He was loitering about at the cable railway station the next morning when Evereld and Janet Mactavish walked from the hotel to take their places in the down-going carriage.
“And where are you off to this morning?” he inquired.
“We are going to see the Gorge de Trient,” said Evereld, “at least some of us are. You are going to sketch near that waterfall, are you not, Janet.”
“Yes,” said Janet, “but Major Gillot and Minnie and Mr. Wylie will be with you. Four makes a much better number and I want a quiet day.”
Dick Lewisham laughed in his sleeve, he felt sure that Janet had been taken into the plot. Then with some compunction he glanced at Evereld’s unsuspicious face; her manner to him was perfect, he felt glad to think that she trusted him, and wondered much in what fashion she would get through the excursion. It was hardly likely he feared to be a day of pleasure to her.
They were now joined by Minnie and her _fiancé_, and at the last moment Bruce Wylie walked coolly across the little platform and down the steps, taking his place just before the carriage slid down its steep incline.
“Oh be quick! take care!” said Evereld with a look of alarm; and Dick Lewisham turned away, musing over the words and the expression of the girl’s face.
“Evidently she likes him very much as an old friend,” he reflected. “I wonder how she will get on.”
|Come over to this side of the carriage,” said Bruce Wylie as they took their places in the train at Territet, “you will get the best of the views this side.”
Evereld had become quite used to his kindly little arrangements for her comfort, she felt sure in her own mind that any good-natured man would have done as much for a girl on her first Swiss tour, and she smiled to herself at that ridiculous report which Mr. Lewisham had quoted to her. After all, though, was it not very likely that she herself had misjudged other people in exactly the same way? She was always making little romances in her mind about the people they met in the hotels, and they generally proved to be wrong when closer acquaintance revealed the truth.
She felt perfectly happy that September morning as they journeyed along the lovely lake, past the red roofed Castle of Chillon, past the white peaks of the Dent du Midi to St. Maurice, and then on once more through the somewhat trying heat of the Rhone Valley to Vernayaz.