A young giant, whom I had not seen since his childhood, was merely understood to be carrying on a conspicuous, but in all probability the most innocent, flirtation in a Swiss hotel; and here was I, on mere second-hand hearsay, crossing half Europe to spoil his perfectly legitimate sport!  I did not examine my project from the unknown lady’s point of view; it made me quite hot enough to consider it from that of my own sex.  Yet, the day before yesterday, I had more than acquiesced in the dubious plan.  I had even volunteered for its achievement.  The train rattled out one long, maddening tune to my own incessant marvellings at my own secret apostasy:  the stuffy compartment was not Catherine’s sanctum of the quickening memorials and the olden spell.  Catherine herself was no longer before me in the vivacious flesh, with her half playful pathos of word and look, her fascinating outward light and shade, her deeper and steadier intellectual glow.  Those, I suppose, were the charms which had undone me, first as well as last; but the memory of them was no solace in the train.  Nor was I tempted to dream again of ultimate reward.  I could see now no further than my immediate part, and a more distasteful mixture of the mean and of the ludicrous I hope never to rehearse again.

One mitigation I might have set against the rest.  Dining at the Rag the night before I left, I met a man who knew a man then staying at the Riffel Alp.  My man was a sapper with whom I had had a very slight acquaintance out in India, but he happened to be one of those good-natured creatures who never hesitate to bestir themselves or their friends to oblige a mere acquaintance:  he asked if I had secured rooms, and on learning that I had not, insisted on telegraphing to his friend to do his best for me.  I had not hitherto appreciated the popularity of a resort which I happened only to know by name, nor did I even on getting at Lausanne a telegram to say that a room was duly reserved for me.  It was only when I actually arrived, tired out with travel, toward the second evening, and when half of those who had come up with me were sent down again to Zermatt for their pains, that I felt as grateful as I ought to have been from the beginning.  Here upon a mere ledge of the High Alps was a hotel with tier upon tier of windows winking in the setting sun.  On every hand were dazzling peaks piled against a turquoise sky, yet drawn respectfully apart from the incomparable Matterhorn, that proud grim chieftain of them all.  The grand spectacle and the magic air made me thankful to be there, if only for their sake, albeit the more regretful that a purer purpose had not drawn me to so fine a spot.

My unknown friend at court, one Quinby, a civilian, came up and spoke before I had been five minutes at my destination.  He was a very tall and extraordinarily thin man, with an ill-nourished red moustache, and an easy geniality of a somewhat acid sort.  He had a trick of laughing softly through his nose, and my two sticks served to excite a sense of humour as odd as its habitual expression.