’You have mine,’ said Philip, and laid his on her wrist. She took his hand and pressed it thankfully.
’Now,’ she continued, ’you can understand what it must be to one on a dizzy peak, or apex of a building, if there be a something—a bar even, to which to hold. Then the abysses below can be gazed into with impunity. Holding to that support, the dangers are no longer dreadful, there is no more fear of falling out of sheer desperation.’
’It is time to return to our party. Oh, what a relief it has been to me to pour out my heart to you! And now, in return, tell me about Colonel Yeo.’
The sound of that name at once brought Philip to his senses. He rose to his feet and stepped into the road.
’I am sorry to be unable to tell you about him, because I know little about him. As I said before, we belong to different spheres.’
They walked back together, talking of the weather and the mountains and flowers, and found the rest at a table. The restaurant was under repair, and no refreshments could be obtained there.
’Well?’ said Mrs. Sidebottom, ’you have kept us waiting a long time.’
’We have been waiting for you,’ said Miss Durham. ’We thought you would come on to the head of the pass.’
Philip caught Salome’s eye and avoided it. She looked wistfully, wonderingly at him. What did he mean by at one minute treating the American lady with coldness and rudeness, and then reversing his behaviour towards her absolutely and at once?
She took her husband’s arm as they walked back to Andermatt. Philip was silent. He thought about the story he had heard, of the loneliness of the poor girl who had confided her history to him.
’What a long way this is, dear!’ said Philip. ’It seems an age since we began the descent.’
Philip could not sleep during the night that followed the expedition to the Ober-Alp. His mind was occupied with what he had heard. He thought of the poor girl, sold by her mother; of her rude apprenticeship, of the risks she had undergone; beautiful, young, attractive. He tossed in his bed. What would become of her? Could she stand exposed to the dangers that beset her and not, as she half-threatened, throw herself over? What could be done for her?
She had spoken of the freedom of her life as giving zest to existence, but too great freedom may pall; it had palled on the girl, and she had put up her hands, pleading to be fitted with light but strong manacles. What a contrast was to be found between his life and hers! He had been cramped and hedged about with restrictions: she had enjoyed an excess of liberty. Virtue, says Aristotle, is to be found in a happy medium, and not virtue only, but the plenitude and manifoldness of life can only unfurl itself in a happy medium between excess of freedom and oppressive restriction. Philip was and ever had been conscious that his abilities had not been allowed due expansion in the career into which he had been squeezed; and this American girl, with doubtless splendid capabilities of mind and heart, had allowed them to run riot and dissipate their fragrance in untutored independence. When she fixed her great dark eyes on him, what a thrill passed through him! and when she took his hand, fire ran up his veins, and broke into a blaze in his heart.