They strolled about the Rooms for a while, and finally spent an amusing
half-hour watching the “trente-et-quarante” players. But all the time
Lily was asking herself what there could have been in the letter which
Captain Stuart had written to her, and which had not yet reached her? As
for the loss of her money, she really did manage to forget it.
Angus Stuart put a pink counter, that is, twenty francs, on the board
three separate times, and each time he lost.
“Unhappy in play, happy in love, my friend!” quoted M. Popeau
chaffingly. “I think I shall have to give you a mascot.”
And then Lily bethought herself of what Aunt Cosy had said concerning
the Marchesa Pescobaldi. “Do you believe in the Evil Eye,” she asked
eagerly.
Somewhat to her surprise, M. Popeau hesitated.
“That is a curious question,” he said, “but I will answer you truly. I
have long thought that there are in this strange world both men and
women who can bring misfortune on those whom they do not like—just as
there are human beings who radiate happiness and goodness.”
Captain Stuart broke in: “Surely persons may have the Evil Eye and so
injure what they love best in the world, without being able to help it?”
“Yes,” said M. Popeau gravely, “that is the true Evil Eye. I hope you
have not met anyone with the Evil Eye lately, Mademoiselle? That would
certainly account for the theft of your winnings this afternoon!”
“Yes, I’m afraid I have.” She laughed gaily.
“Has Count Beppo the Evil Eye?” asked M. Popeau.
“Oh, no! Whatever made you think such a thing? The person who is
supposed to have the Evil Eye is a woman. Beppo Polda is staying here
with a certain Marchese and Marchesa Pescobaldi. According to my
aunt”—Lily had now quite slipped into the way of calling the Countess
Polda her aunt—“this Italian lady has the Evil Eye.”
“I don’t know that I would believe everything the Countess Polda would
say about another lady,” said M. Popeau reflectively. Then he added,
almost as if speaking to himself: “I did not realise that Count Beppo
was with the Pescobaldis.”
“They all came together, and they are all going away together, very
soon,” said Lily.
“And what do you think of the Marchesa?” asked the Frenchman. “She was a
very beautiful woman when I last saw her—before the war.”
“She is very, very beautiful still!” exclaimed Lily. “Her eyes are
lovely—like large sparkling jewels. I looked well into them, but, of
course, I could not see which was the Evil Eye!”
“Do not laugh at the Evil Eye,” said M. Popeau warningly. “I could tell
you some curious stories about those who are supposed to possess it. The
most dramatic of all my tales concerned the terrible fire which took
place in Paris years ago, at what was called the Charity Bazaar. There
were people who were so unkind as to suggest that the tragedy occurred
owing to the presence of a very high Italian personage who was known to
have the Evil Eye. He had just left the building when the fire broke
out.”
They wandered about, all over the Casino, and then they went across to
the Hôtel de Paris and M. Popeau ordered tea. Both the young Scotsman
and the elderly Frenchman vied with one another in “fussing” over their
guest, and Lily felt happy and exhilarated—what a delightful day she was
having!
“And now,” said M. Popeau at last, “I fear it is time that I fulfilled
my promise of escorting you back to La Solitude, Mademoiselle.”
“I hope you will allow me——” began Captain Stuart, but before he could
finish his sentence, Lily exclaimed, “Why, there’s Beppo Polda!”
Hurrying towards them was a tall, dark man to whom Angus Stuart took an
instant, instinctive, violent dislike. He told himself that Beppo Polda
looked a foppish, theatrical fellow. That, however, was very unfair—it
only meant that Beppo looked exceptionally well-dressed, what some
people call “smart.”
“I was so afraid that I should miss you!” he exclaimed, taking very
little notice of Lily’s companions. “Are you ready, Lily? I’ve got the
car outside. We ought to start pretty soon, as I have to get back to the
Hidalgo by five o’clock.”
“You will do that very easily,” interposed M. Popeau. “It’s only a
quarter past four now.”
Stuart felt annoyed that the Frenchman seemed to take it for granted
that Lily would go off with this dandified-looking foreigner.
“I propose taking Miss Fairfield for a short drive first.” There was a
touch of haughty decision in the young Count’s voice. It was not that he
resented M. Popeau’s apparent friendship with Lily, but already he
reciprocated Angus Stuart’s sudden, unreasoning dislike. He pretended
not to know that the Scotsman belonged to the little party.
“Beppo,” said Lily, rather awkwardly, “this is Captain Stuart. Captain
Stuart, may I introduce my cousin, Count Beppo Polda?”
The two men looked at one another with a long, measuring glance, then
they shook hands frigidly.
As they were making their way to the door, Lily fell behind for a moment
by Angus Stuart’s side. “Perhaps I shall find your letter at La
Solitude,” she whispered. She added: “I hope I shall.”
His thin, keen face lit up. “D’you really mean that, Miss Fairfield?”
“Of course I do!”
She shook hands with him and with M. Popeau; and a few moments later the
car was going at a good pace past the Casino, in the opposite direction
to that which would have taken them up to La Solitude.
“Is Captain Stuart an old friend of yours?” asked Beppo abruptly.
Lily hesitated. To her secret relief, he went on at once, without
waiting for an answer: “The word friendship may mean so much or so
little, my little cousin!”
“That is very true!” said Lily demurely.
“But there can be no such doubt about the word _love_!”
Her eyes dropped before her companion’s eager, searching, ardent gaze.
Was this what M. Popeau had meant to warn her against?
The motor slowed down. They were now looking across the great green
promontory which juts out of the blue sea to the left of Monte Carlo.
“I wish I could stay on a little longer,” said Beppo in a low voice.
“What a cursed thing is money! Still, we poor mortals can’t do without
it. So I shall go back to Rome and try to make what we call a lucky hit,
eh? Then I shall come back, and perhaps stay up at La Solitude. Shall I
be welcome, Lily?”
She looked up at him. “Yes,” she said slowly. “Of course you will be
welcome, Beppo!”
As is almost invariably the case with a certain type of girl, Lily liked
to mix the jam of flirtation with the powder of good advice, and she did
feel that Beppo, with regard to his father and mother, was indeed very
thoughtless and selfish. So she added, deliberately: “Your return will
be welcome to me, and also——”
“Also?” he repeated eagerly. He tried to guess what she was going to
say, but failed.
“Also to your father and mother,” she said gravely. “I wonder if you
know how much they care for you? They really live for you, and for
nothing else, Beppo!”
To her surprise he looked disturbed and troubled. “I’m afraid that’s
true,” he said ruefully. “And yet, Lily, seriously, I feel I really know
very little about them! I know they love me, Lily—nay, that there is
nothing that they would not do for me—and yet they seem to me almost
like strangers.”
Lily was indeed astonished. “I don’t understand,” she exclaimed. “What
exactly do you mean, Beppo?”
Somehow they seemed to have come much nearer to one another in the last
two or three minutes, for Beppo Polda’s deep, vibrant voice had in it a
note of sincerity which surprised the girl, and made her feel far more
really kindly to him than she had done yet.
“They never tell me anything about their private affairs,” he went on
slowly. “I need not tell you—for, of course, you must have seen it for
yourself—that mamma’s is the master mind. She is a very clever woman.
Sometimes”—his voice dropped—“I wonder if she is not too clever! I speak
to you thus frankly because I feel that you are already one of the
family.”
Lily felt touched by his words—though she thought it an odd thing to
say, for, of course, she was not really related to them at all. She
wondered, uncomfortably, if Beppo knew that she was his parents’ paying
guest.
“Ought we not to be turning now?” she suggested. “I’m afraid Aunt Cosy
will be getting anxious about me. She is very particular.”
“One can never be too particular about a young girl,” observed Beppo
sententiously. “But still, it won’t hurt mamma to be anxious for another
twenty minutes or so.”
They drove on, and Lily told herself that it was very pleasant to be
motoring through this beautiful country, while listening to Beppo’s
full, caressing voice. She found herself answering all kinds of
questions about her own childhood and girlhood, and she could not help
feeling flattered that Beppo was so obviously interested in all that
concerned her. In that he was very unlike Captain Stuart. _He_ seemed to
take everything for granted. Beppo was even anxious to know of what
illnesses her father and mother had died!
In some ways this fine, strong-looking young fellow seemed to the
English girl more like a woman than a man. He was so interested in the
sort of things which are supposed, perhaps erroneously, only to interest
women. He spoke admiringly of her frock and her hat, and she gave him a
lively account of her expedition to Mme. Jeanne.
“Excellent Jeanne!” he at once exclaimed. “I must manage to find time to
go and see her.” He added: “She has a sister who keeps an hotel in the
Condamine. My father was saying only to-day that Jeanne’s sister had
written to him about some man in her hotel who desired a card of
admission to the Club. Papa is so good-natured!”
Lily made no answer to that remark. She did not think the Count at all
good-natured. He was entirely absorbed in himself, and in his own
concerns. But, of course, there could be no doubt at all about his great
love for his son.
They were nearing La Solitude when Lily bethought herself of what had
happened in the restaurant about the gold snuff-box. “I want to ask you
something,” she said suddenly.
Beppo turned his face down on his pretty companion. “Ask me anything you
like,” he exclaimed gaily. “And I promise that you shall have a true
answer!”
“It’s only,” she said, rather nervously, “that I wish you would show me
that lovely little cigarette-box again, Beppo. Is it really true that
you bought it in Milan? Somehow I don’t think it is——”
“Well, no,” Beppo answered smiling. “It is not true. But you are a
clever little witch to have discovered the fact!”
He stopped the car. They were on a lonely cross-road, and Lily will
always remember the exact spot, and what was said there, though at the
time it did not make very much impression on her.
He took the gold box out of his pocket and handed it to her.
“Look here!” he exclaimed. “If you’ve taken such a fancy to it, allow me
to present it to you, my fair cousin—just as a souvenir?”
How strange that he should say that—it was almost exactly what poor
George Ponting had said!
“I don’t want it, thank you, Beppo. I only wanted to look at it again.
Then if you did not buy it at Milan, how did you get it?”
The more she looked at it, the more she felt certain that it was the box
she had seen on the evening of her arrival at La Solitude.
“I don’t see why I shouldn’t tell you”; he hesitated a moment, then said
frankly: “This box was a present from mamma. As a matter of fact, she
gave it me yesterday, when you went off to see Cristina in the kitchen.
Do you remember?”
“Yes,” said Lily in a low voice. “I remember when you mean.” And she
handed the box back to him.
“I confess,” went on Beppo, “that I did not in the least understand why
there should be any mystery about it! But, of course, I could not
contradict mamma when she came out with that absurd tale of my having
bought the box in Milan last year.”
At last they reached La Solitude. “No, I won’t come in,” said Beppo,
shaking his head. “I’ve got to go back to the Hidalgo Hotel, and take
the Marchesa for a drive before it gets pitch dark.”
“I hope I haven’t made you late!” exclaimed Lily, for as a matter of
fact it was now after five o’clock.
“Oh, no. I shall say that something went wrong—things are always going
wrong with this old car! It’s high time the Marchese had a new one. But
he is careful! Carefulness is an Italian virtue—_I_ call it an Italian
vice!”
“Aunt Cosy will be dreadfully disappointed,” said the girl.
And then Beppo suddenly changed his mind. The thought of spending even a
few more minutes in Lily Fairfield’s company was pleasant to him. He
would tell the Marchesa that he had had a bad puncture.
“To please you I will just go up and say how-d’you-do to Mamma!” he
exclaimed, looking at her tenderly.
Together they walked up through the wood, and so on to the lawn, whence
Lily noticed Aunt Cosy’s ample form behind one of the drawing-room
windows.
The Countess waved her hand gaily to the young couple. She opened the
window. “I was getting quite anxious about you, Lily,” she exclaimed.
“But all’s well that ends well.”
“Lily and I have had a delightful drive,” said Beppo. “And I’ve just
come up to say how-d’you-do and good-bye!” And then, to Lily’s
discomfiture, he suddenly asked:
“By the way, Mamma, why did you tell that story—they call it a
tarradiddle in England—about the snuff-box you so kindly gave to me?”
The Countess looked disturbed and surprised at the question.
“I will tell you why, my son,” she said slowly. “That beautiful box was
given to me by a friend who is now dead. I did not wish to speak of him.
That is why, my dear child, I made up that little tale.”
“You made me look like a fool!” said Beppo crossly. “You need not have
said anything at all—and I would not have said anything either! After
all, it is no one’s business what you give me or what I give you.”
Still, he kissed her very affectionately and then went off, leaving them
standing together.
Lily turned impulsively to the Countess.
“Then poor Mr. Ponting gave you that box when he said good-bye?” She
spoke in a very low voice. “He offered to give it to me. But I wouldn’t
take it. He was grateful to you, Aunt Cosy, for all your kindness, so I
quite understand his having given it to you.”
The Countess was now looking at Lily with a long, measuring, rather
anxious look.
“Yes,” she said at last. “You have guessed the truth! That charming
little object belonged to poor Mr. Ponting. He asked me to take it as a
last gift; and though I, too, hesitated, feeling the delicacy that you
so rightly felt, I did end by taking it, for I thought of Beppo. I knew
he would like it. But I did not want to recall that sad affair to-day,
when you were all so happy.”
“I wish you would let me tell M. Popeau,” said Lily. “I know the
description of that snuff-box has been circulated all over Nice and
Mentone——”
“Let me beg you,” cried the Countess hurriedly, “to say nothing about
it, Lily! We have suffered enough over that business. They would
probably send up again from the police, and it would be odious.”
As the girl, surprised, remained silent, the other went on urgently:
“May I trust you? Will you give me your word of honour you will say
nothing about the gold box, dear child?”
“I certainly will say nothing if you would rather I did not do so,” said
Lily. Still, she was sorry to know that she had unwittingly deceived
both Mr. Ponting’s friend and the police. She knew that they had
attached considerable importance to the disappearance of the gold box.
Before going upstairs Lily went into the kitchen, and there, lying on
the table was the letter which had been posted by Angus Stuart something
like thirty-six hours ago. She took it up, Cristina watching her the
while.
“Did this letter arrive yesterday morning?” she asked.
Cristina hesitated. “The Countess brought it in about an hour ago; I do
not know when it arrived,” she said at last.
Lily took up her letter and turned away. She went up to her room, and
walked right across to the window. Then she saw that the letter had been
steamed open, and fastened down again rather clumsily. It was too bad of
Aunt Cosy! It was hateful of her!
The letter ran as follows:
DEAR MISS FAIRFIELD,
This is to tell you that I am very, very glad you and I are friends as
well as pals—pals as well as friends. I feel awfully distressed that
such a fearful thing happened to you on Sunday. Remember your promise
to your friend,
ANGUS STUART.