us disease. He
had found a change, but not the one he expected. Winn looked younger,
more alert, and considerably more vigorous. There was a curious
excitement in his eyes which might have passed for happiness if he had
not been so restless. He was glad to see Lionel, but that wasn't enough
to account for it. Winn looked ten years younger and he had something up
his sleeve.

Lionel had his own theory as to what that something might be, but he
wouldn't have expected it to make Winn look younger. He couldn't help
being afraid that Winn had found out Estelle. There had always been the
chance that he might never find her out; he was neither reflective nor
analytical, and Lionel was both. Winn might have been content simply to
accept her as lovely and delightful, an ideal wife--not a companion, but
a beautiful, fluttering creature to be supplied with everything it
wanted. If he had done that he wouldn't have waked up to the fact that
the creature gave him nothing whatever back--beyond preening its
feathers and forbearing to peck. Lionel respected and loved women, so
that he could afford to feel a certain contempt for Estelle, but he had
always feared Winn's feeling any such emotion. Winn would condemn
Estelle first and bundle her whole sex after her. Lionel hardly dared to
ask him, as he did at last on their way through Dorf, what news he had
of his wife.

"What news of Estelle?" Winn asked indifferently. "None particularly.
She doesn't like Peter's language. My people seem to have taken to him
rather, and I hear he's picked up parts of the Governor's vocabulary.
It'll be jolly hearing him talk; he couldn't when I left. Estelle's
taken up religion. It's funny, my mother said she would, before we were
married. My mother's got a pretty strong head; Estelle hasn't, she was
keen about the Tango when I left; but I dare say religion's better for
her; hers is the high church kind. Up there is the valley--funny sort of
place; it'll remind you of the hills--that's one reason why I brought
you out here--that and the hotel being like a fly paper. Davos is like
all the places where our sort of people go--fashion or disease--it don't
matter a penny which--they're all over the place itself, in and out of
each other's pockets, and yet get a mile or two out and nobody's in
sight. Funny how people like each other. I don't like 'em, you know. I
hate 'em."

In the early February afternoon the valley lay before them singularly
still and whi