ouldn't withstand the thought that Claire was only
nineteen. She spoke at last.

"What you suggest," she said quietly, "is going to be rather hard for
you both. I suppose you do realize how hard? You see, you are only at
the beginning of the fortnight now. Unhappy men and very young girls
make difficult situations, Major Staines."

He got up and walked to the window, standing with his back to her. She
wondered if she had said too much; his back looked uncompromising. She
did not realize that she could never say too much in the defense of
Claire. Then he said, without looking round:

"We shall have to manage somehow."

It occurred to Miss Marley, with a wave of reassurance, that this was
probably Winn's usual way of managing.

"In any case," she said firmly, "you can count on me to do anything you
wish."

Winn expressed no gratitude. He merely said:

"I shall introduce her to you this evening."

Before he left Miss Marley he shook hands with her. Her hands were hard
and muscular, but she realized when she felt his grip that he must have
been extremely grateful.

CHAPTER XXIV

They went out early, before the sun was up, when the valley was an
apricot mist and the mountains were as white as snowdrops in the spring.
The head waiter fell easily into their habits, and provided them with an
early breakfast and a parcel for lunch. Then they drove off through the
biting, glittering coldness.

Sometimes they went far down the valley to Sils and on to the verge of
the Maloja. Sometimes they drove through the narrower valleys to
Pontresina and on into the impenetrable winter gloom of the Mortratsch
glacier. The end was the same solitude, sunshine, and their love. The
world was wrapped away in its winter stillness. The small Swiss villages
slept and hardly stirred. In the hot noonday a few drowsy peasants crept
to and from the barns where the cattle passed their winter life.
Sometimes a woman labored at a frozen pump, or a party of skiers
slipped rapidly through the shady streets, rousing echoes with their
laughter; but for the most part they were as much alone as if the world
had ceased to hold any beings but themselves. The pine-trees scented all
the air, the snow dripped reluctantly, and sometimes far off they heard
the distant boom of an avalanche. They sat together for long sunlit
hours on the rickety wooden balcony of a friendly hospice, drinking hot
spiced _gluewein_ and building up their precarious memo