Raine looked up, and recognizing the newcomer as one with whom he had exchanged casual remarks during the last few days, readily complied with his request.
He was a thin, wiry man of about seven and thirty, with a clean-shaven face which bore a curious expression of mingled simplicity and shrewdness. His thin lips seemed to smile at the deception practised by his guileless pale-blue eyes. Unlike Raine, who wore the Englishman's Norfolk jacket, knickerbockers and heavy heather-mixture stockings, he was attired in grey summer trousers and a black jacket. A soft felt hat of the Tyrolese shape, a pair of field-glasses slung over his shoulder, a great gold solitaire fastening his shirt-cuff, which showed conspicuously as he lit his cigar, suggested the nationality that was confirmed by his speech.
He was an American, his name was Hockmaster, and he was visiting Europe for the first time. With these facts he had already acquainted Raine on a previous occasion.
When the American had returned the match-box, he sat down on the bench by Raine's side.
“If you want to be alone, you've only got to tell me and I'll evaporate,” he said cheerfully. “But I've been getting somewhat lonesome in this valley. Nature's a capital thing in mixed society, but when you have got her all to yourself, she is a thundering dull companion.”
The remark so exactly echoed Raine's sentiments of the past few days that he burst out laughing, closed “Tristram Shandy,” and prepared to gossip sympathetically with his new acquaintance.
“You are not ecstatic over all this,” he said with a wave of his hand.
“Only within reasonable limits,” replied the American. “It's very pretty, and when you see it for the first time it fetches you in the pit of your stomach. Some folks say it touches the soul, but I don't take much stock of souls anyway. Well, then you get over it, like sea-sickness, and it doesn't fetch you any more. But I'm glad I've seen it. That is what I came over for.”
“Well, no. Not exactly. But to sample Europe generally. To get a bird's-eye view of all the salient features. It is very interesting. America is a fine country, but it's not the microcosm of the universe.”
“But you have scenery much more grandiose than this, in the Californian Sierras,” said Raine.