Only he did not prophesy. He

knew through every nerve in his body that moisture had crept into the

air, was accumulating, and that presently a fall would come. For he

responded to the moods of Nature like a fine barometer.

And the knowledge, this time, brought into his heart a strange

little wayward emotion that was hard to account for—a feeling of

unexplained uneasiness and disquieting joy. For behind it, woven

through it rather, ran a faint exhilaration that connected remotely

somewhere with that touch of delicious alarm, that tiny anticipating

“dread,” that so puzzled him when he thought of his next meeting with

his skating companion of the night. It lay beyond all words, all

telling, this queer relationship between the two; but somehow the girl

and snow ran in a pair across his mind.

Perhaps for imaginative writing-men, more than for other workers,

the smallest change of mood betrays itself at once. His work at any

rate revealed this slight shifting of emotional values in his soul. Not

that his writing suffered, but that it altered, subtly as those changes

of sky or sea or landscape that come with the passing of afternoon into

evening—imperceptibly. A subconscious excitement sought to push

outwards and express itself … and, knowing the uneven effect such

moods produced in his work, he laid his pen aside and took instead to

reading that he had to do.

Meanwhile the brilliance passed from the sunshine, the sky grew

slowly overcast; by dusk the mountain tops came singularly close and

sharp; the distant valley rose into absurdly near perspective. The

moisture increased, rapidly approaching saturation point, when it must

fall in snow. Hibbert watched and waited.

And in the morning the world lay smothered beneath its fresh white

carpet. It snowed heavily till noon, thickly, incessantly, chokingly, a

foot or more; then the sky cleared, the sun came out in splendour, the

wind shifted back to the east, and frost came down upon the mountains

with its keenest and most biting tooth. The drop in the temperature was

tremendous, but the ski-ers were jubilant. Next day the “running” would

be fast and perfect. Already the mass was settling, and the surface

freezing into those moss-like, powdery crystals that make the ski run

almost of their own accord with the faint “sishing” as of a bird’s

wings through the air.

IV

That night there was excitement in the little hotel-world, first

because there was a bal costume, but chiefly because the new

snow had come. And Hibbert went—felt drawn to go; he did not go in

costume, but he wanted to talk about the slopes and ski-ing with the

other men, and at the same time….

Ah, there was the truth, the deeper necessity that called. For the

singular connection between the stranger and the snow again betrayed

itself, utterly beyond explanation as before, but vital and insistent.

Some hidden instinct in his pagan soul—heaven knows how he phrased it

even to himself, if he phrased it at all—whispered that with the snow

the girl would be somewhere about, would emerge from her hiding place,

would even look for him.

Absolutely unwarranted it was. He laughed while he stood before the

little glass and trimmed his moustache, tried to make his black tie sit

straight, and shook down his dinner jacket so that it should lie upon

the shoulders without a crease. His brown eyes were very bright. “I

look younger than I usually do,” he thought. It was unusual, even

significant, in a man who had no vanity about his appearance and

certainly never questioned his age or tried to look younger than he

was. Affairs of the heart, with one tumultuous exception that left no

fuel for lesser subsequent fires, had never troubled him. The forces of

his soul and mind not called upon for “work” and obvious duties, all

went to Nature. The desolate, wild places of the earth were what he

loved; night, and the beauty of the stars and snow. And this evening he

felt their claims upon him mightily stirring. A rising wildness caught

his blood, quickened his pulse, woke longing and passion too. But

chiefly snow. The snow whirred softly through his thoughts like white,

seductive dreams…. For the snow had come; and She, it seemed, had

somehow come with it—into his mind.

And yet he stood before that twisted mirror and pulled his tie and

coat askew a dozen times, as though it mattered. “What in the world is

up with me?” he thought. Then, laughing a little, he turned before

leaving the room to put his private papers in order.