"Well, I'm mighty glad you're interested in her, and that you're willing to call."
"Willing? I'm charmed. I'll go to-morrow."
"You—you couldn't go to-day, I suppose?"
"Silly boy, it's too late. Here's tea; and here's St. George; and here will be some of the flock presently, who generally appear on the stroke of half-past four."
In another moment Carleton was shaking the hand of a slender, pale man with auburn hair worn rather long, a sensitive mouth, delicate nostrils, and beautiful, bright, hazel eyes which shone with a spiritual, unworldly enthusiasm. He looked like onewho would cheerfully have been a martyr to his faith had he lived a few centuries earlier. And Dick thought his cousin's simile of the high Alps not too far fetched, after all. But there was a warm light in the beautiful eyes as they turned upon Rose; and something in the man's smile hinted that he did not lack a sense of humour, except when too absent-minded to bring it into play. Dick felt happy about Rose, and happier about Miss Grant, because Rose would go and see her.
Life was not running on oiled wheels at the Villa Bella Vista.
A spirit of discontent, a feeling that they had been lured to the house under false pretences, grew among Lady Dauntrey's visitors and was expressed stealthily, a word here, a word there, and sullen looks behind the backs of host and hostess. Even on the first day disappointment began to wriggle from guest to guest, like a little cold, sharp-nosed snake, leaving its clammy trail wherever it passed.
In the first place the villa, which had been described glowingly by Lady Dauntrey to the Collises and Dodo Wardropp, was not what she had painted it. Indeed, as Dodo remarked to Miss Collis, it was not what any one had painted it, at least within the memory of man. Once it had been a rich gold colour, but many seasons of neglect had tarnished the gold to a freckled brown, which even the flowering creepers that should have cloaked it seemed to dislike. In depression they had shed most of their leaves; and bare serpent-branches, which might be purple with wistaria in the late spring long after everybody had gone to the north, coiled dismally over the fanlike roof of dirty glass that sheltered ablistered front door. Inside, a faint odour of mouldiness hung in the air of the rooms, which had been shut up unoccupied for a long time. The ugly drab curtains in the drawing-room smelled of the moth-powder in which they had been wrapped through the summer heat. The imitation lace drapery underneath them had been torn and not mended. Bits of thick brown paper pasted over the windows during the hot months still stuck to the glass. The furniture was heavy, not old but middle-aged, lacking the charm of antiquity, and in the worst French taste. The pictures were banal; and there was no garden. More painful than all, the house was in the Condamine; and Dodo, when she had spent a few days at "Monte" on her way to England from Australia, had been told that "nobody who was anybody lived down in the Condamine: only the 'cheap people' went there." And Dodo did not consider herself a cheap person. She was paying high to be the guest of a "lady of title": she wanted her money's worth, and soon began to fear that there was doubt of getting it.
Servants had been engaged in advance for Lady Dauntrey by the agent who had let the house. There were too few; and it needed but the first night's dinner to prove that the cook was third rate, though Lady Dauntrey carefully referred to him as thechef. In addition to this person, occasionally seen flitting about in a dingy white cap, there was a man to wait at table and open the door—a man, Dodo said, with the face of a sulky codfish; and a hawk-nosed, hollow-cheeked woman to "do the rooms" and act as maid to the ladies, none of the three having brought a maid of her own. Their hostess had said she could not put up her guests' servants, but they might "count upon a first-rate maid in the house." They reminded each other of this promise, the day after their arrival, and grumbled. Secundina had as much as she could do to keep the rooms in order; and the only other service she was able to give the visitors was to recount gruesome stories of the villa while she made their beds or took a top layer of dust off their dressing-tables. According to her, the Bella Vista was the cheapest furnished house to let in the principality, because years ago a murder had been committed in it. A woman had been killed for the sake of her jewels by the tenants, a husband and wife. They had kept her body in a trunk for days, and had attempted to get out of France with it, but had been arrested on their way to Italy. Nobody who was superstitious would live in the house, and so it was not often let. Secundina did not know where the murder had taken place, but believed it was in the dining-room, and that the trunk had been kept in the cellar.
It was Dodo to whom the tale was told, and she repeated it to Mrs. Collis and her daughter, the three having forgotten their slight differences in making common, secret cause against the Dauntreys, or, rather, against Lady Dauntrey; for they were inclined to like and be sorry for her husband,pitying him because misfortune or weakness had brought him to the pass of marrying such a woman. "You could make a whole macadamized road out of her heart," remarked Mrs. Collis.
"It would serve her right if we all marched out of this loathsome den in a body," said Dodo, emphatically, when they had met to talk things over in the Collises' room. "She's a selfish cat and thinks of nobody but herself. She won't even let the men come near us girls if she can help it, though you and I both know perfectly well, Miss Collis, that she hinted about the most wonderful chances of great marriages, nothing lower than an earl at meanest. Not that you and I need look for husbands. But that isn't the point; for anyhow, she has no business to snap them out of our mouths. Now, she's jealous if Dom Ferdinand or the Marquis de Casablanca so much as looks at one of us. And she's given us the worst rooms, so she can take in other poor deluded creatures and get more money out of them. And there isn't enough to eat. And all the eggs and fish have had a past. And Secundina says there are black beetles as large as chestnuts in the kitchen. Still——"
"Still," echoed Miss Collis, "Monseigneur's awfully interesting, and it's fun being in the same house with him; though I'm afraid he's selfish too, or he wouldn't calmly keep on his front room, when he can't help knowing we're stuffed into back ones without any view. Of course heisa royalty, so perhaps he has his dignity to think of. But I knowan American man wouldn't do such a thing, not even if he were a President."
"The Marquis is nice, too," said Mrs. Collis. "Lord Dauntrey tells me his family's one of the oldest in the 'Almanach de Gotha,' whateverthatis. And Monseigneur and he are both great friends of the Dauntreys."
"Only of Lord Dauntrey," Dodo corrected her.
"Well, anyhow, they're likely to stay a while in this house, for whatever there is of the best, they get. And they're playing Lord Dauntrey's system with him at the Casino."
"And losing!"
"Yes. But Dom Ferdinand seems to have plenty of money."
"Secundina says thecheftold her it was well known that Monseigneur hasn't a sou of his own, but borrows of people who believe in his Cause. Then he comes here and gambles with what he gets. According to the cook, he's a well-known figure at Monte Carlo, and sometimes calls out when he's playing in the Rooms, 'There's my cousin's head on that gold piece. It ought to be mine.'"
"His is a mighty good-looking head, anyhow," remarked Miss Collis thoughtfully. She herself was not rich, but her stepfather, a Chicago merchant, was enormously wealthy, and she was wondering whether, to give her a chance of possible queenhood, David Collis might not open his heart and his purse.
Dodo was at the same time asking herself whatwould be the smallest sum Dom Ferdinand would consider worth looking at with a wife. Also she contemplated the idea of impressing him with the belief that she was a great heiress, until too late for him to change his mind in honour. But first he must fix his mind upon her. She would have been glad to create distrust of him in the hearts of Lottie Collis and her mother; and while they remained at the Bella Vista in Dom Ferdinand's society Dodo decided not to be frightened away by a few inconveniences. Nor did she wish the story of that long-ago murder to reach his ears. Dom Ferdinand had publicly announced that he was horribly superstitious, and perhaps he would not stay if he knew what had happened in the dining-room. He would think it brought bad luck to live in such a house, even if he could bear the idea of a ghost; for he talked of little else than what one ought to do in order to attract luck.
After a few days at Monte Carlo Lord Dauntrey began to find acquaintances, people he had known long ago in England before he was swallowed up in darkest Africa, or those he had met at hotels since his marriage—hotels chosen by Lady Dauntrey for the purpose of making useful friends. He had a certain wistful, weary charm of manner that was somehow likable and aroused sympathy, especially in women, though it was evident that he made no conscious effort to please.
There was a vague, floating rumour of some old, more than half-forgotten scandal about him: anaccident, giving the wrong drug when he was studying medicine as a very young man; a death; a sad story hushed up; a prudent disappearance from Europe, urged by annoyed aristocratic relatives who had little money to speed his departure, but gave what they could; professional failure in South Africa; some gambling-trouble in Johannesburg, and a vanishing again into the unknown. Nevertheless his title was an old one. Men of his race had loomed great in dim historic days, and though during the last two centuries no Dauntrey had done anything notable except lose money, sell land, go bankrupt, figure in divorce cases or card scandals, and marry actresses, they had never in their degeneration lost that charm which, in Charles II's day, had won from a pretty Duchess the nickname of the "darling Dauntreys."
The present viscount was the last and perhaps the least of his race; yet, because of his name and the lingering charm—like the sad perfume ofpot-pourriclinging to a broken jar—he would have been given the prodigal's welcome at Monte Carlo (that agreeable pound for lost reputations) but for one drawback. The stumbling block was the woman he had made Lady Dauntrey.
In the permanent English colony on the Riviera, with its jewelled sprinkling of American millionaires and its glittering fringe of foreign notables, there are a few charming women upon whom depends the fate of newcomers. These great ladies turned down their thumbs when with experiencedeyes they looked upon Lord Dauntrey's wife, when their trained ears heard her voice, with its curiously foreign, slightly rough accent.
Nobody wanted or intended to turn an uncompromising back upon her. Lord Dauntrey and she could be invited to big entertainments—the mid-season "squashes" which wiped off boring obligations, paid compliments quickly and easily, and pleased the outer circles of acquaintanceship. But for intimate things, little luncheons and little dinners to the elect, she would not "do"; which was a pity—because as a bachelor Lord Dauntrey might have been furbished up and made to do quite well. As things stood, the best that could happen to the pair, if they were found to play bridge well, was to be asked to the bridge parties of the great; while for other entertainments they would have to depend on outsiders to whom a title was a title, no matter how tarnished or how tattered.
As Rose Winter had said to Carleton, "Whoisn'tWho, if they can play bridge?" But it had been important for Lady Dauntrey's plans not to be received on sufferance. She had meant and expected to be some one in particular. In the South African past of which people here knew nothing, but began to gossip much, it had been her dream to marry a man who could lead her at once to the drawing-room floor of society, and she saw no reason in herself why she should not be a shining light there. She knew that she was handsome, and fascinating to men, and while using her gifts as best she could,always she had burned with an almost fierce desire to make more of them, to be a beauty and a social star, like those women of whom she read in the "society columns" of month-old London papers, women not half as attractive as she. She had felt in herself the qualities necessary for success in a different world from any she had known; and because, during a period when she was a touring actress she had played the parts of great ladies, she had told herself confidently that she would know without any other teaching how great ladies should talk, behave, and dress.
"Whowasshe?" people asked each other, of course, when she and her husband appeared at Monte Carlo in the beginning of the season, and Lord Dauntrey began quietly, unobtrusively, to remind old acquaintances of his own or of his dead uncle's (the last viscount's) existence. Nobody could answer that question; but "Whatwas she?" seemed simpler of solution as a puzzle, at least in a negative way; for certainly she was not a lady. And one or two Americans who had lived in the South of their own country insisted that she had a "touch of the tar brush." She confessed to having passed some years in South Africa, "in the country a good deal of the time." And something was said by gossips who did not know much, about a first husband who had been "a doctor in some God-forsaken hole." Perhaps that was true, people told each other; and if so, it explained how she and Dauntrey had met; because it was generally understood that he had been,or tried to be, a doctor in South Africa. Thus the story went round that he had been her late husband's assistant, and had married her when she was free.
Even the first ten days in Monte Carlo showed Lady Dauntrey that her brilliant scheme for the season was doomed to failure: and that heart of hers, out of which Mrs. Collis said a whole macadamized road might be made, grew sick with disappointment and anxiety.
She had married Dauntrey—almost forced him to marry her, in fact, by fanning the dying embers of his chivalry—because she expected through him to realize her ambitions. Under this motive lay another—an almost savage love, not unlike the love for an Apache of the female of his kind. Only, Dauntrey was not an Apache at heart, and Eve Ruthven was. Eve, of course, was not her real name. She had been Emma Cotton until she went on the stage twenty years ago, at sixteen; but she was the type of woman who admires and takes the name of Eve. And Mrs. Ruthven she had been as wife and widow after the theatrical career had been abandoned in disaster. Something in her nature would have yearned toward Dauntrey if he had had nothing to recommend him to her ambition; but she would have resisted her own inclination for a penniless man without a title.
What money there was between them had been saved in one way or other by her; but, as Dodo Wardropp surmised, there was far less thanMrs. Ruthven had persuaded Lord Dauntrey to believe. At first she had worked upon the overmastering passion of his nature, where most other loves and desires were burnt out or broken down: the passion for gambling. He had told her about the roulette system which he had invented, a wonderful system, in practising which with a roulette watch or a toy wheel, he had managed to get through dreadful years of banishment, without dying of boredom. She had encouraged him to hope that with her money they would have enough capital to play the system successfully at Monte Carlo, and win fortune in a way which for long had been the dream of his life, as hers had been to become a personage in "real society."
With five thousand pounds, Lord Dauntrey was confident that he could win through the worst possible slide the system was likely to experience, playing with louis stakes. Mrs. Ruthven mentioned that she had eight thousand pounds. After he had asked her to marry him, and she had said yes, and told everybody she knew, about the engagement—including newspaper men in Johannesburg—Dauntrey discovered that the figure she had mentioned was in hundreds, not thousands. But she sobbed out a passionate confession, saying she had lied because she loved him: and they could still go to Monte Carlo, with a plan she had, and try the system with five-franc pieces instead of louis.
It was a long time since any one had loved Dauntrey. He was lonely, and hated to hurt a woman.Besides, five-franc pieces were better than nothing, and he was sick to death of South Africa.
They had got through the spring and summer in England partly on their wits, partly through impressing landlords and travelling nonentities with their social importance, and partly through their successes at bridge. For they both played bridge extremely well, too well, it had once or twice been said of Lord Dauntrey in South Africa.
Lady Dauntrey's "plan" was to get together as many paying guests as possible, enlist their interest in the "system," or, if they could not be persuaded into that, to earn for herself something even better than board-money, by introducing rich girls to men of title. She had not doubted her opportunities for thrusting her female pigeons into society, or of getting hold of young foreign aristocrats, perhaps even Englishmen, who were "out for dollars," as her girls would be out for dukes—or the next best thing after dukes. And she had begun well.
The house she had secured was cheap; and she brought with her from England three women who would alone pay more than enough to keep it up. Her husband's friend, Dom Ferdinand de Trevanna, and his faithful follower, the Marquis de Casablanca, had fulfilled a promise to meet them at Monte Carlo on the day after their arrival at the villa. Several other guests were expected—the young widow of a rich stockbroker; two Jewish heiresses who still called themselves girls; an elderly, impecunious English earl; an Austrian count who had failed tofind a wife in England, and a naval lieutenant who was heir to an impoverished baronetcy: a set of people sure to be congenial, because each wanted something which another could give. Everything ought to have been satisfactory, even from Dauntrey's point of view, for he had interested all the men in his system, and what money they could spare would be put into it; he would play for the "syndicate"; or if the men preferred gambling themselves, they must give him something for the system which he was prepared to teach.
When she arrived at Monte Carlo on a beautiful day of sunshine, which seemed a good omen, Eve Dauntrey believed that at last luck had turned for her. She thought that the thing she had longed for, year after year, was coming at last; and she was proud of the plan she had made, proud of the way in which she had worked it out. But the moment she entered the villa in the Condamine, her spirits were damped almost as if, by some monkey-trick, a jug of cold water had been upset on her head as the door opened to let her in. She felt the same depression fall upon the minds of the others, as shadows can be seen to move and grow long at sunset. She knew that the Collises and Dodo Wardropp were going to be dissatisfied, and that they would talk against the house and their accommodation in it, behind her back, saying that she had deliberately deceived them.
Still, there were Dom Ferdinand and Casablanca. There was no deceit where they were concerned.They wanted to meet girls with money, and Dodo and Lottie wanted to meet men of title. There ought to be no danger that any members of this party would leave solely because the cooking was poor and the rooms badly furnished; and it was really Eve's wish to throw the four together, so that they need not miss certain things which lacked in her promised programme. But she had counted without herself. It was not in her to surrender any men who might be near, to other women, even when surrendering them would be to her advantage. In her heart she despised Lottie Collis and Dodo Wardropp, and she had to try her own weapons against theirs. She could not help this, and did it almost unconsciously.
Throughout her whole life since she was fifteen she had lived by and sometimes fallen by the fascination she had for men; not all men, but many, and most of those whose type appealed to her. She could never resist testing its power, even now when she loved the man she had married, and would ruthlessly have sacrificed any other for him. She tried it upon Dom Ferdinand and the Marquis de Casablanca. They struggled, because they wished to make an impression upon the two girls in the house; but they could not hold out against the allurement of the primitive woman in Lady Dauntrey, and though they paid the girls compliments and went about with them docilely, they looked at Eve. And the girls saw not only the looks, but the weapons which Lady Dauntrey used to win the menfor herself, when she ought to have been furthering her guests' interests. They began to hate her, and soon realized that she would not be able to introduce them to the "best set" at Monte Carlo, as she had promised. Still they stayed on, hoping a little, for other people were expected to join the house party, and there was a chance yet of something better. Besides, they found a small and bitter pleasure in seeing the disappointment and humiliation of the woman who had been so sure of herself, and had, by the force of her own strong personality, made them sure of her. Dodo and the Collises, travelling out of their own country for the first time, had not—as they acknowledged to each other now—"known the difference in foreigners." It was only by the light in other women's eyes—women of good birth and breeding—that they began to see Lady Dauntrey as she was, common, bold, not a lady, one whom ladies would not care to receive.
Dodo also was common, and knew herself to be "nobody" at home, but she had thought that she might "go down in England," if she could have the right introductions. Now she saw that her money was being wasted at the start; for though the Dauntreys attracted a certain set round them, instinctively she, as well as the Collises, felt that it was not the right set.
Even when, after ten days of Monte Carlo, the Villa Bella Vista was full of the Dauntreys' paying guests, a cold sense of insecurity and trouble tocome, which would be worse by and by than the bitter disappointment of the present, lay heavy upon Eve's heart. Her ménage was uncomfortable, and people were threatening to go. Every day nearly she had a "scene" with some one, a guest or a servant, or both. Mrs. Collis had burst into tears at a luncheon in honour of a rich Jewish money-lender, because she thought herself insulted. She had been given a kitchen dish-towel instead of a napkin, and had spoiled the party by complaining of it. The stupid creature! As if some one were not obliged to put up with the thing, since there were not enough napkins to go round for so many! Lady Dauntrey had explained that she could not take the dish-towel herself, as Monseigneur was on her right hand, Mr. Holbein on her left. But even the fact that Lord Dauntrey contented himself with a dust cloth did not appease Mrs. Collis, who said it was only the last feather on the top of other grievances. And Dodo was furious because, whenever Lady Dauntrey entertained, the servants were so busy that she had to make her own bed, or see it lie tumbled just as she had got out of it, until evening. Eve's violent temper had got the better of her then, and she had flung her true opinion of Miss Wardropp into the pretty painted face. "Persons who've never had anything decent at home always complain more than any one else in other people's houses," she had said; and Dodo had retorted with compliments of the same kind.
Miss Wardropp often wondered if LadyDauntrey knew the history of the Villa Bella Vista. She did know, the agent having felt obliged to confess, lest later she might hear the story and try to get out of her bargain on the strength of it. But he had eloquently explained that if there were no drawback the house—being a large one with many rooms—would have commanded twice the price at which he could offer it to her ladyship. He had added that the murder, committed long ago, had been almost forgotten by every one except old inhabitants; and as the villa had been occupied by several tenants since its evil days, and thoroughly redecorated, it need no longer have disagreeable associations even for the most sensitive minds.
Lady Dauntrey's mind was not sensitive. She had hoped that her guests would not hear the tale, and she had thought that she would not care herself. Perhaps she would not have cared, if everything had gone as well with her and her husband as they had expected, for then she would have been cheerful, and could have laughed at superstition. But when the people she wanted to know would not know her, when Dauntrey's system did not work as it had worked on the toy roulette, when the servants stole, or left without notice, and when the guests quarrelled and complained, she began to feel that there was a curse upon the house. She fancied that, if she had not taken it, but had run larger risks and chosen a more expensive villa, perhaps things would have been better.
In spite of herself she thought a great deal aboutthe man and the woman who had done the murder. From the agent she had heard no details, and though the case had made a great sensation at the time it happened, years ago, she had been far away in South Africa, and had not given much attention to it. Some sly hints of Secundina's, however, had shown her that the servants knew, and she had not been able to resist asking questions. Afterward she could not put out of her head Secundina's description of the dreadful couple.
The man had been of good birth, the womanbourgeoise, but clever. They had gambled and made money, eventually losing it again, and all their capital besides. Then they had grown desperate, at their wits' end, and they had killed a woman who trusted and thought of them as her friends. At night, when Eve lay awake worrying, as she often did—especially when Dauntrey had been losing—she seemed to see the two haggard faces staring at her hopelessly, growing and taking shape in the darkness. Worse than all, she seemed to understand something in their eyes which they wished to make her understand. She wondered if, by any chance, the room where she and her husband slept had been theirs, and if between these walls they had talked over the murder before committing it. She imagined how they had felt, how they had hated and rebelled against the idea at first, then accepted it as the one thing left to do. The story was that the woman had persuaded the man to consent, though he had refused at first.
One day, after a worse quarrel than any that had gone before, Mrs. Collis left with Lottie, packing up in a hurry, and driving off to a hotel. This gave Lady Dauntrey an empty room; and already Dodo had twice vowed that she too would go. Now, in all probability the Collises would persuade her to join them; and perhaps an epidemic of departure would sweep through the villa. Lord Dauntrey had suffered a serious setback; and all the money received from the guests was needed to retrieve this accident. Dom Ferdinand had lost so much that he could not pay at all until a further remittance came to him; and as odd stories of the household had leaked out through dissatisfied servants, several tradesmen had begun to make themselves objectionable. Strangers are not trusted in the shops at Monte Carlo, and the butcher threatened to send no more meat to the Bella Vista unless he were paid what was owing.
This happened when the Dauntreys had been in their villa three weeks; and that same afternoon at the Casino Lady Dauntrey spoke to Mary Grant. It was then two days before Christmas.
Often she had looked at Mary and felt inclined to speak, but always something had happened to prevent, or else Dodo or the Collises had been near, and she had known that they would say to each other, "Look at the woman making up to that girl now because she's winning such a lot. Any one who's got money is good enough for her." But this time the conversation came about easily, asthough it were meant to be. She was watching Mary's play, standing behind the next chair. Suddenly a man occupying the chair got up and went away from the table. Instantly Lady Dauntrey dropped into the vacant place, as if she had been waiting for it.
She did not really wish to play, though she liked gambling, for she had been unlucky in the small game she had attempted, and had grown cautious, anxious to keep what she had. But on a crowded night it is almost obligatory to play if one has annexed a chair which many people would like to have. Eve reluctantly took out two louis, the only coins in her imitation gold bag. She was not near a croupier, and having seen already that a few five-franc pieces lay among her neighbour's gold and notes, she asked Mary with a pleasant smile if she would mind changing a louis for her. "I'm not lucky, like you," she said, "so I'm afraid to play with gold."
Mary pushed four five-franc pieces along the table, and would have been only too glad not to accept the gold in exchange, but of course she could not make a present of money to Lady Dauntrey. "I shall be delighted," she said.
"You're sure you're not wanting your silver?" Eve inquired.
"Oh, no, thank you. I sometimes put five francs on zeroen pleinto protect half a stake on a simple chance," Mary explained, now thoroughly conversant with every intricacy of the game that hadbeen so kind to her. "But zero's been up three times in half an hour, so I don't think I shall bother with it again for a while. And, anyhow, I'm not playing for a few minutes. Sometimes I feel as if I must wait for an inspiration."
"I wish I ever had one!" sighed Lady Dauntrey, hesitating over one of her big silver coins. "Do tell me where to put this. You're so wonderful, you might bring even me a stroke of luck."
"But I should be so distressed if I made you lose," Mary said, as gravely as if the five-franc piece in question had been amillenote. "But—well—if it were mine, I rather think I should try ten. I've no inspiration for myself this time; but I seem to see ten floating in the air around you, and that's the way my inspirations come. I see numbers or colours, and then I play on them."
"I'll try it!" Eve exclaimed. "But will you put the money on for me? I want all your luck, and none of my own."
Mary pushed the five-franc piece on to the number 10, using a rake of her own which Dick Carleton had given her. It was a glorified rake, which he had ordered specially for her, made of ebony with the initials "M. G." set into it in little sapphires, her favourite stones.
Ten came up, and Lady Dauntrey was enchanted. She even felt an impulse of gratitude, and a superstitious conviction that this girl would be for her a bringer of good fortune.
"I've so often watched your play, and wanted to tell you how much I admired it," she said, "but I never quite had the courage."
Lady Dauntrey did not look like a woman who would lack courage for anything she wished to do, but Mary saw no reason to disbelieve her word, and indeed did not judge or criticise at all, except by instinct; and people had only to look sad or complain of their ill luck to arouse a sympathy stronger than any instinct against them.
"I think it's very nice of you to speak," she replied, politely. Both murmured in subdued tones, in order not to annoy other players.
"I recognized you, of course, the first time I saw you in the Casino," Lady Dauntrey went on, "as the lovely girl who came south in the train with us. We've all been longing to know you."
This was untrue. Anxious to propitiate Society as far as possible, Eve had avoided recognizing Mary, who might be looked upon as a doubtful person—a young girl, always strikingly dressed, living alone at a fashionable and gay hotel, playing high at the Casino, and picking up odd acquaintances. But now Lady Dauntrey was abandoning all hope that Society might let her pass over its threshold, and she was willing to defy it for the sake of money. This girl was at least a lady, which Dodo was not, nor was Mrs. Ernstein, the stockbroker's widow. Eve thought it would be a good thing if Miss Grant could be persuaded to come and stay at the Villa Bella Vista in the room left vacant by the Collises.Mary was rather flattered, but she now had an inspiration to play, and did not want to go on talking. "I think ten will come up again, or else eleven," she said, with the misty look in her eyes which was always there at the Casino, or when her thoughts were intent on gambling. "I shall play the two numbersà cheval."
She put on a maximum, Lady Dauntrey hastily placing a five-franc piece, not on thecheval, but more timidly on the six numbers of which ten and eleven were two. Mary lost and Eve won, for thirteen came up. The same thing happened several times in succession. If Mary chose a number, Lady Dauntrey included it in atransversale simple, or took the dozen in which it was. Mary invariably lost, while she won. It was as if she gave Mary bad luck, while Mary brought her good fortune, for never had Mary so often lost, never had Eve won so often in succession.
At last all the money which Mary had brought with her was exhausted, and Lady Dauntrey, who had raked in more than twenty louis, offered laughingly to lend her something to go on with. But Mary thanked her and refused, in spite of the tradition of the tables that borrowed money brings back good luck.
"I'm rather tired, and my head aches a little," she said. "I think I'll go home."
Eve rose also. "You call the Hôtel de Paris 'home?'" she asked.
"I begin to feel quite at home," Mary answered."I've been there nearly three weeks, and it seems longer."
They walked together out of the bright room of the large decorative picture called jestingly "The Three Disgraces," on through the Salle Schmidt, and so to the atrium. "If you don't mind," said Lady Dauntrey, "I'll go with you as far as your hotel. There's a hat in a shop round the corner I've been dying for. Now, thanks to the luck you've brought me, I shall treat myself to it, as a kind of Christmas present. You know, day after to-morrow will be Christmas. Surely you'll be rather lonely in your 'home' then, or have you friends who are going to take you away for the day?"
"No," Mary replied, as they went down the steps of the Casino. "No one has mentioned Christmas. I suppose people don't think as much about celebrating Christmas here, where it's almost like summer. Besides, I have very few friends."
"Haven't you made a good many acquaintances?"
"Not many. Four or five. One lady has called—I think she is the wife of the chaplain of the Church of England—but I was out, and I haven't returned her visit yet. One seems to have so little time here! And the curé of Roquebrune, the village on the hill, has been—twice. I was out both times. I'm always out, I'm afraid. But that reminds me, I must send him a Christmas present for his church."
"I should be delighted if you'd dine with us on Christmas night," said Lady Dauntrey, cordially."Do! At eight o'clock. We have such a merry party with us—all young, or if not young they feel so, which is the true Christmas spirit."
"You're very kind——" Mary began; but suspecting hesitation, Lady Dauntrey broke in. "That's settled, then. I'msopleased! And would you care to go to a dance on Christmas eve?—a rather wonderful dance it will be, on board a big yacht in the harbour. You must have noticed her—White Ladyher name is—and she belongs to Mr. Samuel Holbein, the South African millionaire. You've heard of him, of course. His wife and daughter are on board, and they've begged me to bring as many girls to the dance as I can, for there'll be a lot of men. You know there are heaps more young men about here than there are girls—so unusual except at Monte Carlo."
"A dance on a yacht!" Mary echoed. The idea tempted her, though she hardly felt friendly enough yet with Lady Dauntrey to accept two invitations from her at once. "It sounds interesting."
"It will be. Do say yes. I shall love to chaperon you."
They were at the steps of the Hôtel de Paris.
"Then I say 'yes,'" answered Mary, "and thank you!"
In a few minutes it was all arranged. And Lady Dauntrey bade Miss Grant goodbye, gayly, calling her a "mascotte." She turned the corner as if to go to the shop of the hats. But there was no hat there which she particularly wanted. She hadmerely sought an excuse to walk as far as the Hôtel de Paris with Mary. When the girl had disappeared behind the glass doors, Eve went back quickly to the Casino, where her husband was playing. She could not bear to be long away from him when he was there. It was agony not to know whether he had lost or won.
After the aviation week Vanno Della Robbia still had the excuse of waiting for Prince Angelo and his bride. It was as well therefore to be at Monte Carlo as anywhere else in the neighbourhood of the villa they would occupy at Cap Martin.
They had been detained in England by a "command" visit to royalty, but would soon come to the Riviera. In a letter Angelo asked his younger brother to go over to Cap Martin and look at the house, which Vanno did: and prolonging his excursion to the ruined, historic convent on the Cap, met Miss Grant strolling there with Jim Schuyler and Dick Carleton. He passed near enough to hear that Schuyler was telling the legend of the place: how the nuns played a joke on the men of Roquebrune, the appointed guardians of their safety, by ringing the alarm bell to see if the soldiers of the castle town on the hill would indeed turn out to the rescue. How the very night after the men had run down in vain, the bell pealed out again, and the guardians remained snugly in their beds, only to hear next day that this time the alarm had been real. Saracens had sacked the convent, carried off all the young and pretty nuns, and murdered the old ones.
Schuyler and Carleton both bowed to Vanno, whom they had met several times during the "flying week" at Nice, and Schuyler interrupted his story long enough to say to Mary, "That's Prince Giovanni Della Robbia, who invented the parachute Rongier tested so successfully the other day. Dick met him once in Egypt. He goes star-gazing in the desert, I believe, consorting with Arabs, and learning all sorts of Easternpatois."
Neither Vanno (who caught the sound of his name in passing) nor Schuyler guessed the half-reluctant interest with which Mary heard the name of her sulky neighbour at the Hôtel de Paris, and learned those few details of his life.
Vanno had been more than once to Roquebrune since the first day, and knew that the curé had called twice upon Miss Grant, without finding her at home. He knew, too, that the priest had received no visit from her in return; nor had he again seen or heard of the "strange lady" who had come to question him about Prince Angelo.
Vanno was deeply disappointed at the failure of his plan, and feared that Mary wished to avoid knowing the priest; otherwise she might at least have gone to church at Roquebrune. She made other excursions, when she could tear herself from the Casino, on irresistibly bright afternoons. Not only had he seen her at Cap Martin, but in Nice and in Mentone; once, motoring into Italy with people whose faces were strange to Vanno, and unpromising; and with the same party again in the beautiful gardenat Beaulieu, where it is fashionable to drink tea and watch the sunset. But she did not make time to go to Roquebrune, and show a little graceful gratitude for the curé's kindly interest.
The desire grew stronger in Vanno to speak to her, to know something of her besides the perhaps deceiving beauty of her face, but he clung in firmness or obstinacy to the resolve of which he had told his friend. He knew that he could not help her as the curé might, and secretly he feared himself. Once the ice was broken in making her acquaintance, he was not sure that he could still be strong.
But one afternoon he had been taking a long walk alone, as was his custom every day. Coming down from a Ligurian fort, by an old mule track that ended on the upper Corniche road, he saw an automobile which had stopped at the foot of the path. A girl in a rose-red motor-bonnet and a moleskin coat was standing up in the car, her eyes raised, her chin lifted like a flower tilted in its stem, intent on something which Vanno could not see. The girl was Miss Grant, and Vanno's heart gave a bound, then seemed to contract at sight of her, so near him and alone.
The automobile was drawn up so close to the descending mule path that Vanno saw it would be impossible to pass unless the chauffeur started the engine and moved the car on a little; but rather than this should be necessary, he halted abruptly a few yards above the level of the road.
The rattle of footsteps on rough cobbles roused Mary from her study of the thing which Vanno could not see. She glanced up, expecting some peasant who would want to pass her car. At sight of the Prince halted on the path and looking down into her uplifted face, she blushed. It was just such a blush as had dyed her cheeks painfully the night when he frowned in answer to her friendly smile; and Vanno knew that she was thinking of it. The remorse he had suffered then, when too late, came back to him. If she had not blushed now in the same childlike, hurt way, he was sure that he could have kept to his resolution not to speak. He would simply have stood still, gazing away into distance until she was ready to go on; or at most he would have said with cool politeness, "Please don't let me disturb you. I am in no hurry to pass." But in an instant it rushed over him that here was his chance to atone for an unkindness, and that if he did not quickly seize it he would be sorry all the rest of his life. Besides, it flashed into his mind that by speaking of a certain thing he could easily lead up to the subject of the curé. He wanted very much to know whether she attached any importance to the visits of the priest.
Vanno took off his hat to Mary, bowing gravely. He had guessed her reason for bringing the car to rest at this place, and it gave him his excuse. A step or two farther down the mule path brought him near enough to speak without raising his voice. "I think," he said, "you must have stopped here to lookat the marble tablet set in the rock. Will you let me tell you something about it—unless you know its history already?"
"I thank you. I don't know. I was wondering about it." Mary stammered a little, blushing very deeply, partly with embarrassment—though she was not embarrassed when other strangers spoke to her—partly in surprise at hearing the "Roman Prince" speak English like an Englishman. "Please do tell me."
Before he spoke, she had given a quick order to the chauffeur to move on and leave the end of the mule path free. Now the heart of the motor began to beat, and the car rolled a few feet farther on. Vanno came out into the thick white dust of the much-travelled road, and he and Mary could both look up to the tablet he had mentioned.
It was an oblong piece of marble, set high on the face of gray rock which on one side walled the upper Corniche, Napoleon's road. On it was the curious inscription: "Remember eternal at my heart. February, 1881."
"It is so strange," Mary said, trying to seem at ease, and not show the slightest emotion. It was ridiculous to feel emotion! Yet she could not help being absurdly happy, because this man who had snubbed her once and apparently disapproved her always was speaking to her of his own accord, in kindness.
"'Remember eternal at my heart?' It's like the English of a person not English. But why did henot have the words put in his own language, which he knew?"
"That is what everybody wonders," Vanno said, finding it as difficult as Mary found it, not to show that this conversation was of immense, exciting importance. "It puzzled me so much when I first came this way that I couldn't get it out of my head. I asked a friend who has lived for years not many miles away, if he could tell me what it meant."
"And could he tell you?"
"He told me a story which he believed but would not vouch for. Only, a very old inhabitant told it to him. It appeals to me as true. It must be true." A new warmth stole into Vanno's voice as he spoke. They had both been looking up at the tablet on the rock, but as that thrill like a chord on a violin struck her ear, Mary turned to him. Their eyes met, as they had so often met, but to-day there was no coldness in Vanno's, or hurt pride in Mary's.
"Can you think of any reason for the bad English?" he asked. He longed to hear what she would say.
She thought for a minute. "Could it be," she reflected aloud, "that the person who had the tablet put up associated this place with some one who was English—maybe a woman, if he was a man—and so he wanted to use her language, not his own?"
"You have guessed right!" exclaimed Vanno, boyishly delighted with her intuition. "He was anItalian. He loved an English girl." The romantic dark eyes which had so often burned with gloomy fire in looking at her burned with a different flame for an instant; then quickly, as if with a common impulse, the girl and the man tore their looks apart. "They met here on the Riviera," Vanno went on, not quite steadily. "It was at this spot they first found out that they loved each other, according to the story of my friend."
He paused involuntarily. His mouth was dry. When he began to explain the tablet, he had not realized what it would be like to tell the story to this girl at this place. It was as if some other voice, talking above his with his words, gave a meaning and an emphasis which must be unmistakable to her. It was hard to go on, for with each sentence he would surely stumble deeper into difficulty. Yet the silence was electrical. Unsaid things seemed rustling in ambush. He dared not look again at Mary, and he felt that she dared not look at him. But it was necessary to go on, and he took up the narrative clumsily, fearing to tangle the thread.
"The Italian asked the girl to marry him—here, where we stand. And they were engaged. But in a few weeks or months something happened. My friend is not sure whether she died, or whether some one came between them. He is sure only that they parted. And afterward the man had this tablet put up to mark the spot where he had lived his happiest hour."
"It is a sad story," Mary said.
"Yes. It is sad. But it is beautiful, too. He was faithful. 'Remember eternal at my heart.'"
"Perhaps those were the very words he spoke to her here, when—they loved each other and he was trying to talk in her language."
"I thought of that, too. It's almost certain he said these words, to assure her that he could never forget this place."
"No one else can forget, who knows the story. It makes the tablet seem haunted."
"Would you be afraid to see the ghosts of those lovers?" Vanno asked.
"No," Mary answered. "For if he too is dead—and 1881 is quite a long time ago!—they must be happy together now. Happy ghosts would try to give happiness to others."
Instantly the sentiment was uttered Mary regretted it. She feared that the man might think she associated herself with him in some vague hope of happiness. "I trust at least," she hurried on, "that the story of the lovers is true."
"It was the curé of Roquebrune who told it to me. He thinks it more probable than two or three other tales," Vanno said, speaking slowly, to impress the name of his informant upon the girl. "The curé is a most interesting man. Perhaps you've met him?" He asked this question doubtfully, lest Mary should guess that it was to him she owed the curé's visits; but she was unsuspicious.
"No. He called on me when I was out. I don't know why he came," she said. She looked a littleguilty, because she would have gone up to the church of Roquebrune after the second call if she had not been afraid that the curé had been sent to see her by some one at home who had found out that she was on the Riviera. Vanno, misunderstanding her change of expression, said no more, though he had begun his story with the intention of leading up to this. They parted with polite thanks from Mary for his information, thanks which seemed banal, a strange anti-climax coming after the story of the lovers. Yet they went away from one another with an aftermath of their first unreasoning happiness still lingering in their hearts. That night at dinner they bowed to each other slightly; and during the week that followed before Christmas eve, sometimes Vanno almost believed in the girl; sometimes he lost hope of her, and was plunged from his unreasoning happiness to the dark depths of a still more unreasoning despair. But he knew that she thought of him. He saw it in her eyes, or in the turn of her head if she ostentatiously looked away from him. And he did not know whether he were glad or sorry, for he saw no good that could come of what he began to call his infatuation.
The morning of Christmas eve arrived, and with it a telegram to say that Angelo and his bride Marie were delayed again until the eve of New Year's Day, the great fête of France. Vanno was disappointed, for he had expected them that night, and would have liked to be with them on Christmas. He resolved to invite the curé to dine with him onChristmas night; and meanwhile, strolling on the Casino terrace in the hope of seeing Mary, he ran across Jean Rongier, the airman, the young French baron who had achieved a sensational success at Nice for the new Della Robbia parachute. On the strength of this feat the two had become good friends, and Vanno had been up several times in Rongier's Bleriot monoplane.
"A favour,mon ami," Rongier began as they met. "I was on the point of calling at your hotel, to ask it of you. Go with me to-night to a dance on board the big yachtWhite Lady, that you can see down there in the harbour."
"Many thanks, but no!" laughed Vanno. "I haven't danced since I was twenty; and even if I had I don't knowWhite Lady'sowner."
"That is nothing," said Rongier. "Nobody knows him, but every one is going—that is, all the men we know are going; and you will go, to please me."
"I'd do a good deal to please you, but not that," Vanno persisted.
"If I tell you a lady whom I am anxious—particularly anxious—to please, will be angry with me if you refuse? She makes it a point that I bring you."
"That's a different matter," said Vanno good-naturedly. "I suppose she doesn't make it a point for me to stay through the whole evening?"
"You can settle that with her," Rongier reassured him. "I thought you wouldn't fail me.She's heard about your blue comet and your yellow desert, and your new parachute, and has probably mixed them all up; but the result is that she wants to meet you."
"Very kind. I wish I could do the comet and the desert the same credit you do the parachute. But who is 'She'?"
"Miss Holbein, the daughter of the yacht's owner. English people here, I understand, won't know her father because he was once an I. D. B. and is now a money-lender; but thank heaven we who have Latin blood in our veins are neither snobs nor hypocrites. By the way, Holbein called some fellow at the Casino a 'snob' the other night, and the man returned, 'If I were a snob, I wouldn't know you.' Holbein thought it so smart he goes about repeating the story against himself, which proves he balances his millions with a sense of humour. Miss Holbein is handsome. Jewesses can be the most beautiful women in the world, don't you think? and though she is snubbed by thegrandes dameshere and perhaps elsewhere, I notice that snubs generally come home to roost. She will have all the millions one day, and she is clever enough to pay people back in their own coin—not coin that she would miss in spending. And she is clever enough to be Madame la Baronne Rongier, wife to the idol of the French people, if she thinks it worth while! Just for the moment, though, I am on my probation. I dare refuse her nothing she wants, and she wants Prince Giovanni Della Robbia at her mother's dance."
"That unworthy person is at her service," Vanno said, bored at the prospect, but willing to please his friend.
Mrs. Ernstein and Dodo Wardropp were eagerly looking forward to the Christmas eve dance on boardWhite Lady. Mrs. Collis and Lottie had been looking forward to it too; and after they went from the villa they wrote almost humbly to ask Mrs. Holbein if they might still come, though they were no longer with her friend Lady Dauntrey. To their joy and surprise she had written back cordially to say she hoped most certainly they would come, and bring friends. She had seemed far from cordial to them or anybody else when lunching at the Villa Bella Vista on the unfortunate occasion of the dish-towel; indeed, she had been lymphatic, and had scarcely troubled to speak to any one; but now the Collises thought they had misjudged her.
This was the first entertainment for which Lady Dauntrey had contrived to secure invitations for her guests; and Dodo, Mrs. Ernstein, and the Collises had been delightedly telling every one they knew (not a large number) that they were going to theWhite Ladydance. It was a pleasure at last to be able to tell of something happening to them which might excite envy. So far, they had felt that as the Dauntreys' guests they were being pitied or laughed at by those they would have liked to impress.
There was no doubt that the Holbeins, being enormously rich, would do everything very well;and Lady Dauntrey remarked more than once that Mrs. Holbein had told her people were "simply crawling" for invitations.
Not till the last moment did Eve inform any one that she was taking Miss Grant, for she had not yet mentioned speaking to her the other day at the Casino. It was arranged that, the villa being much nearer than the Hôtel de Paris to the yacht, Mary should call for her chaperon; therefore, as Eve had said nothing, it was a great surprise when the house party had assembled in the drawing-room, putting on their wraps and buttoning their gloves, to hear the "sulky codfish" announce Miss Grant.
Mary walked into the dull drab room in a dress which appeared to be made entirely of fine gold tissue, her hair banded with a wreath of diamond laurel leaves, which made her look extraordinarily Greek and classic.
No one else, not even the rich Mrs. Ernstein, had a dress which compared to this, and Mary's entrance was received in shocked silence by the ladies, with the exception of Eve, who greeted her "mascotte" warmly, with compliments.
Lady Dauntrey's efforts to make the drawing-room more habitable before Mary saw it would have seemed almost pathetic to any one who understood; and they had seemed pathetic to Lord Dauntrey. He was more or less in her confidence, and still under her spell. It was for him, she had said, that she wanted to secure a new paying-guest who had plenty of money to put into the "system," and who lovedgambling better than anything else. He had helped Eve and the codfish decorate both drawing-room and dining-room for Christmas, in order that Mary might take a fancy to the place, and consent to come as a boarder. There were a good many pine branches pinned on to curtains and stuck into huge, ugly Japanese vases, a few wreaths hiding damp or dirty patches on the wall. Crookedly hung pictures had been straightened; some Christmas magazines were lying about, and bowls of chrysanthemums relieved the room of its wonted gloom. It really had almost a festive air; and after her rather lonely life at the hotel, the place and the people seemed pleasant to Mary. She was so enchanted with a little shivering marmoset, which Miss Wardropp had bought of a wandering monkey-merchant in the Galerie Charles Trois, that Dodo forgave her the wonderful dress and filet, if she did not quite forgive Lady Dauntrey the surprise. Then Mrs. Ernstein produced two trained sparrows, which she called her "mosquito hawks" and took with her everywhere. Mary told them both about an adorable blue frog named Hilda which she had bought at a Mentone china-shop; and in comparing pets the atmosphere cleared. They all started off in cabs for the harbour andWhite Lady'sslip, where a motor-launch from the yacht would meet them; and Mary made friends with Dom Ferdinand, who was the only man in the carriage with her and Lady Dauntrey.
Arriving at the slip they found Major Norwood and the Maharajah of Indorwana also waiting for thelaunch, with Captain Hannaford; and Mary introduced all three to the party from the Villa Bella Vista, whom they did not yet know. Then came Dick Carleton, alone, for Schuyler had firmly refused to sacrifice himself on the altar of friendship, and half a dozen smart, merry little officers of the Chasseurs Alpins, stationed at Mentone, and up at the lonely fort on Mont Agel. By this time it was late, for Lady Dauntrey wished to make a dramatic entry after most of the guests had already come on board, and the wish was more than granted. She, with her gorgeous widow and the two girls, attended by fifteen men, burst upon the crowd, who, for the best of reasons, had not yet begun to dance. Besides Mrs. Holbein and her daughter, there was not another woman present until the party from the Villa Bella Vista appeared.
Seldom could there have been a more curious scene, upon a magnificently appointed yacht, decorated for a dance. Already, when Lady Dauntrey and her impromptu train arrived, forty or fifty men were assembled on a deck screened in by flags and masses of palms and flowers. A Hungarian band imported from Paris was playing, not dance music, for that would have been a mockery in the circumstances, but gay marches and lively airs to cheer drooping spirits. Of all the women invited (some of whom Mrs. Holbein scarcely knew) only Lady Dauntrey and her house-party had accepted, for word had gone forth from the Elect that, in good American slang, the notorious Jew money-lenderand his common wife were "the limit." As for the girl, she did not count, except in cash. Now, when it was too late, Mrs. Holbein desperately regretted that she had slighted some of her old friends, who had once been good enough for her to know, and who would have flocked to her dance gladly. There were plenty of them scattered about between San Remo and Nice, who were at this moment feeling aggrieved by the Holbeins' neglect. If only they had been bidden, these contemptuously amused men would have had partners, even though the list of names in the society papers might have excited some derision. Mrs. Holbein had aimed high and overshot the mark. The result was tragic. And though her vulgar nature, writhing in humiliation, judged others by itself and believed all to be laughing maliciously, there were some who could not laugh.
Vanno Della Robbia detested vulgar people, and had disliked the idea of coming to the dance; but now that he was here, on their beautiful yacht, he pitied the wretched Holbeins so intensely that he felt physically ill. The man, with fiercely shining eyes and hawk nose, hunching up his round shoulders as he clenched and unclenched his pudgy hands, deeply hidden in his pockets, was horribly pathetic to Vanno, who tried not to see the little bright beads that oozed out of the tight-skinned forehead. Even more pathetic was the woman, blazing in 20,000 diamond-power, haggard under her rouged smile, her large uncovered back and breast heaving, herfat, ungloved hands mere bunches of fingers and rings. The girl did not so much matter. She was young and handsome, her moustache as yet but the shadow of a coming event; and the affair was not so tragic to her since she had the attention of Rongier and plenty of other men. But Vanno had seen such faces and figures as those of Sam Holbein and his wife in dusky shops at Constantine. They had been happier and more at home there.
Disgustedly he knew that it comforted the woman to be talking with Prince Giovanni Della Robbia, yet he gave the comfort and spread it thickly for her by showing deference, listening patiently to desperate boastings of her splendid possessions: her house in Park Lane, the castle "Sam" had bought in Fifeshire. "I am a county ladythere, I can tell you, Prince!" she said, with a giggle that just escaped being a sob. "I hope you will come to my ball at Dornock Castle next August, in the Games Week, your Highness; all the men in kilts and mostly with titles; our own family pipers, never less than six, playing for the reels. My daughter has taken lessons, and I tell you she can give points to some of those Calvanistic cats with Macs to their names, and a lot of rot about clans, who think just because they're Scotch they'reeverybody. Why, some of the old nobility up there have got such poor, degenerated taste in decoration, they have nasty plaid carpets and curtains all over their houses.Wehad a firm from Paris send their best men to do our castle over new from cellar to attic, Empire andLouis. It's an example to some of those stuck-up Scotch earls and their prim countesses. IfIhad a title I'd live up to it!"
"You seem to do very well without," Vanno said.
"Well, we like to show them what's what. And I shouldn't wonder if my daughter would attract one into the family some day. But talking of titles, here comes the Viscount and Viscountess Dauntrey and that gentleman friend of theirs who may be a king any minute. There's a foreign Marquis and an Englishman with them, and some pretty girls, so maybe things will begin to wake up a bit."
Vanno turned in the direction of her glittering eyes, and saw Mary Grant approaching with a large party; three over-dressed, over-painted, over-jewelled women; the Maharajah of Indorwana, scintillating with decorations; six French officers in uniform, and eight other men. The little brown Indian royalty was walking with Mary, clinging closely to her side, seeing no one but her, and trying ostentatiously to "cut out" Dom Ferdinand, who kept almost equally near on the other side. Mary, as she waited for Lady Dauntrey to be boisterously greeted by host and hostess, smiled gently and softly from one man to the other, as if she wished to be kind to both, and was pleased with their attentions.
So, indeed, she was pleased. It was nice to be admired. Men were amusing novelties in her life. She thought them most entertaining creatures, and quaintly different in all their ways from women.She was charmed with her own dress and the lovely filet of diamond laurel leaves which she had bought at the shop of the nice jeweller who was so kind. She had smiled and nodded to her image in the mirror before leaving the hotel, as Cinderella might have smiled; for this was her first ball. Never had she been to a dance except those got up among a few young people after dinner at Lady MacMillan's, years ago when she was only a schoolgirl, and the convent dances where the pupils had learnt to waltz together, and one of the dear sisters had played the old piano in the schoolroom.
Mary was wearing a good deal of jewellery, because she loved it, and had never had any before. Much of her winnings she had given away. Any one who asked, and made up a pitiful tale, could have something from her. The latest story going about in connection with her reckless and unreasoned generosity was of what she had done for a band of strolling Italian musicians. She had encouraged them to bleat and bawl their wornout songs in wornout voices, under the windows of the Hôtel de Paris, until it had been politely intimated to her that the shriekings and tinklings were a nuisance. Mary, who loved and understood good music, had enjoyed these disastrous efforts no more than others had, but her heart had been full of pity for the battered little band. She could not bear to have their feelings hurt; and when at last she had to tell them that they must sing no more under her window, she gave the leader and his wife amillenoteeach to buy new instruments and costumes for the entire company. The man and woman had been seen bursting into tears, and pressing garlic kisses on Mary's hands, apparently against her inclination. Thus the story had got about, with many others of her eccentric and exaggerated charities. But beyond what she did for all who were in need, or made her think they were, she had more money than she knew what to do with for herself; and much of it she had spent with the jeweller in the Galerie Charles Trois, who was openly her slave.
If he offered her beautiful things at prices which gave him no margin of profit, she in her ignorance of values did not know that the jewels were surprisingly cheap. She bought of this man because he was kind, because he begged her to come to his place, because he seemed to enjoy showing her lovely ornaments, and knew always, as if by instinct, exactly what was most suitable and becoming. But gossip said that the jeweller made presents to the eccentric and beautiful girl whose career at Monte Carlo was an interesting mystery to every one. Vanno had heard these stories from Rongier, before he could find presence of mind to cut them short by turning to another subject: and seeing her to-night, dazzling with diamonds, surrounded by men whose admiration she evidently liked, the good thoughts of her which he had eagerly cherished were burnt up in a new flame of suspicion, a rage of jealous anger. He was furious with the girl for coming to this dance which ladies of position had ignored, furious because she had come with such people, women who painted their faces, and a crowd of men of different nations.
The two sides of his nature warred like opposing forces. The wild passion of Othello was in him. He could have snatched up the slender white-and-gold figure, wrapped the shining jewelled head in the trailing scarf of point lace, and rushed away with the girl in his arms—anywhere, far from these people who had no right to be near her. He could not bear to see the Maharajah's eyes on her face and on her long white throat. A hateful thought sprang into his mind concerning the rope of Indian pearls, with ruby and emerald tassels, tied loosely round her neck. He wondered if the Maharajah of Indorwana had given it to her, if she would have accepted such a gift from the brown man; and the thought seemed to take colour in his brain, as if it were a bright scarlet spot which grew larger and redder, spreading behind his eyes till he could see nothing else.
Vanno had told himself many times that he must not draw too near this girl; that for the sake of love's nobility, for the sake of his respect for womanhood sacred in her and in all women, he must not draw near unless her soul were a star behind the eyes that were like stars. And he had not been able to believe in the stars for more than a few happy, exalted moments, which passed and came again, only to be blotted out once more.
But now, suddenly, it no longer mattered whetherhe believed or not. He had to try and tear her away from the life she was leading. He did not know which impulse was master—the impulse to save a soul, or the impulse to possess selfishly a thing coveted; at least, to snatch it from others, if he did not take it for himself.
As he stood pale and quiet in the background, Mary was accepting invitations to dance; for now Mrs. Collis and Lottie had arrived, bringing three American girls and a youthful American mother from the Hôtel Metropole, where they had gone to stay. Counting the hostess and her daughter, the number of women had been swelled to a dozen by these last arrivals, and dancing was to begin. The younger men, entering into the spirit of the occasion, struggled with each other to engage partners, and the smiling ladies were promising to split each dance between four partners.
Mary, being the prettiest girl as well as something of a celebrity, was almost alarmingly in request. She was besieged by men who begged her bodyguard to introduce them quickly, and laughing like a child she was busily giving away dances when Vanno came forward. For a moment he stood silently behind the other men, taller than any, dark and grave, and as always mysteriously reproachful, as if for some sin of Mary's which she had committed unconsciously.
She looked up, struck almost with fear by the contrast between his gravity and the frivolous gayety of the others. But he made all the rest look puerile, and even common.
"Will you dance with me?" he asked.