Page:The Novels and Tales of Henry James, Volume 1 (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1907).djvu/521

 The surprise on Christina's part, for an instant, was equal, and its first effect might have been to make her seek, for the time, the refuge of assumed unconsciousness. The Prince, however, saluted gravely, and then Christina, in silence, put out her hand. Rowland immediately asked if they were staying at Engelberg, but Christina only looked at him hard, and still without speaking. The Prince answered his questions and related that they had been making a month's tour in Switzerland, that at Lucerne his wife had been somewhat obstinately indisposed, and that the physician had recommended a week's trial of the tonic air and goat's milk of Engelberg. The scenery, said the Prince, was stupendous, but the life was terribly sad—and they had three days more! It was a blessing, he urbanely added, to see a good Roman face.

Christina's odd attitude, her voluntary silence and her inscrutable gaze, seemed to Rowland at first to promise, a little alarmingly, or even boringly, some new "line"; but he then perceived that she was really moved by the sight of him and was afraid of betraying herself. "Do let us leave this Swiss hideousness," she said; "the whole place seems horribly to 'jodel' at us!" They passed slowly to the door, and when they stood outside, in the sunny coolness of the valley, she turned more frankly to her old acquaintance. "It is a blessing, you know—such a meeting. I 'm too delighted to see you." She glanced about her and observed against the wall of the church a large stone seat. She looked at her companion a moment, and he smiled more intensely, Rowland thought, than the 487