It
was a joyous trip, a red-letter day in the girl's rather sordid
if not uneventful life. The Herr Doktor was pleased with her. He
liked her hat, and when she flushed with pleasure demanded proof
that she was not rouged. Proof was forthcoming. She rubbed her
cheeks vigorously with a handkerchief and produced in triumph its
unreddened purity.
"Thou suspicious one!" she pouted. "I must take off the skin to
assure thee! When the Herr Doktor says no rouge, I use none."
"You're a good child." He stooped over and kissed one scarlet
cheek and then being very comfortable and the beer having made
him drowsy, he put his head in her lap and slept.
When he awakened they were still higher. The snow-peak towered
above and the valleys were dizzying! Semmering was getting near.
They were frequently in darkness; and between the tunnels were
long lines of granite avalanche sheds. The little passage of the
car was full of tourists looking down.
"We are very close, I am sure," an American girl was saying just
outside the doorway. "See, isn't that the Kurhaus? There, it is
lost again."
The tourists in the passage were Americans and the girl who had
spoken was young and attractive. Stewart noticed them for the
first time and moved to a more decorous distance from Marie.
Marie Jedlicka took her cue and lapsed into silence, but her
thoughts were busy. Perhaps this girl was going to Semmering also
and the Herr Doktor would meet her.
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