The Vision of Desire Part 7

"Eight, as usual," he replied. "We shall have to sprint. And I've done you out of your tea, too," he added remorsefully.

"Oh, that!" Ann dismissed the matter with a rather uncertain little laugh.

"You don't suppose I'm worrying about my tea, do you?"

He looked at her curiously.

"No, I don't suppose you are," he answered.

They set off at a good pace, but they had wandered much further afield than they realised, and when at last the hotel, and the station which practically adjoined it, came into sight, the train was already drawn up at the platform, waiting to start. A shrill whistle cut the air warningly, and instinctively Ann and Tony broke into a run. Tony was the first to recognise the futility of the proceeding. He pulled up.

"We may as well save our breath," he observed laconically. And even as he spoke the train, with a final shriek, moved out of the station.

Ann stood still, her eyes following it with an expression of blank dismay.

"Tony!" Her voice sounded a trifle breathless. "Do you know--have you realised--that that's the last train?"

He nodded.

"And we've missed it."

He appeared completely unconcerned, and she turned on him with a flash of impatience. His inconsequence annoyed her.

"Yes, we've missed it," she repeated. "How do you suppose we're going to get back without a train to take us?"

Tony's soft, slate-coloured eyes surveyed her placidly beneath their long lashes.

"I haven't the faintest idea," he acknowledged.

"Tony!" In spite of her indignation a quiver underlay Ann's voice. Her nerves had been wrought up to a high pitch by the afternoon's events, and she felt unequal to parrying Tony's customary banter.

Immediately his manner changed. When he spoke again it was with a quiet confidence that rea.s.sured her completely.

"It's quite true," he said soberly. "I haven't an idea at the moment. But I'll get you safely back to Montricheux this evening somehow. I promise you, Ann. So don't worry."

The sun was hanging low in the sky by the time they reached the hotel, and when he had established Ann in an easy chair and provided her with a cigarette, together with a six-weeks'-old copy of a London magazine which he unearthed from amongst a dusty pile of luridly ill.u.s.trated handbooks on Switzerland, Tony departed to make inquiries regarding their journey back to Montricheux. He returned within a very short time, his face wearing an unusual look of gravity, and for a moment he stood staring down at her without speaking.

"I've got some bad news for you," he said at last, with obvious reluctance.

"I'm not able to keep my promise, Ann. We can't get back to Montricheux to-night."

She glanced up incredulously.

"Can't get back?" she repeated. "Oh, but we must."

Tony shook his head.

"Can't be done," he answered. "It seems that infernal train is the only means of getting up and down from here. You can't motor or drive. There's no road."

The out-of-date magazine slid suddenly off Ann's knee and fell with a plop on the floor.

"Are you serious?" she asked, still hardly able to believe him. "Do you really mean we--we've got to stay the night here?"

She could read the answer to her question in the unmistakable concern which was written on his face.

"Oh, but it's impossible!" she exclaimed in deep dismay. "We can't--we can't stay here!" She sprang up, clasping and unclasping her hands agitatedly. "Don't you _see_, Tony, that it's impossible?"

"We've no choice," he replied bluntly. "If there were any possible way of getting you back to Villa Mon Reve to-night, I'd move heaven and earth to do it. But there _isn't_. We've no more chance of getting away from here than rats in a trap."

CHAPTER V

THE VISITORS' BOOK

It was quite true. They were caught like rats in a trap, and Ann's heart sank. She had lived long enough to know that there are always a certain number of censorious people sufficiently ungenerous and narrow-minded to make mischief out of any awkward happening, no matter how innocently it may have occurred.

"Can't you think of any way out, Tony?" she said at last. "I--I don't seem to know what to do." She looked round her vaguely, feeling confused and unnerved by the awkwardness of their predicament.

"There's not a chalet within reach, or I'd go off there for the night,"

answered Tony, adding with a twinkle in his eyes: "And although I might, of course, sleep outside, if you preferred--on the top of the Roche d'Or, for instance!--I'm afraid it wouldn't help matters much, as my frozen corpse would require about as much explaining away as the fact that we've stayed the night here."

He had never felt less like joking, but he was rewarded by seeing a faint smile relax the strained expression on her face.

"Don't worry, Ann," he pursued, tucking a friendly arm into hers. "No one need ever know. But I could kick myself for landing you into this mess.

It's all my fault. If I hadn't gone fooling about at the top of that ravine and come to grief we should be buzzing comfortably homeward in the train."

"You did it for me," cried Ann quickly. Now that the first shock of realisation was over she was recovering her usual cheery outlook on things.

"You mustn't blame yourself. It's no one's fault. It's just--"

"The cussedness of things," vouchsafed Tony, as she paused.

"Yes, Just that. Well"--she gave her shoulders a slight shrug as though she were shaking off a burden--"we may as well make the best of things. At least we shall see the sunset up here. It's supposed to be rather wonderful, isn't it?"

"I believe the sun_rise_ is the special thing to see. You'll have to get up early to-morrow, ma'am." He paused a moment, then went on with frank admiration: "Ann, you're a real little sport! There isn't one girl in twenty would have taken this business as well as you have. They'd have been demanding my head on a charger."

"It wouldn't be any use making a fuss about a pure accident," she returned philosophically. "Let's just enjoy it--the sunset and the moonrise and everything else. Oh! I do hope they'll give us a decent dinner! You did us out of our tea by tumbling over the precipice--don't make a habit of it, please, Tony!--and I'm simply starving."

He nodded.

"I'll go and order some grub--and book rooms." He paused uncertainly. "By the way, I'll have to enter our names in the hotel register, I suppose?"

"Our names?" Ann flushed nervously. "Oh, you can't--I mean--"

"Don't worry," he said soothingly. "I shan't enter us under our own names, of course. What do you say to Smith--nice, inoffensive sort of name, don't you think? 'G. Smith and sister'--I think that'll meet the necessities of the case."

Ann giggled suddenly.

"It's all rather funny if it wasn't so--so--"