very special service to
which I was foresworn: the more I thought of it, in one sense, the less
in another, until my only chance was to go forward with grim humour in
the spirit of impersonal curiosity which that attitude induces. In a
word, and the cant one which yet happens to express my state of mind to
a nicety, I had already "weakened" on the whole business which I had
been in such a foolish hurry to undertake, though not for one
reactionary moment upon her for whom I had undertaken it. I was still
entirely eager to "do her behest in pleasure or in pain"; but this
particular enterprise I was beginning to view apart from its
inspiration, on its intrinsic demerits, and the more clearly I saw it in
its own light, the less pleasure did the prospect afford me.

A young giant, whom I had not seen since his childhood, was merely
understood to be carrying on a conspicuous, but in all probability the
most innocent, flirtation in a Swiss hotel; and here was I, on mere
second-hand hearsay, crossing half Europe to spoil his perfectly
legitimate sport! I did not examine my project from the unknown lady's
point of view; it made me quite hot enough to consider it from that of
my own sex. Yet, the day before yesterday, I had more than acquiesced
in the dubious plan. I had even volunteered for its achievement. The
train rattled out one long, maddening tune to my own incessant
marvellings at my own secret apostasy: the stuffy compartment was not
Catherine's sanctum of the quickening memorials and the olden spell.
Catherine herself was no longer before me in the vivacious flesh, with
her half playful pathos of word and look, her fascinating outward light
and shade, her deeper and steadier intellectual glow. Those, I suppose,
were the charms which had undone me, first as well as last; but the
memory of them was no solace in the train. Nor was I tempted to dream
again of ultimate reward. I could see now no further than my immediate
part, and a more distasteful mixture of the mean and of the ludicrous I
hope never to rehearse again.

One mitigation I might have set against the rest. Dining at the Rag the
night before I left, I met a man who knew a man then staying at the
Riffel Alp. My man was a sapper with whom I had had a very slight
acquaintance out in India, but he happened to be one of those
good-natured creatures who never hesitate to bestir themselves or their
friends to oblige a mere acquaintance: he asked if I had secured room