“POOR Bob! You were standing on that balcony with a very jaunty air,
smoking your cuba the last time I passed here,” said Calvert, as he
looked up at the windows of the Hôtel Royale at Milan, while he drove on
to another and less distinguished hotel. He would have liked greatly to
put up at the Royale, and had a chat with its gorgeous landlord over
the Reppinghams, how long they stayed and whither they went, and how
the young widow bore up under the blow, and what shape old Rep’s grief
assumed.
No squeamishness as to the terms that might have been used towards
himself would have prevented his gratifying this wish. The obstacle was
purely financial He had told the host, on leaving, to pay a thousand
francs for him that he had lost at play, and it was by no means
convenient now to reimburse him. The bank had just closed as he arrived,
so there was nothing for it but to await its opening the next morning.
His steps were then turned to the Telegraph-office. The message to
Loyd was in these words: “Your letter received. I am here, and leave
to-morrow.”
“Of course the fellow will understand that I have obeyed his high
behest, and I shall be back at Orta in time to catch the post on its
arrival, and see whether he has kept faith with me or not. If there be
no newspapers there for the villa I may conclude it is all right.”
This brief matter of business over, he felt like one who had no further
occasion for care. When he laid down his burden he could straighten his
back, no sense of the late pressure remaining to remind him of the load
that had pressed so heavily. He knew this quality in himself, and
prized it highly. It formed part of what he used boastfully to call his
“Philosophy,” and he contrasted it proudly with the condition of those
fellows, who instead of rebounding under pressure, collapsed, and sunk
never to rise more. The vanity with which he regarded himself supplied
him with a vindictive dislike to the world, who could suffer a fellow
endowed and gifted as he was to be always in straits and difficulties.
He mistook--a very common mistake by-the-way--a capacity to enjoy, for a
nature deservant of enjoyment, and he thought it the greatest injustice
to see scores of well-off people who possessed neither his own good
constitution nor his capacity to endure dissipation uninjured. “Wretches
not fit to live,” as he said, and assuredly most unfit to live the life
which he alone prized or cared for. He dined somewhat sumptuously at one
of the great restaurants. “He owed it to himself,” he said, after all
that dreary cookery of the villa, to refresh his memory of the pleasures
of the table, and he ordered a flask of Marco-brunner that cost a
Napoleon. He was the caressed of the waiters, and escorted to the door
by the host There is no supremacy so soon recognised as that of wealth,
and Calvert, for a few hours, gave himself up to the illusion that
he was rich. As the opera was closed, he went to one of the smaller
theatres, and sat out for a while one of those dreariest of all dreary
things, a comedy by the “immortal Goidoni!”
Immortal indeed, so long as sleep remains an endowment of humanity!
He tried to interest himself in a plot wherein the indecency was only
veiled by the dulness, and where the language of the drawing-room
never rose above the tone of the servants’-hall, and left the place in
disgust, to seek anywhere, or anyhow, something more, amusing than this.
Without well knowing how, he found himself at the door of the Gettone,
the hell he had visited when he was last at Milan.
“They shall sup me, at all events,” said he, as he deposited his hat and
cane in the ante-chamber. The rooms were crowded and it was some time
before Calvert could approach the play-table, and gain a view of the
company. He recognised many of the former visitors. There sat the pretty
woman with the blonde ringlets, her diamond-studded fingers carelessly
playing with the gold pieces before her; there was the pale student-like
boy--he seemed a mere boy--with his dress-cravat disordered, and his
hair dishevelled, just as he had seen him last; and there was the old
man, whose rouleau had cost Calvert all his winnings. He looked fatigued
and exhausted, and seemed as if dropping asleep over his game, and yet
the noise was deafening--the clamour of the players, the cries of the
croupier, the clink of glasses, and the clink of gold!
“Now to test the adage that says when a man is pelted by all other
ill luck, that he’ll win at play,” said Calvert, as he threw, without
counting them, several Napoleons on the table. His venture was
successful, and so was another and another after it.
“This is yours, Sir,” said she of the blonde ringlets,’ handing him a
hundred franc-piece that had rolled amongst her own.
“Was it not to suggest a partnership that it went there?” said he,
smiling courteously.
“Who knows?” said she, half carelessly, half invitingly.
“Let us see what our united fortunes will do. This old man is dozing and
does not care for the game. Would you favour me with your place, Sir,
and take your rest with so much more comfort, on one of those luxurious
sofas yonder?”
“No!” said the old man, sternly. “I have as much right to be here as
you.”
“The legal right I am not going to dispute. It is simply a matter of
expediency.”
“Do you mean to stake all that gold, Sir?” interrupted the croupier,
addressing Calvert, who, during this brief discussion, had suffered his
money to remain till it had been doubled twice over.
“Ay, let it stay there,” said he, carelessly.
“What have you done that makes you so lucky?” whispered the blonde
ringlets. “See, you have broken the bank!”
“What have I done, do you mean in the way of wickedness?” said he,
laughing as the croupiers gathered in a knot to count over the sum to be
paid to him. “Nearly everything. I give you leave to question me--so far
as your knowledge of the Decalogue goes--what have I not done?” And
so they sauntered down the room side by side and sat down on a sofa,
chatting and laughing pleasantly together, till the croupier came loaded
with gold and notes to pay all Calvert’s winnings.
“What was it the old fellow muttered as he passed?” said Calvert; “he
spoke in German, and I didn’t understand him.”
“It was something about a line in your forehead that will bring you bad
luck yet.”
“I have heard that before,” cried he, springing hastily up. “I wish I
could get him to tell me more;” and he hastened down the stairs after
the old man, but when he gained the street he missed him; he hurried in
vain on this side and that; no trace of him remained. “If I were given
to the credulous, I’d say that was the fiend in person,” muttered
Calvert, as he slowly turned towards his inn.
He tried in many ways to forget the speech that troubled him; he
counted over his winnings; they were nigh fourteen thousand francs; he
speculated on all he might do with them; he plotted and planned a dozen
roads to take, but do what he might, the old man’s sinister look and
dark words were before him, and he could only lie awake thinking over
them till day broke.
Determined to return to Orta in time to meet the post, he drove to
the bank, just as it was open for business, and presented his bill for
payment.
“You have to sign your name here,” said a voice he thought he
remembered, and, looking up, saw the old man of the play-table.
“Did we not meet last night?” whispered Calvert, in a low voice.
The other shook his head in dissent.
“Yes, I cannot be mistaken; you muttered a prediction in German as you
passed me, and I know what it meant.”
Another shake of the head was all his reply.
“Come, come, be frank with me; your secret, if it be one to visit that
place, is safe with me. What leads you to believe I am destined to evil
fortune?”
“I know nothing of you! I want _to_ know nothing,” said the old man,
rudely, and turned to his books.
“Well, if your skill in prophecy be not greater than in politeness, I
need not fret about you,” said Calvert laughing; and he went his way.
With that superstitious terror that tyrannises over the minds of
incredulous men weighing heavily on his heart, he drove back to Orta.
All his winnings of the night before could not erase from lus memory the
dark words of the old man’s prediction. He tried to forget, and then he
tried to ridicule it “So easy,” thought he, “for that old withered
mummy to cast a shadow on the path of a fellow full of life, vigour, and
energy, like myself. He has but to stand one second in my sunshine! It
is, besides, the compensation that age and decrepitude exact for being
no longer available for the triumphs and pleasures of life.” Such were
the sort of reasonings by which he sought to console himself, and then
he set to plan out a future--all the things that he could, or might, or
could not do.
Just as he drove into Orta the post arrived at the office, and he got
out and entered, as was his wont, to obtain his letters before the
public distribution had commenced.