The young people, with maps and a guide-book open,
sat close together at the left side of the compartment.
The girl from time to time rubbed the steam from the window
with a napkin out of the lunch-basket. They both stared
a good deal through this window, with frequent exclamations
of petulance.
"Isn't it too provoking!" cried the girl, turning to her
uncle at last. "This is where we are now--according
to Baedeker: 'As the train proceeds we enjoy a view
of the Simmen-Thal and Freiburg mountains to the left,
the Moleson being conspicuous.' And look at it! For
all one can see, we might as well be at Redhill."
"It is pretty hard luck," Thorpe assented, passively glancing
past her at the pale, neutral-tinted wall of mist which obscured
the view. "But hang it all--it must clear up some time.
Just you have patience, and you'll see some Alps yet."
"Where we're going," the young man interposed, "the head-porter
told me it was always cloudier than anywhere else."
"I don't think that can be so," Thorpe reasoned, languidly,
from his corner. "It's a great winter resort, I'm told,
and it rather stands to reason, doesn't it? that people
wouldn't flock there if it was so bad as all that."
"The kind of people we've seen travelling in Switzerland,"
said the girl--"they would do anything."
Thorpe smiled, with tolerant good humour.
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