"But what is that?" she asked, pointing to a sort of jetty topped with sickly green, like a worn and dirty billiard table, and dotted with rough deal boxes, that projected its squalor into the pure blue waves below.
The crack of a shot from under their feet startled her, and the simultaneous opening of a box, out of which fluttered a wounded pigeon, pursued to the edge of the billiard-table and killed there by a dog, answered her question, telling her that this sordid hideousness drawing every eye, in the very centre of the fairy-like beauty, was the world-famedTir aux Pigeons.
There was no escaping from the sight except by turning from the lovely circle of bays and mountain spurs, to look upon the flaring vulgarity of the Casino, with its sprawling nudities affronting the pure sky, and flocks of tail-clipped birds flitting about the cornices and pediments, scurrying out at every shot that slaughtered one of their kindred in full sight below. Crack! Crack! Crack! the shots jarred on the nerves. Ermengarde hurried her halting escort away through the strange Arabian Nights' magnificence of the gardens that spread everywhere, flowing round hotels and shops and houses, and glowing in weird luxuriance beneath the grim grey mountain bluff and its dark wooded gorge.
Here was every variety of palm, with agaves and pepper-trees, caroubs and myrtles, geraniums in trees many feet high, or trailing over rocks, ruddy-leaved and grey-stemmed; here great cacti writhed and swelled in reptilian forms, and certain huge bushes of prickly pears, their broad fleshy leaves like goblin hands outspread, their grey, distorted stems like the fossil bones of huge extinct animals, and their dull-red, prickly fruit like oozing blood, suggested nothing so much as those trees in the Inferno, that bled at touch and were lost, living souls.
This strange exotic luxuriance has something infernal in its beauty; the darkly massed foliage, in hard contrast with the white glare of flaunting hotels and restaurants and the marble and gilding and flamboyant style of the Casino, gives the whole a violence, a crude insistence of wealth and luxury, in harmony with the spirit of the place, and much at variance with its superb natural setting and associations.
"And what people! Oh, what people!" Ermengarde murmured to the thin man, who was glad to sit down and pretend to listen to the band and watch the crowd strolling and sitting outside the Café de Paris. "What tawdriness, what dowdiness, what Parisian elegance run wild! Look at that woman; she has six purses at her belt. You can see the gold through the net. She's going into the Casino—let us go too!"
"So young, so fair, and so very business-like! Yes, beneath that Parisian hat, in that expensive Parisian raiment, is the cool and calculating brain and steady nerve of a financier. She has a system and works it, Mrs. Allonby."
How tawdry and tarnished was the vaunted splendour of the Casino, and how wearisome the formalities exacted before admittance to the gaming-hall!
"Such meddlesome impertinence. The man actually asked my age," Ermengarde complained.
"Ah! they don't ask mine," sighed the artist, whose head already showed the silver touch of time; "they are quite sure that I am ofâge majeur."
Most places have their characteristic odour. That of Mentone is garlic, with a suspicion of sewage; that of theSalle de Jeuis a fine blend of garlic, old clothes, musk, and money—especially paper money. The garlic is mostly contributed by hollow-eyed croupiers, who are in some measure responsible for the old clothes, an odour otherwise due to grave elderly persons, chiefly female, in garments of indescribable frumpishness and respectability, who form the staple of the afternoon congregation, and seem to contemplate life and its agreeable weaknesses from a standpoint of ferocious piety.
Surely they must have dropped into a prayer-meeting by mistake. Ermengarde looked round for the minister, after some seconds' contemplation of long green tables covered with coin and diagrams, and surrounded by treble and quadruple rows of staid and solemn faces, "all silent and all damned." This congregation was apparently listening with hushed reverence to spasmodic, low-muttered words of wisdom from a priestly person flavoured with garlic, who appeared to be consulting some oracle, or celebrating some religious rite, by turning a brass wheel in a basin sunk in the table, and surrounded by votive offerings in the shape of rolls and rolls of five-franc pieces and golden louis in glittering, provocative piles.
Besides these muttered spells in which, after long listening, she could only make out occasionally "ne va plus"—"rouge"—"treize"—"vingt-sept," the only sound was the perpetual clink of coins, which after every utterance began to dance from hand to hand and fly hither and thither, as if trying to evade the incessant pursuit of small wooden rakes and clutching hands sparkling with diamonds, grimed with long-established dirt, white and brown, yellow and black, red, skinny, and fat. Sometimes two hands clutched the same pile of coin, when there were hurried mutterings and looks of suppressed fury; anon a wooden rake smote an encroaching paw urgently from its golden prey, and there was silence.
On what principle the piles of gold and sheaves of fluttering notes before each worshipper by the little books of ritual they consulted so devoutly, were increased and diminished, was a mystery to the spectator, who saw nothing but a mystic and subtly woven dance of coins and notes crossing and recrossing over the morrice of the green table with rhythmic intermittance, dependent upon the dark utterance of him who turned the wheel. But little by little she gathered that coin placed in one way increased or diminished two-fold, in another five-fold, in another thirty-fold, and found herself handing louis and notes from those behind to the croupier for change, and gloating over the golden multitudes that came rolling to the calm worshippers. The thin man, easily tired and overcome by evil air, had been compassionately despatched to a café to wait for her; he had modestly owned to a weakness for staking a couple of louis now and again for pastime; this lowered him perceptibly in his companion's esteem.
But when he was gone and the glittering heaps had wrought their mesmerism, he was more leniently judged; and certain five-franc pieces in Mrs. Allonby's bag seemed to ask aloud to play a part in the morrice dance on the green; they even worked their way out, after a little, and insisted on planting themselves in certain squares, returning—she never knew how or why—with a partner apiece, and bringing a pleasant glow to their owner's cheek.
"You have never played before?" asked a genial English voice at her elbow. "Would you mind putting this across that corner for me for luck?"
She willingly placed the louis on the corner of the four spaces indicated, scarcely glancing at the player, who was sitting in the front row, with notebook and pencil, piles of coin and notes, all in most business-like array before him; but when he turned and looked up to bow his thanks, with a sudden sweet smile on his grave and anxious face, she recognized the Cyrano de Bergerac of the Carnival. She had been so intent on the morrice, and he so near below her, only the close-cropped head, bent over the pencilled calculations, visible, that she had not recognized him until he turned.
Even as he smiled, the anxious gravity returned to his white, drawn face, to study which she silently changed her position near a croupier. He turned quickly back, and once more riveted his eyes to the table, with a wolfish eagerness that destroyed the young debonnair beauty of his face, and drew lines of age and fatigue upon it. Then the wheel stopped, the brass ball clicked into a niche in the basin, and the player's face changed and his eyes glittered, as the louis came home with a whole troop rolling after them. On this he looked up with another smile and bow, that somehow made her sorry for him and wonder if he had a mother.
Just then a sickening smell of musk, and a pretty substantial push from a gorgeously clad shoulder, made her turn to find herself edged vigorously aside by the painted woman who had ridden down the ridge with him that first afternoon at Les Oliviers. Shrinking from the unholy contact, Ermengarde quickly gave place to her, and, passing behind the croupier to a gap between the heads of two short people, saw the countess bend down and accost the young man, who looked up, worried and impatient, but after some interchange of question and answer, reluctantly yielded his golden spoil to her greedy clutch, and turned again with knitted brows to his calculations and annotations, receiving in reward an unacknowledged pat on the shoulder from the diamond-covered hand, that looked like a glittering claw.
The five-franc pieces in the bag again became restive; everybody, including the woman of the bistred eyes, seemed to be winning. A vision of a gown—a plain white serge coat and skirt, simply but exquisitely cut, and only costing eighteen guineas—floated before Mrs. Allonby's mental gaze. Since seeing it in a shop in Mentone, she had sighed to think of the infrequency of guineas in a world like this, and of the desirability of white tailor-made raiment of exquisite cut for a woman like her. White was the most becoming wear, almost the only wear for this climate; and white serge, when one came to think of it, was the sole material absolutely fit for blazing sunshine and sharp air. The white serge that arrayed her at the moment would not be white much longer; it had already begun to leave off being white. Absurd to come to a place like this without proper clothes. Eighteen guineas was not very dear for such a cut as that; sheer folly to think of getting anything in a foreign winter resort at London or Paris prices. Considering the cost of carriage and customs and the profit of the Mentone shopkeeper, the thing was dirt cheap. Moreover, it was absolutely necessary. And here; threading the green mazes of the morrice-dance, were gold and silver coins in moving multitudes, only waiting to be raked in by the enterprising. Two of her five-franc pieces soon sat on the corner intersecting the four spaces so lucky to Cyrano, and with like result. Her heart began to play quick marches, and her eyes to lighten; she was undoubtedly a lucky person; she staked here and staked there, and the coins came rolling in till she felt a little dizzy, and scarcely knew that on one occasion a marauding claw clutched some of her lawful spoil.
Now she staked more and more wildly, confident in her luck, and always won. Her cheeks burnt, her pulses leapt; people looked at her with envy, hatred and malice. A gold louis rolling towards her hopped off the table, unobserved by her; a liveried attendant came behind unseen, with a lighted lantern at the end of a stick, and pushed it amongst people's feet and under the table, while a man with a vacuous face, staring aimlessly about the hall, set his foot quite casually on the coin, not seeming to observe the attendant looking for it with the lantern, and then, without appearing to make any movement, lounged carelessly on with the same vacuous look, but leaving no corn where his foot had been.
Two hundred francs in notes had jumped into Ermengarde's bag, which was stuffed to bursting with gold and silver besides. The coat and skirt was hers many times over. It would be mean to stop now; besides, it was impossible to turn from the magic of that flowing tide of gold and silver; the feeling of possession and power, and the enchantment of successfully daring that wild blind demon of chance, was too strong. People had made fortunes in a night; why not she? She placed a little pile of goldà travers; the wheel stopped, and the croupier pushed her pile to the bank. She bit her lip, frowned, staked again, and lost again. Cowardly to draw back now; who was going to give in? Another golden stake, and her pile came back doubled. Of course; fortune always favours the brave.
But at the end of another half-hour the croupier had been changed; many players had come and gone from the outer ranks of that table, the inner circle remaining unbroken, except that Cyrano had vanished unnoticed by Ermengarde, who saw nothing but the whirling wheel, the dancing ball, and the flying mazes of the great five-franc pieces and louis d'or over the green table. Nothing now remained in her bag but a few odd coins raked from every recess, and together making five francs, for which an obliging neighbour gave her a broad silver piece.
Her luck at that table was clearly gone; she left it, selected another, and, after a short calculation and some watching of the play, set her teeth, and placed her five-franc piece with a shaking hand on a carefully chosen square. The little demon of a ball clicked into place; the ruthless rake pushed her stake to the bank.
The game was up; Mrs. Allonby found herself three minutes later standing on the Casino steps in the pure air, feverish and faint from the reaction and the fetid atmosphere of the gambling-room, vainly trying to remember where Mr. Welbourne had promised to wait for her, and minus not only the usual contents of her purse, but also minus the note that was to have paid a week's bill at Madame Bontemps's little office before starting that afternoon, and a couple of hundred franc notes, tucked into a pocket of the bag besides. In view of attractive apparel and bric-à-brac sure to be found in the sumptuous shops, those hundred franc notes were, indeed, sadly insufficient; but without them what was to be done?
Clearly the only thing now was to get a cup of tea at the café immediately opposite, where people were sitting in the sunshine and a band was playing delightfully. Surely Mr. Welbourne had said Café de Paris, or was it Giro's? No; he could never have walked so far as to Giro's. It was important to find him, else there could be no tea. She was too tired to look for him, too tired to do anything but sit down very wearily; however, she set out to find him, knowing he could not be far away.
But the spare, slim figure with the slight halt and the grizzled hair was nowhere to be found, either in the moving crowd or among the groups at the little tables; she had not even the price of a twopenny chair, much less of a cup of tea, and where was all that fine moral indignation of the early afternoon?
The band played triumphantly to a climax, and ended on a grand crash of all instruments; the sun, hidden under a floating cloud, shone gloriously out again, and there, in the blaze among the promenaders, showed conspicuously the graceful figure of M. Isidore, gay as ever, faultlessly dressed, wearing his hat with the little rakish tilt of gilded French youth, and talking with easy and familiar vivacity to a youngish woman, arrayed in the last and most refined Parisian style, and with that unmistakable air of being in the higher social world that is the exclusive property of no nation. The handsome couple stopped, exchanged a few final words, and parted, M. Isidore turning with lifted hat to shoot a last Parthian arrow of wit that sent the lady off, after a gesture of reproval, with heaving shoulders and eyes brimming with laughter. It was then that M. Isidore perceived Mrs. Allonby, and came smiling with raised hat towards her, with "Ah, Madame, you too? Have you also tried your luck at the tables?" and would have gone by, but that she cried joyously, "What a happy chance to meet you, M. Isidore! I have lost my last centime and mislaid Mr. Welbourne, and am positively dying for a cup of tea."
The affair of the crocodile had by no means diminished the esteem in which Mrs. Allonby held M. Isidore; nor, to judge from an incident she witnessed from her window on the morning after the Carnival, had it lessened the regard of the Bontemps family—to whom he was vaguely supposed to be related, having been heard to address Madame as "Ma tante"—for that gallant and gay little champion of distressed damsels.
As she often did, Ermengarde had slipped that morning into a dressing-gown, wound the thick plaits of her hair round her throat, and gone to her open window to watch the sun rise and drink the fresh morning air.
It was an hour of magical beauty; the deep quiet of dawn lay on mountain, sea, and sleeping town; no one was yet stirring in house or grounds. The sea was a dark peacock green as deep in tone as the blue of the bird's neck, paling to the shore, but on the horizon a firm dark line against a band of glowing orange sky, above which floated crimson cloudlets over pale green. Great masses of shadow were slowly leaving the gorges; the olives gradually brightened and took clear form on the western slopes. Not a sound or a breath stirred the deep peace of the windless dawn; flower-scents rose from gardens and lemon-trees set with blossom and fruit; the sea scarcely heaved in its sleep. Ermengarde leant on the balcony, lost in the beauty and calm, and wondered at the depth of magnificent velvety green beneath the orange sky. Some labourers came into the gardens and turned the hose over the thirsty flower-beds with a pleasant showering sound.
Suddenly a figure on the railed platform on the brink of the steep stood out against the dark blue shadow of the gorge; then another and another, and voices—quick, emphatic, French-Italian voices—rang out in the stillness; the gardeners looked up at the group, and made unintelligible comments. The tall form of Madame Bontemps, her iron-grey hair glossy in morning light, appeared, followed by the slight compact figure of M. Isidore full of eager gesture. M. Bontemps lounged after them; the three voices grew in urgency and rapid interchange to one common shout; the gestures increased to frenzy. M. Bontemps seemed about to hurl M. Isidore, who had suddenly become rigid and stood with folded arms glaring at him, over the barrier; Madame intervened, with an action that threatened annihilation to both but injured neither.
Then M. Bontemps rushed into the house, and quickly emerged again, leading by the hand Mlle. Geneviève, reluctant, downcast, who instantly turned her back on all three, and looked down the gorge in gloomy silence, while the others declaimed, singly and in unison, with gestures of entreaty, to the massive and glossy coils of her back hair. At last she turned sharply and faced them with a fierce energy, that almost precipitated them backwards down the ridge and drove them to the balustrade, where the risen sun touched their faces with ruddy gold. Mlle. Geneviève then wept bitterly; her father placed his hand despairingly on his heart and groaned; her mother stormed; M. Isidore covered his face with his hands, with a movement of such despair as suggested the advisability of putting an end to his sufferings by springing down the steep.
Instead of this, with an alarming suddenness that drove Mlle. Bontemps back to the other side, he threw out his arms and sprang forwards, directing what sounded like a torrent of abuse upon Mlle. Geneviève, who shrank and quailed beneath it, and then lifted her hands appealingly to Heaven with renewed weeping. A general engagement—to witness which the gardeners left the hose to its own discretion, with the unexpected result of very nearly drenching the whole of the combatants—then took place with such energy and apparent fury that Ermengarde, terror-stricken and in default of police, was about to cry "Au secours!" when M. Isidore suddenly hurled himself weeping upon the ample bosom of Madame Bontemps, who tenderly embraced and kissed him; after which Monsieur fall upon his neck in such wise that the two men represented an inverted V, when they kissed on both cheeks and parted.
Then Mlle. Geneviève, with downcast eyes and reluctant step, led by her mother and encouraged by her father, allowed M. Isidore to take both her hands and respectfully salute her on both cheeks, and sudden calm fell upon the quartette, now in full sunshine.
After this, as if nothing had happened, they strolled, casually chatting, about the little platform, M. Bontemps yawning and resuming his interrupted cigarette, and Madame leaning over the railing; that looked across the chasm towards the garden, and composedly issuing commands to the gardeners before returning to the house. Thither she was accompanied by her daughter, now restored to cheerfulness and executing a gracefulpas seulto that mad Carnival tune of the day before, as she went, while Ermengarde, unconscious of her deficient toilet, remained petrified at her balcony, staring blankly at the sunny sea and the hill-crest topped by the convent, every olive, pine and cypress on which was now clear and distinct in a flood of brilliant sunshine.
But Mrs. Allonby was not the only witness of this family drama. The voices of the actors, penetrating through the open window of Miss Boundrish, had roused the amiable girl from her slumbers, and caused her, with much irritation and reluctance, conquered by curiosity, to spring from her downy nest, classically dressed in the first thing that came handy, and view the platform scene from her window with appropriate mental comment.
A vivid imagination, capable of forging missing links in a chain of evidence at a moment's notice, and then presenting them as veritable parts of the original, enabled her to produce a version entirely her own of what actually occurred. And not content with constructing a consistent romance out of the pantomime enacted in the morning, she insisted upon imparting the whole of it in the afternoon to a few friends in the garden, in a voice that must have been heard all over the grounds, if not by the whole house.
It was actually heard by Mrs. Allonby, who, under the mistaken impression that she was writing letters, was basking in the sun among the flowers, idly looking over the lemon-tops and across gorge and ridge to the sea, and peacefully thinking of nothing at all. But, roused from this pleasant occupation by the dulcet accents of her favourite Dorris, she turned and engaged in a sharp verbal encounter with the romancer, and contrived to give her such a severe snubbing (though to snub Dorris was no child's work) as reduced her victorious self to a state of pleasant exhaustion, that made sunshine and fair scenes anddolce far nientemore enjoyable than ever.
"Surely," murmured the thin man, who had been a silent and apparently unconscious auditor of the fray, in mortal terror lest either antagonist should appeal to him, and who would have fled but for the fear of attracting attention, "our young friend would be quite as happy, and infinitely more charming, had she been born without a tongue?"
"Oh, she'd have gurgled and giggled more than ever to make up. Such people ought not to be let loose in civilized hotels."
"Poor girl," said the more merciful Agatha, who had just come up, "are we not a little hard on her? An interest in her fellow-creatures, perhaps more zealous than discreet, and a slight congenital deficiency in tact——"
"Deficiency? A born cat!"
"But a good heart, dear Mrs. Allonby?"
"What's the good of a good heart if you don't sheathe your claws?"
The thin man and Miss Somers, meeting each other's eyes, smiled; for, whatever she may have given, poor Dorris had undoubtedly received a pretty good but strictly polite clawing before retreating in great disarray from the fur-strewn field.
"Do you realize that all our characters are at the mercy of those good-hearted claws, Miss Somers?"
The gentle observation in reply, that characters needing defence were not of much account, filled Ermengarde with amazement. "What an actress!" she reflected, rapidly marshalling the compromising events of the Carnival in her memory, and looking at the lemons till they mesmerized her and her eyelids began to close, then suddenly opened to their widest extent.
For out of the dark lemon-leaves to the left there emerged a head—a not unusual occurrence, one of the garden entrances from a terraced path being just there—a handsome young head, followed by well-braced shoulders and the whole figure of the Cyrano de Bergerac of the Carnival. Having risen to the garden level, he stopped and looked about as if considering the way to the house, while Ermengarde, conscious through occult sympathy of nervous tension near, looked at Agatha, who had made a slight quick movement, her hands clasped tightly together, her face vivid, and then with a deep sigh had drawn the mask of inexpression, now so familiar, over her features. It was at this moment that Cyrano caught sight of her; and, taking a step forward, paused doubtfully, took another step, smiled with nervous hesitation, very different from his usual gay assurance, looked appealingly at the sphinx-like face that was averted from him, gazing straight before her, and raised his hat.
At this, she turned her head slightly, bowed frigidly, almost imperceptibly, and turned away again.
A flash of anger and mortification crimsoned Cyrano's face; turning quickly, he walked up to the house, where he was distantly heard entering into a prolonged misunderstanding with Heinrich, the cheerful porter, the purport of which appeared to be that some one asked for was not in the house, but that there was a restaurant attached to the hotel where Monsieur would find excellent refreshment. This appeared to fill Cyrano with the utmost fury and indignation. "Did nobody keep the beastly place? Was there no secretary or manager or anything?" he shouted, coming to the end of his French.
The porter's vague reference tofiançaillesand the desirability of leaving a message with the patron himself, who might possibly be induced to appear in the office if perseveringly rung for, suggested that Madame Bontemps and her daughter being both out, and M. Isidore absent, and M. Bontemps left in temporary and reluctant charge, anarchy reigned within.
But all this being entirely unintelligible to poor Cyrano, the well-known national swear-word came rolling vigorously out, and after some futile stamping on the gravel and further hopeless misunderstanding with the ever affable Swiss, the visitor went into the house with quick, angry steps, and was seen no more till soon after sunset. At that hour Mrs. Allonby, idling cosily between her wood-fire and the window, saw him walking and amicably talking with the hostile crocodile of the Carnival—who, with the Bontemps ladies, had come back half an hour before—from the private wing of the house to the gate, where they parted with ceremony, leaving Ermengarde in doubt as to whether it meant pistols and coffee or friendship and apology. The thin man subsequently averred that the young Englishman had been eating humble pie, and M. Isidore had graciously accepted his explanation, and duly presented it and the apologist to M. Bontemps, who had been equally gracious.
In the meantime Ermengarde put two facts together—that the woman of mystery had received and furtively read a letter from the Cyrano on one afternoon, and on the next had accorded him a recognition one remove from a dead cut.
And upon this occasion of meeting M. Isidore in the Casino Gardens walking with a woman of such distinguished appearance, with whom he appeared to be on equal and friendly, almost affectionate, terms, she remembered that the young Englishman's manner to him that afternoon at Les Oliviers had been quite that of an equal. Who and what, then, was this pleasant and mysterious youth, occupying a position so palpably anomalous? In any case, it was a great convenience to have such a delicate, Ariel-like being at hand as an attendant sprite, especially on this unfortunate occasion, of being so completely cleaned out at the tables as not even to have the price of a cup of tea.
"You are always our guardian angel at Les Oliviers," she told him, after imparting the history of the afternoon's ill-luck. "Evidently you possess a sixth sense, by virtue of which you invariably turn up whenever we come to grief. It was only yesterday that you saved Mr. Welbourne from a broken neck."
"Ah! ce pauvre monsieur! Mais il vaut bien la peine, n'est-ce pas, Madame?"
The sorrows of the roulette table vanished into the limbo of forgetfulness; Mrs. Allonby found herself magically installed in a cosy nook outside the café, with a full view of the craggy head of the gorge, the Roman tower of Turbia outlined above it on the sunset-flushed sky, and in the foreground the enchanted Armida gardens, promenaders streaming in and out of avenues of dark exotic trees, gorgeous parterres, the gleam of white masonry between palm and olive boughs, and the tide of smart carriages and snorting motors rolling along the main road under dark-leaved boughs. The band played the Overture to Tannhäuser, and the Pilgrim's Chorus, overpowered again and again by the scream of warring violins, surged out solemn and triumphant again and yet again.
Tea of the perfect quality a brief experience leads the traveller to expect in the better French restaurants, with dainty but appallingly rich cakes, was before her, though how procured it was impossible to conjecture, every table, chair, and waiter having been appropriated or promised two deep a moment before—unless, as appeared probable, M. Isidore exercised some mysterious influence over the harried waiters, who fled at his nod and contrived to produce, and perhaps manufacture on the instant, hitherto non-existent tea-tables and seats in suddenly improvised corners. Her bag had been replenished with small coin by the same enchanter, who gracefully accepted an invitation to share the tea, and spiced it with much useful local information and many bright and apposite remarks and condolences upon the unfortunate experiences in the Casino.
"Fancy having tea in public with a hotel-manager at home," she reflected complacently, forgetting that it is quite as possible to be found out abroad as at home, and agreeably conscious of a slight flavour of impropriety, or at least unconventionality, in the adventure. Her spirits rose; she drew a pathetic picture of her anguish at the loss of the white serge costume that brought tears of laughter from M. Isidore's eyes. After two cups of tea and several cream buns in the sweet air, perfumed by a great bush covered with clusters of tea-roses overhanging this cosy corner, the Casino mischance acquired a new aspect—it became a positive joy; it was part of the game. After all, it was seeing life. It behoved the mother of Charlie to know life—reallife. This was very real.
To leave off with a pile of winnings and buy the frock next day would have been too obvious and commonplace. But to win so splendidly and lose so fatally was to acquire a new thrill. The inconvenience of having lost more than a fortnight of the holiday by this financial mischance could be reserved for future consideration and—reparation.
And this was the woman who had been severe on the poor painted countess and her cavalier for daring to speak of their "sordid vices" in that first mountain sunset, and had even looked down upon the thin man's little innocent five franc flutters!
M. Isidore, on his part, was anything but depressed. Of course, he was delighted with the luck of turning up just in time to be of service to Madame. It was singular that he had chosen that particular afternoon to call on friends staying in this place. The lady Madame had been so kind as to compliment upon her chic appearance was, in effect, the cause of his visit; she was his sister.
Ermengarde's eyes widened.Hissister? An early prejudice regarding the veracity of foreigners, together with a memory of Olympian leniency towards falsity on certain topics, led her to condone this flagrant mis-statement of fact, and pass quickly to other subjects. M. Isidore was a man of singular charm; his eyes were liquid and soft, like a gazelle's. He could not even explain that the vulgar atrocity of flaring white masonry, that formed the centre of every picture of the mountains behind Monte Carlo, was neither a prison nor a half-finished barrack, but only the Riviera Palace Hotel, without some delicately allusive pleasantry, some unavowed tribute to the fascination of her presence.
It was just when Mrs. Allonby had arrived at these favourable conclusions respecting M. Isidore's eyes and conversation that the Anarchist happened to pass the crowd of tables outside the café, and Ermengarde, smiling softly and not untenderly upon the Frenchman, happened to look up and meet the blazing ferocity of that baleful person's eyes, with a start of apprehension and astonishment that caused his truculent gaze to blanch before hers.
"That dreadful man again—he never can look me straight in the face! That is the man I asked about the first day. Who is he?" she cried.
"Celui-la, l'homme à la barbe bleue? Ah! the Pole? Of him I know nothing. He was at Les Oliviers, that is all, Madame. My friend, I have done you no wrong that you should look pistol shots at me, though my position is doubtless one to crack the heart with envy. He would like my blood in a cup to drink, Madame, hein?"
"Perhaps he has the evil eye," she suggested, crimsoning with a sudden ghastly suspicion that the Anarchist, in his dark and dreadful fashion, might be in love with her; a suspicion chiefly based, it is to be feared, upon the malevolence with which this mysterious man glared upon M. Isidore, who appeared to enjoy it amazingly, and twirled his moustache and flashed his eyes at the Pole with a taunting insolence no Englishman can command. And dreadful as the notion of being the object of the Anarchist's passion was, it still held substantial compensation in the implied idea of being suspected of a flirtation with a young and handsome foreigner of dubious social status and admitted charm. It gave the proper Bohemian spice to the whole adventure. This, she recognized with a thrill, certainly was real life; the bon-bons M. Isidore offered her with an air of respectful gallantry tinged with despair had the zest of forbidden fruit.
Everybody must have some fun sometimes, once in a life-time at least. The thin man was a most estimable person, with sound moral principles and interesting views upon art and literature; his paintings were charming—in the impressionist manner—but his presence was not entirely necessary to the enjoyment of the moment; he would probably turn up quite soon enough.
The Anarchist passed on, turning once to inflict a final murderous glance upon the guileless Frenchman, who twirled his moustache with a more deadly insolence than ever in return. Mrs. Allonby went on enjoying real life, bon-bons and sunshine, quite peacefully, till the sound of a familiar gurgling chuckle made her turn her laughing eyes to the passing crowd, in the midst of which sailed the slender figure of Miss Boundrish, in a frock due to the genius of a renowned Paris maker, and accompanied by a tall and stiffly-carried youth, whose accent and bearing alike confessed him a Prussian officer—a fact of which he was, to do him justice, anything but ashamed.
An air of possession on the lady's part, and of reluctant submission on the man's, proclaimed the situation clearly and afforded Ermengarde much quiet enjoyment. This was succeeded by a thrill, rather too keen this time, at the expression, or rather succession of expressions, on Miss Boundrish's face when her roving glance took in gradually the whole inwardness of the group of two in the rose-covered corner. Life was becoming almost too real now; for Ermengarde knew perfectly well that before slumber fell upon the household at Les Oliviers that night, every creature in it would possess some version, with variations and embroideries, of the present meeting in the gardens.
Dorris gave Ermengarde one of the little patronizing nods she was fond of bestowing on her betters, ignoring M. Isidore, whose serenity was nevertheless undisturbed. Ermengarde's acknowledgment of the fair girl's salute was a trifle ceremonious, a circumstance that possibly impelled Dorris to penetrate to the rose-embowered corner, and promptly present her captive, who drew his heels together and saluted with unmitigated melancholy.
"Fancy findingyouhere!" she graciously gurgled. "Rather noisy for you? Of course, you didn't attempt the Casino? You wouldn't like it at all. The evening is the right time for theSalle du feu. Such dresses—such diamonds—there's nothing like it. I must get the mater to take you one evening. The lieutenant will escort us——"
"Doch," was the humble rejoinder with clicked heels.
"It will be quite a ploy for you—as Mr. Welbourne says. You ought to see a little life. I'm glad you are resting here instead of at that dull old mountain place; a nice change for you—odd place to rest in though," with an arch look, for which Ermengarde could have murdered her without remorse.
"You had a pleasant day at Nice, Miss Boundrish? and found your aunt better?" she asked sweetly.
"My aunt? Nice? Oh, quite better," she gurgled with temporary confusion. "But, I say, Mrs. Allonby, don't you give me away. The mater doesn't know everything. Wouldn't do at all, you know. Auntie'squitebetter, thank you. Ta ta."
M. Isidore, always standing, and raising his hat at the proper time, listened to this colloquy with a smile of pleased interest, and when the pair had gone he laughed a droll little laugh.
"Figure to yourself, Madame," he said, in the only tongue he ever cared to speak, "that it is possible for me to detest one of your charming sex. In that case I avenge myself by giving her to a German husband.Hein?"
"But the poor German?"
"Ah! One still remembers Alsace-Lorraine. Yes?"
"Surely there are limits even to a patriotic vengeance. But I must catch this train, and please do you try to catch me Mr. Welbourne."
"Perfectly."
Pleasant to wind slowly through the enchanted gardens to the sea in the last sunglow, pleasanter still to find on the way a quiet nook by a rippling stream, and sink upon a bench, half hidden in geranium-trees and quite hidden from the public, and look round at the gay and fragrant flower-bands, and—see the woman of mystery seated on another bench in earnest colloquy with Cyrano, the very same Cyrano whose acquaintance had been as good as repudiated by her at Les Oliviers a few days since.
Agatha's face was turned from Ermengarde; Cyrano's, full of emotion, was in the same direction, bent upon the lady's; one arm lay along the back of the bench behind her; his other almost encircled the figure turned from him; his hand was upon hers clasped on her lap; every line and gesture of the two figures indicated a situation of extreme poignancy; he was speaking in low tones of strong feeling, interrupted by sharp retorts of pain and indignation from her; there was clearly no place for a third person. But the superfluous third hardly knew how to remove herself without attracting attention; she had just risen for the purpose when Agatha, turning with quick anger to Cyrano, saw her. Ermengarde, wondering why everybody's invalid aunts should just then be staying clandestinely at Monte Carlo, bowed instinctively, and would have passed on, but that Agatha, with one of her sudden transitions to marble, came towards her with some calm and commonplace phrase, and obliged her to stop and reply.
"Yes. This is the last train in time for dinner," Agatha said, as if nothing mattered more than missing a meal; "and it's growing cold. May I introduce Mr. Paul, my—my—that is, a—a——"
"A connexion by marriage," Cyrano suggested, with what Ermengarde thought an odd expression.
"Quite so; a connexion by marriage," she echoed, as if greatly relieved by this definition. "Mrs. Allonby travelled from Calais with me, Ivor. She has been most kind. We are—luckily for me—in the same pension."
"Really? Awfully nice for you."
Ermengarde was stunned. Here was the woman of mystery introducing and explainingherto this disreputable young villain, whom she had scarcely acknowledged before, and appearing to welcome her intrusion on a too intimatetête-à-têtewith her "connexion by marriage," as an excuse for ending it.
"I hope you found your invalid aunt better, Miss Somers," she murmured, with civil interest, when she recovered breath after Cyrano had been summarily dismissed.
"Myaunt!" she echoed, puzzled.
"Or connexion—by marriage. You were to lunch with her in Mentone, you remember."
"Oh, of course! I had forgotten. She—she was engaged; she only sees one person at a time. So I came on here."
A flush came and quickly passed from the woman of mystery's statuesque features. Ermengarde marvelled at the readiness of her inventive powers, and reflected that a connexion by marriage sometimes means a good deal.
"Your connexion," she said, "has not had the best luck this afternoon, did he tell you? It was he I overheard on that first evening at Les Oliviers talking to the thing with the black-leaded eyes. She was in the Casino with him to-day. He asked me to play for him, seeing I was new and lucky."
"Yes? And you gave him luck?"
"Only for that once. And the creature with the orange-coloured hair clawed it."
"Poor boy! What a pity! Did you win much, Mrs. Allonby?"
"Not on the whole," she replied diplomatically, turning very red at the sudden apparition of the thin man, who had laboured up, panting, from behind them.
"Well," he gasped, "I hope you got a decent cup of tea somewhere. I promenaded Giro's from end to end in vain, and imagined the most terrible disasters befalling you. So I had to have seven cigars and an ice. I pictured you shot in heroic attempts to rescue wounded pigeons at the Tir, or to snatch pistols from would-be suicides, or yielding to the fascinations of jewellers' shops, and being run in by mistake for adroit thefts, or robbed of that dainty little bag, and here I find you, safe under Miss Somers' angel wing all the time."
"Not all the time. But I thought you said Café de Paris. So sorry."
The thin man was in great spirits. He observed that few things were more enjoyable than the walk through the Gardens to the train at that evening time, as he handed the ladies into their carriage, while Ermengarde silently gave the palm to other incidents of an enjoyable afternoon.
In the carriage they discovered, one by one, Miss Boundrish, "returning from Nice," she gurgled confidentially; M. Isidore, unobtrusively polite as usual; and, glaring fiercely at them from a remote corner, the Anarchist. The latter suddenly discovered, just as the train was beginning to move, that he had taken the wrong one, and got out again, to Ermengarde's immense relief—for the creature snorted and puffed intolerably. Probably, she reflected, he knew his own weakness, and doubted his ability to refrain from assassinating M. Isidore, if compelled any longer to witness his proximity to herself—a reflection not entirely devoid of charm.
"Why," Mr. Welbourne murmured in his most melancholy voice at her ear, as the train rolled slowly in the direction of Italy—"why choose the loveliest spot on earth for all this devilry, when it could be done quite as well in a disused coal-mine?"
"Why," she whispered, with reddening cheeks, in reply; "why hit a man when he is down?"
In its leisurely progress back to Mentone the train passed through the same scenes as in leaving it, but they had not the same charm. The sun was set, the air chill, the world inclined to be grey.
Everybody, except Miss Boundrish, who gurgled till both Ermengarde and the thin man prayed earnestly to be delivered from the temptation to choke her, was silent. Agatha's face had taken on its deepest expression of sadness; she seemed absorbed in thought too melancholy for words, and weighed by care too heavy for human sufferance. Ermengarde felt smaller, cheaper, and of less account than she had done for years. She would have to go home at least a fortnight earlier than she had intended in consequence of that afternoon's diversion; there would be no margin for pleasant expensive nothings and no gifts for Charlie. And for the first time in a new place Charlie's picture post-cards had been forgotten. The thought of it burnt her cheeks and clouded her eyes. And as for Arthur—well, he had not expressed any very acute anguish at their separation. He was obviously enjoying life as much as possible in that prolonged business excursion of his, to judge by the brevity and infrequency of his letters. Why should men have all the fun?
"You appear to have had a delightful afternoon, Mrs. Allonby," Miss Boundrish's mother said at dinner. "What lovely carnations! Didtheycome from Monte Carlo?"
"Will you have one, Mrs. Boundrish?" she returned, with a sweet smile, wondering if she were really bound in honour not to give Dorris away.
"And did M. Isidore playtoo?" was another question from some one across the table, eliciting the frigid reply that Mrs. Allonby knew nothing of M. Isidore's recreations.
"Now tell me in confidence, dear Mrs. Allonby," urged a third persecutor, pursuing her to a corner, into which she had tucked herself cosily, after dinner in the salon. "How muchdidyou lose, and was itveryexciting? I hear that M. Isidore makes quite a little income by his average winnings. Of course, he has a system."
There was something in Mrs. Boundrish's allusion to her flowers that fired a train of thought in Mrs. Allonby's mind. Fresh flowers had always appeared on her table before dinner; she had taken them in her inexperience as part of the usual entertainment for man and beast to be expected at hotels, not observing that none were on Agatha's table, and that no charge for flowers appeared in the bills. But these superb Malmaison carnations were obviously not from the Oliviers garden. Moreover, instead of donkey-riding up to the house with the others that afternoon, she had taken the steep, short cut through the lemons and olives, finding the kind assistance of M. Isidore in this ascent most useful in the dusk. Just as they came up into the light of the electric lamp in the grounds by a very steep climb, for which M. Isidore had given her a hand up, that gallant gentleman dropped a large paper cornet he had personally conducted with great care from Monte Carlo. And when Mrs. Allonby stopped its descent into the lemon-trees with her sunshade, it burst open and disclosed a sheaf of Malmaisons, exactly like those found afterwards on her table.
Further, when she went to the office after dinner, she found Mademoiselle Geneviève in charge, smiling and radiant, with a huge sheaf of Malmaisons in her belt and one flower nestling becomingly in her dark hair. M. Isidore, as often happened at that hours sat near her on the sofa, and conversation of a joyous and pleasant nature appeared to be forward. How could Miss Boundrish call this girl plain and frumpish? To-night she was positively handsome in a brilliant Southern style, her face lit with laughter, her great, liquid dark eyes sparkling, her white, even teeth gleaming between full red lips. Her figure was fine in a statuesque way, strong and stately. Mlle. Bontemps was unusually gracious in supplying the information desired until her full, dark eye lit on the Malmaisons in Mrs. Allonby's belt; then her face changed; she turned with a flash of fury and looked at M. Isidore, who looked studiously through the open doorway at nothing at all, while Ermengarde beat a retreat as hasty as was consistent with dignity and a proper Parisian accent. Afterwards, at the first opportunity, she asked the chambermaid whence the flowers on her table came, and heard with misgiving that they were so placed daily by command of M. Isidore.
"So it is the duty of M. Isidore to supply all the dressing-tables with bouquets?" she asked carelessly.
"Mais, Madame," came in deep, contralto remonstrance, "est-ce que tout le monde dépense comme ça pour les fleurs?"
"No doubt I am extravagant, Louise," she confessed humbly, "but the flowers usually come from the gardens or the mountains, and are not charged for in the bills."
Louise smiled approval of this reply; she had studied life in many aspects. She liked Mrs. Allonby, whom she had made acquainted with the whole of her family history, and of whom she had asked and received counsel and munificent tips—but the latter unasked.
"Stupid boy!" Ermengarde said to herself, with vexation. She had dined publicly in his flowers night after night, beginning with the tea-roses he gave her in the garden on her arrival. And the crocodile at the Carnival had thrown her Parma violets. Yes, and she had worn them—idiot!—without thinking. Luckily, nobody would know—except Miss Boundrish and her mother, and—— But, after all, what are flowers? and what did this French boy's impertinence or ignorance matter?
A wet day, accompanied by a furious headache and the state of mind Germans callKatzenjammer, followed the thrilling afternoon of real life at Monte Carlo. Odd to think that it was actually raining at Les Oliviers. But not common, dreary rain, such as makes London streets a foretaste of the future habitation of sinners. No, fairy rain, clean, bright, transparent, a sort of crystalline veil through which that beautiful Southern shore could be seen with undazzled eyes, and yet more distinctly than in the clear sunlight, like a lovely human form, lovelier through transparent drapery. The clouds were not leaden, but of pearly lustre; the feathery, misty grace of olive-woods was no longer confused with the heavier mass and colour of pines; the delicate symmetry of those flights of steps that were vine-terraces, connected by miniature flights that were real stairs, came into view; every solitary cottage and every towered hamlet stood out clear on its crest beneath the solemn mountain peaks. The sea behind those shining curtains of moving rain was still blue, and there was leisure now to be glad of a four-square house on a mountain ridge, with a wide and glorious prospect from every window, and a different view on every side of the house.
Mr. Welbourne was trying to catch an impression from five sides at once, and in despair wandered up and down the corridors looking at each in turn. An amateur was thumping music-hall melodies on the ground-floor piano, which was out of tune, while another played fragments of Wagner in the drawing-room immediately above it, and Miss Boundrish practisedsolfeggiin the room over that.
And yet Ermengarde's headache andKatzenjammer—or mental atmosphere sequent on nights enjoyed less wisely than well—steadily increased as the day wore on. After luncheon, quite overcome and flattened out by these afflictions, she retired shivering to bed. On this the woman of mystery, at once transformed into Sir Walter Scott's ministering angel, tucked her up cosily, kindled a wood fire on her hearth, and sat silent and thoughtful in its light, softly blowing up the logs with a little carved bellows fetched from her own room. To her the tinkle and plash of this sweet, clear rain was soothing after the long dryness, and the silvery light a relief from the perpetual purple splendour of sky and sea. Ermengarde, soothed by these attentions and the soft sound of the bellows, watched the fire-light play on Agatha's still, clear-cut features and graceful form, and meditated on her failings. Sad that one so fair should be presumably so false, paying imaginary visits to fictitious aunts, and conspiring with bearded Anarchists and beardless prodigals in goodness knew what wickedness; but she enjoyed being petted, and knew that in their common estimation of Miss Boundrish's varied social charm Agatha and she were one. There was something that strongly attracted her in this mysterious young person. Might this fine nature have been perverted by unfortunate surroundings and evil example in youth? Who could tell?
The Good, but suspected, Samaritan read her to sleep, and on her waking made her excellent tea, unobtrusively and silently in her own room, and brought it in with biscuits, and shared it in a comfortable, home-like way; whereupon Ermengarde's heart expanded and her tongue was loosed, and she recounted her ill-fortune at the tables, and received sympathy untouched by scorn.
In return she heard—in the spirit of a Sadducee—somewhat of the family history of Miss Somers' "connexion by marriage." Mr. Paul's mother, it appeared, had married twice; her second husband and that youth's step-father being Miss Somers' uncle. Mr. Paul's mother was consequently her aunt—a species of relative that Ermengarde was inclined to regard as shadowy and thin, and much too capable of multiplication at will.
"How many aunts have you, dear Miss Somers?" she asked gently; "it is sometimes an advantage to possess several of them."
"So Ivor and I call ourselves cousins," Miss Somers added, not enumerating her aunts. "And, as I have always been very fond of my aunt, I am very much interested in this boy, and exceedingly anxious that he should keep straight."
"Naturally," Ermengarde assented. "What inventive power!" she thought. "By the way," she added suddenly, "Ivor is not a very common name, and Miss Boundrish was once engaged to an Ivor, who knew you. This might be the same man."
"Miss Boundrish engaged to Ivor! Oh! how funny!" Agatha laid down her toy bellows as if to enjoy the visionary relationship, laughing quietly to herself. "Miss Boundrish! But an Ivor who knew me! What on earth has that girl been romancing about me?"
Ermengarde studied the leaves in the bottom of her cup, and smiled sadly over human infirmity. The pot is always calling the kettle, and not only the kettle, but even the silver tea-pot—black.
"What a dangerous girl," continued Agatha. "In a house like this, too. And how very unlucky that she saw you at tea with M. Isidore yesterday."
"And pray why should I not have tea with the boy?" Ermengarde demanded with sudden dignity.
"Why not, indeed? But—please don't think me impertinent or intrusive, dear Mrs. Allonby"—she spoke with a sort of childlike appeal and affection—"the most innocent and obvious things are not always wise, especially in a world in which unmuzzled Boundrishes run about loose."
She looked so guileless, so sweet, so tenderly pleading; her eyes uplifted to Ermengarde's had the transparent candour of a child's; there was a tremulous diffidence about her mouth that went to Ermengarde's heart. A woman who could invent aunts and male connexions by marriage on the spur of the moment, who wrote and received surreptitious letters in cipher—only that afternoon she had been perusing one by the fire, when Ermengarde opened her eyes after a doze, and had quickly pocketed it on discovering that she was watched.
"Boundrishes," continued the woman of mystery, not blenching under the searching gaze upon her, "are—not that this one means any harm, it's only vanity and silliness—they are unconscious gossip-conductors and accumulators combined; they are always discharging whatever happens to have come into their heads, and nothing ever seems to go in quite straight, and all comes out enlarged and distorted."
"Dear Miss Somers, I congratulate you on your truly serpentine wisdom. How did you manage to acquire it?"
"Women who get their own living have to keep their eyes open, else they go down. I sometimes wonder if you realize what the actual position of this young Isidore is, Mrs. Allonby?"
"That surely is obvious, even to eyes not very wide open. But tell me about yourself and your work, dear Miss Somers; women who work are always interesting."
Her work, she replied, was not particularly interesting, rather drudging and casual. Family misfortune had obliged her to provide for herself; she had not been brought up to any profession, but to leisure and comparative affluence. She had tried companioning and secretarial work, even a little hack literary work. She had no decided talent for anything. Her parents were early lost; she had been partly brought up by an aunt—"What! another aunt?" Ermengarde murmured to herself—whose affairs had become entangled and her means diminished, especially during late years. "So I have to work," the woman of mystery said, with a sigh that implied intense weariness and disgust at the necessity, "to take at least one burden from my poor aunt's shoulders."
"Far too thin," Ermengarde thought, and hazarded the observation that the woman of mystery must be greatly enjoying her present holiday; to which she replied that she certainly was, her expenses being supplied by her employer, to whom her sojourn in those regions was in some vague way useful.
"You are possibly collecting information on his behalf?"
"In a way—yes," she admitted, with a faint blush.
"A detective way? Shadowing? Family mysteries?"
"One can't always explain—in detail——"
"Especially in work of such a delicate nature."
The sphinx mask had suddenly fallen back on the woman of mystery's features, and she had audibly remembered a letter to take down for the post.
Having done this, she returned only just in time to dress for dinner and bring the menu for the invalid to select from.
"And I'll see that you have what you choose," she promised. "Louise will bring it up. Ah! she has brought your flowers already," with a quick change of expression.
"Yes—with the hot water," Ermengarde faltered, changing colour quickly. "She always puts flowers on my table for dinner."
"Would she put them on mine, I wonder?"
"Miss Somers, what can it matter? Why in the word shouldn't the stupid boy give me flowers if he likes? Besides, I only found it out yesterday."
"I was sure you didn't know. Miss Boundrish only discovered it quite recently. She is of an inquiring disposition. And what she knows, or thinks she knows, is not long ignored by her world."
"She may know anything and everything she likes about me," Ermengarde flashed out furiously; "how many hairpins I use a day, whether I curl with Hinde's or with tongs, and where I get my gowns—and who pays for them and how much!"
How dared this young woman hint to her of prudence and propriety?
After dinner Agatha came up again, put on fresh logs, and sat meekly by the hearth. She described the desolation Mrs. Allonby's absence had created attable d'hôte, as well as Miss Boundrish's Christian desire to visit and console her in her affliction.
"Of course she has a headache," the fair Dorris had shouted across the table, "and no wonder after yesterday."
"Sweet girl!" Ermengarde commented, thankful that the visit scheme had been frustrated.
"I said this afternoon that I had no fortune," the woman of mystery observed presently, bringing in a morocco case from her room. "But I had forgotten this for the moment. It is a little fortune in itself; a thing that has been in our family since—oh, since nobody knows when."
"Very probably, not even the people they were sneaked from," Ermengarde reflected. The light had been switched off, and they had been talking and dreaming in the firelight. The woman of mystery, a slender figure in dead creamy-white, bent to the hearth, and, throwing a handful of eucalyptus bark on the embers, made a leaping blaze in which some jewels in a necklace she drew from the morocco case flashed and quivered like live things. Ermengarde gave a long sigh of wonder and admiration, not untinged by vague longing, at the sight of this rich and beautiful piece of jewellery.
"I never wear it," Agatha said, pensively regarding the gems flashing in her hands as she knelt in the hearth-glow. "How could I, dressing as I do, and of course ought to? And I do not suppose I ever shall. Yet one scarcely cares to part with an heir-loom—except under very serious pressure."
"Put it on," Ermengarde said, and Agatha clasped the necklace round her full white throat, still kneeling and looking into the fire, the jewels quivering with the rise and fall of her breath.
The foundation was a simple collar of lozenge-shaped sapphires, set thick with brilliants; sapphire drops set with brilliants began at the back below the collar and increased to a complicated interlacing of pendants in front, the largest and deepest being star-shaped, the sapphire centre of it unusually rich. The plain white woollen dress was not cut low enough to give the full effect of jewels on white and satiny skin, except to the throat collar and smaller pendants, but the sparkle and lustre they communicated to the finely-cut features and deep eyes was marvellous, while the indifference with which the necklace was worn and the far-away look often so characteristic of her face showed the wearer too deep in thought to care for trifles.
"You are made to wear jewels," Ermengarde said. "How lovely! And how costly!"
"They should be worth some thousands, I believe, and I must sell them—just as they are. I should like to keep part, if only one pendant. They are said to bring luck to our family."
"And have brought you the luck of having to sell them?"
She smiled rather sadly, spreading her hands to the glow and looking thoughtfully into the red chasms of burning wood, the diamonds winking and quivering in crimson and purple flashes in the light; then she drew a deep sigh.
"Jewels change hands often here," she said presently. "Did you notice the Monte Carlo shops, Mrs. Allonby, blazing with diamonds and opals in every shape? Half the shops seem to be jewellers, the windows massed and piled with tiaras, collars—thick dog-collars, solid with emeralds and diamonds—necklaces, rivières, negligés, set thick with them, and ropes and ropes of pearls. I never saw such a profusion of splendid and costly things. People lose at the tables, and sell their ornaments for half-price, and the jewellers sell them again for about three-quarters, glad to turn their money quickly. M. de Querouailles was showing some things he had got for a mere song for his daughter the other night in the salon—lovely things, for a few hundred francs."
"A place to buy rather than to sell in, then?"
"Oh, of course! But necessity is a hard master."
She sighed another long sigh, unclasped the necklace, held it a moment in the best light, looked steadily, almost lovingly, at it, laid it back in the case, and put it on a little table near the hearth. Ermengarde expressed some mild wonder at her hardihood in carrying her fortune so unguardedly about, and spoke of recent repeated jewel robberies.
"But I don't look rich," the woman of mystery assured her. "Nobody would suspect me of sapphires. Besides, when I travel, I wear them."
"And now, dear Mrs. Allonby," she added after a pause, "I want to ask you to do me a great favour. I have sudden and urgent need for a considerable sum of money. It is a family matter of some delicacy, and there are reasons why I should appear to have no hand in it. So I wonder—I wonder if you would be so very kind as to sell my necklace for me at Poupart's?"
"Good gracious! Why, I never sold anything in my life; I never even bought anything of this kind. I've no notion of the value of jewellery. The people would rook me without mercy."
"Oh, that is in the bill. They would rook anybody. I should say that—this—urgent necessity is as yet not quite certain; but if it should become certain, as I fear it will, in the course of a few days, then, dearest Mrs. Allonby, will you—willyou do me this very great kindness?"
"You have been kind—most kind to me, Miss Somers, and I should be exceedingly glad of an opportunity to do anything for you in return. But, indeed, I am not a good hand at this kind of thing; I should end in giving your necklace away very likely. I am no good, I assure you—for this."
The woman of mystery looked disappointed—the sphinx mask failed her for once—but she forbore to press her point. Ermengarde's heart misgave her; still she was firm. She felt that she really was not quite such a fool as she looked, and was quite capable of taking care of herself—a somewhat unsatisfactory source of pride, after all.
Of course, she saw through the whole thing, beautifully planned and acted, she confessed—the assumption of guileless interest and angelic sympathy; the delicate, unobtrusive attentions; the child-like, personal confidences; the casual, illuminating glimpses of family history; the carefully prepared, dramatic point of the necklace, so artlessly introduced in the firelight; and the casual unconscious carelessness of the carefully studied pose by the hearth. Yes, it was very well done; and a less acute observer might very well have been taken in by these wiles. Her old suspicion had been correct. Here were jewels of price, snatched probably from some unsuspecting fellow-traveller in theTrain de Luxe, skilfully concealed upon the body, and covered by an innocent bearing and a pathetic smile, artfully calculated to disarm suspicion. And to dispose of this plunder without danger, she, Ermengarde Allonby, was to be used—she was to be the cat's-paw, and incur the risk of selling stolen goods. "A matter of delicacy," "Reasons for not appearing to be personally concerned," etc.—excellent reasons, a matter of the greatest delicacy, in good truth. What an escape! Arthur should know of this.
She had confided to Miss Somers her dark misgivings as to the Anarchist's interest in herself, to the intense and ill-concealed amusement of that lady, who was doubtless aware that her possessions, and not herself, were the object of his interest in her. Here she was, she reflected, when the lights were out and the house wrapped in silence, alone in a foreign country, utterly at the mercy of this unscrupulous and dangerously attractive young woman, who had made a dead set at her from the first, within an ace of being made her accomplice, practically in the same room with her; for the door of communication was unlocked, and the key had mysteriously disappeared. The police might at any time pounce upon them. She might be robbed to any extent—that is, had she happened to have possessed anything worth stealing—she might be implicated in robberies; stolen property might be secreted among her things to throw the police off the scent; she might be entangled in a conspiracy, mixed up with that dreadful Anarchist—anything—a frightful situation to be in, dangerous beyond imagination. Yet, after all, more amusing than the conventionalities and social amenities of Kensington, more thrilling even than that first wild experience of real life in the Casino Gardens.
And through all she had a sneaking kindness for this woman of mystery. Perhaps her sins were not entirely her fault; no doubt society had sinned against her and forced her into courses of a regrettable nature. Regrettable is a beautiful word. It was of absolutely incalculable value to us during the last Boer War, through which, indeed, we should never have come without it.
And however regrettable were the courses to which society had mysteriously condemned Agatha Somers, there was no doubt that she was a most charming and sympathetic companion, and read aloud to perfection. A nature of finest grain, however warped by circumstance; a kind heart beneath the sphinx mask; intelligence of high order, however misapplied; beauty of an unusual and distinguished kind, and a right instinct in dress—all these, Ermengarde reflected on her passage to the land of dreams, were the property of this fascinating but misguided young woman, whose life appeared to be exercising such a strong and sinister influence upon her own.