“You are really a wonderful instructor,” she acknowledged, surveying the graven witness to her progress with considerable satisfaction.
Her self-appointed teacher smiled.
“There is something to be said for the pupil, also,” he replied. “But now”—glancing at his watch—“I vote we call a halt for lunch.”
“Lunch!” Jean’s glance measured the distance to the hotel with some dismay.
“But not lunch at the hotel,” interposed her companion quickly.
Jean regarded him with curiosity.
“Where then, monsieur?”
“Up there!” he pointed5 towards the pine-woods. “Above the woods there is a hut of sorts—erected as a shelter in case of sudden storms for people coming up from the lower valley to Montavan and beyond. It’s a rough little shanty6, but it would serve very well as a temporary salle 脿 manger. It isn’t a long climb,” he added persuasively7. “Are you too tired to take it on after your recent exertion8?”
“Not in the least. But are you expecting a wayside refuge of that description to be miraculously9 endowed with a well-furnished larder10?”
“No. But I think my knapsack can make good the deficiency.” he replied composedly.
Jean looked at him with dancing eyes. Having once yielded to the day’s unconventional adventure, she had surrendered herself whole-heartedly to the enjoyment11 of it.
She made one reservation, however. Some instinct of self-protection prevented her from enlightening her companion as to her partly English nationality. There was no real necessity for it, seeing that he spoke12 French with the utmost fluency13, and his assumption that she was a Frenchwoman seemed in some way to limit the feeling of intimacy14, conferring on her, as it were, a little of the freedom of an incognito15.
“A la bonne heure!” she exclaimed gaily16. “So you invite me to share your lunch, monsieur le professeur?”
“I’ve invited you to share my day, haven’t I?” he replied, smiling.
They steered17 for the bank, and when he had helped off her skates and removed his own, slinging18 them over his arm, they started off along the steep white track which wound its way upwards19 through the pine-woods.
As they left the bright sunlight that still glittered on the snowy slopes behind them, it seemed as though they plunged20 suddenly into another world—a still, mysterious, twilit place, where the snow underfoot muffled21 the sound of their steps and the long shadows of the pines barred their path with sinister22, distorted shapes.
Jean, always sensitive to her surroundings, shivered a little.
“It’s rather eerie23, isn’t it?” she said. “It’s just as if someone had suddenly turned the lights out.”
“Quite a nice bit of symbolism,” he returned enigmatically.
“How? I don’t think I understand.”
He laughed a little.
“How should you? You’re young. Fate doesn’t come along and snuff out the lights for you when you are—what shall we say? Eighteen?”
“You’re two years out,” replied Jean composedly.
“As much? Then let’s hope you’ll have so much the longer to wait before Madame Destiny comes round with her snuffers.”
He spoke with a kind of bitter humour, the backwash, surely, of some storm through which he must have passed. Jean looked across at him with a vague trouble in her face.
“Then, do you think”—she spoke uncertainly—“do you believe it is inevitable24 that she will come—sooner or later?”
“I hope not—to you,” he said gently. “But she comes to most of us.”
She longed to put another question, but there was a note of finality in his voice—a kind of “thus far shalt thou come and no further”—that warned her to probe no deeper. Whatever it was of bitterness that lay in the Englishman’s past, he had no intention of sharing the knowledge with his chance companion of a day. He seemed to have become absorbed once more in his own thoughts, and for a time they tramped along together in silence.
The ascent25 steepened perceptibly, and Jean, light and active as she was, found it hard work to keep pace with the man’s steady, swinging stride. Apparently26 his thoughts engrossed27 him to the exclusion28 of everything else, for he appeared to have utterly29 forgotten her existence. It was only when a slip of her foot on the beaten surface of the snow wrung30 a quick exclamation31 from her that he paused, wheeling round in consternation32.
“I beg your pardon! I’m walking you off your legs! Why on earth didn’t you stop me?”
There was something irresistibly33 boyish about the quick apology. Jean laughed, a little breathless from the swift climb uphill.
“You seemed so bent34 on getting to the top in the least possible time,” she replied demurely35, “that I didn’t like to disappoint you.”
“I’m afraid I make a poor sort of guide,” he admitted. “I was thinking of something else. You must forgive me.”
They resumed their climb more leisurely36. The trees were thinning a bit now, and ahead, between the tall, straight trunks winged with drooping37, snow-laden branches, they could catch glimpses of the white world beyond.
Presently they came out above the pine-wood on to the edge of a broad plateau and Jean uttered an exclamation of delight, gazing spell-bound at the scene thus suddenly unfolded.
Behind them, in the pine-ringed valley, a frozen reach of water gleamed like a dull sheet of metal, whilst before them, far above, stretched the great chain of mountains, pinnacle38 after pinnacle, capped with snow, thrusting up into the cloud-swept sky. Through rifts39 in the cloud—almost, it seemed, torn in the breast of heaven by those towering peaks—the sunlight slanted40 in long shafts41, chequering the snows with shimmering42 patches of pale gold.
“It was worth the climb, then?”
The Englishman, his gaze on Jean’s rapt face, broke the silence abruptly43. She turned to him, radiant-eyed.
“It’s so beautiful that it makes one’s heart ache!” she exclaimed, laying her hand on her breast with the little foreign turn of gesture she derived44 from her French ancestry45.
She said no more, but remained very still, drinking in the sheer loveliness of the scene.
The man regarded her quietly as she stood there silhouetted46 against the skyline, her slim, brown-clad figure striking a warm note amid the chill Alpine47 whites and greys. Her face was slightly tilted48, and as the sunshine glinted on her hair and eyes, waking the russet lights that slumbered49 in them, there was something vividly50 arresting about her—a splendour of ardent51 youth which brought a somewhat wistful expression into the rather weary eyes of the man watching her.
His thought travelled hack52 to the brief snatch of conversation evoked53 by the sudden gloom of the pine-woods. Surely, for once, Fate would lay aside her snuffers and let this young, eager life pass by unshadowed!
Even as the thought took shape in his mind, Jean turned to him again, her face still radiant, “Thank you for bringing me up here,” she said simply. “It has been perfect.”
She stretched out her hand, and he took it and held it in his for a moment.
“I’m glad you’ve liked it,” he answered quietly. “It will always be a part of our day together—the day we stole from les convenances”—he smiled whimsically. “And now, if you can bring yourself back to more prosaic54 matters, I suggest we have lunch. Scenery, however fine, isn’t exactly calculated to sustain life.”
“Most material person!” She laughed up at him. “I suppose you think a ham sandwich worth all the scenery in the world?”
“I’ll admit to a preference for the sandwich at the moment,” he acknowledged. “Come, now, confess! Aren’t you hungry, too?”
“Starving! This air makes me feel as if I’d never had anything to eat in my life before!”
“Well, then, come and inspect my salle 脿 manger.”
The proposed refuge proved to be a roughly constructed little hut—hardly more than a shed provided with a door and thick-paned window, its only furniture a wooden bench and table. But that it had served its purpose as a kind of “travellers’ rest” was proved by the fragments of appreciation55, both in prose and verse, that were to be found inscribed56 in a species of “Visitors’ Book” which lay on the table, carefully preserved from damp in a strong metal box. Jean amused herself by perusing57 the various contributions to its pages while the Englishman unpacked58 the contents of his knapsack.
The lunch that followed was a merry little meal, the two conversing59 with a happy intimacy and freedom from reserve based on the reassuring60 knowledge that they would, in all probability, never meet again. Afterwards, they bent their energies to concerting a suitable inscription61 for insertion in the “Visitors’ Book,” squabbling like a couple of children over the particular form it should take.
So absorbed were they in the discussion that they failed to notice the perceptible cooling of the temperature. The sun no longer warmed the roofing of the hut, and there was a desolate62 note in the sudden gusts63 of wind which shook the door at frequent intervals64 as though trying to attract the attention of those within. Presently a louder rattle65 than usual, coincident with a chance pause in the conversation, roused them effectually.
The Englishman’s keen glance flashed to the little window, through which was visible a dancing, whirling blur66 of white.
“Great Scott!” he exclaimed in good round English. “It’s snowing like the very dickens!”
In two strides he had reached the door, and, throwing it open, peered out. A draught67 of icy air rushed into the hut, accompanied by a flurry of fine snow driven on the wind.
When he turned back, his face had assumed a sudden look of gravity.
“We must go at once,” he said, speaking in French again and apparently unconscious of his momentary68 lapse69 into his native tongue. “If we don’t, we shan’t be able to get back at all. The snow drifts quickly in the valley. Half an hour more of this and we shouldn’t be able to get through.”
Jean thrust the Visitors’ Book back into its box, and began hastily repacking her companion’s, knapsack, but he stopped her almost roughly.
“Never mind that. Fasten that fur thing closer round your throat and come on. There’s no taking chances in a blizzard70 like this. Don’t you understand?”—almost roughly. “If we waste time we may have to spend the night here.”
Impelled71 by the sudden urgency of his tones, Jean followed him swiftly out of the hut, and the wind, as though baulked by her haste, snatched the door from her grasp and drove it to with a menacing thud behind them.
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1
justified
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| a.正当的，有理的 | |
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capability
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| n.能力；才能；(pl)可发展的能力或特性等 | |
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considerably
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| adv.极大地；相当大地；在很大程度上 | |
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attenuated
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| v.（使）变细( attenuate的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）变薄；（使）变小；减弱 | |
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pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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shanty
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| n.小屋，棚屋；船工号子 | |
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persuasively
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| adv.口才好地；令人信服地 | |
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exertion
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| n.尽力，努力 | |
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miraculously
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| ad.奇迹般地 | |
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larder
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| n.食物贮藏室，食品橱 | |
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enjoyment
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| n.乐趣；享有；享用 | |
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spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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fluency
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| n.流畅，雄辩，善辩 | |
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intimacy
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| n.熟悉，亲密，密切关系，亲昵的言行 | |
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incognito
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| adv.匿名地；n.隐姓埋名；adj.化装的，用假名的，隐匿姓名身份的 | |
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gaily
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| adv.欢乐地，高兴地 | |
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steered
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| v.驾驶( steer的过去式和过去分词 )；操纵；控制；引导 | |
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18
slinging
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| 抛( sling的现在分词 )； 吊挂； 遣送； 押往 | |
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upwards
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| adv.向上，在更高处...以上 | |
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plunged
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| v.颠簸( plunge的过去式和过去分词 )；暴跌；骤降；突降 | |
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21
muffled
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| adj.（声音）被隔的；听不太清的；（衣服）裹严的；蒙住的v.压抑，捂住( muffle的过去式和过去分词 )；用厚厚的衣帽包着（自己） | |
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sinister
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| adj.不吉利的，凶恶的，左边的 | |
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eerie
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| adj.怪诞的；奇异的；可怕的；胆怯的 | |
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inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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ascent
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| n.(声望或地位)提高；上升，升高；登高 | |
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apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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engrossed
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| adj.全神贯注的 | |
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exclusion
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| n.拒绝，排除，排斥，远足，远途旅行 | |
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utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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wrung
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| 绞( wring的过去式和过去分词 )； 握紧（尤指别人的手）； 把（湿衣服）拧干； 绞掉（水） | |
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31
exclamation
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| n.感叹号，惊呼，惊叹词 | |
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32
consternation
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| n.大为吃惊，惊骇 | |
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33
irresistibly
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| adv.无法抵抗地，不能自持地；极为诱惑人地 | |
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bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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demurely
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| adv.装成端庄地，认真地 | |
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leisurely
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| adj.悠闲的；从容的，慢慢的 | |
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drooping
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| adj. 下垂的，无力的 动词droop的现在分词 | |
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pinnacle
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| n.尖塔，尖顶，山峰；(喻)顶峰 | |
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39
rifts
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| n.裂缝( rift的名词复数 )；裂隙；分裂；不和 | |
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40
slanted
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| 有偏见的； 倾斜的 | |
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shafts
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| n.轴( shaft的名词复数 )；（箭、高尔夫球棒等的）杆；通风井；一阵（疼痛、害怕等） | |
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42
shimmering
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| v.闪闪发光，发微光( shimmer的现在分词 ) | |
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43
abruptly
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| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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44
derived
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| vi.起源；由来；衍生；导出v.得到( derive的过去式和过去分词 )；（从…中）得到获得；源于；（从…中）提取 | |
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45
ancestry
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| n.祖先，家世 | |
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46
silhouetted
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| 显出轮廓的，显示影像的 | |
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47
alpine
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| adj.高山的；n.高山植物 | |
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48
tilted
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| v. 倾斜的 | |
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49
slumbered
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| 微睡，睡眠（slumber的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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50
vividly
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| adv.清楚地，鲜明地，生动地 | |
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51
ardent
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| adj.热情的，热烈的，强烈的，烈性的 | |
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52
hack
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| n.劈，砍，出租马车；v.劈，砍，干咳 | |
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53
evoked
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| [医]诱发的 | |
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54
prosaic
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| adj.单调的，无趣的 | |
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55
appreciation
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| n.评价；欣赏；感谢；领会，理解；价格上涨 | |
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56
inscribed
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| v.写，刻( inscribe的过去式和过去分词 )；内接 | |
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57
perusing
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| v.读（某篇文字）( peruse的现在分词 )；（尤指）细阅；审阅；匆匆读或心不在焉地浏览（某篇文字） | |
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58
unpacked
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| v.从（包裹等）中取出（所装的东西），打开行李取出( unpack的过去式和过去分词 )；拆包；解除…的负担；吐露（心事等） | |
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59
conversing
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| v.交谈，谈话( converse的现在分词 ) | |
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60
reassuring
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| a.使人消除恐惧和疑虑的，使人放心的 | |
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inscription
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| n.（尤指石块上的）刻印文字，铭文，碑文 | |
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62
desolate
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| adj.荒凉的，荒芜的；孤独的，凄凉的；v.使荒芜，使孤寂 | |
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63
gusts
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| 一阵强风( gust的名词复数 )； （怒、笑等的）爆发； （感情的）迸发； 发作 | |
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64
intervals
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| n.[军事]间隔( interval的名词复数 )；间隔时间；[数学]区间；（戏剧、电影或音乐会的）幕间休息 | |
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65
rattle
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| v.飞奔，碰响；激怒；n.碰撞声；拨浪鼓 | |
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66
blur
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| n.模糊不清的事物；vt.使模糊，使看不清楚 | |
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67
draught
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| n.拉，牵引，拖；一网（饮，吸，阵)；顿服药量，通风；v.起草，设计 | |
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68
momentary
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| adj.片刻的，瞬息的；短暂的 | |
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69
lapse
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| n.过失，流逝，失效，抛弃信仰，间隔；vi.堕落，停止，失效，流逝；vt.使失效 | |
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70
blizzard
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| n.暴风雪 | |
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71
impelled
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| v.推动、推进或敦促某人做某事( impel的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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