in
flirtations. People wondered what might happen between the two at the
fancy-dress ball which the Hotel Beau-Site was to give in return for the
hospitality of the Hotel Metropole. The ball was offered not in love,
but in emulation, almost in hate; for the jealousy displayed by the
Beau-Site against the increasing insolence of the Metropole had become
acute. The airs of the Captain and his lieges, the Clutterbuck party,
had reached the limit of the Beau-Site's endurance. The Metropole seemed
to take it for granted that the Captain would lead the cotillon at the
Beau-Site's ball as he had led it at the Metropole's.

And then, on the very afternoon of the ball, the Countess received a
telegram--it was said from St Petersburg--which necessitated her instant
departure. And she went, in an hour, down to Montreux by the funicular
railway, and was lost to the Beau-Site. This was a blow to the prestige
of the Beau-Site. For the Countess was its chief star, and, moreover,
much loved by her fellow-guests, despite her curious weakness for the
popinjay, and the mystery of her outings with him.

In the stables Denry saw the Countess's hired sleigh and horse, and in
the sleigh her glowing red cloak. And he had one of his ideas, which he
executed, although snow was beginning to fall. In ten minutes he and
Nellie were driving forth, and Nellie in the red cloak held the reins.
Denry, in a coachman's furs, sat behind. They whirled past the Hotel
Metropole. And shortly afterwards, on the wild road towards Attalens,
Denry saw a pair of skis scudding as quickly as skis can scud in their
rear. It was astonishing how the sleigh, with all the merry jingle of
its bells, kept that pair of skis at a distance of about a hundred
yards. It seemed to invite the skis to overtake it, and then to regret
the invitation and flee further. Up the hills it would crawl, for the
skis climbed slowly. Down them it galloped, for the skis slid on the
slopes at a dizzy pace. Occasionally a shout came from the skis. And the
snow fell thicker and thicker. So for four or five miles. Starlight
commenced. Then the road made a huge descending curve round a hollowed
meadow, and the horse galloped its best. But the skis, making a straight
line down the snow, acquired the speed of an express, and gained on the
sleigh one yard in every three. At the bottom, where the curve met the
straight line, was a farmhouse and outbuildings and a hedge and a stone
wall and other matter