In the Quarter

The speck of yellow was almost imperceptibly approaching their knoll, but so slowly that Ruth almost doubted if it moved at all.

Sepp had the glass, and declining the one Rex offered her, she turned for a moment to the superb panorama at their feet. East, west, north and south the mountain world extended. By this time the snow mountains of Tyrol were all lighted to gold and purple, rose and faintest violet. Sunshine lay warm now on all the near peaks. But great billowy oceans of mist rolled below along the courses of the Alp-fed streams, and, deep under a pall of heavy, pale gray cloud, the Trauerbach was rushing through its hidden valley down to Schicksalsee and Todtstein. There was perfect silence, only now and then made audible by the tinkle of a distant cowbell and the Jodel of a Sennerin. Ruth turned again toward the chamois. She could see it now without a glass. But Sepp placed his in her hand.

The chamois was feeding on the edge of a cliff, moving here and there, leaping lightly across some gully, tossing its head up for a precautionary sniff. Suddenly it gave a bound and stood still, alert. Two great clumsy ``Hirsch-kühe'' had taken fright at some imaginary danger, and, uttering their peculiar half grunt, half roar, were galloping across the alm in half real, half assumed panic with their calves at their heels.

The elderly female Hirsch is like a timorous granny who loves to scare herself with ghost stories, and adores the sensation of jumping into bed before the robber under it can catch her by the ankle.

It was such an alarm as this which now sent the two fussy old deer, with their awkward long legged calves, clattering away with terror-stricken roars which startled the delicate chamois, and for one moment petrified him. The next, with a bound, he fairly flew along the crest, seeming to sail across the ravine like a hawk, and to cover distances in the flash of an eye. Sepp uttered a sudden exclamation and forgot everything but what he saw. He threw his rifle forward, there was a sharp click! – the cartridge had not exploded. Next moment he remembered himself and turned ashamed and deprecating to Gethryn. The latter laid his hand on the Jaeger's arm and pointed. The chamois' sharp ear had caught the click! – he swerved aside and bounded to a point of rock to look for this new danger. Rex tried to put his rifle in Ruth's hands. She pressed it back, resolutely. ``It is your turn,'' she motioned with her lips, and drew away out of his reach. That was no time for argument. The Jaeger nodded, ``Quick!'' A shot echoed among the rocks and the chamois disappeared.

``Is he hit? Oh, Rex! did you hit him?''

``Ei! Zimbach!'' Sepp slipped the leash, the hound sprang away, and in a moment his bell-like voice announced Rex's good fortune.

Ruth flew like the wind, not heeding their anxious calls to be careful, to wait for help. It was not far to go, and her light, sure foot brought her to the spot first. When Rex and Sepp arrived she was kneeling beside the dead chamois, stroking the ``beard'' that waved along its bushy spine. She sprang up and held out her hand to Gethryn.

``Look at that beard – Nimrod!'' she said. Her voice rang with an excitement she had not shown at her own success.

``It is a fine beard,'' said Rex, bending over it. His voice was not quite steady. ``Herrlich!'' cried Sepp, and drank the ``Waidmann's Heil!'' toast to him in deep and serious draughts. Then he took out a thong, tied the four slender hoofs together and opened his game sack; Rex helped him to hoist the chamois in and onto his broad shoulders.

Now for the upper Shelter. They started in great spirits, a happy trio. Rex was touched by Ruth's deep delight in his success, and by the pride in him which she showed more than she knew. He looked at her with eyes full of affection. Sepp was assuring himself, by all the saints in the Bavarian Calendar, that here was a ``Herrschaft'' which a man might be proud of guiding, and so he meant to tell the duke. Ruth's generous heart beat high.

Their way back to the path where they had separated from Colonel Dene was long and toilsome. Sepp did his best to beguile it with hunter's yarns, more or less true, at any rate just as acceptable as if they had been proved and sworn to.

Like a good South German he hated Prussia and all its works, and his tales were mostly of Berliners who had wandered thither and been abused; of the gentleman who had been told, and believed, that the ``gams'' slept by hooking its horns into crevices of the rock, swinging thus at ease, over precipices; of another whom Federl once deterred from going on the mountains by telling how a chamois, if enraged, charged and butted; of a third who went home glad to have learned that the chamois produced their peculiar call by bringing up a hind leg and whistling through the hoof.

It was about half past two in the afternoon and Ruth began to be very, very tired, when a Jodel from Sepp greeted the ``Hütte'' and the white cross rising behind it. As they toiled up the steep path to the little alm, Ruth said, ``I don't see Papa, but there are people there.'' A man in a summer helmet, wound with a green veil, came to the edge of the wooden platform and looked down at them; he was presently joined by two ladies, of whom one disappeared almost immediately, but they could see the other still looking down until a turn in the path brought them to the bottom of some wooden steps, close under the platform. On climbing these they were met at the top by the gentleman, hat in hand, who spoke in French to Gethryn, while the stout, friendly lady held out both hands to Ruth and cried, in pretty broken English:

``Ah! dear Mademoiselle! ees eet possible zat we meet a–h–gain!''

``Madame Bordier!'' exclaimed Ruth, and kissed her cordially on both cheeks. Then she greeted the husband of Madame, and presented Rex.

``But we know heem!'' smiled Madame; and her quiet, gentlemanly husband added in French that Monsieur the colonel had done them the honor to leave messages with them for Miss Dene and Mr Gethryn.

``Papa is not here?'' said Ruth, quickly.

Monsieur the colonel, finding himself a little fatigued, had gone on to the Jaeger-hütte, where were better accommodations.

Ruth's face fell, and she lost her bright color.

``But no! my dear!'' said Madame. ``Zere ees nossing ze mattaire. Your fazzer ees quite vell,'' and she hurried her indoors.

Rex and Monsieur Bordier were left together on the platform. The amiable Frenchman did the honors as if it were a private salon. Monsieur the colonel was perfectly well. But perfectly! It was really for Mademoiselle that he had gone on. He had decided that it would be quite too fatiguing for his daughter to return that day to Trauerbach, as they had planned, and he had gone on to secure the Jagd-hütte for the night before any other party should arrive.

``He watched for you until you turned into the path that leads up here, and we all saw that you were quite safe. It is only half an hour since he left. He did us the honor to say that Mademoiselle Dene could need no better chaperon than my wife – Monsieur the colonel was a little fatigued, but badly, no.''

Monsieur Bordier led the way to the usual spring and wooden trough behind the house, and, while Rex was enjoying a refreshing dip, he continued to chat.

Yes, as he had already had the honor to inform Rex, Mademoiselle had been his wife's pupil in singing, the last two winters, in Paris. Monsieur Gethryn, perhaps, was not wholly unacquainted with the name of Madame Bordier?

``Madame's reputation as an artist, and a professor of singing, is worldwide,'' said Rex in his best Parisian, adding:

``And you, then, Monsieur, are the celebrated manager of `La Fauvette'?''

The manager replied with a politely gratified bow.

``The most charming theater in Paris,'' added Rex.

``Ah! murmured the other, Monsieur is himself an artist, though not of our sort, and artists know.''

``Colonel Dene has told you that I am studying in Paris,'' said Rex modestly.

``He has told me that Monsieur exhibited in the salon with a number one.''

Rex scrubbed his brown and rosy cheeks with the big towel.

Monsieur Bordier went on: ``But the talent of Mademoiselle! Mon Dieu! what a talent! What a voice of silver and crystal! And today she will meet another pupil of Madame – of ours – a genius. My word!''

``Today?''

``Yes, she is with us here. She makes her debut at the Fauvette next autumn.''

Rex concealed a frown in the ample folds of the towel. It crossed his mind that the colonel might better have stayed and taken care of his own daughter. If he, Rex, had had a sister, would he have liked her to be on a Bavarian mountaintop in a company composed of a gamekeeper, the manager of a Paris theater and his wife, and a young person who was about to make her debut in opera-bouffe, and to have no better guardian than a roving young art student? Rex felt his unfitness for the post with a pang of compunction. Meantime he rubbed his head, and Monsieur Bordier talked tranquilly on. But between vexation and friction Gethryn lost the thread of Monsieur's remarks for a while.

The first word which recalled his wandering attention was ``Chamois?'' and he saw that Monsieur Bordier was pointing to the game bag and looking amiably at Sepp, who, divided between sulkiness at Monsieur's native language and goodwill toward anyone who seemed to be accepted by his ``Herrschaften,'' was in two minds whether to open the bag and show the game to this smiling Frenchman, or ``to say him a Grobheit'' and go away. Sepp's ``Grobheit'' could be very insulting indeed when he cared to make it so. Rex hastened to turn the scale.

``Yes, Herr Director, this is Sepp, one of the duke's best gamekeepers – Monsieur speaks German?'' he interrupted himself to ask in French.

``Parfaitement! Well,'' he went on in Sepp's native tongue, ``Herr Director, in Sepp you see one of the best woodsmen in Bavaria, one of the best shots in Germany. Sepp, we must show the Herr Director our Gems.''

And there was nothing for Sepp but to open the bag, sheepish, beaten, laughing in spite of himself, and before he knew it they all three had their heads together over the game in perfect amity.

A step sounded along the front platform, and Madame looked round the corner of the house, saying that lunch was ready. Her husband and Rex joined her immediately. ``Ze young ladees are wizin,'' she said, and led the way.

The sun-glare on the limestone rocks outside made the little room seem almost black at first, and all Rex could distinguish as he followed the others was Ruth's bright smile as she stood near the door and a jumble of dark figures farther back.

``Permit me,'' said Monsieur, ``to introduce you to our Belle Hélène.'' Rex had already bowed low, seeing nothing. ``Mademoiselle Descartes – Monsieur Gethryn – '' Rex raised his head and looked into the white face of Yvonne.

``Ah, yes! as I was saying,'' gossiped Monsieur while they were taking their places at table, ``I shoot when I can, but merely the partridge and rabbit of the turnip. Bah! a man may not boast of that!''

Rex kept his eyes fixed on the speaker and forced himself to understand what was being said.

``But the sanglier?'' His voice sounded in his ears like noises one hears with the head under water.

``Mon Dieu! the sanglier! yes, that is also noble game. I do not deny it.'' Monsieur talked on evenly and quietly in his self-possessed, reasonable voice, about the habits and the hunt of the wild boar.

Ruth, sitting opposite, forcing herself to swallow the food, to answer Madame gaily and look at her ease, felt her heart settle down like lead in her breast.

What was this? Oh! what was it? She looked at Mademoiselle Descartes. This young, gentle stranger with the dark hair and the face like marble, this girl whom she had never heard of until an hour ago, was hiding from Rex behind the broad shoulders of Madame Bordier. The pupils of her blue eyes were so dilated that the sad, frightened eyes themselves looked black. Ruth turned to Gethryn. He was listening and answering. About his nostrils and temples the hollows showed; the flush of sunburn was gone, leaving only a pallid brown over the ashen grey of his face; his expression varied between a strained smile and a fixed stare. The cold weight at her heart melted and swelled in a passion of pity.