The next morning Thorpe astonished his young companions by suggesting an alteration in their route. In a roundabout and tentative fashion--in which more suspicious observers must have detected something shamefaced--he mentioned that he had always heard a great deal about Montreux as a winter-resort. The fact that he called it Montroox raised in Julia's mind a fleeting wonder from whom it could be that he had heard so much about it, but it occurred to neither her nor her brother to question his entire good faith.
Their uncle had displayed, hitherto, a most comforting freedom from discrimination among European towns;he had, indeed, assured them many times that they were all one to him. That he should suddenly turn up now with a favourite winter-resort of his own selection surprised them considerably, but, upon reflection, it also pleased them.
He had humoured all their wishes with such unfailing and bountiful kindness, that it was a delight to learn that there was something he wanted to do. They could not finish their breakfast till the guide-book had been brought to the table.
"Oh! How splendid!" Julia had cried then. "The Castle of Chillon is there!""Why of course!" said Thorpe, complacently.
They laughed gayly at him for pretending that he had known this, and he as good-humouredly accepted their banter. He drew a serious long breath of relief, however, when their backs were turned. It had gone off much better than he had feared.
Now, on this Sunday afternoon, as the train made its sure-footed way across the mountains, the thought that he was actually to alight at Montreux at once fascinated and depressed him.
He was annoyed with himself for suffering it to get such a hold upon his mind. What was there in it, anyway? There was a big hotel there, and he and his youngsters were to stop at it, and if he accidentally encountered a certain lady who was also stopping there--and of course the meeting would bear upon its face the stamp of pure chance--what of it?
And if he did meet her, thus fortuitously--what would happen then? No doubt a lady of her social position met abroad great numbers of people that she had met at home.
It would not in any way surprise her--this chance encounter of which he thought so much. Were there sufficient grounds for imagining that it would even interest her? He forced his mind up to this question, as it were, many times, and invariably it shied and evaded the leap.
There had been times, at Hadlow House, when Lady Cressage had seemed supremely indifferent to the fact of his existence, and there had been other times when it had appeared manifest that he pleased her--or better, perhaps, that she was willing to take note of how much she pleased him.
It must have been apparent to her--this fact that she produced such an impression upon him. He reasoned this out satisfactorily to himself. These beautiful women, trained from childhood for the conquest of a rich husband, must have cultivated an extraordinary delicacy of consciousness, in such matters. They must have developed for themselves what might be called a sixth sense--a power of feeling in the air what the men about were thinking of them.
More than once he had caught a glimmer of what he felt to be the operation of this sense, in the company of Lady Cressage.
He could not say that it had been discernible in her glance, or her voice, or her manner, precisely, but he was sure that he had seen it, somehow.
But even assuming all this--admitting that in October, on a wet Sunday, in the tedium of a small country-house party, she had shown some momentary satisfaction in the idea that he was profoundly impressed by her--did it at all follow that in February, amid the distractions of a fashionable winter-resort, and probably surrounded by hosts of friends, she would pay any attention to him whatever? The abject fear that she might not even remember him--might not know him from Adam when he stood before her--skulked about in the labyrinths of his mind, but he drove it back whenever it showed itself. That would be too ignominious.
The young people at the other side of the compartment, forever wiping the window with the napkin, and straining their eyes to see the invisible, diverted his unsettled attention.
A new perception of how much he liked them and enjoyed having them with him, took hold of his thoughts.
It had not occurred to him before, with any definiteness, that he would be insupportably lonely when the time came to part with them.
Now, when he dwelt upon it, it made him feel sad and old.
He said to himself at once, with decision, that there need be no parting at all. He would take a house without delay, and they should live with him.
He could not doubt that this would be agreeable to them;it would solve every problem for him.
His fancy sketched out the natural and legitimate extensions of this project. There would be, first of all, a house in town--a furnished house of a modest sort, having no pretension save to provide a cheerful temporary shelter for three people who liked one another.
Here the new household would take shape, and get its right note of character. Apparently Louisa would not be urged to form part of this household. He said to himself with frankness that he didn't want her, and there had been nothing to indicate that her children would pine for her.
She showed good sense when she said that her place was in the shop, and in her ancestral home over the shop.
