第37章

"And I think you are breaking your promise--besides being a goose!"she retorted smartly. Nevertheless, for some occult reason they both seemed relieved by this exquisite witticism, and trotted on amicably together. When Paul lifted his eyes to hers he could see that they were suffused with a tender mischief, as of a reproving yet secretly admiring sister, and her strangely delicate complexion had taken on itself that faint Alpine glow that was more of an illumination than a color. "There," she said gayly, pointing with her whip as the wood opened upon a glade through which the parted trees showed a long blue curvature of distant hills, "you see that white thing lying like a snowdrift on the hills?""Or the family washing on a hedge."

"As you please. Well, that is the villa.""And you were very happy there?" said Paul, watching her girlishly animated face.

"Yes; and as you don't ask questions, I'll tell you why. There is one of the sweetest old ladies there that I ever met--the perfection of old-time courtliness with all the motherishness of a German woman. She was very kind to me, and, as she had no daughter of her own, I think she treated me as if I was one. At least, Ican imagine how one would feel to her, and what a woman like that could make of any girl. You laugh, Mr. Hathaway, you don't understand--but you don't know what an advantage it would be to a girl to have a mother like that, and know that she could fall back on her and hold her own against anybody. She's equipped from the start, instead of being handicapped. It's all very well to talk about the value of money. It can give you everything but one thing--the power to do without it.""I think its purchasing value would include even the gnadige Frau,"said Paul, who had laughed only to hide the uneasiness that Yerba's approach to the tabooed subject had revived in him. She shook her head; then, recovering her tone of gentle banter, said, "There--I've made a confession. If the colonel talks to you again about my conquests, you will know that at present my affections are centred on the Baron's mother. I admit it's a strong point in his--in ANYBODY'S--favor, who can show an unblemished maternal pedigree.

What a pity it is you are an orphan, like myself, Mr. Hathaway!

For I fancy your mother must have been a very perfect woman. Agreat deal of her tact and propriety has descended to you. Only it would have been nicer if she had given it to you, like pocket money, as occasion required--which you might have shared with me--than leaving it to you in one thumping legacy."It was impossible to tell how far the playfulness of her brown eyes suggested any ulterior meaning, for as Paul again eagerly drew towards her, she sent her horse into a rapid canter before him.

When he was at her side again, she said, "There is still the ruin to see on our way home. It is just off here to the right. But if you wish to go over it we will have to dismount at the foot of the slope and walk up. It hasn't any story or legend that I know of; Ilooked over the guide-book to cram for it before you came, but there was nothing. So you can invent what you like."They dismounted at the beginning of a gentle acclivity, where an ancient wagon-road, now grass-grown, rose smooth as a glacis.

Tying their horses to two moplike bushes, they climbed the slope hand in hand like children. There were a few winding broken steps, part of a fallen archway, a few feet of vaulted corridor, a sudden breach--the sky beyond--and that was all! Not all; for before them, overlooked at first, lay a chasm covering half an acre, in which the whole of the original edifice--tower turrets, walls, and battlements--had been apparently cast, inextricably mixed and mingled at different depths and angles, with here and there, like mushrooms from a dust-heap, a score of trees upspringing.

"This is not Time--but gunpowder," said Paul, leaning over a parapet of the wall and gazing at the abyss, with a slight grimace.

"It don't look very romantic, certainly," said Yerba. "I only saw it from the road before. I'm dreadfully sorry," she added, with mock penitence. "I suppose, however, SOMETHING must have happened here.""There may have been nobody in the house at the time," said Paul gravely. "The family may have been at the baths."They stood close together, their elbows resting upon the broken wall, and almost touching. Beyond the abyss and darker forest they could see the more vivid green and regular lines of the plane-trees of Strudle Bad, the glitter of a spire, or the flash of a dome.

From the abyss itself arose a cool odor of moist green leaves, the scent of some unseen blossoms, and around the baking vines on the hot wall the hum of apparently taskless and disappointed bees.

There was nobody in sight in the forest road, no one working in the bordering fields, and no suggestion of the present. There might have been three or four centuries between them and Strudle Bad.