Contango (Ill Wind) by James Hilton Read Free Book Online Page B

combination of blazing
sunshine and deep snow. Miss Faulkner found renewed opportunities of talking
to Mr. Brown, and Mr. Brown no opportunities at all of escape. It was typical
of her that, however much she might let her imagination soar as to his
possible identity, she perceived quite clearly that he was not—not
yet, at any rate—attracted by her. Probably, she decided, he was not a
man who cared for women at all. But she was far from being daunted. If you
wanted to get anything in this world, she had discovered, you usually had to
set out in pursuit of it—quite shamelessly, if need be. This certainly
applied to such things as headships of schools, presidencies of societies,
and political candidatures; no doubt also to friendship. She had once read
somewhere that liking other people was half the battle towards making them
like you, and the theory gave her confidence to go “all out” in
getting to know this man. Why not, if she wanted to?
    She certainly made the most of her time during that long, hot afternoon
two miles high. Not only were the topographical but also the meteorological
circumstances favourable; there was something exquisite in that hard, dry,
sunlit brilliance, some sense of being suspended above and beyond the normal
earth. She basked with him on the edge of a rock and gazed over the
ten—or was it twenty?— miles of snowy wilderness; then they
turned their tinted glasses on the knife-edge of the Jungfrau summit, its
outline crystal-yellow against a storm-green sky. Mr. Brown talked about
mountains and said he would like to do some climbing in the Alps; he had had
a little experience elsewhere, though not where there was snow. Some young
climbers at his hotel, he said, had asked him to join their expeditions, but
he had so far declined because he felt it might be too strenuous for him;
after this, however, he thought he might perhaps give himself a trial if he
were invited again. Which gave her the chance of asking: “Are you
staying long, then?” And he answered: “I don’t really know.
I—at the moment, that is—I haven’t decided.”
    She could not resist a further probe. “Of course, if you’re
taking a rest-cure, or recovering from an illness, or anything like that, I
daresay you oughtn’t to climb.”
    “No, there’s no reason of that kind.”
    “Perhaps you’re one of those lucky people who’re never
ill?”
    “But for occasional bouts of malaria, I keep pretty well, I must
say.”
    “Malaria’s bad, isn’t it? I suppose you picked it up out
East?”
    “Er—yes.”
    “During the War? I know several men who did.”
    “I didn’t.”
    He said that almost rudely. But she did not mind. They travelled back to
Interlaken together, and all the way she kept the conversation going,
somewhat to the continued neglect of her people. She did not mind that,
either. She felt she had badgered the man quite enough about his private
affairs, and must now set herself out to make up for it by being interesting
and amusing. She more than partially succeeded, for she was well-informed,
and had a good command of words as well as a retentive memory for the bright
sayings of others. Her account of Soviet Russia, for instance, which she had
visited for ten days on a lightning tour of co-operative societies, made him
laugh several times. At the end, when they separated for their respective
hotels, she said, with an air of suddenly realising it: “I say, I do
hope I haven’t bored you. I’m afraid I sometimes get rather
carried away by these big topics.”
    “Not at all,” he answered, gravely, and added, with a ready
smile: “At least you’ve given me plenty to think about…. Good
night.”
    “Perhaps we shall meet again if you’re staying on
here?”
    “Perhaps so. Yes, certainly we may.”
    She hastily changed for dinner and faced at the dining-table a group of
faces that eyed her none too cordially. The story that she had spent most