present loneliness with yesterday’s pleasant journey, and the outcome was eminently favorable to Mark Bower. She missed him. She was quite sure, had he accompanied her from Zurich, that he would have charmed away the dull hours with amusing anecdotes. Instead of feeling rather tired and sleepy, she would now be listening to his apt expositions of the habits and customs of the places and people seen from the carriage windows. [Pg 73]For fully five minutes her expressive mouth betrayed a little moue of disappointment. [Pg 73] And then the train climbed a long spiral which gave a series of delightful views of a picturesque Swiss village,—exactly such a cluster of low roofed houses as she had admired many a time in photographs of Alpine scenery. An exclamation from a little boy who clapped his hands in ecstasy caused her to look through a cleft in the nearer hills. With a thrill of wonder she discovered there, remote and solitary, all garbed in shining white, a majestic snow capped mountain. Ah! this was the real Switzerland! Her heart throbbed, and her breath came in fluttering gasps of excitement. How mean and trivial were class distinctions in sight of nature’s nobility! She was uplifted, inspirited, filled with a sedate happiness. She wanted to voice her gladness as the child had done. A high pitched female voice said: “Of course I had to call, because Jack meets her husband in the city; but it is an awful bore knowing such people.” Then the train plunged into a noisome tunnel, and turned a complete circle in the heart of the rock, and when it panted into daylight again the tall square tower of the village church had sunk more deeply into the valley. Far beneath, two bright steel ribbons—swallowed by a cavernous mouth that belched clouds of dense smoke—showed the strangeness of the route that led to the silent peaks. At times the [Pg 74]rails crossed or ran by the side of a white, tree lined track that mounted ever upward. Though she could not recall the name of the pass, Helen was aware that this was one of the fine mountain roads for which Switzerland is famous. Pedestrians, singly or in small parties, were trudging along sturdily. They seemed to be mostly German tourists, jolly, well fed folk, nearly as many women as men, each one carrying a rucksack and alpenstock, and evidently determined to cover a set number of kilometers before night. [Pg 74] “That is the way in which I should like to see the Alps,” thought Helen. “I am sure they sing as they walk, and they
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