December 12, 1918 
LAND gr- WATER 
13 
so much weaker as one gets older — ' O ! What delightful 
things may not be going to happen to me next ! ' Then I 
opened the window and stepped out on to a balcony. The 
air was cold, the sky a limpid sable blue, and there, sure 
enough, were the mountains ! If you had asked me, while 
I was arranging my things, what was the most exciting thing 
in the world, I should have said : ' Oh, meeting people and 
expecting one doesn't know what!' But at that moment 
such adventures seemed superficial, or, at any rate, mere 
garnishing to life. Dinner or no dinner, I felt I must go out. 
It was near table d'hote time, and the assembled crowd in the 
hall made me feel self-conscious. I made for the door like 
a man catching a train. Somebody laughed. But the next 
moment I was running down over the snow, gloriously happy. 
"The lake was as dark as agate, and so smooth it seemed a 
shame to scratch smoothness so exquisite. Tiny crystal splinters 
ran before me on the ice, and sparkled in the moonlight. And 
the undulating ringing of skates — how pleasing that eerie 
sound is to the ear ! Every now and then I would stop to 
listen to it, chirping and shivering away across the silence, 
till it touched the frozen banks and stopped. Out I flew 
through capes of darkness into bays of moonlight, curving 
* this way and that, and that with that effortless steadiness in 
motion which makes a skater feel more like a gull than a 
man ; till suddenly I felt as though I had been alone a very 
long time. I thought of the hotel, and turned to shore ; 
and as I turned, far away on the dazzling white moonlight 
bank from which I had started, I saw a small dusky figure. 
It was a girl in a tarn o' shanter putting on skates. Even 
before I recognised her I knew it was my friend of the journey, 
whose voice had sounded so friendly all day, who smiled 
more than most people do, and yet seemed graver than most. 
I struck out swiftly. We met, and hailed each other. Of all 
he words in the English Janguage, I believe ' Hullo ' is the 
most useful. 'Hullo! Isn't it glorious!" we exclaimed, 
and off we shot on separate ways to curve and recuFve across 
each other's paths, saying, as we passed, things like : ' My left 
ankle's weak,' or 'Just look at the mountains,' or 'I couldn't 
resist coming ; could you ? ' Then away again we went. 
It excited me almost to laughter to think that she had felt 
the same impulse as I. Suddenly she called to me that she 
must go in ; it was an intolerable shame, but they would be 
anxious about her, and she would be scolded as it was. I 
cannot remember what we said on the way back. It could 
not have been much, for we ran. But I have not forgotten 
the laughing face she turned to me from behind the gilt cage 
of the lift before she suddenly levitated and vanished upwards 
to get ready for table d'hote. That lengthy meal was so near 
completion and I was so hungry that I decided to go straight 
in. The newest arrivals were placed at the end of one of 
the long tables which was not yet full ; and as I came in, 
trying to make my boots sound as little as possible on the 
parquet floor, I noticed that my seat would be beside my 
travelling companions. The father was nearest the end, the 
mother ne.xt above him, and the boy beyond her. So if I 
took the obvious chair she must sit on my other hand. I 
saw at once, from the look Mamma gave me, that my not 
having changed for dinner confirmed her suspicions ; and 
I thought that even her husband looked forward to our 
conversation soon showing the people opposite that I was not 
of his party. By way of explaining why I was not properly 
dressed, I said that I had not been able to resist going down 
to try the ice, and had stayed too late. This statement 
produced sometliing like consternation. Papa put his 
pudding-spKJon down suddenly instead of into his mouth, 
and I heard the mother say to her son : ' George, run up at 
once. I must know what on earth Agatha's doing. Tell 
her to come down immediately. It's disgraceful ; dinner is 
nearly over.' But George did not budge. Then, turning 
to her husband, she said : ' Do you mean to say you let that 
child go out at this time of night by herself after I told her 
not to ? ' 
' ' ' Did you see my daughter on the ice ? ' said her father 
to me, using his napkin, and looking guilty. 
" I was in the middle of telling them how she had come 
down after I had been there some time and how we had 
returned together, when in she came, rosy and smiling, and 
settled down— with perhaps just a little too much the air 
of nothing whatever having occurred. 
"I'm very late. Oh, Dad, it was too lovely. Mr. 
was there. He'll tell it was worth missing all the courses 
for, though I am hungry.' 
"The effect of her voice on me was to make mc think I 
must be looking as though a great deal had happened. I 
made matters worse by turning at once to speak to her 
and, when our eyes met, forgetting what I had to say. After 
that I felt I must forthwith make the running with Mamma 
or she would see to it that their places were changed next 
day. From conversation in the train I knew the name of 
the county town where they lived, and by good luck I had 
stayed twice at a house in its neighbourhood for balls. My 
memory for people now served me in good stead. 
"I was not able to say ' yes ' repeatedly to the question, 
' Did I know the so and so's ? ' The effect of all this on Mamma 
was — well, she became not only gracious but positively 
competitive, mentioning people and country houses herself 
with an ostentatious unostentation which made her children 
uncomfortable. ' Oh, Mamma, ' I heard Agatha once murmur, 
'you know we only met them over the hospital bazaar.' 
" I liked Agatha for that ; I sympathised with her deeply. 
But I was too intent upon my object, too flushed with my 
progress — possibly also with the Burgundy I was drinking — - 
not to push on. I became confident, gay and satirical. 
I made the old man laugh by sajang of a certain busy-body 
cadet that if not the rose himself he was at any rate the 
thorn. I asked if the county beauty. Lady Georgina, was 
still as good as new. This lead to Mamma asking me — and 
as she spoke she swept the strangers opposite into the con- 
versation with a comprehensive glance — if I knew Lady 
Georgina's father. Lord X. ' Yes, ' 1 said, ' I was driven 
over one afternoon to Thornton Abbey.' That was true, 
but its enviable possessor happened to be, as a matter of 
fact, absent. I was proceeding to give my impressions 
when my attention was distracted by the behaviour of an 
elderly gentleman in a dark tweed suit immediately opposite. 
He had risen and he had pushed his chair rather noisily 
into the table. I looked up and caught his eye. He was 
staring at me, I thought, with an odd, hostile intensity. 
Conversation had stopped for some yards along each side 
of the table. Yes, he was going to speak — and to me ! 
" 'May I ask, sir,' he was saying loudly and slowly, 'if 
I have the honour to be numbered among your numerous 
acquaintances ? ' 
" 'No,' I replied rather jauntily, 'I am certain I never 
saw you before. ' 
' ' He paused. 
" 'Well, I am Lord X,' he said. And dropping his napkin 
on the table and pushing his hands into his pockets, he turned 
his back and left the room. 
" I have often blushed with anguish at the recollection of 
that moment) I suppose people would describe it as 'an 
awkward pause.' To me, it was an explosion of silence. 
Then I heard Mamma, who had turned crimson, go off into 
an artificial trill of laughter. Murmuring something about 
'imposters,' she shook the crumbs off her lap and, sum- 
moning the family, swept towards the door. Everybody 
was getting up, too. Table d'hote was over ; just a few 
people were cracking nuts at the far end of the table. But 
the girl on my right had not got up. She was pretending to 
finish her dinner. I felt she looked at me twice ; but I 
could not look back — please, please remember I was barely 
twenty, and very self-conscious at that — and not a word 
could 1 say. Presently she too (I heard her chair and her 
footsteps) went away, while I went on eating and drinking 
like a pompous automaton. In the hall 1 had to wait for 
the lift. There was a great deal of laughter ; the story was 
travelling from group to group. 1 think I bore the titters 
and being looked at very well. Upstairs in my room, I went 
at once to the window ; but now the mountains were as 
dull to me as sugar loaves. I went to bed and, contrary to 
expectation, slept like a top. Soon after my eyes opened the 
next morning I felt that something incredibly unpleasant had 
happened. Then I remembered what it was. I saw my 
self-respect depended on two resolutions : one, to wait for my 
friend : two, not to change my hotel meanwhile. But I came 
down purposely late for breakfast and avoided the family, 
who, as the next meal showed, had moved their places ; and 
I bore with apparent equanimity that wretched boy who 
would read out the society paragraphs from the papers when- 
ever I was within earshot, adding ' friends of mine, ' or ' the 
dear duchess' as the case might be. Nobody asked me to 
join in any sports e.xcept one young woman who evidently 
did so out of curiosity to see how I would behave, and I 
practised figures most of the day on the more secluded parts 
of the ice. When my friend did turn up he noticed that 
I was rather depressed. 1 left him in the smoking room the 
night he arrived Next morning at breakfast he told me 
he had promised to make up one of a skating four. 1 saw 
he had heard the story, which was having a great success. 
We did not meet all day. He lunched with his partners ; a jolly 
noisy party they were. Before dinner he came into my room 
and, after watching mc dress in silence, he said, ' I had no idea 
you were such a first-water snob ? ' 1 told him I had only 
waited for him and that 1 concluded there was not much 
point in our spending the vac. together. We had a glum 
dinner. I went off the ne.xt morning to the South of France, 
