There were two men who recognised Luton Delayne when he left the Palace Hotel, and one was that master of all the courtiers, Dr. Orange. The other was Benny, who met the baronet at the turn of the road and understood in a flash why he had come to Andana.
"Luton Delayne, by all that's unholy!" said he to himself, and turning, he watched the stooping figure of the man until the little wood of pines hid the apparition from his sight.
Dr. Orange treated the matter a little more cavalierly. He had Bess Bethune by his side, and she had been in the act of giving him a definition of beauty—which he had just declared that even Aristotle could not define—when the baronet passed him in the hall, and he uttered a sharp exclamation.
"Do you know who that is?" he said to Bess. She replied that she neither knew nor cared.
"Oh, but we shall all care if he comes here," the doctor ran on; "that's the greatest scoundrel in Switzerland at the present moment, Luton Delayne, who used to live at Holmswell. Surely, the hotel people know—"
Bess laughed.
"I wonder you didn't introduce me. My uncle says that the study of crime is necessary to virtue; but, of course, I know you, and that's something. Are you coming upstairs to play 'hearings,' or are you not? Really, Dr. Orange, you are getting very difficult."
The doctor said that it must be old age; but he was contemplative, and his enthusiasm for a child's game had waned. Excusing himself to Bess, who promised him lasting displeasure, he went off to the little French secretary, Ardlot, to discover, if he could, what that worthy knew about it. Ardlot was as dumb as a drum with a hole in it, and fearing the consequences of a premature disclosure, the doctor retired to his own room to think of it. Of course, he knew the "little widow" now. She was Lady Delayne, and he could well understand that she was ashamed of her name. At the same time he foresaw how difficult her position in the hotel must become, and he wondered that she had sought the critical society of Andana when a city would have shielded her more successfully.
Benny's problem was of a different kind altogether. He, too, knew the "little widow" now, and knowing her, a hundred castles came tumbling down with a crash and threatened to leave a brave heart sadly crushed beneath their ruins. Benny would have admitted nothing of the kind to himself; but such was the truth.
Meanwhile, he could but stare after the retreating figure of the baronet, and when that had disappeared from his view, he trudged back heavily toward the chalet, quite forgetful that he carried in his hand a fur tippet which Madame Lily had left behind her that afternoon of blessed memory.
Benny was a good philosopher and in part a historian, so that it was quite easy for him to sum up the events of the last few hours and to carry a clear impression of them in his mind. Yesterday he had seen a beautiful woman for the first time, and for the sake of her unforgettable eyes he had rolled over and over on the slopes of the Zaat last night, and had been dragged out headlong by a miracle of a priest, the Abbé Villari. Had not one of the patients at the Sanatorium providentially fallen ill during the small hours, the abbé would not have been on the mountain road at all, and he, Benny, would now be making the best he could of a new and unfamiliar world. But the priest had saved him—and, more wonderful to tell, had confessed, as they came down the mountain-side together, that he also had dabbled in this new and wonderful science of aviation, and often delighted the monastery with the model of a "Bleriot" which would fly. To all of which the wounded man had listened indifferently, for what was the meaning of all this eloquence to him, who had lost the whole world an hour ago on the slopes of the Zaat?
The priest, however, persisted and, word by word, he dragged Benny's story from him. The Englishman, he said, would be competing for the great prize offered by the English editor. It was a fine ambition, and one to deserve a blessing. Let him not despair because the machine was broken. There were clever lads at the monastery, and he, Felix Villari, was no mean mechanic. He would guard the secrets as his own, and pledge his word that the machine should be ready. Grown almost angry at his optimism, and deriding his pretensions, Benny lifted his bruised arm and asked for what kind of a prize that would fly. It was idle to speak of flight to such a man at such a time.
Here was the state of the game when Benny met Luton Delayne upon the mountain road, and stood gaping at "the ghost." His first idea was to get away from the place altogether, to cut Andana, and to forget both his disappointment and the source of it. Then a better spirit came to his aid, and he began to remember the many stories which Holmswell had told of the baronet, and to wonder how many of them were true. Lily Delayne was quite alone in this place; she herself had told him that she had no friends. He knew that his own good-will might be worth something to her; but for quite a long time he had no courage to pursue the idea. A sense of finality attended this amazing discovery as a sense of finality had been associated with his mishap in the earlier hours of the day.
Had Benny's mind been absolutely commonplace, and had he been hide-bound by the conventions, perchance the matter would have ended there and then. An early train would have carried him from Sierre to London, and he might very well have lived out his life as a very ordinary mechanic in a very ordinary workshop. In this way has the story of hundreds of good fellows, blessed with no common measure of talent, been written; and this might have been his own fate but for a certain hardening of determination which failure provoked.
The great prize was lost for a certainty, the new and dazzling hope which had come into his life yesterday had been shattered beyond all belief: and yet, when he had communed with himself for the best part of an hour on the narrow road which led up to the chalet, he took a sudden resolution and acted upon it without an instant's delay. He would see Lily Delayne immediately and hear from her own lips any story she might have to tell him. That she would have a story he firmly believed, and quickened by the pleasing idea of a friendship which must be beyond all question altruistic, he returned at once to the hotel and sent up a message to her. Five minutes later he was in her room, and he perceived at a glance that she had been weeping.
"I beg your pardon, Mrs. Kennaird," he said, "but I think you left this at the chalet?"
Lily took the tippet without a word. Her heart was beating fast, and the colour had returned as upon a freshet of understanding to her cheeks. A woman's sure instinct told her why he had come to the room. He knew that she had lied to him, and he understood the reason.
Benny handed over the fur, but showed no intention to go. She thought that he had changed very much since they had parted an hour ago, and he wore a certain dignity of manhood which was sure, but indefinable. When he spoke, the note of cringing banter had left him, and he had a man's tone, encouraging and not a little masterful.
"I thought I would bring the thing down," he said, with a kindly smile, "I shan't be in to dinner to-night, and you might want it. The doctor says I oughtn't to be out at all; but it doesn't do to listen overmuch to the medicine men. You see, I had a pretty bad spill, and the muscles of my arm are playing tricks. It wouldn't matter in an ordinary way, but just now—"
She looked up quickly.
"You had a fall on skis, had you not?" she asked.
Benny laughed.
"You can keep a secret, can't you, Mrs. Kennaird? Well, I'm going to tell you one; I fell out of an aeroplane—that's the truth!"
"You fell out of an aeroplane!—then you were the ghost, Mr. Benson?"
He nodded his head.
"Yes, I'm the ghost, but I don't want anyone to know it just yet. There's a prize of ten thousand offered for a flight down the Simplon Valley and over the big mountains. My machine would have won it if I hadn't come down last night. There's where luck figures. I don't think I can be ready now, and I suppose Paulhan or Bleriot will get it. But I wanted an Englishman to win, and I believe I have the machine. It's not like anybody else's—something different altogether. They tell me I look just like a double-headed eagle when I'm up. That's true, I suppose, for my machine is a bit of a curiosity in its way. You wouldn't understand, perhaps, but if you will come to the chalet sometime, I'll show you. You ought to come just to see an extraordinary thing—and that's a priest with his cassock tucked up, working like one of the best. I left him there when I came along; and, just by the way, I met a man I knew outside the hotel door—Sir Luton Delayne, of Holmswell. We were talking about him last night, you'll remember?"
She flushed scarlet.
"Yes," she said in a low voice, "he is my husband—he has been here to-night."
Benny drew a little nearer still.
"You will forgive me for what I said last night, Lady Delayne. I ought to have known; my good sense should have told me. What I really came here for was not to excuse myself, but to ask your forgiveness. A man should never speak all that is in his mind to anybody except himself. When he begins to judge other people, he is putting a fool's cap on his head. I am old enough to have learned that lesson, and I think shame to have forgotten it. Will you let me say as much to-night?"
She answered him with wondering eyes which declared her perplexity. There is an elementary simplicity of thought and character which women find irresistible, and Benny was the possessor of it. To such a man, women impart strange confidences. Lily needed all her self-control.
"There is no need to say anything," she rejoined with an effort, "men will be judged when they invite judgment. I am sure you meant no harm, and intention is all that matters."
And then, with a shrug of her shoulders and a want of sequence entirely feminine, she exclaimed:
"Women have few real friends, Mr. Benson; they make no mistake when they discover one."
"Ah!" he said, "I was hoping you would know that. It's very true, Lady Delayne—perhaps the truest thing in life. Women make few friends—men forbid them to do so. But they need friends sometimes, need them very badly. Some day you might care to remember it. I would give a great deal to be at Andana should that day come—that is, if you are staying here?"
She did not attempt to disguise the meaning of the question.
"I must stay some days yet; but not in this hotel, I think. It may be impossible for me to do so; in which case I must imitate you and take a chalet. Do you know if there is one to let?"
He was delighted to become her confidant.
"There's the very place for you, just by the Park Hotel. I looked over it, but it was too dear for me. They've left the servants—you can have it to-morrow, if you like. I'm sure you'd be very comfortable there."
"You are very good," she said. "We shall be meeting in the morning. May I tell you then?"
Benny would have permitted her to tell him at any hour of the twenty-four, any season of the year, or any century which might find him alive. He left her room like a schoolboy who has dared an ordeal and returned triumphant. The stars had never shone so brightly over Andana as they shone that night; the moon had never looked down so gloriously upon the majesty of the mountains. He had become her confidant; he shared her secret; he was permitted to be her friend!
And all this at the nadir of his fortunes—when the great machine had been wrecked utterly, and the master-key of his ambitions lost beyond hope. Yesternight, he believed that his name was about to go out to the world as one of its pioneers; the name of a man who had dared and had achieved. To-day, he doubted if such an hour would ever come. Others would win the great prize; he might preach to them the wonders of his own inventions, but few would listen. The gates of success lay far from him, and the lantern which burned above them had become but a star upon his horizon.
And yet all sadness had left him. Jack stared open-eyed when Benny entered the chalet and began to caper about like a boy. The little abbé himself, understanding nothing, shook his head reproachfully, and complained of the delay.
"The hours are precious," he said; "we cannot work unless you direct us. What has kept you, monsieur?"
"A lady's tippet," retorted Benny, delighted at the childish sally—and then, as one inspired, he began to tell them what to do.
There was just a chance by the Lord Harry! It came to Benny as he stood there that the thing might yet be done—the machine made good, the flight achieved. Long hours of unremitting toil would be necessary; but what of that? Ten thousand pounds would recreate the world for him, and change the course of his life as surely as though he were born again.
And for that gentle lady also—
But here Benny felt himself upon difficult ground and, turning aside, he contented himself with that wholly uplifting thought, that even now, at the eleventh hour, he might achieve the victory!