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Page 47

Stewart was duly presented to the party of Americans and offered
his own cards, bowing from the waist and clicking his heels
together, a German custom he had picked up. The girl was
impressed; Marie saw that. When they drew into the station at
Semmering Stewart helped the American party off first and then
came back for Marie. Less keen eyes than the little Austrian's
would have seen his nervous anxiety to escape attention, once
they were out of the train and moving toward the gate of the
station. He stopped to light a cigarette, he put down the
hand-luggage and picked it up again, as though it weighed
heavily, whereas it was both small and light. He loitered through
the gate and paused to exchange a word with the gateman.

The result was, of course, that the Americans were in a sleigh
and well up the mountainside before Stewart and Marie were seated
side by side in a straw-lined sledge, their luggage about them, a
robe over their knees, and a noisy driver high above them on the
driving-seat. Stewart spoke to her then, the first time for half
an hour.

Marie found some comfort. The villas at Semmering were scattered
wide over the mountain breast, set in dense clumps of evergreens,
hidden from the roads and from each other by trees and shrubbery
separated by valleys. One might live in one part of Semmering for
a month and never suspect the existence of other parts, or wander
over steep roads and paths for days and never pass twice over the
same one. The Herr Doktor might not see the American girl
again--and if he did! Did he not see American girls wherever he
went?

The sleigh climbed on. It seemed they would never stop climbing.
Below in the valley twilight already reigned, a twilight of blue
shadows, of cows with bells wandering home over frosty fields, of
houses with dark faces that opened an eye of lamplight as one
looked.

Across the valley and far above--Marie pointed without words. Her
small heart was very full. Greater than she had ever dreamed it,
steeper, more beautiful, more deadly, and crowned with its sunset
hue of rose was the Rax. Even Stewart lost his look of irritation
as he gazed with her. He reached over and covered both her hands
with his large one under the robe.

The sleigh climbed steadily. Marie Jedlicka, in a sort of
ecstasy, leaned back and watched the mountain; its crown faded
from rose to gold, from gold to purple with a thread of black.
There was a shadow on the side that looked like a cross. Marie
stopped the sleigh at a wayside shrine, and getting out knelt to
say a prayer for the travelers who had died on the Rax. They had
taken a room at a small villa where board was cheap, and where
the guests were usually Germans of the thriftier sort from
Bavaria. Both the season and the modest character of the
establishment promised them quiet and seclusion.

To Marie the house seemed the epitome of elegance, even luxury.
It clung to a steep hillside. Their room, on the third floor,
looked out from the back of the building over the valley, which
fell away almost sheer from beneath their windows. A tiny balcony
outside, with access to it by a door from the bedroom, looked far
down on the tops of tall pines. It made Marie dizzy.

She was cheerful again and busy. The American trunk was to be
unpacked and the Herr Doktor's things put away, his shoes in
rows, as he liked them, and his shaving materials laid out on the
washstand. Then there was a new dress to put on, that she might
do him credit at supper.

Stewart's bad humor had returned. He complained of the room and
the draft under the balcony door; the light was wrong for
shaving. But the truth came out at last and found Marie not
unprepared.

"The fact is," he said, "I'm not going to eat with you to-night,
dear. I'm going to the hotel."

"With the Americans?"

"Yes. I know a chap who went to college with the brother--with
the young man you saw."

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Books | Photos | Paul Mutton | Tue 23rd Dec 2025, 7:51

The Street of Seven Stars by Mary Roberts Rinehart