After the happy-go-lucky fashion of Italian officialism, the train was
detained for some time at Ventimiglia. Lady Richardson, unsettled as a
fly, changed her seat five times, and complained garrulously.
"Captain Lake is so very particular," she explained, producing a
pocket-mirror and a powder-puff to repair possible damages. "He can't
bear to be kept waiting five minutes."
"Then I should make him wait five hours," replied Leah, calmly. "It
doesn't do to spoil men."
"You spoil me," said Sir Billy, audaciously.
"Pooh! You are merely a rascal in the making. I wouldn't hint how we
govern your sex, if you were anything but a grub."
The boy laughed complacently. "I'm a very nice grub."
"Very precocious, at all events. You know much more than is good for
you. Fanny, you should whip him."
"I haven't the heart or the muscle, my dear. The only safe thing will
be to marry a strong man with a bad temper."
"I should jolly well like to see the stepfather who would pitch into
me."
"You will, if you don't behave. Isn't that eyebrow a little crooked,
Billy?" and she fingered it delicately.
"Don't think so; but you have a smudge of powder on your chin."
"So I have. How horrid! There!" dusting it off. "What a comfort you
are to your darling mammy, my own! Kiss me."
Billy brushed her rouge with careful lips, and after a glance to see
that he had not blurred the picture, Lady Richardson put away the
mirror.
"Thank goodness, we're moving again," she prattled. "I do hope Reggy
won't be in a bad temper."
"I'll square that, little mother. Been to the theatres lately, Lady
Jim?"
"No," answered Leah, amused by his man-about-town air. "Is there
anything good on?"
"Awful stuff," announced Billy, with the conviction, of mature
judgment. "Couldn't sit out more than two plays. _The Woman with Three
Husbands_ isn't bad, though. Very French, of course. Saw it four times
before I told the little mother she couldn't face it."
"How alluring! Will you take me?"
Billy was obviously shocked. "No woman should see that piece. I can
stand heaps, but----" an after-me-the-deluge shrug hinted at the
degradation of the drama.
"Yes, poor darling," chimed in his mother; "he was blushing three
inches deep all over when he came home."
"I am glad to hear that Billy can blush at all," murmured Lady Jim.
"How's the betting, William?"
"Tolerable! I pulled off a fiver on Fly-by-Night; but a man in my form
lost a tenner, silly juggins."
"Oh! How old is that man?"
"Sixteen, and thinks he's twenty. Awfully saucy chap though. Went nap
on a girl, and another fella' scooped th' pool."
"Don't they teach English at Eton, Billy?"
The youth was quite undisturbed. "Try to," he assured her; "but
there's no snap about the classical rot they give us. Oh, here we
are."
"And there is Reggy," cried Lady Richardson, craning her dyed head out
of the window like another Jezebel. "How d'y do, Captain Lake? Lovely
day! So sorry we're late. You know Lady James Kaimes?"
"I have that pleasure," said the tall young soldier, saluting. "Very
sorry to hear your husband is ill, Lady James."
"Thanks! But I daresay Jamaica will pull him round, Captain Lake."
"Hope it won't," breathed Billy, at her elbow, as the lift soared.
"Why, you horrid little boy?"
"There'll be a chance for me."
"No, no! You're too much of a general lover, Billy."
"Girls do run a man so hard, nowadays," observed Billy, pathetically.
"It was different in your youth, no doubt. But I am not a girl, and
quite old enough to box the ears of conceited urchins."
"Do!--if you'll let me give you a kiss for a blow."
"What precocious Christianity! You had better apply to that pretty
American girl near the Casino door."
"Miss Mamie Mulrady? Oh, I can get her kisses without fightin'. Not
bad-lookin', is she? Lots of tin, an' as spry as they make 'em.
There's th' little mother an' that rotter chippin' into th' Casino.
Shall we follow, Lady Jim?"
They were stopped on the steps by Miss Mulrady, "who knew both, and
claimed acquaintance through a wholly unnecessary lorgnette. She was a
vivacious Wild West product, who exaggerated the vernacular, because
Europeans expected to find the Californian girl of fiction in real
life. Her exaggerated slang was assumed out of sheer amusement, and
she greatly enjoyed the amazed looks of those who heard her talk good
Anglo-Saxon, which she did, when she escaped from fools to forgather
with wise men.
"How are you, Miss Mulrady?" asked Billy solemnly.
"Keepin' afloat, I guess, but that's about all. The dollars I've lost
buckin' the tiger would have bought me a dozen husbands."
"Foreign ones are cheap, I believe," said Leah, admiring the
prairie-flower's Paris frock more than her republican manner.
"You make me smile. I'm goin' to run tandem with Sir Billy here--me
first and he the wheeler."
"No go," said the boy, quite able to hold his own. "I'm not goin' to
marry a Bret Harte girl."
"Oh, do," replied Miss Mulrady, in the purest of English, and placing
two small gloved hands together. "I'll be a wife and a mother in one."
"What economy!" smiled Lady Jim. "Are you coming into the 'devil's
parlour'?"
"Later. I'm waiting for Mr. Askew."
Leah started. She thought that Askew was safe in Shropshire, making
attempts to civilise the fixture. "Harry Askew?"
"That's so," assented Miss Mulrady, relapsing into her Wild West
vocabulary, and with a keen look. "He called on Mommo an' me, when he
was cruisin' out 'Frisco way. We're negotiatin' a system to break this
old bank."
"You evidently wish to be popularised in a song," said Lady Jim,
languidly. "How long has Mr. Askew been devoting his energies to such
things?" This with an angry reflection that he had not called on her.
"You might reckon it twenty-four hours," said the American, admiring
her pointed brown shoe. "He's here for his health."
"I've heard that excuse before, with regard to Monte Carlo."
"Shouldn't wonder. We ticket our sins best sugar. Sir Billy, come
along an' buy me candy at the stores."
"But your man, Miss Mulrady--the Askew chap?"
"Lady Jim an' I 'ull swap humans. What say?" and she looked at Leah,
mischievously overdoing the slang.
"I never swap what isn't my own property," answered Lady Jim,
considering this offer too Western, and resenting the familiarity to
the extent of walking into the Casino with her head very much in the
air. America could hold her own with the mother-country, and Leah did
not approve.
"She wants to be the whole show an' the box-office," murmured Mamie,
mischievously. "Stay here, Bub."
"I am sorry to refuse a lady," replied Billy, resenting the word; "but
I've put my money on Lady Jim, this trip."
"On the red--hair, you mean. Go bye-bye with your nurse, then. Here's
Mr. Askew, he's older than you."
"And easier to please," snapped the youth, much offended. "You'll
excuse me, Miss Mulrady, but a man can't keep a woman waitin'."
He retired into what Lady Jim called the "devil's parlour" with a
Floreat Etona air, and Miss Mulrady, after a glance at the ears which
she longed to box soundly, turned to receive a breathless apology from
the belated Askew.
"There's a friend of yours gone in to sin for an hour," said she, when
a treaty was concluded.
"I have so many friends--so-called."
"Of the high-toned gilt-edged sort, with red scalps?"
Askew comprehended in a second. "Lady Jim," he stammered; "yes, I
heard that she was at San Remo. What's she doing here?"
"Visitin' the sick an' the poor," said Mamie, shrewdly. "It's what
folks come to Monte for. Guess, she best drop in on you--a sicker man
I never saw, an' you'll be poor enough by th' time we're through with
this old system of yours. I know a bank where th' wild time goes. You
may look all through Bacon without findin' that remark--it's my own.
Let's get."
Thus, with barbaric japes, did the child of nature lead her companion
into the gilded halls of iniquity, and the two jostled the
well-dressed crowd which circulated round the tables. The silence was
that of an arctic night, save for the droning voices of the croupiers,
and at times a hurried whisper of joy or dismay.
"Goin' in for rouge et noir with Lady Jim?" asked Miss Mulrady,
alluding to the hair of Askew and his friend; "or perhaps she's
sportin' on trente et quarante, to suit her years."
"She's under thirty," growled Askew, crossly.
"An' you're under the weather, considerable," retorted the American,
sharply. "Get up steam an' fizzle a bit, can't you?"
"Shall I war-whoop, or dance a horn-pipe?"
"Neither I prefer originality."
"Try the system, then"; and Askew pushed his way through the
Mammon-worshippers to where the roulette ball wheeled its fatal round.
Lady Jim did not play. She had stupidly forgotten her peacock's
feather and could not risk loss with her small capital. But Billy,
having the audacity and luck of innocence, was at hand, so she gave
him five hundred francs to experiment.
"We'll halve the winnings."
"Never take money from a woman," said Billy, gravely; "but I don't
mind a fly. Got any sportin' number?"
"Thirteen, because that's your age. There is Mademoiselle Aksakoff, I
wish to speak to her"; and she moved gracefully towards the tall, pale
girl, while Young Iniquity, with the air of a Vanderbilt, planked her
money on the odd number.
Katinka Aksakoff grew crimson when Lady Jim saluted her, and would
have evaded the meeting if possible. She might have been a nun from
the looks of her, and was garbed in unrelieved black, which Leah
concluded was mourning for unrequited affection. After that fleeting
wave of colour, her thin, oval face grew marble white, and a pair of
dark questioning eyes appeared twice as large and three times as
brilliant as they had been before resting on Lady Jim's gracious
smile.
"So glad to meet you," murmured Leah, as they shook hands in the air.
"Lady Richardson and I have come to tea. Where is your father?"
"He is talking with the German ambassador," replied Katinka, without a
smile, and with Siberian coldness.
"So fortunate. We can chat without interruption."
"I scarcely think we have much to chat about."
"Oh yes," rejoined Lady Jim, with perfect good-humour. "When you learn
how you misjudge me, we shall get on capitally."
"Pardon. I do not understand."
"Probably not, since I have yet to make my explanation. Let us walk on
the terrace, and you can throw me over, to where they shoot the
pigeons, if my conversation displeases you."
"Ah, but it is so strange!"
"And so necessary--to your peace of mind."
"No!" Mademoiselle Aksakoff's face grew scarlet once more, and she
pressed her hand to her heart, as though she felt there a cruel pain.
Perhaps she did, poor soul! But the stoicism of the Slav enabled her
to summon up a wry smile, and to bow her head, as she followed her
brilliant rival. With the excess of an ill-governed, passionate heart
did she hate this woman; but as a Niobe, frozen and cold, did she
appear when they were pacing the terrace. And not one single word of
her companion's sugared speech was she prepared to believe.
Leah's eyes rested appreciatively on the varied beauty of God's work
and man's improvements. The huddled white houses of Monaco crowned its
giant rock, which bulked hugely against the blended azure of sea and
sky. The placid waters ringed its base with foam, and stretched with
sparks and dashes of fire towards an immeasurable horizon. Landward
bunched the red roofs of the town, below arid and precipitous heights,
soaring massively into the radiant and ever-deepening blue. A balmy
wind, like some invisible alchemist, changed the sombre green of the
olive-groves to patches of glittering silver. Near at hand spread the
lustrous foliage of lemon- and orange-trees, nor was wanting the
almond-blossom of the far east. They walked under palms suggestive of
Bedouin life, and, to the well-read, of Heine's sad little song,
immortal and heart-rendingly true. Roses and violets, and flowers of
many shapes and hues, bordered the terrace; the wide sea laughed at
their feet, and behind them rose the palatial structure of the Casino,
gorgeous as the Golden House of Nero. It was Fairyland, and Lady Jim
said so to her sad companion, who was too blinded by love to see
beauty anywhere when the beloved was absent.
"We can talk in French, if you like," said Leah, after she had paid
her tribute to nature.
"In English, I think," replied the Russian girl; "my father wishes me
to speak only your tongue, while we remain in London, so that I may
improve."
"You can't," answered Leah, genuinely complimentary. "Your accent is
much better than a born English person; also your grammar, and your
choice of words."
"We take the trouble to learn your language, whereas you English do
not."
"We're too busy annexing the world to bother about philological
lessons," said Lady Jim, remembering Heine's remark anent the Romans.
"Possibly," assented Katinka, with a chilling smile; "but, interesting
as this conversation is, I do not see its necessity."
"Monsieur Demetrius," began Leah, abruptly, when Mademoiselle raised a
protesting hand.
"We need not speak of him, madame."
"Why not? He is a mutual friend. I know you fancy----"
"I fancy nothing," interrupted the other, haughtily. "Words are not
needed where he is concerned."
"But explanations are. You think that I love Demetrius!"
Katinka flushed painfully, and she put her hand suddenly to her
throat.
"I forbid you to speak," she said, in a stifled voice.
"Nonsense. We are not in Russia, where people kneel down and say
please. Besides, it is necessary for your peace of mind that you
should hear what I have to say."
"You made that remark before, Lady James."
"True, and I make it again, to emphasise my meaning, though I hate
repetition. Demetrius loves you."
"No, no! It is you who----"
"Pish! His heart is yours; his science mine."
"His science!" Mademoiselle Aksakoff looked surprised.
"What else do you think attracted me? I am an English cat, and I have
no lovers. Do you remember La Fontaine's fable?"
"Lady James, be plain with me."
"I am trying to be. You think that I love Demetrius, and that he is
devoted to me. It is not so."
Katinka winced. She did not like such plain speaking, and, moreover,
doubted its truth. "If I could think so, I would----"
"Of course you can think so," said Lady Jim, amiably. "Demetrius is
particularly clever in curing consumptive diseases. For that reason I
conversed with him a great deal. My husband is very ill, and I wanted
the doctor to cure him. If Demetrius thought that my liking for his
society meant anything else, he is an egotist. My advice is, that you
should procure his pardon and marry him."
"There are obstacles in the way."
"I am not one, I assure you."
"Are you speaking honestly?"
"I am!" and the eyes of the two women met. Katinka searched the hard
blue orbs of the great lady with painful intensity, and Leah bore the
scrutiny with the knowledge that her conduct had been, and always
would be, perfectly correct. Had she been the least in love with the
doctor, she would not have dared to submit to that probing, painful
gaze. Women may deceive mere men; they cannot deceive one another,
especially in affairs of the heart. When Katinka withdrew her eyes she
was satisfied that Lady Jim cared nothing for Demetrius. Without
explanation, she burst into rapid and wrathful speech, and Leah's
feminine perspicacity enabled her to guess the unuttered preamble,
which a man would have required to be put into words.
"Why then do you lure him to your feet?" cried the Russian girl, in a
sharp, pained voice. "If you love him not, why torture him, and me? I
know he loves you--I know--I know--oh yes, I know."
"You do not. His love for me--if it can be called so--is the mere
passing fancy of a man for a woman who has been kind to him."
"Too kind," muttered Katinka, vengefully.
"Not at all. But men are so conceited that they think a woman's smile
means a woman's love. You have a golden heart, yet you throw it into
the greedy hands of this selfish egotist----"
"He is not that," gasped the girl.
"Yes, he is, and much worse. Demetrius possesses the selfishness of a
woman and the vanity of a man."
"You reverse the proper order."
"No, I don't. Men are far vainer than women, and women more selfish
than men. I'm selfish myself, therefore I am happy. You are one of
those self-tormenting, self-denying angels, who make men what they
are--vain, greedy, conceited, lord-of-creation beasts. And I insult
the beasts by such a comparison."
"I thought you liked men."
"I use them, and I detest them," retorted Lady Jim, speaking more
plainly than was her custom. "There are good men--I don't deny that,
for I know one at least"--she was thinking of Lionel; "but the
majority--ugh! God help the women like yourself, who give their hearts
into the keeping of such animals!"
"You love your husband, surely."
"We all love our husbands--it's part of the Church Service to love
them. Pah!--I am not here to talk of my marriage, but of yours. You
know now that I don't care for Demetrius, and that I desired his help
merely for my husband's sake."
"Yes. I have wronged you"; and Katinka put out her hand.
Lady Jim took it, rather softened. "You poor child, how foolish you
are! Why not forget Demetrius?"
"I cannot."
"He is not worthy of you."
"Is he not?--ah, you don't know him."
Leah smiled grimly. "I know him much better than you do. However, if
you insist upon putting him on an imaginary pedestal, there is no more
to be said. Have you heard from him lately?"
Mademoiselle Aksakoff was now quite deceived, and looked upon Lady Jim
as her dearest and best friend. "Last week I received a letter from
Funchal," she said eagerly. "Yes; I wrote to him about the chances of
his pardon----"
"Are there any chances?"
"Yes, yes; I assure you--yes. I have a cousin, high in favour with the
Czar, who can procure an immediate pardon. But my father does not wish
me to marry Demetrius----"
"Wise man," murmured Leah.
"And so there is some difficulty. Oh"--she clasped her hands--"if
Constantine would only be guided by me! He comes of a rich family, and
has the title of Prince----"
"So he told me."
"Ah, but did he say how he had parted from his family because of his
advanced ideas? He gave up money and rank, and all that makes life
pleasant, to labour among the poor peasants. Is that not noble?"
"So noble that I have difficulty in thinking M. Demetrius acted so."
"But he did--he did. And my father is angered because of this
self-sacrifice. If Constantine would only return to the rank of life
in which he was born, my father would permit me to marry him, and then
the pardon would speedily be procured. But I plead in vain," she
murmured, with hanging head "he will not listen."
"He may, when he returns," volunteered Lady Jim, kindly.
"But when will that be? If he goes to Jamaica----"
Leah turned suddenly white. "Why to Jamaica?" she asked sharply.
"He wrote that the Duke of Pentland had asked him to go there, to see
after your husband. And you say that----"
"Yes, yes; but this patient Garth, who----"
Katinka looked surprised. "But have you not heard?"
"Heard? I have heard nothing. I do not correspond with M. Demetrius,
my dear. It is now April, and he has been at Funchal since January,
trying to heal that poor man. Has he----?"
"No," said Mademoiselle Aksakoff, quickly. "The man is dead."
"Garth dead?" Lady Jim sat down, with a gasp.
"Yes; so Demetrius wrote last week, and said he would go on to Jamaica
at the Duke's request to see your husband. But you look quite ill."
"I hate to hear of deaths," said Lady Jim, viciously. She certainly
spoke truly with regard to this particular death. In her mind lurked a
dread lest Demetrius had assisted nature, after all.