XXXVI
AFTER this she discarded what was left of her crust, and emerged like a butterfly. The present was delightful, she would enjoy it without analysis or retrospect. She met several clever and interesting men, but had eyes for no one but Valdobia. They explored Genoa until they knew it almost as well as the natives, spending hours down in the long twisted streets, so narrow that no vehicle had ever visited them, and swarming like the inside of an anthill. Harrowing adventures were impossible, for the Genoese masses if discourteous are neither a lawless nor an impertinent race. Ora and Ida might have roamed alone, and been unmolested save by the enterprising shopkeepers that dealt in filigree. They rode over the steep hills in the trams, and took long motor drives in the brilliant winter sunshine to the picturesque towns and villages down the Riviera. Then, on a Saturday morning, they bade good-bye to the ancient city and took the train for Monte Carlo.
The girls established themselves in a small hotel opposite the Casino Gardens, the men in the great hotel that lies between the Casino and the International Sporting Club.
“I suppose we really should have sent for Lady Gower,” said Ora, doubtfully, as they hooked each other up for dinner. “It’s stretching the point rather to come to a place like Monte Carlo with two men. We’ll be sure to run into a dozen people we know.”
“Oh, bother! I love the idea of feeling real devilish for once. Besides, anything goes at Monte Carlo, and everybody is interested in gambling and nothing else. What good would old Norfolk-Howard do us, anyhow, asleep on a sofa. She never could keep awake after ten, and nobody’d know in those big rooms whether she was there or not. We’re Americans, anyhow, and I’m having the time of my life. Lord John is a perfect dear.”
“Well, at least I am thankful that you are no longer in a hurry to return to Butte.”
“Butte’ll keep, I guess. The more experiences I take back the more they’ll think of me. Gives me backbone to feel a real woman-of-the-world. Besides, kid, it’s good philosophy to drink the passing moment dry. Amalgamated may bust us any minute. You look prettier every day, and I’m not going off either.”
She wore a severely cut gown of black velvet, the corsage draped with coral-coloured chiffon. Her first evening gowns, cut by the ruthless Parisian, had caused her many qualms but they had been growing moredécolletéever since; and so superb were her neck and shoulders that she had ceased to regret her lack of jewels. Ora had refrained from buying any, although she longed for sapphires; but she always wore her pearls. Tonight her gown was of a misty pale green material from which she rose like a lily from its calyx. She still wore her hair massed softly on the top of her head, and although not as tall as Ida, and far from being as fully developed, was an equally arresting figure. No two women were ever more excellent foils, and that may have been one secret of their amicable relations.
They dined with their cavaliers at one of the fashionable restaurants, then, after an hour in the Casino rooms, which were not at all to their taste, with their ornate walls and dingy crowd, went by means of lifts and underground corridors over to the International Sporting Club. Valdobia and Mowbray had put them up at this exclusive resort during the afternoon and they entered the roulette rooms at once. Here the walls were chastely hung with pale grey satin, and all the colour was in the company. The long tables were crowded with smart-looking men and women of both worlds, although only the ladies that had stepped down from ancestral halls dared to show a grey hair or a wrinkle. The cocottes were so young and fresh as well as beautiful that to Ora and Ida they looked much like girls of their own class. All, young and old, were splendidly dressed and bejewelled; and if there was excitement in their brains there was no evidence of it in their calm or animated faces. They might have been a great house-party amusing themselves with some new and innocuous game.
Our party walked about for a time dividing their attentionbetween the spinning balls, the faces of the players, and the gowns of the women; even those of the cocottes were not eccentric, although worn with a certain inimitable style. Their ropes of pearls were also the longest in the room. A number of the most notable men in Europe were present, princes of reigning houses, and statesmen high in the service of their country.
In spite of the absence of that feverish excitement which is supposed to pervade these gambling rooms of Monte Carlo (and which is absent from the Casino even when a man shoots himself and is whisked out), Ora wandered about in a curious state of exaltation. The cool splendour of the rooms, the atmosphere of high breeding and restraint, the gratification of the æsthetic sense at every turn, the beauty of the women and the distinguished appearance of the men made it a romantic and memorable scene. Notwithstanding the constant clink of gold, the monotonous admonitions of the croupiers, it was a sort of worldly fairyland, this apotheosis of one of the most perilous of human indulgences. These people might be gambling for greed or mere excitement, being blasé of other mundane diversions, but they were at the same time so frank and so reserved, so pleased and so indifferent, that they produced the illusion of sojourning on a plane high above the common mortal with his commonplace loves and disasters and struggles to exist or shine. No wonder that men came here to forget the burdens of state, women Society’s conservatisms or the inconstancy of man. For the hour, and the hour generally lasted until four in the morning, they lived in a world apart, and a duchess sat next to a cocotte with a serene indifference that amounted almost to democracy.
“I don’t know that romantic is the word I should use,” said Valdobia, laughing; Ora had uttered some of her thoughts aloud; “but I think I know what you mean. The people that come here can afford to lose; their minds are almost as carefully composed as their costumes; they are both pleasantly reckless and frivolous; this is their real play-time; the world beyond these four walls is obliterated; if they lose they shrug their shoulders, and if they win they experience something like a real thrill; in short, being soaked in worldliness, it is their only chance to feel primitive—for gambling was practised by the most ancienttribes of which we have any knowledge. At the Casino most of those people are subconsciously wondering how they are going to pay their hotel bills and get out of Monte Carlo, calm as they manage to look; but here—well, here you see the quintessence of the world’s frivolity. No wonder it creates a heady atmosphere. Do you want to gamble?”
“Of course I do.”
“Well, put a louis on the red. I’ll follow your stakes. Perhaps we’ll bring each other luck.”
They staked and won, staked and won again, seven times running without removing their winnings from the red. Then Valdobia said, “Don’t tempt fortune too far. The luck may turn to the green any moment. Suppose we try oursen plein.” He selected the number 39, and once more they won. Ora, her hands full of gold, turned to him with blazing eyes. Her cheeks were crimson. Valdobia laughed.
“You mustn’t look so happy,” he said teasingly, “or these old stagers will know that you are what your friend calls a hayseed. Better change all this gold into notes.”
“Notes? I want my gold. Paper never did mean anything to me.”
“What a child you are—ah! I must leave you for a moment. The Duc——” he mentioned a prince of his royal house—“wishes to speak to me. Don’t tryen pleinagain. That rarely happens twice. Put a louis at a time on the red.”
He left her. Ora deliberately placed not only her double handful of gold on the red, but pushed forward the pile that had accumulated before her. Red came up and doubled her winnings. She added to her already imposing hillock the gold shoved toward her, and, with a quick glance at Valdobia, who was deep in conversation with his prince, took a thousand franc note from her châtelaine bag and laid it on top of the gold. Once more she won, and met the sympathetic smiles of the croupiers, who in the Sporting Club, at least, are very human persons. She was about to add another thousand franc note, when Valdobia returned. He swept her gold and notes off the red just asrien ne va plussounded above the buzz of conversation behind the tables.
“What on earth are you doing?” he asked angrily. “I don’t like to see a woman gamble like that.”
Ora pouted and looked like a naughty child.
“But I want to gamble. Give me my money. What have you to say about it?”
“I brought you here—and I shall not bring you again if you are going to gamble like that old Frankfurt banker over there. Why not follow the example of Mrs. Compton, who is decorously putting five franc pieces on the green at the next table?”
“Oh, Ida! I like the sensation of doing big things. You just said we enjoyed letting loose our primitive instincts.”
“Is that the way you felt? Well, here are three louis. Stake one at a time. I shall change the rest into notes and give them to you at the hotel.”
He kept his eye on her, and she staked her gold pieces one after another and lost.
“Now,” he said, “come into the bar and have a glass of wine or a lemon squash. I want to talk to you.”
They found seats in a corner of the bar behind a little table, and Ora demurely ordered a lemonade. “I suppose you are going to scold me,” she murmured, although her cheeks were still flushed and her eyes rebellious. “What difference did it make? I am not poor, and I had won nearly all that I risked, anyhow. You have seen women gamble all your life. One would think that you were a hayseed, yourself.”
“Shall I be quite honest? I fancy I was jealous. For the first time I saw you completely carried away. I had hoped to furnish that impulse myself!”
“It is a wonderful sensation,” she said provokingly. “I doubt if anything but gambling could inspire it.”
“Do you?” But he knew that it was no time for sentiment, and asked curiously, “Are you so fond of gold? I never saw such a greedy little thing.”
“Remember I’ve walked round over gold for the best part of my life, and have a mine of my own. It fascinates me, but not because I care much about riches—I like the liberty that plenty of money gives; that, to my mind, is all that wealth means. But I loved the feeling of being possessed, of being absolutely reckless. I should have liked to know that my whole fortune depended upon that spinningball. That would have been worth while! It makes one forget everything—everything!”
He looked at her with half-closed eyes. “You have a secret chapter in your life,” he said. “Some day I shall read it. But I can’t make up my mind whether you are a born gambler or not.”
Ora shrugged her shoulders. “To tell you the truth I shouldn’t care if I never saw a gambling table again. I have had the sensation. That is enough. I will admit I was rather disappointed not to lose that immense stake. Lucky at cards, you know.”
“And you think you are unlucky in love?” Valdobia laughed, but his face was still grim. “How many men have you had in love with you already?”
“That doesn’t count!”
He turned pale. “What do you mean by that?”
“I mean that I don’t believe I am destined to happiness. Don’t you think we know our lines instinctively?”
“I know that you are trying to torment me. You are still excited and angry, so I shall not permit your words, significant as they are, to keep me awake tonight.” He was smiling again, but she saw the anger in his own eyes, and said impulsively:
“I rather like you better than usual tonight. You have made me do something I didn’t want to do, and anger is becoming to you.”
“The eternal female! Well, God knows, I wouldn’t have you abnormal. What is this?”
A page was standing before the table with a telegram in his hand. “Pour M. le Marquis de Valdobia,” he said.
With a word of apology Valdobia opened the telegram. Ora, watching him, saw his face turn white.
“What is it?” she asked anxiously. “I do hope it is not bad news.” She felt a sharp pang at the possibility of losing him.
He rose and looked at his watch. “My mother is very ill,” he said. “A train goes in an hour and ten minutes. I must take it. But there is something I want to say to you before I go; I may be detained in Rome. Will you get your wrap and come into the gardens for a few moments?”
“I am so sorry,” murmured Ora, with real sympathy. “Of course I will go.”
He took her to the cloak-room. “Wait here for a moment,”he said. “I must telephone to my man to pack and meet me at the train; and tell Mowbray not to look for us later.”
He left her, and Ora watched the passing couples, trying not to think. She was a little frightened, but still too excited to shrink from a possible ordeal.