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A child might have recognized that this man of the benignant face and kindly, sorrow laden eyes intended no evil. "I am sorry. I beg your pardon, Herr Stampa," she managed to stammer. "Ah, you know me, then, sigñorina! But everybody knows old Stampa. Have you lost your way?" "I was taking a little walk, and happened to approach the cemetery. I saw "
He found his erstwhile rival resigned to the vagaries of fortune. The doctors summoned from St. Moritz deemed his case so serious that they brought a specialist from Paris, and the great surgeon announced that the millionaire's leg would be saved; but there must remain a permanent stiffness. "I know what that means," said Bower, with a wry smile. "It is a legacy from Stampa.
Apparently they were heading for the Orlegna Gorge, and she scanned the ground eagerly to learn how she could manage to spy on them without being seen almost immediately. Then she fell into the same error as Helen in believing that the winding carriage road to the church offered the nearest way to the clump of firs and azaleas by which Bower and Stampa would soon be hidden.
"Yesterday's events," she explained, "took more out of me than I imagined." Well, she had been thinking of him, and that counted. He was staring at the snow covered tennis courts, and wondering how soon the valley would regain its summer aspect, when Stampa limped into sight round the corner of the hotel. He stood at the foot of the broad flight of steps, as though waiting for someone.
Stampa tells me that a first rate guxe, which is Swiss for a blizzard, I believe, is blowing up. This thunder storm is the preliminary to a heavy downfall of snow. That is why I came. If we are not off the glacier before two o'clock, it will become impassable till a lot of the snow melts." "What is that you are saying?" demanded Bower bruskly.
Though Spencer could not see Stampa now, he knew that the rear guide was bracing himself strongly against any tell-tale jerk, with the additional security of an anchor obtained by driving the pick of his ax deeply into the surface ice.
It looks as if I had a cinch on running this hotel gratis. What in thunder will happen next?" He could surely have answered that query if he had the least inkling of the circumstances governing Helen's prior meeting with Stampa. As it was, the development of events followed the natural course.
His eyes dwelt on Stampa with a new timidity. He found difficulty in straightening his limbs. He was quite insensible of his ridiculous aspect. His clothing, even his hair, was matted with soft snow. In a curiously servile way, he stooped to pick up his cap. Stampa lurched toward the tiny patch of grass from which he had cleared the snow soon after daybreak. "Kneel here at her feet!" he said.
"Truly, on a fine day, Josef," was the smiling answer. "I told monsieur that a guxe was blowing up from the south; so did Karl; but he would not hearken. Ma foi! I am not to blame." Barth, on his dignity, introduced a few words of French picked up from the Chamounix men. He fancied they would awe Stampa, and prove incidentally how wide was his own experience. The old guide only laughed.
He began to piece together some fleeting impressions of the curious wrangle between the two outside the hut. He recalled Bower's extraordinary change of tone when told that a man named Christian Stampa had followed him from Maloja. Helen was just taking another confident step forward and down, balancing herself with graceful assurance.
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