y make out what it was, but he saw the man's
face and read utmost mortal misery in his eyes; then he discovered that
the burden was a woman. Her hands were so thin that they lay like
broken flower petals on the man's shoulders; her face was nothing but a
hollow shell; her eyes moved, so that Winn knew she was alive, and in
the glassy stillness of the air he caught her dry whispering voice, "I
am not really tired, dearest," she murmured. In a moment they had
vanished. It struck Winn as very curious that people could love each
other like that, or that a dying woman should fight her husband's fears
with her last strength. He felt horribly sorry for them and impatient
with himself for feeling sorry. After all, he had not come up to Davos
to go about all over the place feeling sorry for strange people to whom
he had never been introduced. The funny part of it was that he didn't
only feel sorry for them, he felt a little sorry for himself. Was love
really like that? And had he missed it? Well, of course he knew he had
missed it, only he hadn't realized that it was quite like that.

Fortunately at this moment a German porter appeared to whom Winn felt an
instant simple antagonism. He was a self-complacent man, and he brought
Winn the wrong luggage.

"Look here, my man," Winn said smoothly, but with a rocky insistence
behind his words, "if you don't look a little sharp and bring me the
_right_ boxes with green labels, I shall have to kick you into the
middle of next week."

This restored Winn even more quickly than it restored his luggage. No
one followed him into the small stuffy omnibus which glided off swiftly
toward its destination. The hotel was an ugly wooden house in the shape
of a hive built out with balconies; it reminded Winn of a gigantic
bird-cage handsomely provided with perches. It was only ten o'clock, but
the house was as silent as the mountains behind it.

The landlord appeared, and, leading Winn into a brilliantly lighted,
empty room, offered him cold meat.

Winn said the kind of thing that any Staines would feel called upon to
say on arriving at a cold place at a late hour and being confronted with
cold meat.

The landlord apologized in a whisper, and returned after some delay with
soup. Nothing, not even more language, could move him beyond soup. He
kept saying that it was late and that they must be quiet, and he didn't
seem to believe Winn when Winn remarked that he hadn't come up there to
be quiet.