“You are tired,” she said, staring at him intently. “Shall we go down?”
He nodded slowly and hoped she did not see the tears that were filling his eyes.
They began the descent, and after a few yards she took his arm and helped him over the rough places. Half-way down he felt better; the pain was beginning to leave him. “I’m sorry,” he said.
“Sorry? For what? I enjoyed it ever so much, but it tired you, I could see—we mustn’t do such mad things again.”
“Except that I like mace things just as much as you do.”
She smiled, and he smiled back, and with her arm still linked in his he felt a marvellous happiness enveloping him, especially now that the pain was subsiding with every second.
“I’m not so bad for my age,” he added. “I suppose I oughtn’t to expect to be able to skip up and down mountains like an eighteen-year-old.”
“Your age?” she said quietly. “I never think of it, or of mine either. What does it matter?”
He laughed, then; he was so happy; and now that the pain had all gone he could believe it had been no more than a fit of breathlessness after the climb—a warning, no doubt, that he must avoid such strenuous risks in future. His only big regret was that he had missed the chance of telling her what had been in his mind, but it was too late now—the lights of the hotel were already glimmering through the trees. As they entered along the verandah he said: “I really am sorry for being such an old crock—sorry on my own account, anyway, because I’d rather wanted to have a particular talk with you about something.”
“Had you? And you’d stage-managed it for the top of a mountain in moonlight—how thrilling! But it will do somewhere else, surely?”
He laughed. “Of course. The question is when rather than where.”
“Why not to-morrow morning? We could go out on the harbour in the motor-boat—mother wouldn’t come with us—she hates sailing.”
“Good idea. That’ll do fine.”
“Directly after Mass, then. I think they’ll be having it in the hotel to-morrow—I heard Roone saying something about it. That’ll save the walk down to the village and we can have a longer time on the water.”
“Splendid.”
“And I’m so thrilled to wonder what you have to tell me.”
“Are you?” He looked at her with piercing eagerness; yet he could not, could not read what was in her mind.
But later, after she had said good-night and gone to bed, his mood of perplexity changed. Beyond a certain natural fatigue he felt himself no worse for the mountain adventure, but to brace himself after the strain he did what he had not often done at Roone’s—he went into the bar for a night-cap. The Roones were there with a few naval men and a fishing youth in plus-fours; they tried to get him into conversation, but he said little and stayed only for a few minutes. The fact was, he could not even think of anything but the talk he would have on the morrow.
Then he took his candle (Roone’s was old-fashioned enough for that) and went to his room on the first floor. He would get up early, he decided, and go to Mass—his first for so long—too long. He saw the moon and the clear sky through the window, promising another fine day. He saw the cruiser’s masthead light shimmering softly over the harbour. He undressed and got into bed and closed his eyes—the whisky had made him drowsy—and suddenly, falling asleep, he felt most magnificently and boyishly certain of everything, and especially that he had loved, in all the possible ways of love.
THE END