“What about the neat glamour?” asked Raine, smiling.
“Ah! There's a difference. I have got this all out of my own head. It is a bit of _me_. Whereas the Alps aren't--” He stared at them innocently--“Not a little bit.”
The sound of the gong for the mid-day meal reached them, resonant through the rarefied air. They rose and walked together towards the hotel.
“I guess I'll come and sit next to you, if you have no objection,” said Mr. Hockmaster.
“Do,” replied Raine cordially, “I shall be delighted.”
They lunched together, and in the afternoon walked to the Boissons and back, a pleasant three hours' excursion. Raine did not wish to absent himself from the hotel for a longer time, being anxious concerning posts. But no letters came for him, save a couple of business communications from Oxford. He was troubled about his father's health, and longing for a line from Katherine. He began to reflect that perhaps, after all, he had come on a fool's errand to Chamonix. Poor little Felicia would have to be disillusioned sooner or later. If the Lucerne plan had fallen through, owing to his father's illness, there was no chance of sparing her the ultimate revelation of the love between himself and Katherine. He could not remain at Chamonix indefinitely; to take up other quarters at Geneva would only set the whole pension speculating; and Raine knew full well that the speculation of a whole pension is perilous to the most Calphurnian reputation.
He decided, however, to be guided by the next day's letters.
CHAPTER XI.--“THE WOMAN WHO DELIBERATES.”
“Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself,” is an excellent maxim. Its only fault is its capacity of a too wide extension. If a saying clause had been added with reference to its non-application to one's neighbour's business, it would have been perfect. But, perhaps, after all, in its faultiness lies its excellence, for counsels of perfection are of no great use to mankind, which, in its ethical systems, loves disguised loopholes for original sin.
However little the inmates of the Pension Boccard may have observed the maxim itself, they obeyed its extension to a nicety. Not only because they were women. Sometimes communities of men have been known to gossip about each other's affairs. It is but human to speculate upon events around us, and speculation, anticipating Paine's fear, was rife at the Pension Boccard.