"Ah! they are bringing it round now. You will soon be able to give me your opinion."
Phil was deciding that he would die rather than prosecute any investigations into the osseously reputed _ferras_, and was on the point of a.s.serting that he loathed the whole finny race, when a diversion occurred. Three chairs opposite had remained vacant, and into these three persons were now seating themselves. Looking up suddenly, Phil found himself face to face with the girl who had so strongly attracted his attention on board the _Mont Blanc_.
The old couple were her parents, of course, he decided straight out of hand. Military and Indian, he went on, pursuing his verdict, and a fine-looking old man. The elder lady seemed in frail health. Of course they were the girl"s parents--not a doubt about it. But what a piece of luck! She to be his _vis-a-vis_ at the table! He quite forgot the existence of the exemplary bore at his elbow, now.
The girl herself, as soon as she was seated, sent a searching glance all down the room, as if appraising the style of people who were to be their fellow-sojourners. This he noted; also her perfect and graceful self-possession. But for all the interest taken in the new arrivals by Fordham, they might just as well not have come in.
Dinner was more than half through, and still he had found no opportunity of utilising the pleasant unconventionality afforded by the _table d"hote_ system. If only they had been next to him; but being opposite tended to hinder matters. He could not even volunteer the salt or the mustard, and under cover of that flimsy advance work up a conversation, for both those condiments--and everything needful--were as lavishly supplied on the other side of the table as on his own. What the deuce was he to say? For once in his life, easy-going Philip Orlebar felt his normal stock of a.s.surance fail him.
"Alma, child," the elder lady was saying in a low tone, but audible across the table, "hadn"t you better change places with your uncle and come next to me? I don"t think he ought to sit with his back to the window."
"Not her parents, by Jove!" thought Phil. ""Alma." That"s a name I never heard before."
""Tisn"t that," grumbled the veteran, before his niece could reply.
"There"s no draught--none at all. But what the deuce do they mean by sticking us up in this corner with our backs to the view? I don"t want to look at a lot of other animals feeding. I want to get the benefit of the mountains opposite, and the sunsets and all that."
"But, uncle," struck in the girl--and Phil noted that she had a sweet voice, beautifully modulated and clear--"we can look at the mountains opposite all day long, but this grand opportunity of studying a considerable collection of our fellow-creatures all off their guard is only vouchsafed at _table d"hote_ time. And I was just congratulating myself on having the whole population in front of me."
"Pooh-pooh, child! When you get to my age you"ll have had quite enough of studying your fellow-creatures--more than enough, I"ll lay a guinea.
And confound it, we come to this country to study Nature," added the old man, relapsing into his original growl.
Now this conversation, though carried on in a low tone, was distinctly audible across the table--a fact of which the parties to it should have been aware but for that inconceivable fatuity peculiar to our fellow-countrymen when abroad, a conviction that everybody but themselves is either deaf or afflicted with an opacity of understanding which could hardly exist outside an asylum for imbeciles. So they were not a little surprised and slightly perturbed when Fordham, looking up, said quietly:
"If you will allow me, sir, I shall be happy to exchange seats. It is perfectly immaterial to me which way I face."
The trio looked astonished, but the relief on one countenance could hardly dissemble itself.
"Er--you are very kind," stuttered the veteran. "But--er--really--I hardly like--er--unfair advantage to take of your good-nature."
"It is kind of you, indeed," struck in the old lady, somewhat hurriedly, as though she feared the offer would be allowed to drop. "But the fact is the General never can bear to sit with his back to the light. And, if it is really all the same to you--"
"It is, I a.s.sure you. I am delighted to be of service. So I"ll mention the matter to the head waiter, and you may consider it settled."
The girl was placed between her uncle and aunt. This change would result in Fordham being placed next to her. "What the deuce is the fellow driving at now?" thought Philip, in mingled wrath and alarm.
Then it dawned upon him that his friend was driving at nothing less than the securing of that coveted position for him, Philip. "Good old Fordham! What a brick he is!" he mentally resolved, with a glow at his heart. "Best fellow that ever lived, by Jove?"
But the ice thus broken, our two friends and the new arrivals were soon chatting away as if they had known each other for at least some time.
"I noticed you on board the _Mont Blanc_ this afternoon," said Phil to the old General, with magnificent mendacity--the fact being that he was unaware of that veteran"s very existence. "But you didn"t land at Montreux, did you?"
"No. We went on to Territet. The ladies drove, with the luggage. I took the funicular railway up to Glion and walked the rest."
"Don"t you think that Glion railway is very dangerous?" struck in Philip"s neighbour, seeing her opportunity.
"Oh, dear no. Perfectly safe, they tell me," answered the old gentleman. "I daresay, though, it"s rather a trying affair for you ladies, finding yourselves let straight down the steep side of a mountain in a thing for all the world like a bucket in a well."
"But don"t you think it may one of these days come to grief?" pursued the Infliction.
"But, my dear madam, just consider the number of times it has gone up and down in perfect safety."
"Ah, but don"t you think it may break down just that one time you may happen to be in it?"
It was dreadful. The octopus-like tenacity of this bore was enough to paralyse the most mercurial. There fell a kind of languid despair upon the countenances of the group, and each looked helplessly at the other, as if to ascertain who was equal to the t.i.tanic task of warding off this terrible person. But, meeting the large eyes of his _vis-a-vis_, Phil at any rate found comfort. They would have something to laugh at between them, anyway.
"Here! I say--you! What are you doing?" called out Fordham, as at that moment a waiter came bustling up and began to shut the window.
"I shut de window, sir. Dere is one German gentleman at de oder end of de room say dat de window must be shut."
"Oh, indeed! Well, then, give my compliments to the one German gentleman at the other end of the room and tell him the window won"t be shut. We"ll see him in Halifax first."
The waiter paused a moment, then skipped away to deliver the message.
"Confound the fellow"s cheek!" cried Philip, indignantly. "Likely we are going to have our window bossed by some cadaverous bra.s.s-band player at the other end of the room."
And one and all in the vicinity of the disputed window seconded, in varying terms, his protest.
Just then the waiter reappeared.
"Ver" sorry, sir; but de German gentleman say it must be shut."
"Does he?" said Fordham. "Well, look here. Tell him--this time without my compliments--that there are a few people at this end of the room whose convenience is of as much importance as his own, and that they are equally resolved that this window shall stand open. There--leave it alone. If you do shut it we shall open it again at once."
The waiter paused again very irresolute, shrugged his shoulders, smirked, shrugged his shoulders again, then skipped away. Watching him, they had no difficulty in locating the offender--a lank-haired bespectacled Teuton occupying the remotest possible seat from the window in dispute. He, in wrath, vehemently evoked the proprietor, who, however, at that moment was not on hand.
"That Battle of the Windows is an oft-recurring phase of hotel life out here," remarked Fordham. "No man is more absolutely unprejudiced against Continental nationalities than myself: yet it is a fact that whenever there is anything like a respectable sprinkling of Germans or Frenchmen in these hotels, they invariably insist upon having the room hermetically sealed all through dinner-time."
"The deuce they do!" growled the old General. "But do you mean to tell me, sir, that a few of these unbarbered music-masters are going to cram their confounded love of fustiness down our throats?"
"Well, I"ve seen more than one lively episode over that window question," replied Fordham. "And the fact of that one fellow trying it on just now is sufficient proof that the tradition exists--and exists pretty strongly too."
"But don"t you think they may perhaps, after all, be more susceptible to cold than we English?" struck in the Infliction.
"Undoubtedly," a.s.sented Fordham, blandly, preparing to beat a retreat from the table under cover of his reply, for the dessert had already gone round, and the room was emptying fast.
"By Jove, Fordham, but isn"t it a deuced rum thing they should have turned up here?" said Phil, as the two made their way to the _promenoir_ for a cigar.
"_She_, I suppose you mean. No, it isn"t particularly rum. I knew they were bound here all along."
"What--on board the steamer? No. How did you know?"
"Oh, while you were taking particular stock of the chick, I happened to overhear tags of the old birds" conversation," said Fordham, acidly, as if the subject bored him.
"Well, and why didn"t you tell a fellow?"
"Why didn"t I? Hang it all, it"s bad form to repeat what you hear by accident, you know. Besides, it was rather sport to watch your face under the pleasant little surprise."
"Oh, that be hanged for a yarn?" cried Philip, impatiently. "But I say, who are they, I wonder? What"s their name?"