ever being the object of her daughter's contempt. She was harsh to the point of brutality, so that the girl's heart was wont to quicken apprehensively whenever she heard her step. She scolded, she punished, she coerced. But from an outsider, the bare thought of a snub was unendurable, and the possibility that Dinah might by any means lay herself open to one was enough to bring down the vials of wrath upon her head. Dinah remembered still with shivering vividness the whipping she had received on one occasion for demeaning herself by running after the de Vignes's carriage to deliver a message. Her mother's whippings had always been very terrible, vindictively thorough. The indignity of them lashed her soul even more cruelly than the unsparing thong her body. Because of them she went in daily trepidation, submissive almost to the point of abjectness, lest this hateful and demoralizing form of punishment should be inflicted upon her. For some time now, by great wariness and circumspection she had evaded it, and she had begun to entertain the trembling hope that she was at last considered to have passed the age for such childish correction. But her mother's outbreak of violence on the day of their departure had been a painful disillusion, and she knew well what it would mean to return home in disgrace with the de Vignes. Her cheeks burned and tingled still with the shame of the discovery. She felt that another of the old dreadful chastisements would overwhelm her utterly. And yet that she would most certainly have to endure it if she were unruly now was conviction that pressed like a cold weight upon her heart. Had not the letter she had received from her mother only that morning contained a stern injunction to her to behave herself, as though she had been a naughty, wayward child?

"It would kill me!" she told herself passionately. "Oh, why, why, why can't I grow up quick and marry? But I never shall grow up at home. That's the horrible, horrible part of it. And I shall never have a chance of marrying with mother looking on. I'm just a slave—a slave. Other girls can have a good time, do as they like, flirt when they like. But I—never—never!"

Her fit of rebellion lasted long. The emancipation from the home bondage was beginning to work within her as the Colonel had predicted. Seen from a distance, the old tyranny seemed outrageous and impossible, to go back into it monstrous. And yet, so far as she could see, there was no way of escape. She was not apparently to be allowed to make any friends outside her own sphere. The freedom she had begun to enjoy so feverishly had very suddenly been circumscribed, and if she dared to overstep the bounds marked out for her, she knew what to expect.

And yet she longed for freedom as she had never longed in her life before. She was nearly desperate with longing, so sweet had been the first, intoxicating taste thereof. For the first time she had seen life from the standpoint of the ordinary, happy girl, and the contrast to the life she knew had temporarily upset her equilibrium. Her mother's treatment, harsh before, seemed unendurable now. Her cheeks burned afresh with a fierce, intolerable shame. No, no! She could never face it again. She could not! She could not! Already her brief emancipation had begun to cost her dear. She must—she must—find a way of escape ere she went back into thraldom. For she knew her mother's strength so terribly well. It would conquer all resistance by sheer, overwhelming weight. She could not remember a single occasion upon which she had ever in the smallest degree held her own against it. Her will had been broken to her mother's so often that the very thought of prolonged resistance seemed absurd. She knew herself to be incapable of it. She was bound to crumple under the strain, bound to be humbled to the dust long ere the faintest hope of outmatching her mother's iron will had begun to dawn in her soul. The very thought made her feel puny and contemptible. If she resisted to the very uttermost of her strength, yet would she be crushed in the end, and that end would be more horribly painful than she dared to contemplate. All her childhood it had been the same. She had been conquered ere she had passed the threshold of rebellion. She had never been permitted to exercise a will of her own, and the discovery that she possessed one had been something of a surprise to Dinah.

It was partly this discovery that made her long so passionately for freedom. She wanted to grow, to develop, to get beyond the stultifying influence of that unvarying despotism. She longed to get away from the perpetual dread of consequences that so haunted her. She wanted to breathe her own atmosphere, live her own life, be herself.

"I believe I could do lots of things if I only had the chance," she murmured to herself; and then she was suddenly plunged into the memory of another occasion when she had received summary and austere punishment for omitting scales from her practising. But then no one ever liked doing what they must, and she had never had any real taste for music; or if she had had, it had vanished long since under the uninspiring goad of compulsion.

All her morning depression came back while these bitter meditations racked her brain. Oh, if only—if only—her father had chosen a lady for his wife! It was disloyal, she knew, to indulge such a thought, but her mood was black and her soul was in revolt. She was sure—quite sure—that marriage presented the only possibility of deliverance, and deliverance was beginning to seem imperative. Her whole individuality, which this past week of giddy liberty had done so much to develop, cried aloud for it.

She went to the window. Billy had grown tired of waiting and gone off without her. She fancied she could see his sturdy figure on the further slope. Her eyes took in the whole lovely scene, and suddenly, effervescently, her spirits began to rise. The inherent gaiety of her bubbled to the surface. What a waste of time to stay here grizzling while that paradise lay awaiting her! The sweetness of her nature began to assert itself once more, and an almost fevered determination to live in the present, to be happy while she could, entered into her. With impetuous energy she pushed the evil thoughts away. She would be happy. She would! She would! And happiness was not difficult to Dinah. It bubbled in her, a natural spring, that ever flowed again even after the worst storms had forced it from its course.

She even laughed to herself as she prepared to join Billy. Life was good,—oh yes, life was good! And home and the trials thereof were many miles away. Who could be unhappy for long in such a world as this, where the air sparkled like champagne, and the magic of it ran riot in the blood?

The black mood passed away from her spirit like a cloud. She threw on cap and coat and ran to join the merry-makers.



CHAPTER XI

OLYMPUS

All through that afternoon Dinah and Billy played like cubs in the snow. They were very inexperienced in the art of luging, but they took their spills with much heartiness and a total disregard of dignity that made for complete enjoyment.

When the sun went down they forsook the sport, and joined in a snowballing match with a dozen or more of their fellow-visitors. But Dinah proved herself so adroit and impartial at this game that she presently became a general target, and found it advisable to retreat before she was routed. This she did with considerable skill and no small strategy, finally darting flushed and breathless into the hotel, covered with snow from head to foot, but game to the last.

"Well done!" commented a lazy voice behind her. "Now raise the drawbridge and lower the portcullis, and the honours of war are assured."

She turned with the flashing movement of a bird upon the wing, and found herself face to face with Sir Eustace.

His blue eyes met hers with deliberate nonchalance. "Sit down," he said, "while I fetch you some tea!"

Her heart gave an odd little leap that was half of pleasure and half of dread. She stammered incoherently that he must not take the trouble.

But he was evidently bent upon so doing, for he pressed her into the seat which he had just vacated. "Keep the place in the corner for me!" he commanded, and lounged away upon his errand with imperial leisureliness.

Dinah watched his tall figure out of sight. The encounter both astounded and thrilled her. She wondered if she were cheapening herself by meekly obeying his behest, wondered what Rose—that practised coquette—would have done under such circumstances; but to depart seemed so wholly out of the question that she dismissed the wonder as futile. She could only wait for the play to develop, and trust to her own particular luck, which had so favoured her the night before, to give her a cue.

He returned with tea and cake which he set before her on a little table that he had apparently secured beforehand for the purpose. "I am sure you must be ravenous," he said, in those high-bred, somewhat insolent accents of his.

"I am," Dinah admitted frankly.

"Then let me see you satisfy your hunger!" he said, seating himself in the corner he had reserved.

"Oh, but not alone!" she protested. "You—you must have some too."

He laughed. "No. I am going to smoke—with your permission. It will do me more good."

"Oh, pray do!" said Dinah, embarrassed still but strangely elated. "It makes me feel rather greedy, that's all."

"I am greedy too," he told her, his blue eyes still upon her vivid, sparkling face. "And—always with your permission—I am going to indulge my greed."

She did not understand him, but prudence restrained her from telling him so. Seated as she was he was the only person in the vestibule whom she could see, her back being turned to all beside. She wondered, again with that delightful yet half-startled thrill, if his meaning were in any way connected with this fact. He certainly absorbed the whole of her attention, if that were what he wanted. Her hunger faded completely into the background.

He lighted a cigarette and began to smoke. The space beyond them was full of moving figures and laughing voices; but the turmoil scarcely reached Dinah. An invisible barrier seemed to shut them off from all the rest. They were not merely aloof; they were alone, and a curiously intimate touch pervaded their solitude. She felt her spirit start in quivering response to the call of his, just as the night before when she had floated with him above the clouds. What was happening to her she had not the least idea, but the consciousness of his near presence pulsed magnetically through and through her. Scott's brief advice of the morning was scattered from her memory like feathers before the wind. She had no memory. She lived only in this burning splendid ardour of a moment.

She drank her tea mechanically, finding nothing enigmatic in his silence. The direct look of his blue eyes discomfited her strangely, but it was a sublime discomfiture—the discomfiture of the moth around the flame. She longed to meet it, but did not wholly dare. With veiled glances she yielded to the attraction, not yet bold enough for complete surrender.

He spoke at last, and she started.

"Well? Am I forgiven?"

The nonchalant enquiry sent the blood in another hot wave to her cheeks. Had she ever presumed to be angry with this godlike person?

"For what?" she asked, her voice very low.

He leaned towards her. "Did I only fancy that by some evil chance I had offended you?"

She kept her eyes lowered. "I thought you were the offended one," she said.

"I?" She caught the note of surprise in his voice, and it sent a very curious little sense of shame through her.

With an effort she raised her eyes. "Yes. I thought you were offended. You went by me this morning without seeing me."

His look was very intent, almost as if he were searching for something; but it did not disconcert her as she had half-expected to be disconcerted. His eyes were more caressing than dominant just then.

"What if I didn't see you because I didn't dare?" he said.

That gave her confidence. "I should think you couldn't be so silly as that," she said with decision.

He smiled a little. "Thank you, miladi. Then wasn't it—almost equally silly—your word, not mine!—of you to be afraid of me last night?"

She felt the thrust in a moment, and went white, conscious of the weak sick feeling that so often came over her at the sound of her mother's step when she was in disgrace.

He saw her distress, but he allowed several moments to elapse before he came to the rescue; Then lightly, "Pray don't let the matter disturb you!" he said. "Only—for your peace of mind—let me tell you that you really have nothing to fear. Out here we live in fairyland, and no one is in earnest. We just enjoy ourselves, and Mrs. Grundy simply doesn't exist. We are not ashamed of being frivolous, and we do whatever we like. And there are no consequences. Always remember that, Miss Bathurst! There are never any consequences in fairyland."

His eyes suddenly laughed at her, and Dinah was vastly reassured. Her dismay vanished, leaving a blithe sense of irresponsibility in its place.

"I shall remember that," she said, with her gay little nod. "I dreamt last night that we were in Olympus."

"We?" he said softly.

She nodded again, flushed and laughing, confident that she had received her cue. "And you—were Apollo."

She saw his eyes change magically, flashing into swift life, and dropped her own before the mastery that dawned there.

"And you," he questioned under his breath, "were Daphne?"

"Perhaps," she said enigmatically. After all, flirting was not such a difficult art, and since he had declared that there could be no consequences, she did not see why she should bury this new-found talent of hers.

"What a charming dream!" he commented lazily. "But you know what happened to Daphne when she ran away, don't you?"

She flung him a laughing challenge. "He didn't catch her anyway."

"True!" smiled Sir Eustace. "But have you never wondered whether it wouldn't have been more sport for her if he had? It wouldn't be very exciting, you know, to lead the life of a vegetable."

"It isn't!" declared Dinah, with abrupt sincerity.

"Oh, you know something about it, do you?" he said. "Then the modern Daphne ought to have too much sense to run away."

She laughed with a touch of wistfulness. "I wonder how she felt about it afterwards."

"I wonder," he agreed, tipping the ash off his cigarette. "It didn't matter so much to Apollo, you see. He had plenty to choose from."

Dinah's wistfulness vanished in a swift breath of indignation. "Really!" she said.

He looked at her. "Yes, really," he told her, with deliberation. "And he didn't need to run after them either. But, possibly," his gaze softened again, "possibly that was what made him want Daphne the most. Elusiveness is quite a fascinating quality if it isn't carried too far. Still—" he smiled—"I expect he got over it in the end, you know; but in her case I am not quite so sure."

"I don't suppose he did get ever it," maintained Dinah with spirit. "All the rest must have seemed very cheap afterwards."

"Perhaps he was more at home with the cheap variety," he suggested carelessly.

His eyes had wandered to the buzzing throng behind her, and she saw a glint of criticism—or was it merely easy contempt?—dispel the smile with which he had regarded her. His mouth wore a faint but unmistakable sneer.

But in a moment his look returned to her, kindled upon her. "Are you for the ice carnival to-night?" he asked.

She drew a quick, eager breath. "Oh, I do want to come! But I don't know—yet—if I shall be allowed."

"Why ask?" he questioned.

She hesitated, then ingenuously she told him her difficulty. "I got into trouble last night for dancing so late with you. And—and—I may be sent to bed early to make up for it."

He frowned. "Do you mean to say you'd go?"

She coloured vividly. "I'm only nineteen, and I have to do as I'm told."

"Heavens above!" he said. "You belong to the generation before the last evidently. No girl ever does as she is told now-a-days. It isn't the thing."

"I do," whispered Dinah, in dire confusion. "At least—generally."

"And what happens if you don't?" he queried. "Do they whip you and put you to bed?"

She clenched her hands hard. "Don't!" she said. "You're only joking, I know. But—I hate it!"

His manner changed in a moment, became half-quizzical, half-caressing. "Poor little brown elf, what a shame! Well, come if you can! I shall look out for you. I may have something to show you."

"May you? Oh, what?" cried Dinah, all eagerness in a moment.

He laughed. There was a provoking hint of mystery in his manner. "Ah! That lies in the future, miladi."

"But tell me!" she persisted.

"Will you come then?" he asked.

"Perhaps," she said. "If I can!"

"Ah! And perhaps not!" he said. "What then?"

Dinah's mouth grew suddenly firm. "I will come," she said.

"You will?" His keen eyes held hers with smiling compulsion.

"Yes, I will."

He made a gesture as if he would take her hand, but restrained himself, and paused to tip the ash once more off his cigarette.

"Now tell me!" commanded Dinah.

"I don't think I will," he said deliberately.

"But you must!" said Dinah.

His eyes sought hers again with that look which she found it impossible to meet. She bent over her cup.

"What will you show me?" she persisted. "Tell me!"

"I didn't say I would show you anything," he pointed out. "I said I might."

"Tell me what it was anyhow!" she said.

He leaned nearer to her, and suddenly it seemed to her that they were quite alone, very far removed from the rest of the world. "It may not be to-night," he murmured. "Or even to-morrow. But some day—in this land where there are no consequences—I will show you—when the fates are propitious, not before—some of the things that Daphne missed when she ran away."

He ceased to speak. Dinah's face was burning. She could not look at him. She felt as if a magic flame had wrapped her round. Her whole body was tingling, her heart wildly a-quiver. There was a rapture in that moment that was almost too intense, too poignant, to be borne.

He was the first to move. Calmly he leaned back, and resumed his cigarette. Through the aromatic smoke his voice came to her again.

"Are you angry?"

Her whole being stirred in response. She uttered a little quivering laugh that was near akin to tears.

"No—of course—no! But I—I think I ought to go and dress! It's getting late, isn't it? Thank you for giving me tea!" She rose, her movements quick and dainty as the flight of a robin. "Good-bye!" she murmured shyly.

He rose also with a sweeping bow. "A bientot,—Daphne!" he said.

She gave him a single swift glance from under fluttering lashes, and turned away in silence.

She went up the stairs with the speed of a bird on the wing, but she could not outpace the wonder and the wild delight at her heart. As she entered her own room at length, she laughed, a breathless, rippling laugh. How amazing—and how gorgeous—was this new life!



CHAPTER XII

THE WINE OF THE GODS

The rink was ablaze with fairy-lights under the starry sky. Rose de Vigne, exquisitely fair in ruby velvet and ermine furs paused on the verandah, looking pensively forth.

Very beautiful she looked standing there, and Captain Brent of the Sappers striding forth with his skates jingling in his hand stopped as one compelled.

"Are you waiting for someone, Miss de Vigne? Or may I escort you?"

She looked at him with a faint smile as if in pity for his disappointment. "Too late, I am afraid, Captain Brent. I have promised Sir Eustace to skate with him."

"Who?" Brent glanced towards the rink. "Why, he's down there already dancing about with your little cousin. That's her laugh. Don't you hear it?"

Dinah's laugh, clear and ringing, came to them on the still air. Rose's slim figure stiffened very slightly, barely perceptibly, at the sound. "Sir Eustace has forgotten his engagement," she said icily. "Yes, Captain Brent, I will come with you."

"Good business!" he said heartily. "It's a glorious night. Somebody said there was a change coming; but I don't believe it. Maddening if a thaw comes before the luging competition. The run is just perfection now. I'm going up there presently. It's glorious by moonlight."

He chattered inconsequently on, happy in the fact that he had secured the prettiest girl in the hotel for his partner, and not in the least disturbed by any lack of response on her part. To skate with her hand in hand was the utmost height of his ambition just then, his brain not being of a particularly aspiring order.

Down on the rink all was gaiety and laughter. The lights shone ruby, emerald, and sapphire, upon the darting figures. The undernote of the rushing skates made magic music everywhere. The whole scene was fantastic—a glittering fairyland of colour and enchantment.

"Each evening seems more splendid than the last," declared Dinah.

"They always will if you spend them in my company," said Sir Eustace. "Do you know I could very soon teach you to skate as perfectly as you dance?"

"I believe you could teach me anything," she answered happily.

"Given a free hand I believe I could," he said. "But the gift is yours, not mine. You have the most wonderful knack of divining a mood. You adapt yourself instinctively. I never knew anyone respond so perfectly to the unspoken wish. How is it, I wonder?"

"I don't know," she answered shyly. "But I can't help understanding what you want."

"Does that mean that we are kindred spirits?" he asked, and suddenly the clasp of his hands was close and intimate.

"I expect it does," said Dinah; but she said it with a touch of uneasiness. The voice that had spoken within her the night before, warning her, urging her to be gone, was beginning to murmur again, bidding her to beware.

She turned from the subject with ready versatility, obedient to the danger-signal. "Oh, there is Rose! I am afraid I ran away from her after dinner. They went upstairs for coffee, but I was so dreadfully afraid of being stopped that I hung behind and escaped. I do hope the Colonel won't be in a wax again. But I don't see that there was anything wicked in it; for Lady Grace herself is coming to look on presently."

"I skated with Miss de Vigne nearly all the afternoon," observed Sir Eustace. "But she is a regular ice-maiden. I couldn't get any enthusiasm out of her. Tell me, is she like that all through? Or is it just a pose?"

"Oh, I don't know," Dinah said. "I've never got through the outer crust. But then of course I'm far beneath her."

"How so?" asked Sir Eustace.

She laughed up at him with the happy confidence of a child. "Can't you see it for yourself? I—I am a mere guttersnipe compared to the de Vignes. They live in a great house with lots of servants and cars. They never do a thing for themselves. I don't suppose Rose could do her hair to save her life. While we—we live in a tumble-down, ramshackle old place, and do all the work ourselves. I've never been away from home in my life before. You see, we're poor, and Billy's schooling takes up a lot of money. I had to leave school when he first went as a boarder. And that is three years ago now. So I have forgotten all I ever learnt."

"Except dancing," he suggested.

"Oh, well, that's born in me. I couldn't very well forget that. My mother—" Dinah hesitated momentarily—"my mother was a dancer before she married."

"And she taught you?" asked Sir Eustace.

"No, no! She never taught me anything except useful things—like cooking and sewing and house-work. And I detest them all," said Dinah frankly. "I like sweeping the garden and digging the potatoes far better."

"She keeps you busy then," commented Sir Eustace, with semi-humorous interest.

"Busy isn't the word for it," declared Dinah. "I'm going from morning till night. We do the washing at home too. I get up at five and go to bed at nine. I make nearly all my own clothes too. That's why I haven't got any," she ended naively.

He laughed. "Not really! But what makes you work so hard as that? You're wasting all your best time. You'll never be so young again, you know."

"I know!" cried Dinah, and suddenly a wild gust of rebellion went through her. "It's hateful! I never knew how hateful till I came here. Going back will be—too horrible for words. But—" her voice fell abruptly flat—"what am I to do?"

"I should go on strike," he said lightly. "Tell your good mother that she must find someone else to do the work! You are going to take it easy and enjoy yourself."

Dinah uttered a short, painful laugh.

"Wouldn't that do?" he asked.

"No."

"Why not?" he questioned with indolent amusement. "Surely you're not afraid of the broomstick!"

Dinah gave a great start, and suddenly, as they skated, pressed close to him with the action of some small, terrified creature seeking shelter. "Oh, don't—don't let us spoil this perfect night by talking of my home affairs!" she pleaded, her voice quick and passionate. "I want to put everything right away. I want to forget there is such a place as home."

His arm was around her in a moment. He held her caught to him. "I can soon make you forget that, my Daphne," he said. "I can lead you through such a wonderland as will dazzle you into complete forgetfulness of everything else. But you must trust me, you know. You mustn't be afraid."

He was drawing her away from the glare of coloured lights as he spoke, drawing her to the further end of the rink where stood a tiny, rustic pavilion.

She went with him with a breathless sense of high adventure, skimming the ice in time with his rhythmic movements, mesmerized into an enchanted quiescence.

They reached the pavilion, and he paused. The other skaters were left behind. They stood as it were in a magic circle all their own. And only the moon looked on.

"Ah, Daphne!" he said, and took her in his arms.

There came to Dinah then a wild and desperate sense of fear, fear that was coupled with a wholly unreasoning and instinctive shame. She strained back from him. "Oh no! Oh no!" she gasped. "I mustn't! I'm sure it's wrong!"

But he mastered her very slowly, wholly without violence, yet wholly irresistibly. His dark face with its blue, compelling eyes dominated her, conquered her. And all her life resistance had been quelled in her. Her will wavered and was down.

"Why should it be wrong?" he whispered. "I tell you that nothing matters—nothing matters. We take our pleasures, and we tell no one. It is no one's business but our own, sweetheart. And nothing is wrong, if no harm is done to anyone."

Subtle, alluring, half-laughing, half-relentless, he drew her closer yet, he bent and pressed his lips upon her upturned face. But she quivered still and shrank, though unresisting. She could not give her lips to his. His kiss burned through and through her, so that she longed to flee away and hide.

For though that kiss sent a thrill of wild ecstasy through her, there was anguish mingled therewith. Even while she exulted over her unexpected victory, she was smitten with the thought that it had cost her too dear. Had she told him too much about herself that he held her thus cheaply? Would he—however urgent his desire to do so—would he have dreamed of treating Rose thus? Or any other girl of his own standing?

The thought went through her like a dagger. She bent herself back over his arm avoiding his lips a second time. That one kiss had opened her eyes.

"Oh, let me go!" she said, her voice muffled and tremulous. "You mustn't—ever—do it again."

"Why not?" he whispered softly. "What does it matter? This is the land of no consequences."

"I can't help it," she whispered back. "It may not mean anything to you. But—but—it makes me feel—wicked."

He laughed at her with tender ridicule. His arms still held her, but no longer closely.

"Don't be afraid, my elf of the mountains!" he said. "I won't do it again—yet. But there is nothing in it I tell you. And what does it matter if no one knows? Why shouldn't you have all the fun you can get?"

Dinah straightened herself, and passed her hands over her face with an oddly childish gesture. He behaved as though he had conferred a favour upon her; but yet the horrible feeling of shame lingered. Her mother's most drastic punishments had never humbled her more completely.

She drew herself from his hold. "I feel it does matter," she said, her voice pathetically small and shy. "But—I know you didn't mean to—to offend me. So let's forget it, please! Let's go back!"

She gave him her hand with a timid gesture, and he took it with a smile that held arrogance as well as amusement. "We will go back certainly," he said. "But we shall not forget. We have tasted the wine of the gods, my Daphne, and there is magic in the draught. Those who drink once are bound to come again for more."

"Oh no! Oh no!" said Dinah.

But even as she said it, she felt herself to be battling against destiny.

In that moment she knew beyond all doubting that by some means of which she had no understanding he had caught her will and made it captive. Elude him though she might for a time, she was bound to be his helpless prisoner at the last.

Yet his magnetism was such that she yielded herself to him almost mechanically as they went back into the giddy vortex of the carnival. Even in the midst of her dismay and uncertainty, she was strangely, almost deliriously happy.

Romance with gold-tipped wings unfurled had suddenly descended from the high heavens and flitted before her, luring her on.



CHAPTER XIII

FRIENDSHIP IN THE DESERT

On the edge of the rink immediately below the hotel, a slight figure was standing, patient as the Sphinx, awaiting them.

Sir Eustace's keen eyes lighted upon it from afar. "There is my brother," he said. "We will go and speak to him if you have no objection."

Dinah received the suggestion with eagerness. She was possessed for the moment by an urgent desire to get back to the commonplace. She had been whirled off her feet, and albeit the flight had held rapture, she had a desperate longing to tread solid ground once more.

Possibly her companion shared something of this feeling. The game was his, but there was no more to be won from her that night. The time had come to descend from the heights to the dull and banal levels. He divined her wish to return to earth, and he had no reason for thwarting it. With a careless laugh he put on speed and rushed her dizzily through the throng.

To Dinah it was as a rapid fall through space. She felt as if she had been suddenly shot from the gates of Olympus. She reached Scott, flushed and breathless and quivering still with the wonder of it.

He greeted her courteously. "Are you having a good time, Miss Bathurst?"

She answered him gaspingly. Somehow it was an immense relief to find herself by his side. "Yes; a glorious time. But I am coming off now. Have you—have you seen anything of Lady Grace or the Colonel?"

"I have just had the pleasure of making Lady Grace's acquaintance," he said. "Are you really coming off now? Have you had enough?"

She passed over his last question, for the wonder pierced her if she had not had too much. "Yes, really. I am going to change my boots. I left them somewhere here. I wonder where they are. Ah, there they are against the railing! No, please don't! I can manage quite well. I would rather."

She sat down on the bank, and bent her hot face over her task.

The two brothers remained near her. Scott was apparently waiting for her. They exchanged a few low words.

"I'll do my level best, old chap," she heard Scott say. "But if I don't succeed, it can't be helped. Rome wasn't built in a day."

Eustace made an impatient sound, and muttered something in a whisper.

"No," Scott said in answer. "Not that! Never with my consent. It wouldn't do, man! I tell you it wouldn't do. Can't you take my word for it?"

"You're as obstinate as a mule, Stumpy," his brother said, in tones of irritation. "It'll come to it sooner or later. You're only prolonging the agony."

"I am doing my best," Scott said gravely. "Give me credit for that at least!"

Sir Eustace clapped a sudden hand on his shoulder. "No one doubts that, my boy. You're true gold. But it's sheer foolishness to go on in the same old way that's proved a failure a hundred times. In heaven's name, now that we've hauled her out of that infernal groove, don't let idiotic sentimentality spoil everything! Don't shy at the consequences! I'll be responsible for them."

Dinah glanced up. She saw that for the moment she was forgotten. The light was shining upon Scott's face, and she read in it undeniable perplexity, but the eyes were steadfast and wholly calm.

He even smiled a little as he said, "My dear chap, have you ever considered the consequences of anything—counted the cost before you came to pay? No, never!"

"Don't preach to me!" Eustace said sharply.

"No. I won't. But don't you talk in that airy way about responsibility to me! Because—" Scott's smile broadened and became openly affectionate—"it just won't go down, dear fellow! I can't swallow camels—never could."

"You can strain at gnats though," commented Sir Eustace, pivoting round on his skates. "Well, you know my sentiments. I haven't put my foot down yet. But I'm going to—pretty soon. It's got to be done. And if you can't bring yourself to it,—well, I shall, that's all."

He was gone with the words, swift as an arrow, leaving behind him a space so empty that Dinah felt a sudden queer little pang of desolation.

Scott remained motionless, deep in thought, for the passage of several seconds. Then abruptly the consciousness of her presence came upon him, and he turned to her. She was sitting on the bank looking up at him with frank interest. Their eyes met.

And then a very curious thing happened to Dinah. She flinched under his look, flinched and averted her own. A great shyness suddenly surged through her, a quivering, overmastering sense of embarrassment. For in that moment she viewed the flight to Olympus as he would have viewed it, and was horribly, overwhelmingly ashamed. She could not break the silence. She had no words to utter—no possible means at hand by which to cover her discomfiture.

It was he who spoke, in his voice a tinge of restraint. "I was going to ask if it would bore you to come and see my sister again this evening. I have obtained Lady Grace's permission for you to do so."

She sprang to her feet. "Of course—of course I would love to!" she said rather incoherently. "How could it bore me? I—I should like it—more than anything."

He smiled faintly, and held out his hand for the boots she had just discarded. "That is more than kind of you," he said. "My sister was afraid you might not want to come."

"Of course I want to come!" maintained Dinah. "Oh no, thank you; I couldn't let you carry my boots. How clever of you to tackle Lady Grace! What did she say?"

"Neither she nor the Colonel made any difficulty about it at all," Scott said. "I told them my sister was an invalid. Lady Grace said that I must not keep you after ten, and I promised I wouldn't."

His manner was kindly and quizzical, and Dinah's embarrassment began to pass. But he discomfited her afresh as they walked across the road by saying, "You have made it up with my brother, I see."

Dinah's cheeks burned again. "Yes," she said, after a moment. "We made it up this afternoon."

"That was very lucky—for him," observed Scott rather dryly.

Dinah made a swift leap for the commonplace. "I hate being cross with people," she said, "or to have them cross with me; don't you?"

"I think it is sometimes unavoidable," said Scott gravely.

"Oh, surely you are never cross!" said Dinah impetuously. "I can't imagine it."

"Wait till you see it!" said Scott, with a smile.

They entered the hotel together. Dinah was tingling with excitement. She had managed to escape from her discomfiture, but she still felt that any prolonged intercourse with the man beside her would bring it back. She was beginning to know Scott as one who would not hesitate to say exactly what he thought, and not for all she possessed in the world would she have had him know what had passed in that far corner of the rink so short a time before.

She chattered inconsequently upon ordinary topics as they ascended the stairs together, but when they reached the door of Isabel's sitting-room she became suddenly shy again.

"Hadn't I better run and take off my things?" she whispered. "I feel so untidy."

He looked at her. She was clad in the white woollen cap and coat that she had worn in the day. Her eyes were alight and sparkling, her brown face flushed. She looked the very incarnation of youth.

"I think she will like to see you as you are," said Scott.

He knocked upon the door three times as before, and in a moment opened it.

"Go in, won't you?" he said, standing back.

Dinah entered.

"Ah! She has come!" A hollow voice said, and in a moment her shyness was gone.

She moved forward eagerly, saw Isabel seated in a low chair, and impulsively went to her. "How kind you are to ask me to come again!" she said.

And then all in a moment Isabel's arms came out to her, and she slipped down upon her knees beside her into their close embrace.

"How kind of you to come, dear child!" Isabel murmured. "I am afraid it is a visit to the desert for you."

"But I love to come!" Dinah told her with warm lips raised. "I can't tell you how much. I was never so happy before. Each day seems lovelier than the last."

Isabel kissed her lingeringly, tenderly. "My dear, you have a happy heart," she said. "Tell me what you have been doing since I saw you last!"

She would have let her go, but Dinah clung to her still, her cheek against her shoulder. "I have been very frivolous, dear Mrs. Everard," she said. "I have done lots of things. This afternoon we were luging, and now I have just come from the carnival, I wish you could have been there. Some people are wearing the most horrible masks. Billy—my brother—has a beauty. He made it himself. I rather wanted it to wear, but he wouldn't part with it."

"You could never wear a mask, sweetheart," Isabel said, clasping the small brown hand in hers. "Your face is too sweet a thing to hide."

Dinah hugged her in naive delight. "I always thought I was ugly before," she said.

Isabel's face wore a wan smile. She stroked the girl's soft cheek. "My dear, no one with a heart like yours could have an ugly face. How did you enjoy your dance with Eustace last night?"

Dinah bent her head a little, wishing earnestly that Scott were not in the room. "I loved it," she said in a low voice.

"And afterwards?" questioned Isabel. "No one was vexed with you, I hope?"

Dinah hesitated. "Colonel de Vigne wasn't best pleased, I'm afraid," she said, after a moment.

"He scolded you!" said Isabel, swift regret in her voice. "I am so sorry, dear child. I ought to have gone to look after you. I was selfish."

"Oh no—indeed!" Dinah protested. "It was entirely my own fault. He would have been cross in any case. They are like that."

Isabel uttered a sigh. "I shall have to try to meet them. Naturally they will not let you come to total strangers. Stumpy, remind me in the morning! I must manage somehow to meet this child's guardians."

"Of course, dear," said Scott.

Dinah, glancing towards him, saw him exchange a swift look with the old nurse in the background, but his voice held neither surprise nor gratification. He took out a cigarette and began to smoke.

Isabel leaned back in her chair with abrupt weariness as if in reaction from the strain of a sudden unwonted exertion. "Let me see! Do I know your Christian name? Ah yes,—Dinah! What a pretty gipsy name! I think you are a little gipsy, are you not? You have the charm of the woods about you. Won't you sit in that chair, dear? You can't be comfortable on the floor."

But Dinah preferred to sit down against her knee, still holding the slender, inert hand.

"Tell me about your home!" Isabel said, closing languid eyes. "I can't talk much more, but I can listen. It does not tire me to listen."

Dinah hesitated somewhat. "I don't think you would find it very interesting," she said.

"But I am interested," Isabel said. "You live in the country, I think you said."

"At a place called Perrythorpe," Dinah said. "It's a great hunting country. My father hunts a lot and shoots too."

"Do you hunt?" asked Isabel.

"Oh no, never! There's never any time. I go for rambles sometimes on Sundays. Other days I am always busy. Fancy me hunting!" said Dinah, with a little laugh.

"I used to," said Isabel. "They always said I should end with a broken neck. But I never did."

"Are you very fond of riding?" asked Dinah.

"Not now, dear. I am not fond of anything now. Tell me some more, won't you? What makes you so busy that you never have time for any fun?"

Again Dinah hesitated. "You see, we're poor," she said. "My mother and I do all the work of the house and garden too."

"And your father is able to hunt?" Isabel's eyes opened. Her hand closed upon Dinah's caressingly.

"Oh yes, he has always hunted," Dinah said. "I don't think he could do without it. He would find it so dull."

"I see," said Isabel. "But he can't afford pleasures for you."

There was no perceptible sarcasm in her voice, but Dinah coloured a little and went at once to her father's defence.

"He sends Billy to a public school. Of course I—being only a girl—don't count. And he has sent us out here, which was very good of him—the sweetest thing he has ever done. He had a lucky speculation the other day, and he has spent it nearly all on us. Wasn't that kind of him?"

"Very kind, dear," said Isabel gently. "How long are you to have out here?"

"Only three weeks, and half the time is gone already," sighed Dinah. "The de Vignes are not staying longer. The Colonel is a J.P., and much too important to stay away for long. And they are going to have a large house-party. There isn't much more than a week left now." She sighed again.

"And then you will have no more fun at all?" asked Isabel.

"Not a scrap—nothing but work." Dinah's voice quivered a little. "I don't suppose it has been very good for me coming out here," she said. "I—I believe I'm much too fond of gaiety really."

Isabel's hand touched her cheek. "Poor little girl!" she said. "But you wouldn't like to leave your mother to do all the drudgery alone."

"Oh yes, I should," said Dinah, with a touch of recklessness. "I'd never go back if I could help it. I love Dad of course; but—" She paused.

"You don't love your mother?" supplemented Isabel.

Dinah leaned her face suddenly against the caressing hand. "Not much, I'm afraid," she whispered.

"Poor little girl!" Isabel murmured again compassionately.



CHAPTER XIV

THE PURPLE EMPRESS

Colonel De Vigne once more wore his most magisterial air when after breakfast on the following morning he drew Dinah aside.

She looked at him with swift apprehension, even with a tinge of guilt. His lecture of the previous morning was still fresh in her mind. Could he have seen her on the ice with Sir Eustace on the previous night, she asked herself? Surely, surely not!

Apparently he had, however; for his first words were admonitory.

"Look here, young lady, you're making yourself conspicuous with that three-volume-novel baronet: You don't want to be conspicuous, I suppose?"

Her face burned crimson at the question. Then he had seen, or at least he must know, something! She stood before him, too overwhelmed for speech.

"You don't, eh?" he insisted, surveying her confusion with grim relentlessness.

"Of course not!" she whispered at last.

He put a hand on her shoulder. "Very well then! Don't let there be any more of it! You've been a good girl up till now but the last two days seem to have turned your head. I shan't be able to give a good report to your mother when we get home if this sort of thing goes on."

Dinah's heart sank still lower. The thought of the return home had begun to dog her like an evil dream.

With a great effort she met the Colonel's stern gaze. "I am very sorry," she faltered. "But—but Lady Grace did say I might go and see Mrs. Everard—the invalid sister—yesterday."

"I know she did. She thought you had been flirting with Sir Eustace long enough."

Dinah's sky began to clear a little. "Then you don't mind my going to see her?" she said.

"So long as you are not there too often," conceded the Colonel. "The younger brother is a nice little chap. There is no danger of your getting up to mischief with him."

Dinah's face burned afresh at the suggestion. He evidently did not actually know; but he suspected very strongly. Still it was a great relief to know that all intercourse with these wonderful new friends of hers was not to be barred.

"There was some talk of a sleigh-drive this afternoon," she ventured, after a moment. "Mr. Studley is taking his sister and she asked me to go too. May I?"

"You accepted, I suppose?" demanded the Colonel.

"I said I thought I might," Dinah admitted. And then very suddenly she caught a kindly gleam in his eyes, and summoned courage for entreaty. "Do please—please—let me go!" she begged, clasping his arm. "I shan't ever have any fun again when this is over."

"How do you know that?" said the Colonel gruffly. "Yes, you can go—you can go. But behave yourself soberly, there's a good girl. And remember—no running after the other fellow to-night! I won't have it. Is that understood?"

Dinah, too rejoiced over this concession to trouble about future prohibitions, gave cheerful acquiescence to the fiat. Perhaps she was beginning to realize that she would see quite as much of Sir Eustace as was at all advisable or even to be desired, without running after him. In fact, so shy had the previous night's flight with him made her, that she did not feel the slightest wish to encounter him again at present. To go out sleigh-driving with Scott and his sister was all that she asked of life that day.

It was a glorious morning despite all prophecies of a coming change, and she spent it joyously luging with Billy. Sir Eustace had gone ski-ing with Captain Brent, and the only glimpse she had of him was a very far one, so far that she knew him only by the magnificence of his physique as he descended the mountain-side as one borne upon wings.

She recalled the brief conversation that the brothers had held in her hearing the night before, and marvelled at the memory of Scott's attitude towards him.

"He isn't a bit afraid of him," she reflected. "In fact he behaves exactly as if he were the bigger of the two."

This phenomenon puzzled her very considerably, for Scott was wholly lacking in the pomposity that characterizes many little men. She wondered what had been the subject of their discussion. It had been connected with Isabel, she felt sure. She was glad to think that she had Scott to protect her, for there was something of tyranny about the elder brother from which she shrank instinctively, his magnetism notwithstanding, and the thought of poor, tragic Isabel being coerced by it was intolerable.

The memory of the latter's resolution to make the acquaintance of the de Vignes recurred to her as she and Billy returned for luncheon. Would she carry it out? She wondered. The look that Scott had flung at the old nurse dwelt in her mind. It would evidently be an extraordinary move if she did.

They reached the hotel, Rose and another girl had just come up from the rink together. A little knot of people were gathered on the verandah. Dinah and Billy kept behind Rose and her companion; but in a moment Dinah heard her name.

The group parted, and she saw Isabel Everard, very tall and stately in a deep purple coat, standing with Lady Grace de Vigne.

Billy gave her a push. "Go on! They're calling you."

And Dinah found the strange sad eyes upon her, alight with a smile of welcome. She went forward impetuously, and in a moment Isabel's cold hands were clasped upon her warm ones.

"I have been waiting for you, dear child," the low voice said. "What have you been doing?"

Dinah suddenly felt as if she were standing in the presence of a princess. Isabel in public bore herself with a haughtiness fully equal to that displayed by Sir Eustace, and she knew that Lady Grace was impressed by it.

"I would have come back sooner if I had known," she said, closely holding the long, slender fingers.

"My dear, you are woefully untidy now you have come," murmured Lady Grace.

But Isabel gently freed one hand to put her arm about the girl. "To me she is—just right," she said, and in her voice there sounded the music of a great tenderness. "Youth is never tidy, Lady Grace; but there is nothing in the world like it."

Lady Grace's eyes went to her daughter whose faultless apparel and perfection of line were in vivid contrast to Dinah's harum-scarum appearance.

"I do not altogether agree with you in that respect, Mrs. Everard," she said, with a smile. "I think young girls should always aim at being presentable. But I quite admit that it is more difficult for some than for others. Dinah, my dear, Mrs. Everard has been kind enough to ask you to lunch in her sitting-room with her, and to go for a sleigh-drive afterward; so you had better run and get respectable as quickly as you can."

"Oh, how kind you are!" Dinah said, with earnest eyes uplifted. "You know how I shall love to come, don't you?"

"I thought you might, dear," Isabel said. "Scott is coming to keep us company. He has arranged for a sleigh to be here in an hour. We are going for a twelve-mile round, so we must not be late starting. It gets so cold after sundown."

"I had better go then, hadn't I?" said Dinah.

"I am coming too," Isabel said. Her arm was still about her. It remained so as she turned to go. "Good-bye, Lady Grace! I will take great care of the child. Thank you for allowing her to come."

She bowed with regal graciousness and moved away, taking Dinah with her.

"Exit Purple Empress!" murmured a man in the background close to Rose. "Who on earth is she? I haven't seen her anywhere before."

Rose uttered her soft, artificial laugh. "She is Sir Eustace Studley's sister. Rather peculiar, I believe, even eccentric. But I understand they are of very good birth."

"That covers a multitude of sins," he commented. "She's been a mighty handsome woman in her day. She must be many years older than Sir Eustace. She looks more like his mother than his sister."

"I believe she is actually younger," Rose said. "They say she has never recovered from the sudden death of her husband some years ago, but I know nothing of the circumstances."

"A very charming woman," said Lady Grace, joining them. "We have had quite a long chat together. Yes, her manner is a little strange, slightly abstracted, as if she were waiting for something or someone. But a very easy companion on the whole. I think you will like her, Rose dear."

"She's dead nuts on Dinah," observed Billy with a chuckle. "She don't look at anyone else when she's got Dinah."

Lady Grace smiled over his head and took no verbal notice of the remark.

"They are a distinguished-looking family," she said. "Run and wash your hands, Billy. Are you thinking of ski-ing this afternoon, Rose?"

"You bet!" murmured Billy, under his breath. He too had seen the distant figure of Sir Eustace on the mountain-side.

"It depends," said Rose, non-committally.

"Captain Brent and Sir Eustace have been on skis all the morning," said her mother. "We must see what they say about it."

Billy spun a coin into the air behind her back. "Heads Sir Eustace and tails Captain Brent," he muttered to the man who had commented upon Isabel's beauty. "Heads it is!"

Lady Grace turned round with a touch of sharpness at the sound of his companion's laugh. "Billy! Did I not tell you to go and wash your hands?"

Billy's green eyes smiled impudent acknowledgment. "You did, Lady Grace. And I'm going. Good-bye!"

He pocketed the coin, winked at his friend, and departed whistling.

"A very unmannerly little boy!" observed Lady Grace, with severity. "Come, my dear Rose! We must go in."

"I don't like either the one or the other," said Rose, with a very unusual touch of petulance. "They are always in the way."

"I fully agree with you," said Lady Grace acidly. "But it is for the first and last time in their lives. I have already told the Colonel so. He will never ask them to accompany us again."

"Thank goodness for that!" said Rose, with restored amiability. "Of course I am sorry for poor little Dinah; but there is a limit."

"Which is very nearly reached," said Lady Grace.



CHAPTER XV

THE MOUNTAIN CREST

That sleigh-drive was to Dinah the acme of delight, and for ever after the jingle of horse-bells was to recall it to her mind. The sight of the gay red trappings, the trot of the muffled hoofs, the easy motion of the sleigh slipping over the white road, and above all, Isabel, clad in purple and seated beside her, a figure of royal distinction, made a picture in her mind that she was never to forget. She rode in a magic chariot through wonderland.

She longed to delay the precious moments as they flew, like a child chasing butterflies in the sunshine; but they only seemed to fly the faster. She chattered almost incessantly for the first few miles, and occasionally Isabel smiled and answered her; but for the most part it was Scott, seated opposite, who responded to her raptures,—Scott, unfailingly attentive and courteous, but ever watchful of his sister's face.

She gazed straight ahead when she was not looking at anything to which Dinah called her attention. Her eyes had the intense look of one who watches perpetually for something just out of sight.

Quiet but alert, he marked her attitude, marked also the emaciation which was so painfully apparent in the strong sunshine and formed so piteous a contrast to the vivid youth of the girl beside her. Presently Dinah came out of her rhapsodies and observed his vigilance. She watched him covertly for a time while she still chatted on. And she noted that there were very weary lines about his eyes, lines of anxiety, lines of sleeplessness, that filled her warm heart with quick sympathy and a longing to help.

The road was one of wild beauty. It wound up a desolate mountain pass along which great black boulders were scattered haphazard like the mighty toys of a giant. The glittering snow lay all around them, making their nakedness the more apparent. And far, far above, the white crags shone with a dazzling purity in the sunlit air.

Below them the snow lay untrodden, exquisitely pure, piled here in great drifts, falling away there in wonderful curves and hollows, but always showing a surface perfect and undesecrated by any human touch. And ever the sleigh ran smoothly on over the white road till it seemed to Dinah as if they moved in a dream. She fell silent, charmed by the swift motion, and by the splendour around her.

"You are quite warm, I hope?" Scott said, after an interval.

She was wrapped in a fur cloak belonging to Isabel. She smiled an affirmative, but she saw him as through a veil. The mystery and the wonder of creation filled her soul.

"I feel," she said, "I feel as if we were being taken up into heaven."

"Oh, that we were!" said Isabel, speaking suddenly with a force that had in it something terrible. "Do you see those golden peaks, sweetheart? That is where I would be. That is where the gates of Heaven open—where the lost are found."

Dinah's hand was clasped in hers under the fur rug, and she felt the thin fingers close with a convulsive hold.

Scott leaned forward. "Heaven is nearer to us than that, Isabel," he said gently.

She looked at him for a moment, but her eyes at once passed beyond. "No, no, Stumpy! You never understand," she said restlessly. "I must reach the mountain-tops or die. I am tired—I am tired of my prison. And I stifle in the valley—I who have watched the sun rise and set from the very edge of the world. Why did they take me away? If I had only waited a little longer—a little longer—as he told me to wait!" Her voice suddenly vibrated with a craving that was passionate. "He would have come with the next sunrise. I always knew that the dawn would bring him back to me. But"—dull despair took the place of longing—"they took me away, and the sun has never shone since."

"Isabel!" Scott's voice was very grave and quiet. "Miss Bathurst will wonder what you mean. Don't forget her!"

Dinah pressed close to her friend's side. "Oh, but I do understand!" she said softly. "And, dear Mrs. Everard, I wish I could help you. But I think Mr. Studley must be right. It is easier to get to heaven than to climb those mountain-peaks. They are so very steep and far away."

"So is Heaven, child," said Isabel, with a sigh of great weariness.

As it were with reluctance, she again met the steady gaze of Scott's eyes, and gradually her mood seemed to change. Her brief animation dropped away from her; she became again passive, inert, save that she still seemed to be watching.

Scott broke the silence, kindly and practically. "We ought to reach the chalet at the head of the pass soon," he said. "You will be glad of some tea."

"Oh, are we going to stop for tea?" said Dinah.

"That's the idea," said Scott. "And then back by another way. We ought to get a good view of the sunset. I hope it won't be misty, but they say a change is coming."

"I hope it won't come yet," said Dinah fervently. "The last few days have been so perfect. And there is so little time left."

Scott smiled. "That is the worst of perfection," he said. "It never lasts."

Dinah's eyes were wistful. "It will go on being perfect here long after we have left," she said. "Isn't it dreadful to think of all the good things—all the beauty—one misses just because one isn't there?"

"It would be if there were nothing else to think of," said Scott. "But there is beauty everywhere—if we know how to look for it."

She looked at him uncertainly. "I never knew what it meant before I came here," she told him shyly. "There is no time for beautiful things in my life. It's very, very drab and ugly. And I am very discontented. I have never been anything else."

Her voice quivered a little as she made the confession. Scott's eyes were so kind, so full of friendly understanding. Isabel had dropped out of their intercourse as completely as though her presence had been withdrawn. She lay back against her cushions, but her eyes were still watching, watching incessantly.

"I think the very dullest life can be made beautiful," Scott said, after a moment. "Even the desert sand is gold when the sun shines on it. The trouble is,—" he laughed a little—"to get the sun to shine."

Dinah leaned forward eagerly, confidentially. "Yes?" she questioned.

He looked her suddenly straight in the eyes. "There is a great store of sunshine in you," he said. "One can't come near you without feeling it. Isabel will tell you the same. Do you keep it only for the Alps? If so,—" he paused.

Dinah's face flushed suddenly under his look. "If so?" she asked, under her breath.

He smiled. "Well, it seems a pity, that's all," he said. "Rather a waste too when you come to think of it."

Dinah's eyes caught the reflection of his smile. "I shall remember that, Mr. Greatheart," she said.

"Forgive me for preaching!" said Scott.

She put out a hand to him quickly, spontaneously. "You don't preach—and it does me good," she said somewhat incoherently. "Please—always—say what you like to me!"

"At risk of hurting you?" said Scott. He held the small, impulsive hand a moment and let it go.

"You could never hurt me," Dinah answered. "You are far too kind."

"I think the kindness is on your side," he answered gravely. "Most people of my acquaintance would think me a bore—if nothing worse."

"Most people have never really met you, Stumpy," said Isabel unexpectedly. "Dinah is one of the privileged few, and I am glad she appreciates it."

"Good heavens!" said Scott, flushing a deep red. "Spare me, Isabel!"

Dinah broke into her gay, infectious laugh. "Please—please don't be upset about it! I'm glad I'm one of the few. I've felt you were a prince in disguise all along."

"Very much in disguise!" protested Scott. "Remove that, and there would be nothing left."

"Except a man," said Isabel, "You can't get away, Stumpy. You're caught."

A fleeting smile crossed her face like a gleam of light and was gone. She turned her look upon Dinah, and became silent again.

Scott, much disconcerted, hunted in every pocket for his cigarette-case. "You don't mind my smoking, I hope?" he murmured.

"I like it," said Dinah. "Let me help you light up!"

She made a screen with her hands, and guarded the flame from the draught.

He thanked her courteously, recovering his composure with a smile that was not without self-ridicule, and in a moment they were talking again upon impersonal matters. But the episode, slight though it was, dwelt in Dinah's mind thereafter with an odd persistence. She felt as if Isabel had given her a flashlight glimpse of something which otherwise she would scarcely have realized. In that single fleeting moment of revelation she had seen that which no vision of knight in shining armour could have surpassed.

They reached the chalet at the top of the pass, and descended for tea. The windows looked right down the snow-clad valley up which they had come. The sun had begun to sink, and the greater part of it lay in shadow.

Far away, rising out of the shadows, all golden amid floating mists, was a mighty mountain crest, higher than all around. The sun-rays lighted up its wondrous peaks. The glory of it was unearthly, almost more than the eye could bear.

Dinah stood on the little wooden verandah of the chalet and gazed and gazed till the splendour nearly blinded her.

"Still watching the Delectable Mountains?" said Scott's voice at her shoulder.

She made a little gesture in response. She could not take her eyes off the wonder.

He came and stood beside her in mute sympathy while he finished his cigarette. There was a certain depression in his attitude of which presently she became aware. She summoned her resolution and turned herself from the great vision that so drew her.

He was leaning against a post of the verandah, and she read again in his attitude the weariness that she had marked earlier in the afternoon.

"Are you—troubled about your sister?" she asked him diffidently.

He threw away the end of his cigarette and straightened himself. "Yes, I am troubled," he said, in a low voice. "I am afraid it was a mistake to bring her here."

"I thought her looking better this morning," Dinah ventured.

His grey eyes met hers. "Did you? I thought it a good sign that she should make the effort to speak to strangers. But I am not certain now that it has done her any good. We brought her here to wake her from her lethargy. Eustace thought the air would work wonders, but—I am not sure. It is certainly waking her up. But—to what?"