“Well, this is the spider’s web, you know,” he said, with the good-humored laugh of one who could afford to despise the slanders of the ill-affected.  “Not such a very uncomfortable place, eh?” and he bowed Mr. Fly out of his office.

He stood at the door and waited until the outer office closed.  Then he went to his telephone and rang up a particular number.

“Are you Jones and Stiles?” he asked.  “Thank you!  Will you ask Mr. Driver to come to the telephone”; and with Mr. Driver he talked genially for the space of five minutes.

Then, and not till then, with a smile of satisfaction, Mr. Jarvice turned to the unopened letters which had come to him by the morning post.

CHAPTER V

MICHEL REVAILLOUD EXPOUNDS HIS PHILOSOPHY

That summer was long remembered in Chamonix.  July passed with a procession of cloudless days; valley and peak basked in sunlight.  August came, and on a hot starlit night in the first week of that month Chayne sat opposite to Michel Revailloud in the balcony of a cafe which overhangs the Arve.  Below him the river tumbling swiftly amidst the boulders flashed in the darkness like white fire.  He sat facing the street.  Chamonix was crowded and gay with lights.  In the little square just out of sight upon the right, some traveling musicians were singing, and up and down the street the visitors thronged noisily.  Women in light-colored evening frocks, with lace shawls thrown about their shoulders and their hair; men in attendance upon them, clerks from Paris and Geneva upon their holidays; and every now and then a climber with his guide, come late from the mountains, would cross the bridge quickly and stride toward his hotel.  Chayne watched the procession in silence quite aloof from its light-heartedness and gaiety.  Michel Revailloud drained his glass of beer, and, as he replaced it on the table, said wistfully: 

“So this is the last night, monsieur.  It is always sad, the last night.”

“It is not exactly as we planned it,” replied Chayne, and his eyes moved from the throng before him in the direction of the churchyard, where a few days before his friend had been laid amongst the other Englishmen who had fallen in the Alps.  “I do not think that I shall ever come back to Chamonix,” he said, in a quiet and heart-broken voice.

Michel gravely nodded his head.

“There are no friendships,” said he, “like those made amongst the snows.  But this, monsieur, I say:  Your friend is not greatly to be pitied.  He was young, had known no suffering, no ill-health, and he died at once.  He did not even kick the snow for a little while.”

“No doubt that’s true,” said Chayne, submitting to the commonplace, rather than drawing from it any comfort.  He called to the waiter.  “Since it is the last night, Michel,” he said, with a smile, “we will drink another bottle of beer.”