Others were less fastidious than Vanno.
The calm-faced man with black pads over the left eye and ear joined
Madame d'Ambre, with a lazy yet determined air, and a glance of interest
at Mary. Seeing the brown youth who had been at her table, the elder man
nodded to him. This gave Mary's late neighbour an excuse which he had
wanted. He stopped, and held out his hand. "How are you, Captain
Hannaford?" he asked.
"Hullo, Carleton!" returned the other. "Here for the Nice flying week?"
"Yes," said Carleton, who, beside Hannaford the Englishman, showed by
contrast his American origin. His chin was all that Peter had said an
American's chin ought to be, and he had keen, brilliant blue eyes.
Hannaford, though taller than he, was stouter as well as older, and
therefore appeared less tall. He was of a more stolid type, and it
seemed incredible that such an adventure as that sketched by Madame
d'Ambre could approach such a man. Yet for once, gossip and truth were
one. The thing had happened. Hannaford had lately retired from the army,
after being stationed for two years in Egypt. For months he had lingered
aimlessly in Monte Carlo. Life seemed over for him. But time remained,
and must be killed, unless he preferred to kill himself. He had met Dick
Carleton in Egypt last year, where the youngest American aeronaut was
making experiments with a new monoplane in a convenient tract of desert.
At that time Captain Hannaford had not worn the little black silk pads.
He was grateful to the American for not seeming to look at them now.
"I'm here for the flying, with a hydro-aeroplane I'm rather proud of,"
Carleton went on, "but I'm not staying at Monte. I'm visiting Jim
Schuyler, at his place between here and Cabbé-Roquebrune. Lovely place
it is. No wonder he never bothers with the Casino, except for concerts
and opera. Have you met him?"
"No. But I know him by name, of course. The names of these American
millionaires are all-pervading, like microbes. Why does he pitch his
tent on the threshold of Monte, if not for the Casino?"
"He says lots of people live about here who never play: and there are
other attractions. He has all the gambling he wants in Wall Street:
comes here for beauty and music. He gets plenty of both; doesn't go in
for society any more than for roulette, but seems to enjoy himself, the
two or three months he does the hermit act in his gorgeous garden. He's
at the opera to-night. Motored me over. We'll meet, and go back together
to Stellamare. Meanwhile----"
"Meanwhile, I rather guess, as you'd say, that you'd like to meet my
charming--er--acquaintance, and her friend."
"I _never_ say 'guess,' nor does anybody else, except in books or plays,
but I should like to meet the ladies."
"Madame d'Ambre is so busy regretting she didn't get smaller change for
her _protégée's_ unforeseen charities that she's forgotten us. I was
watching the fun at your table, toward the last."
At the sound of her name, the Frenchwoman turned. Four thousand francs
was gone forever, but there was as little use in wailing over money
wasted as in crying for spilt milk, so she smiled her pathetic,
turned-down smile at Captain Hannaford, and looked wistfully at Dick
Carleton. Then quickly, lest further irrevocable things should happen,
she laid her hand on Mary's arm. It was a gloved hand, and the glove had
been mended many times. Soon, it must be thrown away; but perhaps that
need not matter now. There might be a path leading to new gloves and
other things. She introduced Captain Hannaford to Mademoiselle Grant,
and he in turn introduced "Mr. Richard Carleton, the well-known airman,"
to them both. Madeleine could speak a little English, but with
difficulty, and preferred French. Still, it would have been unwise to
tell secrets in English when she was near.
Seeing that she had no intention of passing on the introduction,
Clotilde et Cie. retired gracefully, each of the four a thousand francs
richer and a thousand times happier than she had been five minutes
before.
"What about supper?" said Hannaford. "Gambling always makes me hungry.
I'm in luck to-night. Won't you three be my guests at Ciro's?"
"You are always in luck nowadays," sighed Madame d'Ambre. A shadow
seemed to pass over the stolid face of the man, but she did not see it.
"Naturally we accept the kind invitation, is it not so, dear
Mademoiselle?"
"I must be at Ciro's anyhow, about midnight," said Carleton, "for
Schuyler asked me to meet him there for a Welsh rabbit after the opera.
But I'll be delighted to go over and sit with you till he comes." He had
the pleasant drawl of a Southerner.
"Oh, you're very, very kind," stammered Mary. "But I"--she hesitated,
and glanced appealingly at Madame d'Ambre--"I think it's rather late,
and I shall have to go home."
"Home?" echoed Hannaford, questioningly.
"My hotel," she explained.
As Madame d'Ambre drew her friend aside for a murmur of advice, the two
men looked at each other, Carleton puzzled, Hannaford with raised
eyebrows. "I think they're both charming," the American remarked in a
low voice. "That little Madame d'Ambre isn't nearly as pretty as Miss
Grant, but she's fetching, and looks a bit down on her luck, as if she'd
had trouble."
"Perhaps she has," said Hannaford.
"But, dear Mademoiselle," Madeleine was pleading at a little distance,
"why won't you go to supper? Do! It would be so pleasant. I have so
little happiness; and this would at least give me an hour of
distraction."
"You can go without me," said Mary. "Captain Hannaford is your friend,
isn't he?"
"Ah, I see! The sight of the poor afflicted man disgusts you. If you
refuse, he will know why. It will be ungracious--cruel."
"Don't say that," Mary implored, much distressed. "I wouldn't hurt his
feelings for the world. It's true I _can't_ bear to look at him, though
he hasn't a bad face. But it isn't only that. I could try to get over
it. The other reason is, I never met him or Mr. Carleton before,
and--and I don't know anything about society, or what is done; but I
have a sort of feeling----"
"Mais mon Dieu!" murmured Madame d'Ambre. "Quelle petite sotte! No
matter. It is a pretty pose, and suits you well. I am the last to find
fault with it. Yet listen. These gentlemen are distinguished. Captain
Hannaford is an English officer who has been of a courage incredible. He
can wear many medals if he chooses. Now he is very sad, despite his luck
in the Casino. He needs cheering. And this young Monsieur Carleton, the
American, I have read of him in the papers. He is widely known as a man
who flies, and these airmen are of a nobility of character! I am your
chaperon. What more do you ask? I am the widow of a naval officer. Do
you not owe me something for the good turn I have done you to-night?"
"Yes, indeed, I owe you a great deal," Mary admitted.
It was quite certain that what Madame d'Ambre considered as owing to her
would be paid.
Prince Vanno saw the four leaving the Casino together, Mary and Carleton
walking behind the other two. He had met both the Englishman and the
American in Egypt once or twice, and had not thought of them since. Now
he would forget neither. The story about Hannaford and his retirement
from the army, Vanno knew. He had heard nothing of Carleton except what
was to his credit, but somehow this fact made it no less unpleasant for
Vanno that the aeronaut should be talking with Mary. He did not believe
they had met before to-night.
The Galerie Charles Trois was brilliantly lighted, and supper was
beginning behind immense glass windows at Ciro's and the glittering
white and gold restaurant of the Metropole. At Ciro's there had been a
dinner in honour of two celebrated airmen, and the decorations remained.
There were suspended monoplanes and biplanes made of flowers, and when
the great Ciro himself saw Carleton, he came forward, inviting the young
man to take a window-table.
Carleton explained that he was only a guest; but this made no
difference. Except the King of Sweden's table, and that of the Grand
Duke Cyril, Mr. Carleton and his friends must have the best.
"My dear friend," said Hannaford, as they sat down, letting his eyes
dwell on Madame d'Ambre's costume, "it's lucky for us that we are with a
celebrity, or the fatted calf would not have been prepared for us. No
use disguising the truth: you and I are a little the worse for wear.
Only with you, the damage is temporary. Put you into a new frock and
hat, and you'll revive like a flower in fresh water. Nothing can revive
me. You see, I look facts in the face."
"Could one not make facts pleasant to see, if one must look them in the
face?" Mary ventured, gently.
"I'm sure you will make them so for Madame," said Hannaford.
"It is only those who are very happy, or very miserable, who can joke
forever, as you do," said Madame d'Ambre. "I can understand you now, or
I could, at my worst. But for the moment I have new life. I try to
forget the future."
As they ate a delicious and well-chosen supper she revived, delicately,
and regarded her misfortunes from a distance. "To think, if I had not
met you all, and if I had kept my resolve," she said, "by now I should
have found out the great secret."
As she spoke, a tall, thin man came to the table, and laid his hand on
Dick Carleton's shoulder. So doing, he stood looking straight into
Madame d'Ambre's face. She started a little, and blushed deeply. Blushes
were a great stock-in-trade with Madame d'Ambre. They proved that,
unlike Clotilde et Cie., she did not paint her face: that she was
altogether a different order of being. But this blush was less
successful than usual. It was a flush of annoyance, and showed that she
was vexed.
The man was more American in type than Carleton, though indefinably so.
If a critic had been asked how he would know this person to be a New
Yorker, even if met wrapped in bearskins at the North Pole, he might
have been at a loss to explain. Nevertheless, the dark face with its
twinkling, heavily black-lashed blue eyes, its short, wavy black hair
turning gray at the temples, its prominent nose and chin, lips and jaws
slightly aggressive in their firmness, was the distilled essence of New
York. So were the strong, lean figure, and the nervous, virile hands.
"Hello, Jim!" exclaimed Carleton, turning quickly at the touch on his
shoulder. "I've only played with a dish or two. I was waiting for you,
really." He got up, and rather shyly introduced the party to his host of
the celebrated Stellamare.
"I have the pleasure of knowing this lady slightly, already," said
Schuyler, still fixing Madeleine with his straight, disconcerting gaze.
"Madame d'Ambre?"
"I don't think we knew each other's name. I had the honour of doing a
small--a very small--service for Madame, such a service as any man may
be allowed to do for a lady at Monte Carlo."
If he laid an emphasis on the last two words, it was hardly strong
enough to be noticed, unless by the person most concerned.
"Do sit down with us, and eat the Welsh rabbit Carleton has been talking
about," said Hannaford. "This is my show. I shall be delighted, and I'm
sure I speak for the ladies."
Madame d'Ambre murmured something, and Mary smiled a more than
ordinarily friendly smile; for she knew that this was the distant cousin
of whom she had heard from Peter, the "Jim" who, in Molly Maxwell's
eyes, was an heroic figure. Peter never tired of telling anecdotes of
Jim's wonderful feats of finance, his coolness and daring in times of
black panic or perilous uncertainty in Wall Street, his scholarly
attainments, of which he never spoke; his passion for music and gardens,
and other contradictory traits such as no one would have expected in a
keen business man. Sometimes Mary had fancied that Peter was a little
inclined to fall in love with Jim Schuyler, perhaps because he was one
of the few men she knew who did not grovel at her feet. Now Mary looked
at the man with intense interest, and could imagine a girl like Molly
Maxwell making him her hero, in spite of the difference between their
ages. Molly was not twenty-one. He must be thirty-eight or forty, and
would have looked hard if it had not been for the blue eyes which might
soften dangerously under certain influences.
Mary's first impulse on hearing his name was to cry out, "Why, your
cousin Molly Maxwell is my best friend!" But something imperatively
stopped her. Deep down under the excitement and pleasure of this
adventure into which fate had plunged her, murmured a little voice,
saying, "You ought not to have come to this place alone, when they all
trusted you to go straight to Florence." And if she were doing wrong and
meant to keep on doing wrong, she must not associate herself with Saint
Ursula-of-the-Lake, in the minds of people here. It would not be fair to
the convent and Reverend Mother, not even fair to Aunt Sara and Elinor,
who believed her to be journeying obediently toward Florence. Thinking
thus, she determined to say nothing of her own life to those she might
meet at Monte Carlo. Soon she would go away, and no real harm would have
been done to any one. As for this supper, if she had lingering doubts
that it was not quite "the thing" to have accepted, the name of Jim
Schuyler chased them away like clouds before the sun. It was like being
with an old friend to have Peter's cousin there; and Dick Carleton was
staying with him. Mr. Carleton and Captain Hannaford were friends, and
Mr. Schuyler evidently knew Madame d'Ambre, so everything had turned out
delightfully. Also it was exciting to see how people who came in looked
at her and whispered. She could not help knowing that they said,
"There's the girl who won so much in the Casino that everybody rushed to
her table and applauded."
It was wonderful, intoxicating, to be the heroine of such a place, to
have experienced players envy her. She longed for to-morrow morning, so
that she might go back to the same table at the Casino, and play on zero
and twenty-four again. "I think I shall always make that my game, and go
to the same table," she said to herself, with the unconscious egotism
and vanity of a child.
"What was that I caught as I arrived, about 'finding out the great
secret?'" Schuyler asked, when he sat down at a place made for him on
Madame d'Ambre's right hand. Again he fixed his eyes on her, this time
with polite interest. "I thought the words sounded familiar. I remember
your saying something of the sort, I'm sure, the evening of our first
meeting."
"I do not recall it, Monsieur," replied Madeleine.
"It was on the Casino terrace," he went on, reflectively. "I was walking
there between the first and second acts of an opera, about a fortnight
ago. We met, and you seemed depressed, Madame. It was then I was able to
do you that small service."
"I did not think of it as a service," she said, bitterly.
"Ah, now the occasion has come back to you. What, not a service when a
lady has a little bottle of poison stuck into her belt, and a man drinks
it himself rather than she should keep her threat and swallow it!"
"It was not a threat. I would have drunk the poison and ended
everything," she insisted.
"If I hadn't been so selfish and greedy as to take it out of your hand
and sample it. Strange it did me no harm. I had a presentiment it
wouldn't, somehow. But of course my system may be poison-proof. By the
way, isn't that the same pretty little bottle I see now, tucked into
your belt! And were you thinking of trying its effect again to-night, if
these friends hadn't come in time to cheer you up, and so put off the
evil day?"
"You are very cruel to make sport of my tragedy, Monsieur!" Madame
d'Ambre exclaimed, her soft wistfulness flashing into anger. "These
sympathetic ones have saved me from myself by their generosity. They
have made me happy. Why do you go out of your way to remind me of
misery?"
Schuyler's blue eyes twinkled cynically, yet not unkindly. "I quite
understand that you can be saved from yourself only by sufficient
generosity, Madame," he said. "The question is, what is sufficient? Too
much sometimes goes to the head. Far be it from me to upset your cup of
happiness. But drink wisely, Madame, in little sips, not in great gulps.
It's better for the health--of all concerned. And the contents of your
bottle will no doubt be just as efficacious another time."
"I know what you mean," she flung at him, viperishly. "You have heard of
Mademoiselle's luck to-night. You think I mean to take advantage of her.
I would not----"
"Of course not, Madame. You, the widow of a naval officer! Have I
accused you of anything?" Schuyler cut her short, with sudden gayety of
manner. "I've heard of Mademoiselle's luck. She was pointed out to me
by a man I know, as I came in, just before joining you. But as I'm aware
that you're a good business woman, my idea is that the advantage you'll
take won't amount to more than 5 per cent. More would be usury, and give
Mademoiselle an unfavourable idea of Monte Carlo manners."
He spoke with deliberation, allotting each word its full value; and
before Madame d'Ambre could leash her rage, he turned to Mary. "Talking
of Monte Carlo manners," he took up the theme again, "you mustn't judge
hastily. There isn't _one_ Monte Carlo. There are many. I don't suppose
you ever saw a cocktail of any sort, much less one called the 'rainbow?'
It's in several different coloured layers of liquid, each distinct from
the other, as far as taste and appearance are concerned, though they
blend together as you drink. It wouldn't do to sip the top layer, and
say what the decoction was like, before you absorbed the whole--with
discrimination. Well, that cocktail's something like Monte Carlo. Only
you begin the cocktail at the top. In the Monte Carlo rainbow you
sometimes begin at the bottom."
He looked steadily at Mary as he finished his simile. Then he lifted the
silver cover of a dish which had just arrived, and gave his whole
attention to a noble Welsh rabbit, an odd dainty for a Riviera
supper--but Ciro prided himself on gratifying any whim of any customer,
at five minutes' notice.
Captain Hannaford had listened in silence, with a light of malicious
amusement in his eyes, which travelled from Madeleine to Mary, from Mary
to Madeleine, and occasionally to Dick Carleton.
Mary, despite her blank ignorance of the world and its ways, was far
from stupid or slow of understanding. She realized that Schuyler's
harangue to Madame d'Ambre was all, or almost all, for her: and she
caught his meaning in the last sentence of the rainbow allegory. He
wanted her to know that she had "begun at the bottom," and must beware.
She was half vexed, half grateful; vexed for Madeleine, and grateful for
herself, because, being Peter's hero, he must be a good man, who would
not be cruel to a woman for sheer love of cruelty. But her shamed pity
for Madeleine was stronger than her gratitude; and instead of giving
less out of her winnings than she had planned to give, she impulsively
decided to give more; this, not because she believed in or liked
Madeleine d'Ambre, but because she winced under a sister woman's
humiliation. The ugly flash in the eyes that had been wistful, shocked
her. She saw that they were cat-coloured eyes, and Jim Schuyler scored
as he meant to score, in her resolve to pay Madame d'Ambre well, then
gently to slip out of her friendship.
"When we finish supper, she can go with me to my hotel, and we'll divide
the money into three parts," Mary said to herself. "I'll give her two,
and keep one. Even one will be like a little fortune; and whatever
happens I'll keep enough to get away with; but I _must_ play again
to-morrow. It's too wonderful to stop yet."
But she was reckoning without Jim Schuyler.
When he saw the eyes of Madeleine hint that it was time to go, he said
quickly, "Well, Mademoiselle, have you counted your winnings, and do you
know exactly what they amount to?"
"No," said Mary, "not yet. I thought Madame d'Ambre and I might do that
afterward."
"Can't we save you the trouble?" he asked. "Why not spread your store
here on the table, and let us all work out the calculation? Everybody
knows you broke the bank, so there's no imprudence or ostentation in
displaying your wealth."
Without a word, Mary accepted the suggestion, since not to do so would
have seemed ungrateful.
"She's given away a lot already," said Carleton. "I saw her distributing
_mille_ notes to lovely but unfortunate gamblers, as if she were dealing
out biscuits."
"Oh, I gave away only four," Mary excused herself. "They were nothing."
Everybody laughed except Madeleine.
The fat stacks of French banknotes were extracted with some effort from
the hand-bag into which they had been stuffed. Captain Hannaford and
Schuyler counted while the others watched, Carleton with amused
interest, Mary with comparative indifference, because the actual money
meant less to her than the thrill of winning it, and Madame d'Ambre on
the verge of tears. She considered that she was being robbed of her
rights, for she knew that this merciless man with the hard jaw and
pleasant blue eyes intended to keep her hands off the money.
"One hundred and nine thousand francs!" Schuyler announced at last. "I
congratulate you, Mademoiselle. And I wish you'd let me advise you."
"If I did, what would you say?" Mary smiled.
"I should say: 'Go home to-morrow.'"
"But I've just come away from home. I don't want to go back."
"Well, then, go to some other place, a place without a Casino."
"I suppose that's good advice," said Mary. "But--I can't take it yet."
"I'm sorry," returned Peter's cousin.
The whole conversation had been in French from the first, as Madame
d'Ambre knew little English; and Mary's accent was so perfect that to an
American or English ear it passed as Parisian. Neither Hannaford,
Schuyler, nor Carleton supposed that she had just arrived from England,
though her name--if they had caught it correctly--was English or Scotch.
"Mademoiselle" they called her, and wondering who and what she was,
vaguely associated her with France, probably Paris.
"How long shall you stay?" asked Carleton, in the pause that followed.
"I don't know," Mary said. "A few days, perhaps."
"Will you come down to the Condamine and see my hydro-aeroplane
to-morrow? I'm keeping her there, and practising a bit in the harbour,
before taking her to Nice."
"Oh, I should love to! I've never seen any sort of aeroplane, not even a
picture of one."
"That's clever and original of you, anyhow. Where have you been, to
avoid them? What time to-morrow? Is ten o'clock too early?"
Mary blushed. "Would afternoon suit you? I feel as if I should have luck
again, if I played in the morning."
"Afternoon, of course," Carleton assented politely, though he was
disappointed; for in giving the invitation he had been following his
friend's lead in trying to save the moth from the candle. "Shall we say
three o'clock? I'll call for you."
"We'll both call, with my car," said Schuyler. "But what about that 5
per cent. which I suppose you want to give your roulette teacher?" he
went on, with apparent carelessness.
"I want to give her more," Mary confessed, with that soft obstinacy
which people found difficult to combat.
But Schuyler had weapons for padded barricades. He turned to Madeleine.
"I'm certain that Madame will refuse to accept more," he said.
She faced him defiantly. Then her eyes fell. She dared not make him an
active enemy. Though he never gambled, he was a man of influence at the
Casino, for he was a friend of those highest in authority, and had
power "on the Rock," also, for the Prince and he were on visiting terms,
Madeleine d'Ambre had learned these details since the evening on the
terrace when he had tested her "poison."
"Yes, I--should refuse to accept," she echoed, morosely.
"Virtue is its own reward; and there may be others," Schuyler said as he
deducted a sum equal to 5 per cent. from Mary's winnings and pushed it
across the table.
But even this was not the end of his interference. When Madeleine rose
and Mary sprang up obediently, he proposed that they, the three men,
should see the ladies home. This plan was carried out; and when Mary had
been left at the door of the Hôtel de Paris, they insisted on taking
Madame d'Ambre at once down the hill to her lodgings in the Condamine.
The penance was made only a little lighter to the victim by a lift in
Schuyler's automobile. She was far from grateful to its owner, and made
no answer except a twist of the shoulders to his last words: "Remember
not to change your mind. It isn't safe in this climate."
When they had dropped Hannaford at his hotel, also in the Condamine,
Carleton lost no time in satisfying his curiosity. "I never saw you take
so much trouble, Jim, over a woman. Is it a case of love at first sight,
old man?"
"Bosh!" said Schuyler, "Don't you know me better? That girl puzzles me.
There's something very odd about her. I'm conceited enough to think I
can generally size people up pretty well at first sight, but she beats
me. I can't make her out. And besides----"
"Besides--what?"
"I know I never saw her before, yet her face seems familiar. I associate
her with--it's idiotic--but with the person I care for most in the
world. Heaven knows why. I don't."
"Do I know who that person is?" Carleton ventured, unable to resist the
temptation.
"No, you don't know," the older man returned, rather gruffly. "And I'm
pretty sure you never will, because the less I talk or think about that
person the better for me. That part of the story has nothing to do with
the case. There's only this queer impression of mine. And I had a weird
feeling as if it were my bounden duty to see that this little girl
wasn't victimized by an unscrupulous woman. So I did what I could."
"I should think you did!" exclaimed the other. "I couldn't have done as
much. Poor Madame d'Ambre."
"Her real name's probably the French for Smith, without a 'de' in it,
unless it's to spell devil. If she's a widow, she's a grassy one. Her
game is to be found crying on the Casino terrace by moonlight,
preparatory to drinking poison, because she's tired of life and its
temptations. If it's a young lieutenant just off his ship for a flutter
at Monte, or some other lamb of that fleeciness, he's soon shorn.
There's quite a good living in it, I understand. She always contrives to
make the youngsters believe her an innocent angel, whom they must try to
save."
"But you seem to have been on in that act. Was it a moonlight scene?"
"Plenty of moonshine--and clear enough for me to see through the
angelhood to the designing minxhood. The poison was water, coloured, I
should think, with cochineal, and pleasantly flavoured with a little
bitter almond. But--well, one sees through people sometimes, as if they
were jelly-fish, and yet is a little sorry for them just because they
_are_ jelly-fish, stranded on the beach."
"I see," said Carleton.
They were spinning along the white way that winds between mountain and
sea, out of the principality, and so toward Cap Martin, Mentone, and on
to Italy. The tramcars had ceased to run; the endless daytime procession
of motor-cars and carriages was broken by the hours of sleep, and the
glimmering road was empty save for immense, white-covered carts which
had come from distant Lombardy, and over Alpine passes, bringing eggs
and vegetables for the guests of Hercules. Slowly, yet steadily,
shambled the tired mules, and would shamble on till dawn. There were
often no lights on the carts, which moved silently, like mammoth ghosts,
great lumbering vehicle after vehicle, each drawn by three or four mules
or horses. As the lamps of Schuyler's powerful car flashed on them
round sharp rock-corners, tearing the veil of shadow, they loomed up
unexpectedly in the night, like some mystery suddenly revealed in a
place of peace.
Schuyler liked motoring at night on the Riviera; for he never tired of
the dark forms of mountains, cut out black in the creamy foam of
star-spattered clouds, or the salt smell of the sea and its murmur,
singing the same song Greeks and Romans had heard on these shores. He
never tired of meeting the huge carts from Italy, travelling slowly
through the dark. He always had the same keen, foolish wish to know
whence they came, and what were the thoughts behind the bright eyes
which waked from sleep and stared for an instant, as his lamps pried
under the great quaking canopies: and more than all he enjoyed arriving
at his own gate, seeing the pale shimmer of his marble statues against
backgrounds of ivy and ilex, and drawing in the sweetness of his orange
blossoms and roses. Because he never tired of these things the two
months at Stellamare, often spent alone except for servants, were the
best months of his year. Through stress and strain he thought of them,
as a thirsty man thinks of a long draught of cool water; and he spent
them quietly, living in each moment: not complicating his leisure with
many acquaintances or amusements, and neither vexed nor pleased because
people called him selfish, and gossipped about his palace in a garden as
a place mysterious and secret. He was not quite in Paradise in his
retreat there, because he was not a perfectly happy man; but he did not
expect perfect happiness, and hoped for nothing better on earth than his
lonely holidays at Stellamare.
Descending a steep hill toward the sea as the big car slipped between
tall marble gate-posts, a perfume as of all the sweetest flowers of the
world, gathered in a bouquet, was flung into the two men's faces. In the
distance, beyond the house whose windows suddenly lit up as if by magic,
a wide semi-circle of marble columns glimmered pale against the sea's
deep indigo. And away across the stretch of quiet water glittered the
amazing jewels of Monte Carlo.
"By Jove! no Roman emperor could have had a lovelier garden, or a more
splendid palace on this coast," said Carleton, as he stood on the steps
of the house modelled after the description of Pliny's villa at
Laurentum. "Your greatest wish must be fulfilled."
"My greatest wish," Schuyler echoed, with a faint sigh. And in the
starlight his face lost its hard lines. But Carleton did not see.
The door was thrown open by an old Italian servant, who had the profile
of a captive Saracen king.
They went in together, and left the night full of perfume, and the song
of little waves fringed with starlight, that broke on the rocks like
fairy-gold--the vanishing fairy-gold of the Casino across the water.
And at the same moment (for it was very late) the dazzling illumination
of the Casino terrace was dimmed, as if half the diamonds had been shut
up in velvet cases.
A great peace fell upon the night, as though the throbbing of a
passionate heart had ceased.
X
Vanno Della Robbia wished to think no more of the false stars that he
had followed; for there was every reason now to believe them false
stars. Yet something deep down in him refused to believe this; and he
could not help thinking of them as before. But he would not give way to
what seemed like weakness, and so he fought against the memory.
If he had come to Monte Carlo only for the sake of the girl, he would
have left again next morning. Having come for other things, however, it
would have been weaker to go than stay. His brother and sister-in-law
had not arrived yet at their villa at Cap Martin, and were not due for
some days, as Angelo had taken his bride to Ireland, to show her to a
much loved cousin, the Duchess of Clare. Also there was the week of
aviation, to which Vanno had been looking forward with interest during
the voyage from Alexandria to Marseilles. A parachute which he had
invented was to be used for the first time.
Though he could not help thinking of the eyes which haunted him with
their lure of purity and innocence, he would not concern himself further
with the comings and goings of Miss M. Grant of London. He went instead
about his own affairs. He slept badly; but Vanno was accustomed to
taking little sleep, therefore it did not occur to him to be tired
because he woke finally at seven, after having lain awake till the
ringing of Ste. Devote's five o'clock bells, down in the ravine.
Instead, he felt a kind of burning energy which forced him to activity
of some sort. After his cold bath he dressed quickly, and went out to
walk, wishing himself back in the Libyan desert, where he had not seen
or thought of any woman.
It was only half-past seven, and the sun was still low in the east, just
rising above the mountains of Italy. It shone through a slit in two long
purple clouds, and its shining lit the sea. Vanno ran down the steps to
the Casino terrace, coming upon it near the clump of nymphlike palms,
and the marble bust of Berlioz that Mary could see from her window.
Hercules' Rock was on fire with sunrise, and the Prince's palace looked
in the magic flame like a strange Valhalla.
Not a soul was to be seen, not even a gardener employed by the Casino,
and all the watching eyes of the horned animal were asleep. Vanno stared
at the great cream-white building with a brooding resentment, because of
the influence which he believed it to exert over his clouded star. He
fancied that she had been drawn here by its extraordinary magnetism
which pulsed like electricity across Europe; and that, if she had not
already been swept off her feet, soon she would be, and her soul
drowned. To his own surprise, he could himself feel the mysterious
power of the place. As he looked at the long windows framed in rose-red
marble he remembered what his Arab friend, the astrologer in the desert,
had said to him about this month of December.
"Could it be possible, if there were anything in the science of
astrology," Vanno asked himself, "that the stars could rule the chances
in a game of chance?" Vaguely he thought, with the mystic side of his
nature, that to study, and prove or disprove this idea, might be
interesting. But the side that was stern and ascetic thrust away the
suggestion. He remembered the thousands of people who drifted here from
all over the world, hoping for one reason or other to get the gold
guarded by this big white dragon. Some perhaps believed in their stars;
others had studied systems, and tried them on little roulette wheels at
home; but nearly all went away defeated. The form of the long, high
mountain called the Tête de Chien looked to Vanno like a giant man lying
face down in despair, the shape of his head, his back, and supine legs
tragic in desperate abandon. "That's a symbol," Vanno said, half aloud,
and felt no longer the strange pulling at his heartstrings which for a
moment had drawn him, too, under the influence. He thought of himself as
one of the few, the very few, people within a wide range of Monte Carlo
for whom the Casino meant nothing. For surely there were few indeed.
Even the peasants among the mountains owed their living indirectly to
the Casino. Because of its existence they were able to command large
prices for their fruit and flowers and vegetables, or anything they
could produce which pleasure-lovers drawn by the Casino could possibly
want. Over there on the Rock, where red roofs of houses crowded closely
together, everybody lived in one way or other by the Casino. No one,
Vanno had been told, who was not Monegasque by birth or nationalization
was allowed to live on the Rock. Probably many of the croupiers in the
Casino and their families had houses there, and perhaps many were
shopkeepers down in the Condamine, where the cheap hotels and
lodging-houses were. Few of those hotels, or the more luxurious ones at
Monte Carlo itself, would exist if it were not for the Casino, and the
whole Riviera would be less prosperous. But Vanno was persuaded that he
cared nothing for the gold of the dragon.
Once before, when he was almost a boy, he had come here with his brother
Angelo for a few days. They had gone to see the Prince, whose ancient
family, the Grimaldis, was older and more important even than the house
of Rienzi. Vanno had promised Angelo that he would call at the palace
this time, and he decided to do so formally in the afternoon; the
morning he resolved to spend in walking up to La Turbie and down again.
The exercise would clear his brain; and he fancied that he remembered
the way well enough to find it again without asking directions.
There was something else he might do also, if there were time. A priest
whom, as a boy, he had known well at Monte Della Robbia was now curé at
Roquebrune. They corresponded, and in coming to the Riviera, Vanno had
planned to look him up. He was in a mood to want a full day's programme.
In a few moments' walking he left Monte Carlo behind and came out upon
the open hillside, where, above him, he saw the path leading skyward
like an interminable staircase. Often as he mounted, bareheaded, his hat
in his hand, he caught himself mentally trespassing on forbidden ground,
thinking of his lost Giulietta, and wondering what she had been doing,
every day and hour of her life since she was a child. He had never felt
this pressing, insistent curiosity about any human being before. His
thoughts followed the girl everywhere, wherever she might be; and
something--the same Something which refused to disbelieve in her--seemed
to know where she was at that moment, even how she looked, and what was
in her soul, though his outer intelligence could see nothing. That
rebellious Something longed to turn back toward Monte Carlo, to keep
near her and guard her. It cried out strongly to do this, but Vanno
would not listen. He sang to himself as he walked up the mule path among
olive trees; and peasants coming down from the mountains, their nailed
boots rattling on the cobblestones, were singing, too, strange wordless
songs without tune, songs neither French nor Italian, but with a wild
eastern lilt leaping out of their monotony, reminiscent of the days
when Saracens ruled the coast. Some faces, too, were like the faces of
eastern men, high featured, with enormous, flashing eyes. Here and there
was one of a bold yet dreamy, gray-eyed, brown-haired type Vanno had not
met before in any of his travels. He remembered that this country had
belonged to the Ligurians before his ancestors, the Romans, took it
after two hundred years' hard fighting: and types are persistent. He had
heard that there were ruined Ligurian forts to be traced still, among
the higher hills and mountains; and the monument of La Turbie, whither
he was bound, was Augustus Cæsar's emblem of triumph over the Ligurian
tribes.
The funicular was not running at this hour, and the white lacings of the
Upper Corniche were empty save for a cart or two, bringing down loads of
wallflower-tinted stone from some mountain quarry, for the building of a
villa. Vanno had easily found his way on to a mule path, rough yet well
kept, and ancient perhaps as the hidden Ligurian forts. Round him was
the gray-green shimmer of olive trees, and their old, thick roots that
crawled and climbed the rocks were like knotted snakes asleep. Bands of
pines marched and mourned along the skyline, and in the midst of
glittering laurels cypress trees stood up straight and black as
burnt-out torches.
Clouds that had darkened the east when Vanno started veiled the sun now,
like lazy eyelids. The gay glitter was gone from the world, and the sea
was of a dull velvety gray, dappled with silver-gleams that sifted
through holes in the clouds, making the water look like scales on a
fish's back. Far below lay the strip of frivolous fairyland, all that
most strangers know of the Riviera: the pleasure towns with their palms
and tropical flowers, the decorated villas, to live in which Vanno
thought would be like living in hollowed-out birthday cakes. And the
soft, thoughtful grayness which was dimming the sunshine suited this
different, higher world as well as it suited his mood. The loveliness of
trees, and the pale splendour of mountain peaks carved in bas-relief
against the pearl-gray sky, rang out to his soul like a chime of bells
from a cathedral tower, giving him back the mastery of himself. It was
good to be here, where there were no sounds except the voice of Nature,
singing her eternal song, in the universal language, and where the life
of man seemed as distant as the far-down windows that glittered
mysteriously out of shadows, as the eyes of a cat glitter at night.
Inarticulate, enchanting whispers of the love and joy which have been in
the world and may be again floated up to Vanno's imagination like the
chanting of mermaids heard under the sea. He felt that, if he should
meet his Giulietta now, he would believe in her, and his belief would
make her worthy of itself, if she were not already worthy. "May the
wings of our souls never fail us," he said aloud, as if it were a
prayer.
Almost before the time when Vanno Della Robbia had known words enough
to clothe his most childish thoughts, he had possessed an unknown land,
a kingdom and a castle of his own more beautiful than sunset clouds. To
this land he always travelled when he was alone, and often at night in
dreams. It had been around him in the desert where his errand had been
to study the eastern stars; and the observatory at Monte Della Robbia,
built with money left him by his mother, was one gateway to that land.
When he was in this secret kingdom he was brother to the stars. All
knowledge came echoing through his soul, as if whispered to him by past
selves, other incarnations of himself, who had gleaned it in their
lives, from days when the world was young. He had a thousand souls,
which had known great sorrows and joys and adventures. His blood seemed
to smoke gold, like spray on rushing surf in sunshine. Never had he
admitted any one he had known (except the people his own mind created
for inhabitants of that kingdom) into his land; but now the girl whose
name he scarcely knew stood at the door of the castle, asking to come
in, saying with her eyes, which he had likened to stars, that she was
the princess who had a right to live there. Hers was the face of his
dream. She was the song of the mermaids. The voice he had heard--would
always hear in the sea--spoke of her. She was the light of the morning.
Hers the face in the sunrise, and the twilight. If he lost her, still
her spirit would haunt him, in music, in all beauty, for she was the one
woman, the ideal which is the heart of a man's heart. She must be
worthy, because there was no other princess for this kingdom of his,
east of the sun and west of the moon; and without her the rooms of the
castle would hold only echoes.
Vanno would have died rather than speak out such thoughts to any one on
earth, for they were the property of that self which his brother Angelo
said was at war with the other self, the self which the world knew.
Now and then, as he walked up the mule path with a step which became
lighter with the lightness of the air, he threw a word in Italian to a
passing peasant, some Ligurian-looking man who drove a bright-coloured
market garden ending in a donkey's head and tail. Eyes and teeth flashed
comprehension, but the answer was in a queer _patois_, a hotch-potch of
Latin, Italian, French, and Arabic.
On the top of the mountain Vanno breakfasted, at a pink hotel
fantastically built in hybrid Moorish style. From his window-table he
could see the Tour de Supplice on a height below; a broken column of
stone said to mark the place where Romans tortured and executed their
prisoners. Far beneath lay the Rock of Hercules and Monte Carlo, the
four unequal horns of the great white animal springing saliently to the
eye even at this height. To the right, the great iron-gray bulk of the
Tête de Chien hid the promontories which, like immense prehistoric
reptiles, swam out to sea beyond Beaulieu; but to the left were the
mountains of Italy, their highest ridges marbled with dazzling snow;
and Cap Martin's green length was frilled with silver ripples.
Still Vanno was happy, as he had not been since he saw Mary dining alone
in the restaurant of the Hôtel de Paris. He had made a plan for the next
hours, which gave him hope for the future.
After breakfast, he walked into the gray and ancient mountain-village of
La Turbie, whose old houses and walls of tunnelled streets were built
from the wreckage of Cæsar's Trophy. Jewish faces peered at him from
high, dark windows, for here it was that, in the Middle Ages, Jews fled
from persecution, and made La Turbie a Jewish settlement. Even in the
newer town of pink and blue and yellow houses there were Jewish faces to
be seen in dusky shops where fruit was displayed for sale, in heaps like
many-coloured jewels.
Just beyond the oldest outskirts Vanno came to the foot of the monument,
unspeakably majestic still, though long ago stripped of its splendid
marbles, and its statues that commemorated Cæsar's triumph. Men were
working in the shadow of the vast column of stone and crumbling Roman
brick, digging for lost knowledge in the form of broken inscriptions,
hands and heads of statues, bits of carved cornice, and a hundred buried
treasures by means of which the historical puzzle-picture might
gradually be matched together. Vanno became interested, and spent an
hour watching and talking to the superintendent of the work, a cultured
archæologist. When he began his descent of the mountain, a train on the
funicular railroad was feeling its way cautiously down the steep
mountainside, like a child on tiptoe. A little weak, irritable sniff
came up from its engine as the toy train paused at one of the three
stopping places below La Turbie. It was like a very young girl blowing
her nose after crying.
Vanno did not go down to the low levels; but asking the way of an old
peasant whose head was wrapped in a red handkerchief, he learned how to
find the hill-village of Roquebrune, keeping to the mule paths. He had
made up his mind to invite himself to lunch with his old friend the
curé.
This was another world from the world of the Casino and shops and
hotels. The very air was different; nimble, and crystal clean. All the
perfumes were aromatic; balsam of pine, and the country sweetness of
thyme and mint, the pure breath of nature. Sloping down the mountains
eastward toward Italy and descending more than halfway from La Turbie,
Vanno came to the rock-town with the ruined castle which Mary had looked
up to from Monte Carlo in last night's sunset. It seemed to have slid
from a taller height above, and to have been arrested by miracle before
much harm was done; and Vanno remembered the curé's first letter which
had told him the legend of the place: how Roquebrune in punishment for
the sins of its inhabitants was shaken off its high eyrie by a great
earthquake, but stopped on the shoulder of the mountain through
intercession of the Virgin, the special patron _sainte vierge_ of the
district. The town and its dominating castle seen from below showed as
if flattened against the mountain's breast; but coming into the place on
foot, the mountain retired into the background, and the huge mediæval
ruin was sovereign lord of all.
The whole village had been made by robbing the castle of brick and
stone, as La Turbie was built of the Trophy. The castle itself grew out
of the rock, so that it was difficult to see where nature's work ended
or men's began; and the old, old houses crowding up to and huddled
against its foundations had cramped themselves into ledges and boulders
like men making their last stand in a mountain battle. The streets were
tunnels, with vistas of long, dark stone stairways running up and down
into mystery. Here and there above secretive doorways were beautiful
carvings set into the thick stone walls, relics of the castle's
decorations. At sharp corners were tiny shops with dark interiors, and
strange assortments of golden oranges, big pearly onions, ruby beets,
and bright green, peasant pottery in low-browed windows and on uneven
doorsteps. Dark Saracen eyes gleamed out of the cold shadows in
tunnelled streets, seeming to warm them with their light; and as Vanno
reached the tiny _Place_ where towered a large, old church, the pavement
was flooded by a wave of brown-faced boys and girls, laughing and
shouting. School was just out; and behind the children followed a man in
the black cassock of a priest. He was walking slowly, reading from a
little book. Vanno stood still, with eagerness and affection in his
eyes, and willed him to look up.
This man had been the Prince's tutor, after Vanno was six, until he had
passed his tenth birthday. It was years now since they had seen each
other, eight perhaps, for it must be as long ago that the curé had come
back to visit Rome. But the cheery, intelligent dark face had not
changed much, except that it was less round, and the silvering of the
once black hair had spiritualized it strangely.
The wave of children, after glances thrown at the newcomer, had ebbed
away in different directions. The little cobble-paved _Place_ became
suddenly still. The priest moved leisurely, reading his book. Then, when
he was quite near Vanno, he suddenly lifted his thick black lashes as if
a voice had called his name. His good brown eyes and sunburned face lit
up as though in a flash of sunlight.
"Principino!" he exclaimed.
Vanno grasped both his hands, book and all.
"What a happy surprise!" cried the curé, in Italian, and Vanno answered
in the same language.
"But you knew I was coming one of these days. You got my letter? And
perhaps Angelo has written?"
"Yes. He has written. I am to take the second breakfast with him and his
bride one day soon after they arrive at Cap Martin, and bless their
villa for them. You see, he too remembers the poor old friend!" and the
curé smiled, a charming smile, showing beautiful teeth, strong and white
as a boy's. "He said you would meet him, for the week of the flying men,
but that is not quite yet. And your letter said the same. I did not look
for you till some days later."
"Well, here I am," cried Vanno. "I came only yesterday afternoon, and my
first thought is for you, Father. You look just the same. It might be
months instead of years since we saw each other last! Will you give me
lunch? I had only a cup of coffee and a croissant at La Turbie, and I'm
as hungry as a wolf."
"A wolf this shepherd is not afraid to let into his fold. Will I _not_
give you lunch? Though, alas! not being prepared for an honoured guest,
it will hardly be worth your eating. If you have changed, my Principino,
it is for the better. From a youth you have become a man."
They walked together across the _Place_, Vanno very slim and tall beside
the shorter, squarer figure of the man of fifty. Into the church the
curé led the Prince, and through the cool, incense-laden dusk to a door
standing wide open. Outside was a green brightness, which made the
doorway in the twilit church look like a huge block of flawed emerald
set into the wall.
"My garden," said the priest, speaking affectionately, as of a loved
child. "I think, Principino, you would like your _déjeuner_ in the grape
arbour. It is only a little arbour, and the garden is small. But wait,
you will see it has a charm that many grander gardens lack."
They stepped from the brown dusk of the church out into the bright
picture of a garden, which seemed unreal, a little garden in a dream, as
complete and perfect in its way, Vanno thought, as an old Persian prayer
rug.
It was a tangle of orange and lemon trees, looped with garlands of roses
and flowering creepers, carpeted with a thousand fragrant, old-fashioned
flowers, and arboured with grapevines, whose last year's leaves, though
sparse, were still russet and gold: altogether a mere bright ribbon of
beauty pinned like a lover's knot on a high shoulder of jutting rock.
Below fell a precipice, overhanging steep slopes of vineyard, or orange
plantations that went sliding down toward the far-off level of the sea,
and the world of the strangers. Above, towered the ruined castle,
immensely tall, its foundation-stones bedded in dark rock and draped in
ivy. In the little garden, the hum of bees among the flowers was like an
echo of far off, fairy harps.
"I think I am dreaming this," said Vanno. And he added, to himself:
"It's part of my kingdom, that I never saw before."
The curé laughed, delighted. "Luckily for me it is real," he said. "And
now that you are in it, my Principino--my one-time pupil, my all-time
friend--it is perfect. I should like you to love it. I should like--yes,
I should like some great happiness to come into your life here. That is
an odd fancy, isn't it? for the great happiness seems likely to be mine
in having you with me. But the idea sprang into my mind."
"It is a good idea," said Vanno. "I should like it to come true. I have
a favour to ask you, and perhaps--who knows?--your granting it may
somehow bring the wish to pass."
A tiny figure of a woman--so old, so fragile as to look as if she were
made of transparent porcelain--appeared as he spoke from an arbour at
the far end of the little garden, an arbour whose grapevines hung
bannerlike over the precipice. She had a dish in her minute, wrinkled
hands, and was so surprised at sight of the tall young stranger that she
nearly dropped it.
"My little housekeeper," explained the curé. "She comes to me for a few
hours every day, to keep me fed and tidy; and she brings my meals here
to the arbour when the weather is fine; for I never tire of the view,
and it gives me an appetite that nothing else does."
"I see now why your letters have always been so happy," Vanno said, "and
why, when it was offered, you refused promotion in order to stay here."
"Oh, yes, I am very happy, thank Heaven, and I do my best to make others
so. God loves mirth. Dulness is of the devil! I love the place and the
people, and the people love me, I trust," the curé answered, with a
bright and curiously spiritual smile which transfigured the sunburned
face. "You have no idea, my Principino, of the thousand interests we
have here in this little mountain village. Once it was of great
importance. An English king came in the fourteenth century to visit the
Lascaris family at the castle. Those down below hardly know of its
existence, even those who come back year after year, but Roquebrune and
my garden are world enough for me. Is breakfast ready, Mademoiselle
Luciola? Thanks; we will begin as soon as you have brought things to lay
another place. Is that not a good name for the wee body--Firefly? Oh,
but you should see our fireflies here in May, when the Riviera is
supposed to be wiped off the map, not existent till winter. And the
glow-worms. I have three in my garden. No garden is complete without at
least one glow-worm. I had to beg my first from a neighbour."
"I should like to live up here, and be your neighbour, and cultivate
glow-worms," said Vanno, as his host guided him along a narrow path
which led between flower-beds to the arbour.
"Why not?" cried the priest, enraptured. "You could buy beautiful land,
a plateau of orange trees and olives, carpeted with violets--the petite
campagne I spoke of. You could build a villa, small enough to shut up
and put to sleep when you tired of it. We would be your caretakers, the
old Mademoiselle and I."
"Would you have me live in my villa alone?" Vanno smiled.
The curé looked merrily sly. "Why not with a bride?" he ventured. "Why
not follow your brother Angelo's example?"
"I must see his bride first, to judge whether his example is worth
following. We haven't met yet."
"Ah," exclaimed the priest, "that reminds me of rather a strange thing!
There came a lady here--but I will tell you, Principino, while we
lunch."
Beaming with pleasure in his hospitality, the curé ushered his guest
into the arbour, which, like a seabird's nest, almost overhung the
cliff. Under shelter of the thick old grapevine and a pink cataract of
roses, a common deal table was spread with coarse but spotless damask.
In a green saucer of peasant ware, one huge pink rose floated in water.
The effect was more charming than any bouquet. There was nothing to eat
but brown bread with creamy cheese, and grapes of a curious colour like
amber and amethysts melted and run together; yet to Vanno it seemed a
feast.
The curé explained that the grapes had been grown on this arbour, and
that he had them to eat and to give away, all winter. When the porcelain
doll of a woman came back, she brought a bottle of home-made wine for
Vanno, and some little sponge cakes. But when the Prince said that in
England such cakes were named "lady fingers," the curé laughed gayly,
and pretended to be horrified. This brought him back to his story,
which, in the excitement of helping his guest to food, he had almost
forgotten.
"I was going to tell you," he went on, "of a strange thing, and a lady
unknown to me, who called here. She was from England, I should say."
Vanno's heart gave a quick throb. "Could it be possible?" he wondered,
"Was she young and beautiful?" he asked aloud. But the answer dashed his
rather childish hope.
"Not beautiful, and not a girl, but young still. 'Striking' would be the
word to express her. And her age, about thirty."
Vanno lost interest. "Why was it so strange that she should call?" he
inquired. "People must find their way here sometimes; even those who
haven't you for a friend."
"Yes, sometimes; and I am glad to see them. This was strange only
because the lady knew that I was a friend of your family. She came
because of that, and put a great many questions; but she refused to tell
her name. She said it was not necessary to mention it."
Interest came back again in a degree. "What was she like?" the Prince
wanted to know.
The curé thought for a moment, and answered slowly. "I can see her
still," he said, "because there was something different about her from
any one else I ever saw. As she came toward me in the _Place_, where you
and I met, she looked like a statue moving, her face was so white, and
her eyes seemed to be white, too, like the eyes of a statue. But when
she drew nearer, I saw that they were a pale, whitish blue, rimmed with
thin lines of black. There was very little colour in her lips or in her
light brown hair, and she had on a gray hat and travelling dress."
"Idina Bland!" Vanno exclaimed.
"You recognize the lady from my description?"
"Yes. What you say about her eyes is unmistakable. She's a distant
cousin of ours--on our mother's side: Irish, from the north of Ireland;
but she has lived a good deal in America with my mother's brother and
sister. She has no nearer relatives than ourselves, and for three
winters she was in Rome--oh, long after you went away. I thought she was
in America now. I wonder----" He broke off abruptly, and his face was
troubled. "What questions did she ask you?" he went on. "Were they
about--my brother?"
"Yes. She wished to know if I could tell her just when he was expected
with his bride, and what would be their address when they arrived. I had
the impression from something she said that she had heard about me from
you."
"I don't remember," said Vanno. "I may have mentioned to her that we had
a friend, a curé near Monte Carlo. She has a singularly good memory. She
never forgets--or forgives," he added, half under his breath. "When did
she come here?"
"The day before yesterday it was, Principino."
"Did she say whether she was staying in the neighbourhood?"
"No, she said nothing about herself, except that she had known your
family well for years."
"And about Angelo--what?"
"Nothing, except the questions. She wanted me to tell her whether I had
ever met or heard anything of his bride."
"I suppose you didn't give her much satisfaction?"
"Not much, my Principino. I could not, if I would. But I did say that I
believed they were expected in ten days or a fortnight. I hope I was not
indiscreet?"
"Not at all. Only--but it doesn't matter."
"Then, if it doesn't matter, let us turn to a subject nearer our hearts.
The favour you wished to ask? Which you may consider granted."
After all, it was not quite as easy to explain as Vanno had thought, in
his moments of exaltation on the mountain. But he was still determined
to carry out his plan.
"You know, Father, when I was a little boy I used to talk with you about
what I should do when I grew up, and how I should never fall in love
with any girl, no matter how beautiful, unless she had eyes like my
favourite stars? How you used to laugh about those 'eyes like stars!'
Yesterday I saw a girl in a train at Marseilles. I got into the train,
meaning to follow her, no matter how far. It was not like me to do
that."
"Pardon me. I think it was," chuckled the curé. "You would always act on
impulse, you man of fire--and ice."
"Well, she got off at Monte Carlo, where I myself wanted to stop. I
thought that was great luck, at first. I turned over in my mind ways of
making her acquaintance. I believed it would be hard to do, but I meant
to do it. Now, I'm not sure--not sure of anything about her. I'm not
even sure whether I want to know her or not. The favour I have to ask
is, that you help me to judge--and help her, if you have to judge
harshly."
"I?"
"Yes, you, Father. If she needs help, I'm not the one to help her. But
you could do it." And Vanno plunged deeper into explanations, warming
with his story and forgetting his first shy stiffness.
As he talked, the curé's gaze dwelt on him affectionately,
appreciatively. He admired the clear look and its fire of noble purity,
not often seen, he feared, on the face of a young man brought up to
believe the world at his feet. He admired the dark eyes, profound as the
African nights they had loved. He noted the rich brown of the swarthy
young face, clear as the profile on old Roman coins, and thought, as he
had thought before, that Murillo would have liked to paint that
colouring. He approved his Prince's way of speaking, when he lost
self-consciousness and his gestures became free and winged. "How his
mother would have loved him as he is now, if she had lived," the priest
thought, remembering the warm-hearted Irish-American girl, whose
impulses had been held down by the sombre asceticism of her husband,
which increased with years. No wonder Prince Vanno was his father's
favourite! Angelo had written that the duke disapproved his marriage,
but that Vanno when he had met the bride would "somehow make it all
come right." It would be a terrible thing if this younger son should
fall in love with the wrong woman; but it was too early yet to begin
preachings and warnings. The curé's kind heart gave him great tact.
"I am to go downstairs and look at this lady, then?" he said.
"Downstairs?"
"Only my expression for going down _there_. I always say that I live
upstairs, here at Roquebrune. And I like the upstairs life best."
"Well, you must come down and dine with me, anyhow. Then you will see
her, and tell me what you think."
The curé broke into a laugh, like a boy's. "Me dine at your Hôtel de
Paris, my son? That is a funny thought. You're inconsistent. If you
think it unsuitable for a lady alone, what about me, a poor country
priest from the mountains?"
"You wouldn't be alone. And you're a man. Besides, it's a good object.
When you've seen her, you must make acquaintance with her somehow. _I_
won't do it. Not while I doubt her."
"Hm! My Principino, you don't know what you are asking me. I am a
priest."
"That's why I ask you. She's--I'll tell you, Father, if she goes on
winning money, you can write to beg for your poor. Then, if she's
charitable, she'll give, and come up to see your church."
"And you think the rest is simple! Well, for your sake I will do what I
can."
"Will you dine with me to-night?"
"Impossible. I cannot leave the village for so much as an hour for the
present. I am shepherd of a mountain flock, remember, and my first duty
is to them. At any moment I may have a summons to one who is dying. A
black sheep he has been perhaps, but all the more should he be washed
white at the last. And I must hold myself ready to give him the extreme
unction when I am sent for, if it be now or not till next week."
Vanno had set his heart upon his plan, and could hardly bear to have it
indefinitely postponed; but he had learned through old experience that
his good friend was not one to be persuaded from duty.
"You'll let me know the moment you're free, in any case," he urged.
"That very moment. But, meanwhile, something may happen that will help
you to judge the lady for yourself--something definite."
"I should have judged her already, if it weren't for her eyes," Vanno
said, with a sigh. "They have a look as if she'd just seen heaven! I can
hardly tell you how, but they are different from all other women's eyes.
They send out a ray of light, like an arrow to your heart."
"Mon Dieu!" exclaimed the priest.
"Don't laugh, Father. It's true, or I wouldn't have felt about her as I
did from the first moment we looked at each other. She's beautiful, but
I assure you it wasn't her beauty that made me follow her. It was
something more mysterious than that. I swear to you, it was as if her
eyes said to me, 'Why, here you are at last, you whom I've known since
the beginning of things. I am the one you've waited for all your life.'"
"All your life! Twenty-seven years, is it not?"
"Twenty-nine this month, Father. I'm not a boy, and I've cared very much
only for one woman. I wasn't twenty then, and it's partly her fault that
it's hard for me to believe in others."
"That's scarcely fair to the others. One woman isn't all womanhood."
"Ah, it's odd you should have said that, for the thought in my mind has
been that this girl--this girl who has a child's face, I tell you,
Father--seems somehow to represent womanhood, the woman of all time: the
type, you know, that no man can resist. There's a kind of divine
softness about her which calls to all there is in one of manhood--or
romance. I can't describe it."
"You have made me understand," the curé answered quietly. "And you have
made me--for your sake--want to find out as soon as I possibly can what
truth is under all this sweetness."