The Letter of the Contract Part 17

For the moment they served their turn in helping Chip Walker to subjects of conversation with his fellow-countryman, in whom he had lost some interest because he was a fellow-countryman.

"You know a lot about Switzerland, don't you?" he observed, as the stranger, still pointing with his stick and naming names--the Silberhorn, the Gletschhorn, the Schneehorn, the Niesen, the Bettfluh--that impressed the imagination with the force of the great white peaks themselves, resolved the panorama into its minor elements.

The stick came down and the explanation ceased. "I've lived a good deal abroad," was the response, given quietly. "You, too, haven't you?"

With the question they turned for the first time and looked each other in the eyes. While Chip explained that he had spent his early years in France or Italy or England, according to the interests of his parents, he was inwardly remarking that the gray face, with its stiff lines, its compressed lips, its unmoving expression, and its stamp of suffering, was really sympathetic. Something in the composure of the manner and the measured way of speaking imposed this new acquaintance on him as a superior. Instinctively he said "sir" to him, as to an elder, though the difference in their ages could not have been more than seven or eight years. It flattered him somewhat, too, that the man who kept aloof from others should make an exception of him and welcome his advances. They parted with the tacit understanding that for the future, in the routine of the hotel, they should be on speaking terms.

There was, however, no further meeting between them till after dinner on the following evening. Turning from the purchase of stamps at the concierge's desk, Chip saw his new acquaintance, wearing an Inverness cloak over his dinner-jacket, and a soft felt hat, lighting a cigar.

There was an exchange of nods. On the older man's lips there was a ghost of a smile. It seemed friendly. He spoke:

"You don't want to smoke a cigar in the little park? It's rather pleasant there, with a full moon like this."

So it was that within a few minutes they found themselves seated side by side on one of the benches of the terraced promenade where they had met on the previous day. Though the row of s.h.i.+ning spiritual presences had withdrawn, the valley was spanned by a Velvety luminosity, through which the lights of the lower town shone like stars reflected in water. The talk was of the conference. The stranger spoke of himself:

"I've been interested in the various methods of international communication for many years. In fact, I've made some slight study of them. When the authorities were good enough to appoint me on this commission I was glad to serve."

"Quite so," Chip murmured, politely.

"It's an attractive little town, too--one of the few capitals in Europe that remain characteristic of their countries, and nothing else--wholly or nearly unaffected by the current of life outside. But," he went on, unexpectedly, "I wonder what a man like you can see in it--to remain here so long?"

Chip was startled, but he managed to say: "It isn't that I see anything in particular. I'm--"

"Waiting?"

The query was perfectly courteous. It implied no more than a casual curiosity--hardly that.

"No; resting," Chip answered, with forced firmness.

"Ah, it's certainly a good place for resting." Then, after a pause: "You're married, I think you said."

Chip didn't remember having said so, and replied to that effect. The stranger was unperturbed.

"No? But you are?" By way of pressing the question, he added, with a glance at Chip through the moonlight: "Aren't you?"

"I've a wife and little boy in New York," Walker answered, soberly.

"Ah!" There was no emphasis on this exclamation. It signified merely that a certain point in their mutual understanding had been reached. "A happy marriage must be a great--safeguard."

The tone was of a man making a moral reflection calmly, but Chip was startled again. It was his turn to stare through the moonlight, where the length of the bench lay between them. He felt that he was being challenged, but that he must not betray himself too soon. "Safeguard against what, sir?"

There was a faint laugh, or what might have been a laugh had there been amus.e.m.e.nt in it. "Against everything from which a married man needs protection."

Chip would have dropped the subject but for that sense that a challenge was being thrown him before which he could not back down. Nevertheless, he determined to keep from committing himself as long as possible. "I'm not sure that I know what you mean."

The stranger seemed to examine the burning end of his cigar. "Oh, nothing but the obvious things--pursuing another man's wife, for instance. A man who's happily married doesn't do that."

There was no aggression in the tone, and yet Chip felt a curious chill.

Who was this man, and what the devil was he driving at? It was all he could do to answer coolly, knocking the ash off the end of his own cigar: "And yet, I've known of such cases."

"Oh, so have I. But there was always a screw loose somewhere--I mean, a screw loose in what we're a.s.suming to be the happy marriages."

"Are there any happy marriages?--permanently happy, that is?"

The response was surprisingly direct: "That's what I hoped you'd be able to tell _me_."

"Then you don't know, sir?"

Again the response was surprisingly direct: "I don't know, because I'm not happily married." A second later he added: "But other people may be."

So they were going to exchange secrets, after all. "But you _are_ married, sir?" To clear the air, he felt himself obliged to add: "Happily or unhappily."

"I married a lady who had divorced her husband." In the silence that followed it seemed to Chip that he could hear the murmur of the almost soundless river below. Somehow the sound of the river was all he could think of. Quietly moving, low-voiced couples paced up and down the promenade, and from the music-pavilion in the distance came the whine and s.h.i.+ver of the Mattiche. "In divorce," the measured voice resumed, "there are some dangerous risks. It's a dangerous risk for a man to divorce his wife. It's a more dangerous risk for a woman to divorce her husband. But to marry a divorced husband or a divorced wife is the most dangerous risk of all."

Chip's voice was thick and dry. "May I ask, sir, on what you base your--your opinion?"

"Chiefly on the principle that, no matter how successfully the dead are buried, they may come back again as ghosts. No one can keep them from doing that."

"And--and I presume, sir, that you held this theory when you married?"

"I held it _as_ a theory; I didn't know it as a fact."

Chip felt obliged to struggle onward. "And do I understand you to be telling me now that the ghosts _have_ come back?"

"Perhaps you could as easily tell me."

It was a minute or more before Chip was able to say, in a voice he tried to keep firm: "If they have come back, you're not more haunted by them than--than any one else."

"So I understand."

The brief responses had the effect of dragging him forward. "And would it be fair to ask why you say that?--that you understand?"

"Oh, quite fair. It's partly because you are here."

"Then you think I ought to go away?"

"I think--since you ask me--that you oughtn't to have come."

"I came--to rest."

"I don't question that. I'm only struck by--by the long arm of coincidence."

"That is, you believe I had another motive?"

With a gesture he seemed to wave this aside. "That's hardly my affair.

You're here; and, since you are, I'd rather--"

"Yes?"

"I'd rather you didn't hurry away."