But she had not yet grasped the peculiar idiosyncrasies of a woman who was famous for snubbing those whom she considered to be "undesirables." Helen looked up with a shy smile, expecting that the older woman would stop and speak; but Mrs. Vavasour gazed at her blankly--looked at the back of her chair through her body--and walked on. "I don't know, George," Helen heard her say. "There are a lot of new arrivals. Some person of no importance, rather declassee, I should imagine by appearances. As I was telling you, the General has arranged----" Taken altogether, Helen had crowded into portions of two days many new and some very unpleasant experiences. CHAPTER V AN INTERLUDE Helen rose betimes next morning; but she found that the sun had kept an earlier tryst. Not a cloud marred a sky of dazzling blue. The phantom mist had gone with the shadows. From her bed room window she could see the whole length of the Ober-Engadin, till the view was abruptly shut off by the giant shoulders of Lagrev and Rosatch. The brilliance of the coloring was the landscape's most astounding feature. The lakes were planes of polished turquoise, the rocks pure grays and browns and reds, the meadows emerald green, while the shining white patches of snow on the highest mountain slopes helped to blacken by contrast the somber clumps of pines that gathered thick wherever man had not disputed with the trees the tenancy of each foot of meager loam. This morning glory of nature gladdened the girl's heart and drove from it the overnight vapors. She dressed hurriedly, made a light breakfast, and went out. There was no need to ask the way. In front of the hotel the narrow Silser See filled the valley. Close behind lay the crest of the pass. A picturesque chateau was perched on a sheer rock overhanging the Vale of Bregaglia and commanding a far flung prospect almost to the brink of Como. On both sides rose the mountain barriers; but toward the east there was an inviting gorge, beyond which the lofty Cima di Rosso flung its eternal snows heavenward. A footpath led in that direction. Helen, who prided herself on her sense of locality, decided that it would bring her to the valley in which were situated, as she learned by the map, a small lake and a glacier. "That will be a fine walk before lunch," she said, "and it is quite impossible to lose the way." So she set off, crossing the hotel golf course, and making for a typical Swiss church that crowned the nearest of the foothills. Passing the church, she found the double doors in the porch open, and peeped in. It was a cozy little place, cleaner and less garish than such edifices are usually on the Continent. The lamp burning before the sanctuary showed that it was devoted to Roman Catholic worship. The red gleam of the tiny sentinel conveyed a curiously vivid impression of faith and spirituality. Though Helen was a Protestant, she was conscious of a benign emotion arising from the presence of this simple token of belief.