Thorpe assented with a certain listlessness, which they had never noted in his manner before, but when Julia begged him not to stir if he were in the slightest degree tired, he replied honestly enough that he would do anything rather than be left alone. Then, of course, they said, there should be no walk, but to this he would not listen.
The party trooped downstairs, accordingly, and out into the street. The walking was vile, but, as Julia had long ago said, if they were to be deterred by slush they would never get anywhere or see anything.
It proved to be too late and too dark to either enter the castle or get much of an idea of its exterior.
Returning, they paused again to look into the lighted window of the nice little book-shop. The numerous photographs of what they were entitled to behold from the windows of their hotel seemed more convincing than photographs usually were. As the young people inspected them, they became reassured. It was not credible that such a noble vista would forever deny itself to such earnest pilgrims.
When their uncle introduced this time his ancient formula about the certainty of brilliant sunshine in the morning, they somehow felt like believing him.
"Yes--I really think it must change," Julia declared, with her fascinated glance upon the photographs.
Alfred looked at his watch. "We'd better get along to the hotel, hadn't we?" he suggested.
"By the way"--Thorpe began, with a certain uneasiness of manner--"speaking of dinner, wouldn't you like to dine at the big table d'hote, instead of up in our sitting-room?""If you're tired of our dining alone--by all means,"answered Julia, readily. There was obvious surprise, however, in both her look and tone.
"Tired nothing!" he assured her. "I like it better than anything else in the world. But what I mean is--Iwas thinking, seeing that this is such a great winter-resort, and all the swagger people of Europe come here--that probably you youngsters would enjoy seeing the crowd."Julia's glance, full of affectionate appreciation, showed how wholly she divined his spirit of self-sacrifice.
"We wouldn't care in the least for it," she declared.
"We enjoy being a little party by ourselves every whit as much as you do--and we both hate the people you get at table d'hotes--and besides, for that matter, if there are any real swells here, you may be sure they dine in their own rooms.""Why, of course!" Thorpe exclaimed swiftly, in palpable self-rebuke. "I don't know what I could have been thinking of.
Of course they would dine in their rooms."
Next morning, Thorpe rose earlier than ever--with the impression of a peculiarly restless and uncomfortable night behind him. It was not until he had shaved and dressed that he noted the altered character of the air outside.
Although it was not fully daylight yet, he could see the outlines of the trees and vinerows on the big, snow-clad hill, which monopolized the prospect from his window, all sharp and clear cut, as if he were looking at them through an opera-glass. He went at once to the sitting-room, and thrust the curtains aside from one of the windows.
A miracle had been wrought in the night. The sky overhead was serenely cloudless; the lake beneath, stirring softly under some faint passing breeze, revealed its full breadth with crystalline distinctness.
Between sky and water there stretched across the picture a broad, looming, dimly-defined band of shadow, marked here and there at the top by little slanting patches of an intensely glowing white. He looked at this darkling middle distance for a moment or two without comprehension.
Then he turned and hurriedly moved to the door of Julia's room and beat upon it.
"Get up!" he called through the panels. "Here's your sunrise--here's your Alpine view. Go to your window and see it!"A clear voice, not unmirthful, replied: "I've been watching it for half an hour, thanks. Isn't it glorious?"He was more fortunate at the opposite door, for Alfred was still asleep. The young man, upon hearing the news, however, made a toilet of unexampled brevity, and came breathlessly forth. Thorpe followed him to the balcony, where he stood collarless and uncombed, with the fresh morning breeze blowing his hair awry, his lips parted, his eyes staring with what the uncle felt to be a painful fixedness before him.
Thorpe had seen many mountains in many lands. They did not interest him very much. He thought, however, that he could see now why people who had no mountains of their own should get excited about Switzerland. He understood a number of these sentimental things now, for that matter, which had been Greek to him three months before.
Unreceptive as his philistinism may have seemed to these delightful youngsters, it was apparent enough to him that they had taught him a great deal. If he could not hope to share their ever-bubbling raptures and enthusiasms, at least he had come to comprehend them after a fashion, and even to discern sometimes what it was that stirred them.
He watched his nephew now--having first assured himself by a comprehensive downward glance that no other windows of the hotel-front were open. The young man seemed tremendously moved, far too much so to talk.
Thorpe ventured once some remarks about the Mexican mountains, which were ever so much bigger, as he remembered them, but Alfred paid no heed. He continued to gaze across the lake, watching in rapt silence one facet after another catch the light, and stand out from the murky gloom, radiantly white, till at last the whole horizon was a mass of shining minarets and domes, and the sun fell full on his face. Then, with a long-drawn sigh, he turned, re-entered the room, and threw himself into a chair.
"It's too good!" he declared, with a half-groan. "Ididn't know it would be like that."
"Why nothing's too good for us, man," his uncle told him.
"THAT is," said the boy, simply, and Thorpe, after staring for a moment, smiled and rang the bell for breakfast.
