The afternoon with Guerini; but, after yesterday, there might be no afternoon with Guerini: freedom instead, for fresh discovery until tea-time, on the promontory in the midst of unpredictable groupings. Sunset and afterglow, high day moving away without torment or regret; the mountains, turning to a darkness in the sky; telling only of the sure approach of the deep bright world of evening. The gold-lit evening feast was still momentous, still under the spell of the setting, the silent host who kept the party always new. And it was in part the setting, the feeling of being out of the world and irresponsible, that last night had kept Eaden a docile listener. He had heard a little of the truth, at least something to balance the misrepresentations of socialism in the Tory press. But he had heard in a dream, outside life. Sitting on the stairs, huge in his meek correctness of evening dress. There was, to be sure, in face of Vereker’s determination, nothing else for him to do. But it was with one consent that they had all three subsided on the wide stairs, secure from the intrusions that menaced the little salon. And it was only for a moment she had sunned herself in the triumph of being claimed, forcibly enthroned in the sustaining blue gown upon the red-carpeted stairs with the best of the hotel’s male guests a little below on each side of her. After that moment there was only effort, the effort to make things clear, to find convincing answers to Vereker’s questions. And there were no witnesses, only Guerini, coming from the salon and apologetically past them up the stairs; and the maids, passing to and fro. There is no evening social centre in this hotel, no large room. That is why these sports-people like it. The day is concentrated within the daylight. The falling away after dinner is a turning towards the next day’s work. That Grindelsteig hotel must be rather fascinating. She thought I shared her disapproval of people “running up and down balconies and in and out of each other’s rooms all night long.” I did. Yet they are only carrying out my principles.... She despises even those who come out for sport unless all day they are risking life and limb. So fragile and brittle-looking, so Victorian and lacy, yet living for her ski-parties with picked people from the other hotels; going off at dawn, swallowed up until dinner-time and then, straight to bed. The social promise of the first evening has miscarried. The social centre is the Oberland Ski-club; the rest, a mere putting in of time. I am living on the outskirts, looking for developments in the wrong place; have seen all there will be to see until the end of my stay.