IN THE ALPS

I

Although Denry was extremely happy as a bridegroom, and capable of the most foolish symptoms of affection in private, he said to himself, and he said to Nellie (and she sturdily agreed with him):  “We aren’t going to be the ordinary silly honeymooners.”  By which, of course, he meant that they would behave so as to be taken for staid married persons.  They failed thoroughly in this enterprise as far as London, where they spent a couple of nights, but on leaving Charing Cross they made a new and a better start, in the light of experience.

Their destination, it need hardly be said, was Switzerland.  After Mrs Capron-Smith’s remarks on the necessity of going to Switzerland in winter if one wished to respect one’s self, there was really no alternative to Switzerland.  Thus it was announced in the Signal (which had reported the wedding in ten lines, owing to the excessive quietude of the wedding) that Mr and Mrs Councillor Machin were spending a month at Mont Pridoux, sur Montreux, on the Lake of Geneva.  And the announcement looked very well.

At Dieppe they got a through carriage.  There were several through carriages for Switzerland on the train.  In walking through the corridors from one to another Denry and Nellie had their first glimpse of the world which travels and which runs off for a holiday whenever it feels in the mood.  The idea of going for a holiday in any month but August seemed odd to both of them.  Denry was very bold and would insist on talking in a naturally loud voice.  Nellie was timid and clinging.  “What do you say?” Denry would roar at her when she half-whispered something, and she had to repeat it so that all could hear.  It was part of their plan to address each other curtly, brusquely, and to frown, and to pretend to be slightly bored by each other.

They were outclassed by the world which travels.  Try as they might, even Denry was morally intimidated.  He had managed his clothes fairly correctly; he was not ashamed of them; and Nellie’s were by no means the worst in the compartments; indeed, according to the standard of some of the most intimidating women, Nellie’s costume erred in not being quite sufficiently negligent, sufficiently “anyhow.”  And they had plenty, and ten times plenty of money, and the consciousness of it.  Expense was not being spared on that honeymoon.  And yet....  Well, all that can be said is that the company was imposing.  The company, which was entirely English, seemed to be unaware that any one ever did anything else but travel luxuriously to places mentioned in second-year geographies.  It astounded Nellie that there should be so many people in the world with nothing to do but spend.  And they were constantly saying the strangest things with an air of perfect calm.

“How much did you pay for the excess luggage?” an untidy young woman asked of an old man.