“Yes, sir, from this hotel.  It was Mrs. Stormer’s name for them.  They were so very superior.”

“Quite.”

There was something unusual in the tone of that little word.  And the boy stared—­for the first time there seemed a real man standing there.  Then the blood rushed up into his cheeks, for there she was!  Would she come up to them?  How splendid she was looking, burnt by the sun, and walking as if just starting!  But she passed into the hotel without turning her head their way.  Had he offended, hurt her?  He made an excuse, and got away to his room.

In the window from which that same morning he had watched the mountains lying out like lions in the dim light, he stood again, and gazed at the sun dropping over the high horizon.  What had happened to him?  He felt so different, so utterly different.  It was another world.  And the most strange feeling came on him, as of the flowers falling again all over his face and neck and hands, the tickling of their soft-fringed edges, the stinging sweetness of their scent.  And he seemed to hear her voice saying:  “Feel!” and to feel her heart once more beating under his hand.

VI

Alone with that black-shawled figure in the silent church, Anna did not pray.  Resting there on her knees, she experienced only the sore sensation of revolt.  Why had Fate flung this feeling into her heart, lighted up her life suddenly, if God refused her its enjoyment?  Some of the mountain pinks remained clinging to her belt, and the scent of them, crushed against her, warred with the faint odour of age and incense.  While they were there, with their enticement and their memories, prayer would never come.  But did she want to pray?  Did she desire the mood of that poor soul in her black shawl, who had not moved by one hair’s breadth since she had been watching her, who seemed resting her humble self so utterly, letting life lift from her, feeling the relief of nothingness?  Ah, yes! what would it be to have a life so toilsome, so little exciting from day to day and hour to hour, that just to kneel there in wistful stupor was the greatest pleasure one could know?  It was beautiful to see her, but it was sad.  And there came over Anna a longing to go up to her neighbour and say:  “Tell me your troubles; we are both women.”  She had lost a son, perhaps, some love—­or perhaps not really love, only some illusion.  Ah!  Love. . . .  Why should any spirit yearn, why should any body, full of strength and joy, wither slowly away for want of love?  Was there not enough in this great world for her, Anna, to have a little?  She would not harm him, for she would know when he had had enough of her; she would surely have the pride and grace then to let him go.  For, of course, he would get tired of her.  At her age she could never hope to hold a boy more than a few years—­months, perhaps.  But would she ever hold him at all?  Youth was so hard—­it