Initial commit of ebook 77836 filesHEADmain

1 files changed, 9733 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/77836-0.txt b/77836-0.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..43d89d6
--- /dev/null
+++ b/77836-0.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,9733 @@
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77836 ***
+
+
+
+
+THE MYSTERY ROAD
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Gerald looked him over for a moment, unmoved but
+intensely curious. FRONTISPIECE. _See page 82._]
+
+
+
+
+  THE MYSTERY ROAD
+
+  By
+  E. PHILLIPS OPPENHEIM
+
+  WITH FRONTISPIECE BY
+  F. VAUX WILSON
+
+  [Illustration]
+
+  BOSTON
+  LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY
+  1923
+
+
+
+
+  _Copyright, 1923_,
+  BY LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY.
+
+  _All rights reserved_
+
+  Published May, 1923
+
+
+  PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
+
+
+
+
+  _To
+  the memory of_
+
+  _WINIFRED TOLTON_
+
+  _the most wonderful secretary and
+  dearest friend of my life I dedicate
+  this story which I dictated to her
+  and which she loved_
+
+
+
+
+BOOK ONE
+
+
+
+
+THE MYSTERY ROAD
+
+
+
+
+BOOK ONE
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+Myrtile stood upon the crazy verandah, her eyes shaded by her hand,
+gazing down the straight, narrow footpath, a sundering line across the
+freshly ploughed field, which led to the village in the hollow below.
+The mouldering white stone cottage from which she had issued was set
+in a cleft of the pine-covered hills; it seemed to struggle against
+its inborn ugliness and to succeed only because of the beauty of its
+setting,--in the foreground the brown earth, with its neatly trained
+vines and its quarter of an acre of fragrant violets; the orchard, pink
+and white with masses of cherry blossom; beyond, a level stretch of
+freshly turned brown earth, soon to become a delicate carpet of tender
+green, and, by the time the vines should sprout, a sea of deep gold.
+It was the typical homestead of the small French peasant proprietor.
+Even the goat was not absent, the goat which came at that moment with
+clanking chain to rub his nose against the girl’s knee.
+
+Myrtile’s hand dropped to her side. The three figures were plainly
+visible now. She remained quiescent, watching them with a mute tragedy
+in her face which, to any one ignorant of the inner significance of
+this approaching procession, must have seemed a little puzzling. For
+there was nothing tragic about Jean Sargot--middle-aged, a typical
+peasant of the district, with coarsened face and weather-beaten
+skin--or about the companion who hung on his arm,--a plump, dark woman,
+with black hair and eyes, vociferous and fluent of gesture, with a
+high-pitched voice and apparently much to say. The third person, who
+walked in the rear, seemed even less likely to incite apprehension. He
+was more corpulent than his neighbour Jean Sargot, and he wore clothes
+of a holiday type, ill suited to this quiet country promenade. His
+coat was black and long, a garment, it appeared, of earlier years,
+for it left a very broad gap to display a fancy waistcoat adorned by
+a heavy gold chain. He wore a silk hat which had done duty at every
+christening, marriage and funeral in the neighbourhood for the last
+twenty years, and his whole appearance was one of discomfort. Yet the
+girl’s eyes, as they rested upon him, were filled with terror.
+
+They were near enough now for speech, and her stepfather, waving his
+hand, called out to her:
+
+“It is the Widow Dumay, little one, and our friend and neighbour,
+Pierre Leschamps, who come to drink a glass of wine with us. Hurry with
+the table and some chairs, and bring one--two bottles of last year’s
+vintage. It is not so bad, that wine, neighbour Pierre, I can promise
+you.”
+
+“Any wine will be good after such a walk,” the widow declared, panting.
+“Either the village lies too low, friend Jean, or your house too high.
+It will be good to rest.”
+
+They sank into the chairs which Myrtile had already placed upon the
+verandah, Pierre Leschamps laying his hat upon a handkerchief in a safe
+corner. There were beads of perspiration upon his forehead, for, unlike
+his friend and host, he was unused to exercise. He kept the little
+café in the village, and the strip of land which went with it he let
+to others. His pale cheeks and flabby limbs told their own story. Jean
+Sargot looked about him with the pride of the proprietor.
+
+“Not so bad, this little dwelling, eh?” he exclaimed. “Four rooms, all
+well-furnished, a bed such as one seldom sees, and a wardrobe made by
+my own grandfather, Jacques Sargot, the carpenter. It pleases thee,
+Marie?”
+
+The widow looked around her with a little sniff.
+
+“It might be worse,” she conceded, “but there are the children.”
+
+“Three only,” Sargot replied, “and in a year or so they will all be in
+the fields. Think what that may mean. We can sell the timber from the
+strip behind and plant more vines. Children are not so bad when they
+are strong.”
+
+“The little ones are well enough,” Madame Dumay admitted, “but thy
+eldest--Myrtile--she has not the air of health.”
+
+They all looked up at the girl, who was approaching them at this
+moment with wine and glasses. She was of medium height and slim. Her
+complexion was creamily pale; even the skin about her neck and arms
+had little of the peasant’s brown. Her neatly braided hair was of the
+darkest shade of brown, with here and there some glints of a lighter
+colour. Her eyes, silkily fringed, were of a wonderful shade of deep
+blue, her mouth tremulous and beautiful. There was something a little
+exotic about her appearance, although no actual indication of ill
+health. The widow looked at her critically; Pierre, the innkeeper, with
+unpleasant things in his black, beady eyes.
+
+“Pooh! she is well enough,” her stepfather declared. “Never a doctor
+has crossed this threshold since her mother died many years ago.”
+
+Myrtile welcomed her father’s guests pleasantly but timidly. Then,
+after she had filled the glasses, she would have slipped back into the
+house but Jean Sargot grasped her by the arm.
+
+“To-night, my child,” he insisted, “you must leave your books alone.
+You must drink a glass of wine with us. It is an occasion, this.”
+
+Myrtile looked from one to the other of the two visitors. She had for a
+moment the air of a trapped animal. Madame Dumay made a little grimace,
+but Pierre only laughed. She was a flower, this Myrtile, not like other
+girls. Even the young men complained of her aloofness. He knew well how
+to deal with such modesty.
+
+“Behold,” her stepfather continued, “our two best friends! Here is good
+Madame Dumay. A nice little income she makes at the shop, and a tidy
+sum in her stocking.”
+
+“Oh, là, là!” the widow interrupted. “What has that to do with thee, my
+friend?”
+
+“And also,” Jean Sargot went on, without taking heed of the
+interruption, “the brave Pierre Leschamps. Oh, a gay dog, that
+Leschamps! A man of property, mark you, child. And listen! Why do you
+think these friends of mine are here?”
+
+“I cannot tell,” Myrtile faltered.
+
+“Madame Dumay will become my wife. It is what we need here. And Pierre
+Leschamps--hear this, little one--he seeks a wife. He has chosen you.
+I have given my consent.”
+
+Leschamps had risen to his feet. Myrtile shrank back against the wall.
+The terror had leaped now into life.
+
+“I will not marry Monsieur Leschamps,” she declared. “The other--is
+your affair. But as for me, I will not marry!”
+
+Jean Sargot leaned back in his chair and drank his wine. His two guests
+followed his example.
+
+“Ho, ho!” he laughed. “Come, that is good! You were always a shy child,
+Myrtile. Pierre shall woo you into a different humour.”
+
+“Ay, indeed!” the innkeeper assented, leering across at the girl with
+covetous eyes. “We shall understand one another presently, little one.
+You need have no fear. Marriage is a pleasant thing. You will find it
+so like all the others.”
+
+“It is an institution to be toasted,” Jean Sargot declared, filling the
+glasses and glancing amorously towards the widow. “Trouble not about
+Myrtile, my friend Pierre. She is thine. We shall drink this glass of
+wine to Marriage. It will be a festival, that, eh, Marie?”
+
+Myrtile slipped through the open doorway. Her prospective husband
+looked after her for a moment and half rose. Then he looked back at the
+wine, flowing into his glass. Myrtile would keep,--wine by the side of
+Jean Sargot, never! He resumed his seat. In a minute or two he would
+follow her,--as soon as the second bottle was empty.
+
+Across the stone-flagged floor, out through the little garden and
+along the cypress avenue to the road, Myrtile fled. She was like a
+terrified young fawn in the half-light, her hair flying behind her,
+her large eyes filled with fear. Her feet seemed scarcely to touch the
+grass-grown track. She fled as one who leaves behind evil things. Only
+once she looked over her shoulder. No one was stirring, no one seemed
+to have thought of pursuit. She reached the gate which led out on to
+the road and clung to it for a moment, as though for protection. On the
+other side was freedom. Her eyes filled with passionate desire. If only
+she knew how to gain it!
+
+They were singing now down at the cottage. She heard Jean Sargot’s
+strident voice in some country song of harvest and vintage and what
+they called love. As she stood there in the quiet of the evening, there
+seemed suddenly to leap into life a very furnace of revolt. She was
+weary of her monotonous tasks,--the abuse of her stepfather, generally
+at night the worse for sour wine and fiery brandy; the care of those
+motherless children, not of her own stock yet dependent upon her; the
+grey tedium of a life unbeautiful and hopeless. And now this fresh
+terror! Her fingers tore at the rough splinters of the gate. Her eyes
+travelled hungrily along that great stretch of road, passing here and
+there through the forests, rising in the far distance to the top of the
+brown hillside, and disappearing in mystery. At the other end of the
+road one might find happiness!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+The two young men adopted characteristic attitudes when confronted
+with the slight misadventure of a burst tyre and a delay of half an
+hour. Christopher Bent deliberately filled and lit a pipe, and, seating
+himself on the top of a low, grey, stone wall, gave himself up to the
+joy of a wonderful view and the pleasure of unusual surroundings. His
+companion, Gerald Dombey, stood peevishly in the middle of the road,
+with his hands in his pockets, cursing the flint-strewn road, the
+rottenness of all motor tyres, and the evil chance which led to this
+mishap in the last lap of their journey.
+
+“We’ll be on the road again in twenty minutes, your lordship,” the
+chauffeur promised, as he paused for a moment to wipe the perspiration
+from his forehead. “It’s been cruel going all the way from Brignolles,
+and you’ve kept her at well past the forty, all the time.”
+
+His master nodded with some signs of returning equanimity.
+
+“Don’t distress yourself, John,” he said. “There’s no real hurry so
+long as we get into Monte Carlo before dark. Come on, Christopher,” he
+added, turning to his companion. “Get off that wall and let us explore.”
+
+The two young men strolled off together. On their right was a
+thickly planted forest of pine trees, fragrantly aromatic after the
+warm sunshine of the April day. On their left was a stretch of very
+wonderful country, a country of vineyards and pastures, of wooded
+knolls and fruitful valleys. And in the background, the sombre outline
+of the mountains. Gerald paused to point to the little, discoloured
+house of Jean Sargot.
+
+“Are they real people who live in these quaint cottages?” he
+speculated. “That place, for instance, looks like a toy farm, with its
+patch of violets, its tiny vineyard, its belt of ploughed land and this
+little grove of cypresses. It is just as though some child had taken
+them all from his play box and laid them out there.”
+
+Christopher withdrew the pipe from his mouth for a moment. He was
+looking at the opening in the little grove of cypresses.
+
+“And there,” he murmured, “must be the child to whom they all belong. I
+think you are right, Gerald. There is something unreal about the place.”
+
+Gerald, too, was suddenly conscious of the girl who stood clutching
+the top of the wooden gate, her face turned a little away from them,
+absorbed in the contemplation of that distant spot where the road
+vanished in a faint haze of blue mist.
+
+“We will talk to her,” he declared. “You shall practise your French
+upon this little rustic, Chris. She probably won’t be able to
+understand a word you say.”
+
+At the sound of their voices, Myrtile turned her head, and, at the
+things which they saw in her face, there was no longer any thought of
+frivolous conversation on the part of the two young men. They stood for
+a moment indeed, speechless, Christopher spellbound, Gerald, of quicker
+sensibility, carried for a moment into the world from which she seemed
+to have fallen. Then his old habits asserted themselves. She was as
+beautiful as an angel, but her feet were on the ground, and she was
+obviously in distress.
+
+“Are you alive, mademoiselle?” he asked, raising his cap.
+
+“But certainly, monsieur,” she answered gravely. “I am alive but very
+unhappy.”
+
+“You can tell us, perhaps, the way to Cannes?” Christopher enquired.
+
+She pointed to where the thin ribbon of road in the distance seemed to
+melt into the bosom of the clouds.
+
+“Cannes is over there, monsieur,” she said, “and there is no other road
+save this one.”
+
+“You go there often, perhaps?” Christopher ventured.
+
+“I have never been there, monsieur,” she answered, with her eyes fixed
+upon Gerald. “Night after night, when my work is done, I come here and
+I watch the road just where it fades away, but I have never travelled
+along it. I have never been further than the first village, down in the
+hollow.”
+
+Gerald came a step nearer to her. He leaned against the gate post. His
+tone and manner became unconsciously caressing. It was generally so
+when he spoke with women.
+
+“You are in trouble, mademoiselle,” he said. “Sometimes even a stranger
+may help.”
+
+She looked down the road towards where the automobile was jacked up.
+
+“Yes,” she admitted, “I am in great trouble. No one but a stranger
+could help me because I have no friends.”
+
+“Be brave, then, and speak on,” Gerald enjoined.
+
+There had been no previous time in her life when Myrtile had been
+required to marshal her thoughts and speak unaccustomed words, yet, at
+that moment, clearly and unfalteringly she told her story. She pointed
+to the weather-stained cottage behind.
+
+“I live there,” she said, “with three half-brothers and sisters and a
+stepfather. My mother was the village schoolmistress. She married for
+the second time a bad man, and she died. I have taken care of those
+children. I have kept the house clean and tidy. I have done what the
+curé told me was my duty, and all the time I have hated it.”
+
+“Why?” Christopher asked simply.
+
+She looked across as though surprised at his intervention.
+
+“Because the children are coarse and greedy and ill-mannered,” she
+explained. “I wear myself out trying to make them different, but it is
+useless. It is in their blood, because my stepfather--is worse. Often
+he drinks too much brandy, he is quarrelsome, he is never kind. There
+is not one little joy in life, only when I escape for a little time and
+come here, and look down the road which leads to liberty, and wonder
+what may lie at the other side of the hills there. You see, I have read
+books--many books. My mother and father were both well-educated. I know
+and feel that the life I am leading is terrible.”
+
+“There is something beyond all this,” Gerald said. “There is something
+of instant trouble in your face.”
+
+Again for a moment she was voiceless, a white, dumb thing stricken
+nerveless with horror. It was that look which had surprised the two
+men. Her breath, as she spoke, seemed choked with unuttered sobs.
+
+“My stepfather brought home from the village to-night--the Widow Dumay.
+He is to marry her--to bring her to the farm. He brought, too, Pierre
+Leschamps, the keeper of the Café.--Horrible!--horrible!”
+
+“Pierre Leschamps,” Gerald murmured softly. “Go on.”
+
+The girl opened her lips but the words seemed to stick in her throat.
+
+“They propose, perhaps, to betroth you?” he asked, with quick
+understanding.
+
+Her assent was mirrored in the agony of her eyes.
+
+“He is fat and old and he drinks,” she cried. “I would sooner die than
+have him come near me!”
+
+The two young men turned their heads and looked down at the little
+farmhouse. The very abode of peace, it seemed, with its thin thread
+of smoke curling up to the sky, its thatched roof, its reposeful
+atmosphere. Just then, however, they caught the murmur of discordant
+voices, a shrill shriek of laughter. The men were singing.
+
+“Look upon us as two friends,” Gerald begged. “What would you have us
+do?”
+
+The girl pointed once more to where the road disappeared amongst the
+hills.
+
+“If you leave me here,” she declared, “I shall walk and run and crawl
+until I pass out of sight there, and perhaps they may borrow the
+widow’s cart and catch me, and then I shall kill myself. Take me with
+you as far as you are going--somewhere where I can hide.”
+
+The car glided slowly up to where they were standing. Gerald did not
+hesitate for a moment. He stepped into his place at the driving wheel
+and motioned to the seat by his side.
+
+“Agreed,” he said. “We will start you, little one--tell me, how are you
+called?”
+
+“Myrtile,” she murmured.
+
+“We will start you off on the great adventure of life. It seems to me
+that there can be nothing worse in store for you than what you leave
+behind.”
+
+The girl pushed open the gate and sprang into the car like a frightened
+thing. Gerald turned his head. Around the corner of the farm three
+unsteady figures showed themselves; three voices--two raucous and one
+shrill--called for Myrtile. There were threats, gesticulations. The
+girl cowered by Gerald’s side.
+
+“Start!” she implored. “Start, please!”
+
+Christopher, however, still hesitated.
+
+“I think,” he said, “we should first hear what these people have to
+say. They have, after all, some claim upon the girl. It might be
+possible to aid her without bringing her away from home.”
+
+Myrtile clung to Gerald. Her eyes were swimming pools of passionate
+entreaty.
+
+“Start, monsieur,” she pleaded. “There is nothing for me but escape.
+Why does the other gentleman mind?”
+
+“Get in, there’s a good fellow,” Gerald begged impatiently. “We don’t
+want to have a row with these yokels.”
+
+The chauffeur was already in the dickey behind. Myrtile’s eyes implored
+Christopher to take the place by her side. With his feet still on the
+road, however, he leaned across her to Gerald.
+
+“Gerald,” he said, “this is a more serious affair than you seem to
+think. Who is going to look after the child when we get to Monte Carlo?”
+
+“You can, if you like,” was the careless reply. “I’m not thinking of
+playing the Lothario, if that is what you mean.”
+
+“Word of honour?”
+
+“Word of honour. Don’t be an ass, old chap. It’s up to us to give the
+girl a chance.”
+
+Christopher stripped off his coat and wrapped it around Myrtile. Then
+he took the place by her side. Gerald slipped in the clutch and they
+glided off.
+
+The twilight overtook them swiftly. The lights of Monte Carlo, as
+they commenced the long descent, were like pin pricks of fire thrust
+through a deep blue carpet. Out in the bay, the yacht of an American
+millionaire was illuminated from bow to stern. From the back of the
+twin range of hills on their left, the golden horn of the moon was
+beginning to show itself. Myrtile, whose eyes had been fixed upon the
+flying milestones, leaned forward now with a little exclamation of
+wonder.
+
+“It is fairyland!” she cried.
+
+Gerald looked down at her indulgently.
+
+“You live so near and you have never been even as far as this?” he
+asked.
+
+“It is as I have told you,” she answered. “I have never travelled ten
+kilometres from the farm in my life.”
+
+Christopher was almost incredulous. Gerald, however, nodded
+sympathetically. Both young men had taken it for granted from the first
+that their charge understood no English.
+
+“In France they are like that,” Gerald remarked. “It is the sous that
+count. But this child--isn’t she amazing, Christopher? Except for her
+clothes, there isn’t a thing about her that suggests the peasant. She
+is like a child Madonna--an angel--who has stolen into the clothes of a
+girl gone for her first communion.”
+
+“I should still like to know what you are going to do with her when we
+arrive?” Christopher asked bluntly. “Are you going to take her to the
+Villa?”
+
+“Later on, perhaps,” was the careless reply. “Certainly not this
+evening.”
+
+“Why not?” Christopher persisted. “Your sister is very kind-hearted. It
+seems to me, as long as we have the girl on our hands, that she is the
+proper person to look after her.”
+
+Gerald smiled slightly.
+
+“My dear Chris,” he said, “you and Mary are pals, I know, but I am not
+sure that you altogether understand her. She doesn’t like surprises. We
+must pave the way a little before we ask for her help.”
+
+“And in the meantime?”
+
+Gerald yawned.
+
+“What a persistent fellow you are!” he observed.
+
+“You can’t imagine that they will take her in at the hotel, without any
+luggage and in our company?”
+
+Myrtile had been looking from one to the other of her two companions
+with a sense of growing trouble in her eyes.
+
+“Messieurs,” she interrupted, “it was wrong of me not to tell you
+before. I speak a little English. I understand very well.”
+
+“You are a most amazing child!” Gerald exclaimed, looking down at her
+in genuine astonishment. “You have never been ten kilometres from your
+homestead, and you speak a foreign language! That comes of having a
+schoolmistress for a mother, I suppose. However, have no fear. We shall
+dispose of you pleasantly.”
+
+“To-morrow,” she said timidly, “I can find work.”
+
+“To-morrow be hanged!” Gerald replied. “Look about you, little one. We
+are entering the town. If your story is true--and we know that it is,”
+he added hastily, “you see for the first time shops, villas, hotels.
+The building in front of us is the Casino. Now you see the lights that
+fringe the bay.”
+
+“It is amazing,” Myrtile murmured.
+
+They drew up at the side door of the hotel where the two young men were
+to stay. Gerald descended.
+
+“Take care of the child for a few minutes, Chris,” he begged. “I am
+going to interview one of the housekeepers.”
+
+He disappeared into the hotel. Myrtile watched his tall, slim figure
+until he was lost to sight. Then the fear seemed to return. She
+shivered.
+
+“I am a trouble to him,” she faltered. “He will hate me for it. I only
+meant that you should drive me somewhere where I could lose myself.
+Perhaps I had better go, monsieur. Can I not slip away before he
+returns?”
+
+“He would be very angry if you did,” Christopher assured her. “He has
+gone to arrange for some one to look after you for the night. To-morrow
+I think you will do well if you try to find some work. If you wish it,
+I will help you.”
+
+Her eyes still devoured the door through which Gerald had passed.
+
+“Tell me his name?” she begged.
+
+“His name,” Christopher replied, “is Gerald Annesley Dombey.”
+
+She repeated it after him, a little hesitatingly.
+
+“I shall always think of him as Gerald,” she said. “It is a very pretty
+name. Tell me, why did the chauffeur say ‘your lordship’?”
+
+“Because he is the eldest son of an earl and he is entitled to be
+called Lord Dombey.”
+
+“He is noble, then? I am not surprised. He seemed like that to
+me.--And you, monsieur? May I know your name?”
+
+“My name is Christopher Bent,” he replied, “plain Christopher Bent.”
+
+“‘Christopher’ is a very nice name,” she said, with a trifle of
+unconscious condescension, “but of course it is not like ‘Gerald.’”
+
+She looked longingly back towards the crowded doorway, and the young
+man who stood by her side was aware of a curious and altogether
+inexplicable sensation. He suddenly found himself envying Gerald’s
+careless but fascinating manners, his good looks, his light, debonair
+manner of speech. Even this little waif picked up at the roadside was
+already under his spell. Then Christopher remembered other things about
+his friend, and his face grew stern.
+
+Gerald returned presently with a neatly dressed young woman. He held
+out his hands to Myrtile and assisted her to alight.
+
+“It is all arranged, child,” he announced. “Annette is a chambermaid
+here, and the niece of one of the housekeepers, whom I know well. She
+will take you to some rooms close at hand, where you will be made
+comfortable. To-morrow morning early, Christopher and I will come and
+see you.”
+
+“Mademoiselle will be entirely well suited,” the young woman declared.
+“It is but a few yards away.”
+
+Myrtile, still wrapped in Christopher’s coat, looked a little pathetic
+as she stood upon the pavement by Annette’s side.
+
+“I shall not see you again to-night, then, Monsieur Lord Dombey?” she
+asked shyly.
+
+“Not to-night,” he laughed. “And ‘Monsieur Gerald’ is quite enough from
+you, petite. To-morrow we will have a long talk. Have no fear--you
+shall not return to the farm unless it is your wish.”
+
+Myrtile stooped and with a sudden, passionate gesture raised his hand
+to her lips. Then she dragged Annette off, without looking behind.
+Gerald laughed a little consciously.
+
+“Our village maiden is somewhat demonstrative,” he remarked lightly.
+“Come on, Chris. A cocktail whilst they unpack our clothes. I’ve
+telephoned to the Villa. We must do a duty dinner there first, but
+afterwards I will show you the land where the pleasure-seekers of the
+world have built their Temple.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+Lady Mary Dombey was a young woman of very pleasing appearance, but
+there were occasions upon which she could look stern. This was one of
+them.
+
+“I am never surprised at anything that Gerald does,” she told
+Christopher, who was seated next her at the dinner table, “but I must
+say that I should never have expected you to have been mixed up in one
+of his escapades. What are you going to do with the girl?”
+
+“We rather hoped for some advice from you,” was the somewhat rueful
+reply.
+
+“You are welcome to it. Send her home.”
+
+“You wouldn’t talk like that if you’d seen the state of terror she was
+in when we found her, Mary,” Gerald remarked from the other side of the
+table.
+
+“Is she very beautiful?” his sister enquired.
+
+“Wonderfully,” Christopher pronounced.
+
+Gerald shrugged his shoulders.
+
+“She is of an age when all girls are beautiful,” he observed.
+“Perfectly filthy time she seems to have been having, though.”
+
+“We hoped,” Christopher ventured, a little doubtfully, “that you might
+be able to make use of her as a kind of under sewing maid, or something
+of that sort.”
+
+“Thank you,” Lady Mary replied, without enthusiasm, “I am perfectly
+satisfied with the services of my own maid. Besides, the servants’
+quarters here are ridiculously cramped. They are all complaining, as it
+is.”
+
+Lord Hinterleys, who had taken only a languid interest in the
+conversation, intervened for the first time.
+
+“Where is the young person now?” he enquired.
+
+“In some rooms one of the housekeepers at the hotel found for me, sir,”
+Gerald replied.
+
+“Perhaps the housekeeper can find her some employment,” his father
+suggested.
+
+“We’ll dispose of her all right,” Gerald declared confidently. “She may
+wake up in the morning and feel homesick, and, if so, we’ll send her
+back.”
+
+“You know very well that she won’t do anything of the sort,”
+Christopher protested.
+
+Lady Mary rose to her feet.
+
+“I can’t quite decide,” she said, “which of you two has lost his heart
+to this paragon of village loveliness. However, I feel sure that my
+advice is the best. Send her back to her people.”
+
+Gerald strolled to the door with his sister and returned to his place,
+fingering his cigarette case irritably.
+
+“I have always thought,” he remarked, with mild sarcasm, “that a
+barrister should be a person of infinite tact and perceptions. It
+appears that I was wrong. I never dreamed that any one could be such a
+blithering ass as you, Chris.”
+
+“Thank you, Gerald,” his friend replied, helping himself from the
+decanter which Lord Hinterleys had passed around. “In what respect have
+I merited this severe criticism?”
+
+“Why, by talking about the girl as though she were something unusual!
+Mary’s a good sort, and all that, but no girl likes the man who is
+sitting next her at dinner time to rave about his latest discovery of
+violet eyes. You’d probably have had those violet eyes to look at
+every time you came down to stay at Hinterleys, if you hadn’t made such
+an ass of yourself.”
+
+Lord Hinterleys sipped his wine thoughtfully. Gerald, who was longing
+to smoke, watched its leisurely disappearance with impatience.
+
+“I am not suggesting for a single moment,” the former observed, “that
+your attitude towards this young woman is not and will not always be
+entirely irreproachable, but at the same time you must remember that we
+are in a country where such adventures are likely to be misunderstood.
+I feel inclined, therefore, to endorse your sister’s advice. It is very
+possible that the young woman, at the time you discovered her, was
+indulging in a passing fit of petulance. I should do all that I could
+to encourage her to return to her people.”
+
+“We’ll talk to her in the morning, sir,” Gerald promised. “Wonderfully
+this port has travelled.”
+
+“We brought it out six years ago,” his father remarked. “Martin laid
+it down himself, and it has not been disturbed since.--There, I have
+finished my two glasses. I shall retire to the drawing-room and
+persuade Mary to sing to me, and you two young fellows can smoke to
+your hearts’ content. Give me your arm, Gerald.”
+
+“Don’t think we shall stop long, if you’ll excuse us, sir,” Gerald
+confided, as he rose to his feet. “It’s Christopher’s first night in
+Monte Carlo and I want to show him the ropes. Come along, old chap, and
+make your adieux,” he added, turning to his friend.
+
+Lord Hinterleys nodded as he leaned on his ivory-topped stick.
+
+“You young men choose weird games at which to lose your money,
+nowadays,” he observed. “Filthy places, all Casinos--no ventilation,
+foul atmosphere, reeking of scent and tobacco, and, to say the least
+of it, a very dubious company. Still, if I were your age I suppose I
+shouldn’t notice these things.--Did you do any good with those two
+hunters you bought from Loxley, Gerald? One of them I thought was good
+enough for some of these country steeplechases.”
+
+Father and son became temporarily absorbed in a subject of common
+interest. Lady Mary made room for Christopher by her side. She was
+scarcely possessed of her brother’s good looks, but her complexion
+was good, her features unexceptionable, her eyes clear and as a rule
+sympathetic, her tone and manner attractive. Her figure, especially
+in a riding habit, was undeniable, her skill at golf and tennis far
+above the ordinary amateur. It was not for lack of offers that, at
+twenty-four years of age, she was still unmarried.
+
+“Must you rush off so soon on your first evening?” she asked
+reproachfully.
+
+“Not so far as I am concerned,” he assured her. “I would rather stay
+here and listen to you sing. It’s Gerald who is dying to lose his
+money.”
+
+She made a little grimace.
+
+“Every one goes to the Casino or the Sporting Club at night,” she said,
+“and for the first few times it is amusing enough. I hope you won’t
+spend all your time there. When shall we play golf?”
+
+“To-morrow afternoon?” he asked.
+
+She nodded.
+
+“I’m taking father out to lunch at the Club,” she said. “We’ll play
+directly afterwards, if that suits you. Tell me, have you had any
+interesting cases lately? I saw that you won the libel suit you were
+telling me about.”
+
+They talked for some time with interest. Lady Mary’s wit was keen
+and her insight unusual. During a pause in their conversation, Lord
+Hinterleys looked across the room through his horn-rimmed eyeglass.
+
+“Your friend seems to get on very well with Mary,” he remarked.
+
+“They’ve always been pals,” Gerald acquiesced.
+
+“Doing pretty well at the Bar, isn’t he?”
+
+“Thundering well. They say he’s certain to be one of our youngest K.
+C’s.”
+
+“I knew his father,” Lord Hinterleys reflected. “He was at Eton with
+me. Very good stock, though not remarkably prosperous.”
+
+“Christopher isn’t well off,” Gerald admitted. “You don’t make a lot of
+money at the Bar your first few years.”
+
+Lord Hinterleys said nothing for several moments.
+
+“Mary has her aunt’s hundred thousand pounds,” he said at length. “She
+is a difficult young person to marry. Knows her own mind, though. I
+should never interfere.”
+
+“Chris is a good fellow, but I don’t fancy he has any thought of
+marrying just yet,” Gerald remarked. “You won’t mind if I take him off
+now, sir? We shall meet for lunch at the Golf Club to-morrow.”
+
+Christopher obeyed his friend’s summons without enthusiasm. Gerald,
+however, was both insistent and impatient, and the two young men took
+their leave a few minutes later.
+
+Christopher, quickly impressed with the charm of the place, would have
+willingly spent the remainder of the evening seated outside the Café de
+Paris, watching the passers-by, listening to the music, and marvelling
+at the amphitheatre of lights which fringed the bay and dotted the
+whole background of hills with little specks of yellow fire. Gerald,
+however, was too anxious to do the whole honours of the place. He
+dragged his friend into the bureau of the Casino, where they obtained
+their tickets for the Cercle Privé, and afterwards on to the Sporting
+Club, the Mecca of Gerald’s desires for the evening, at any rate.
+Christopher breathed a little more freely here than in the Casino; the
+atmosphere was less pernicious, the crowd by which he was surrounded
+far more attractive. After Gerald had taken a seat at the baccarat
+table, he wandered around for some time, fascinated by this strange,
+cosmopolitan gathering, their diversity in class, manners and dress.
+Presently he found a seat in the little bar, ordered a whisky and soda
+and leaned back to watch the never-ceasing stream of pleasure-seeking
+loiterers. Suddenly, without any warning, his thoughts played him a
+queer trick. The walls of the thronged room fell away; its murmur of
+silvery voices, its tangle of exotic perfumes, were nonexistent. He
+was back on the cool, sunlit hillside, with the odour of the violets
+and the pines in his nostrils, and the girl looking over the gate. She
+turned her head and he saw her face,--her beautiful eyes, with their
+passionate, terrified appeal; her quivering lips, her child’s figure;
+the tender appeal of her, the soul and sweetness of her innocent youth
+clinging like some fresh, sweet perfume to her trembling body.
+
+Gerald stood suddenly before him, his face aflame, his eyes brilliant.
+His voice quivered with excitement.
+
+“Christopher, you moonstruck old dodderer,” he cried, “wake up! I have
+seen the most wonderful creature on earth. I won’t leave this place
+until I find out who she is.”
+
+“What, another adventure?” Christopher exclaimed. “Sit down and have a
+whisky and soda.”
+
+“Don’t talk to me about whiskies and sodas,” Gerald replied, sinking
+into the vacant chair, however, and calling a waiter. “I tell you she’s
+the most amazing person I ever saw--a revelation!”
+
+“You’re not thinking about Myrtile?”
+
+“That child? No!” was the impatient rejoinder. “I tell you it’s some
+one here to-night. She’s either French or Russian or Italian--I can’t
+make up my mind which. She is with an older woman, who seems to be a
+sort of attendant. Every one’s talking about her, but no one seems to
+know who she is.”
+
+“This place is full of that sort of people, isn’t it?” Christopher
+asked, not greatly impressed.
+
+“That sort of people!” Gerald repeated contemptuously. “Wait till you
+see her! I’m not easily led away. I’ve seen the most beautiful women in
+most of the capitals of the world. I was at Vienna and Rome before the
+war, you know, but I never---- Don’t move, Chris. Don’t look as though
+I’ve been talking about them. Here they come!”
+
+Christopher watched the approach of the two women with an interest
+casual at first but real enough as they drew nearer. The younger of the
+two walked slightly in advance. She was rather over the medium height,
+and her carriage, although she was not in the least assertive, was
+full of the simple dignity of one who has been accustomed to command
+respect. She was slim, yet the outlines of her figure were so soft as
+to become almost voluptuous. She wore a dress of perfectly plain black
+lace, against which the skin of her neck and shoulders seemed of almost
+alabaster whiteness. Her only ornament was a long, double string of
+pearls of unusual size. Her hair, glossy and absolutely jet black,
+was brushed from her forehead and around her ears so that it seemed
+almost like a sheath. Her complexion was absolutely pallid, her lips a
+natural scarlet. Her eyes were of a deep shade of brown, inclined to be
+half-closed, as though she were short-sighted. Her eyelashes were long
+and silky; her eyebrows looked as though they had been pencilled, and
+yet left a conviction of entire naturalness. Such details as remained
+of her toilette were unique yet simple. The woman who followed her
+possessed also an air of distinction, but she was middle-aged, with
+grey hair and somewhat unwieldy figure. She carried herself with an air
+of deference towards her companion.
+
+“Well?” Gerald whispered excitedly.
+
+“She is very beautiful and very unusual,” Christopher admitted. “Have
+you no idea who she is?”
+
+“If I had found any one who knew who they were, I should have been
+introduced before now,” was the blunt reply. “Freddie Carruthers has
+gone down to ask the Superintendent.”
+
+The two women subsided on to a couch. The elder one gave an order
+to a waiter, the younger one glanced indifferently around. Her eyes
+rested for a moment upon Gerald. There was nothing personal in their
+regard--her manner was, indeed, if anything, austere--but Christopher
+was conscious of a sudden indrawn breath, almost a sob, which escaped
+from his companion’s lips.
+
+“I wish Carruthers would come,” the latter muttered impatiently. “I
+didn’t exaggerate, did I, Chris?”
+
+“No,” the latter admitted, “I can’t say that you did. She is very
+wonderful and very interesting. It is quite your day for adventures.”
+
+Gerald laughed scornfully.
+
+“You’re not comparing our little protégée from the hills with--with
+her, are you?” he demanded.
+
+“Each has her charm,” Christopher replied.
+
+Gerald leaned back in his chair and laughed long and heartily.
+
+“Our little wild rose,” he said, “is like a thousand others--a pretty
+face, a fascinating age, confiding manners. In twenty-four hours she
+would have taught you all that she could know of love and life. She is
+as much a yokel intellectually as this girl is a mystery. Are there any
+queens or royal princesses wandering about the world nowadays, Chris?
+I swear that she looks as though she had stepped down from a throne.
+Thank heavens, here comes Carruthers!”
+
+A young man who had been staring in at the doorway recognised Gerald
+and came across to them.
+
+“No go, old thing,” he confided, leaning down. “They are registered
+here as Madame and Mademoiselle de Ponière--aunt and niece. The old
+buffer downstairs, however, admitted that he believed that to be an
+assumed name.”
+
+“Couldn’t you bribe him, or something?” Gerald asked eagerly.
+
+“Old Johnny fairly cornered me,” Carruthers explained. “The two ladies,
+he told me, had declared their desire to remain incognito. It was not,
+therefore, the business of a gentleman to be inquisitive. Whereupon I
+came away with my tail between my legs. All the same, I don’t believe
+he has the least idea who they are.”
+
+“They can’t possibly escape for more than a few days, in a place like
+this, without being recognised,” Gerald declared.
+
+Carruthers stroked an incipient moustache.
+
+“One gets nasty knocks sometimes,” he observed. “There was a milliner
+and her head mannequin who fairly knocked them all silly at Biarritz
+last season.”
+
+“Don’t be a blatant ass, Freddy!” Gerald exclaimed contemptuously.
+“Mannequins can learn to strut but not to walk. That habit of walking
+into a crowded room as though you were the only person in it isn’t
+picked up in Bond Street or the Rue de la Paix. I----”
+
+Gerald was suddenly on his feet. The younger of the two women, in
+turning towards her companion, had swept a small lace handkerchief,
+which she had laid upon the table in front of them, to the floor. She
+made no effort herself to regain possession of it, but glanced towards
+the waiter. Gerald, however, already held it in his fingers.
+
+“I believe this is your handkerchief, mademoiselle,” he ventured.
+
+She accepted it with a very slight but sufficiently gracious smile.
+
+“I thank you very much, sir,” she said, speaking in English, with a
+slight foreign accent.
+
+Some casual remark was already framing itself upon Gerald’s lips, but
+it remained unuttered. The girl had turned and resumed her conversation
+with her companion. She had the air of not realising that there was
+another person in the room. The young man, with a little bow, returned
+to his place. He hid his feelings perfectly, but his two companions
+could guess at his discomfiture.
+
+“It’s no good, old chap,” Carruthers assured him confidentially.
+“They simply aren’t taking any. That Italian Prince with the swivel
+eye, whom all the women are raving about, tried his best to get into
+conversation. Managed to get one of his pals to address him by name,
+so that they knew who he was, but there was nothing doing. Dicky Gordon
+tried to get a word in edgeways at the roulette table, but it didn’t
+come off. One of the croupiers, whom he knew, went out of his way to
+whisper to him that the ladies did not desire acquaintances.”
+
+Gerald sighed.
+
+“I shall know her sooner or later,” he muttered, “but it’s such a waste
+of precious time.”
+
+The woman and the girl rose presently to their feet and turned towards
+the door. Gerald, for the first time in his life, felt himself guilty
+of an impertinence. He watched them descend the stairs, watched a
+bowing servant run and fetch a waiting automobile. He even, from his
+position at the top of the steps, leaned forward to hear if any word of
+address was spoken. He was unrewarded. A footman opened the door of the
+car, closed it and mounted to the side of the chauffeur. The car drove
+rapidly away in the direction of Nice. Gerald waited for the porter to
+remount the steps and slipped a ten franc note in his hand.
+
+“Do you know who those two ladies were?” he asked.
+
+“They call themselves Madame and Mademoiselle de Ponière,” the man
+replied, after a moment’s hesitation.
+
+“Call themselves?” Gerald repeated. “What do you mean by that?”
+
+The man shrugged his shoulders.
+
+“There are many who come here who do not desire their presence to be
+known, monsieur,” he said cautiously.
+
+“Criminals, perhaps,--or royalty?” Gerald ventured.
+
+The man looked imperturbably through the revolving doors.
+
+“Many of all sorts, monsieur,” he assented. “Monsieur will excuse.”
+
+He hastened off on some excuse connected with a waiting automobile.
+Gerald had no alternative but to rejoin Carruthers and Christopher,
+whom he found watching the play at one of the roulette tables.
+
+“Any luck?” the former asked eagerly.
+
+“Not an iota,” Gerald confessed. “I tipped the man who saw them off,
+but he either knew nothing or would tell me nothing.--I shall have a
+plunge at baccarat,” he added. “I feel like gambling this evening.”
+
+“You won’t forget that we promised to go and see Myrtile early?”
+Christopher reminded him.
+
+Gerald stared at his friend.
+
+“Myrtile? Who the devil---- Why, the child from the violet farm, of
+course! I’d forgotten all about her.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+Myrtile came flying to the door. Christopher saw her eyes travel over
+his shoulder, he saw the sudden cloud upon her face. A queer little
+stab of pain startled him by its very poignancy.
+
+“Monsieur Gerald, he is not with you?” she asked disconsolately.
+
+Christopher shook his head.
+
+“He was up late last night,” he explained. “I went to his room but he
+was fast asleep. I dare say he will come on presently.”
+
+The girl looked at the clock--a brazen, loudly ticking of bright gilt.
+
+“He promised to be here early,” she said. “Has he spoken of me? Has he
+said anything about sending me back?”
+
+“Nothing,” Christopher assured her. “Do you still feel that you don’t
+want to go back?”
+
+She stood quite still in the middle of the little apartment and looked
+at him. Something about her was altered. It seemed almost as though she
+had passed from girlhood to womanhood in the night.
+
+“I will not go back,” she declared fiercely. “It is not that I mind
+poverty or hard work. It is Pierre Leschamps. I could not bear him
+near me. He shall never come near me, otherwise I shall die. Even you,
+Monsieur Christopher, you do not wish me to die.”
+
+Her eyes were swimming with tears. She leaned a little towards him and
+Christopher patted her encouragingly. Her lips were very close to his,
+fresh and sweet and quivering. Christopher, conscious of a rare and
+almost overmastering temptation, turned away brusquely.
+
+“Come outside,” he invited. “I will take you on the Terrace, and we
+will sit in the sunshine.”
+
+She clapped her hands, herself again almost immediately.
+
+“Oh, I am so anxious to go down to the edge of the sea!” she cried. “It
+is so wonderful. You will not mind, monsieur, that I have no hat and
+that my clothes are very poor? If you should meet your friends, they
+will wonder what place I have with you.”
+
+“I have no friends here,” Christopher assured her, “and if I had, it
+would not matter. Presently I will try to find Gerald again, and we
+will make up our minds what to do with you.”
+
+“Monsieur Gerald will arrange everything,” Myrtile said confidently,
+as they walked out into the sunshine. “He will find me some work--I am
+sure of that--only I hope that it will not take me far away. I should
+like to be near him.”
+
+They wandered down from the fashionable part of the promenade to the
+pebbly beach and along the sands. Myrtile was never tired of the wonder
+of it all. Often, however, she cast an anxious look backwards.
+
+“You do not think Monsieur Gerald will be searching for us?” she asked
+timidly.
+
+Christopher was conscious of a curious sense of annoyance which he
+could not altogether explain. He led the way up the steps and on to the
+Terrace.
+
+“We will take a seat here,” he suggested. “We can see the hotel and the
+turning to your lodgings, and you can watch for him.”
+
+She acquiesced willingly, and for the next half-hour she divided her
+attention between the entrance to the hotel and the passers-by. At the
+end of that time she became a little self-conscious.
+
+“It is not right, Monsieur Christopher,” she said, “that I sit here
+with you in these clothes and without a hat. People look at us so
+strangely.”
+
+“You look very nice,” Christopher assured her, “and besides, it is no
+one else’s business but our own.”
+
+“Then why do they look at me so strangely?” she persisted. “It must
+be because I have no toilette, no hat, my shoes are ugly. Indeed,
+monsieur, it is no place for me. Here are friends of yours coming, I am
+sure--the beautifully dressed young lady who looks at me so curiously.”
+
+“It is Gerald’s father and sister,” he whispered.
+
+She was suddenly very white and frightened. Christopher rose to his
+feet. Lady Mary nodded a little coldly, Lord Hinterleys acknowledged
+his greeting with some surprise.
+
+“Where is Gerald this morning?” his sister asked.
+
+“A little lazy, I am afraid,” Christopher replied. “When he got your
+message that there was to be no golf to-day, he went to sleep again.”
+
+“And this is your little protégée, I suppose?” Mary remarked, looking
+at Myrtile.
+
+“This is Myrtile,” Christopher assented. “We are waiting for Gerald now
+to decide what to do with her.”
+
+“You wish to leave home, I understand?” Mary asked, turning to the
+girl, who had risen to her feet.
+
+“I will never return there,” Myrtile replied,--“no, not even if
+Monsieur Gerald himself commanded me to. I would sooner throw myself
+into the sea.”
+
+“Isn’t that a little extreme?” her questioner rejoined coldly.
+
+“The misery I should have to face if I returned would also be extreme,”
+Myrtile declared. “I am hoping to find some work here.”
+
+“That should not be difficult,” Mary observed. “Give Gerald our love,
+Christopher. I was sorry to have to put off the golf, but dad didn’t
+feel equal to Mont Agel this morning.”
+
+“Nothing serious, I hope, sir?” Christopher enquired.
+
+“Nothing at all,” Lord Hinterleys replied. “I was a little tired, and I
+always feel the air up there rather strong. Tell Gerald I hope we shall
+see him some time during the day.”
+
+He raised his hat and they passed on, Mary with a nod to Christopher
+which lacked much of its usual cordiality. Myrtile looked after them
+and there was trouble in her face.
+
+“They do not like me,” she said. “They do not think that I ought to be
+here with you. They are right, of course. I am just a little peasant
+girl in peasant girl’s clothes. Let us go.”
+
+Christopher’s remonstrances were in vain. She turned and walked away,
+and he was obliged to follow. Just as they were leaving the promenade,
+however, they came face to face with Gerald, issuing from the hotel.
+He gave a little start as he recognised Myrtile. Except for a careless
+thought when he had first awakened, he had forgotten all about her.
+It was characteristic of him, however, to behave during the next few
+minutes as though he had been thinking of no one else.
+
+“So Christopher has been stealing a march on me!” he exclaimed. “Has he
+shown you all the sights, Myrtile?”
+
+“I waited a long time for you,” she replied. “We have been sitting on
+the Terrace. Monsieur Christopher thought that you would come there.”
+
+“And Myrtile has been a little troublesome,” Christopher said. “She is
+going back to her rooms to hide because of her clothes.”
+
+“Clothes?” Gerald repeated. “Why, of course she must have clothes. We
+ought to have thought of that when we brought her away.”
+
+“But, monsieur,” she began timidly, “even the clothes which I have at
+home--my communion gown----”
+
+Gerald waved his arm.
+
+“Come along,” he invited. “We will transform you. What a joke!”
+
+“Oh, monsieur!” Myrtile cried, with glistening eyes.
+
+“I suggest,” Christopher intervened, “that if we are going to buy her a
+frock we go to one of those shops higher up in the town.”
+
+Gerald waved aside the suggestion.
+
+“We will go to Lénore’s,” he said. “Madame Lénore is a great pal of
+mine. Myrtile, you shall have clothes fit for a duchess.”
+
+“Then they would not be fit for me,” Myrtile objected doubtfully.
+
+“Nor, I should think,” Christopher added, “would they help her to
+obtain a situation.”
+
+Gerald, however, would listen to no remonstrances. He ushered them
+into a quiet but sumptuous-looking little establishment, only a few
+doors from the Hôtel de Paris. A Frenchwoman, dark and attractive,
+came forward to welcome them. As soon as she recognised Gerald, the
+conventional smile became one of real welcome.
+
+“Ah, monsieur--milord!” she exclaimed. “It is good to see you again!
+Her ladyship was here only three days ago. I ventured to ask if you
+were to be expected. Milord does me a great honour by this visit. Will
+you please to sit down?”
+
+“Madame,” Gerald declared, “I am here on business. We have with us a
+princess--the Princess Myrtile.”
+
+“A princess?” Madame repeated, with a wondering glance at the girl.
+
+“A princess in everything but clothes,” Gerald explained. “That is your
+part. We hand her over to you. Dress her, Madame. We will return in an
+hour.”
+
+Madame’s eyes sparkled. To the real Frenchwoman, every feeling gives
+way when it becomes a question of profit. She looked at Myrtile
+appraisingly.
+
+“Mademoiselle will be worth dressing,” she assured them joyfully.
+“Return, as you say, in an hour, milord, and I can promise that
+mademoiselle shall be all that you would desire.”
+
+Christopher for the first time intervened.
+
+“Look here, Gerald,” he said, “I don’t think that you are giving Madame
+quite the right idea.”
+
+“In what respect?”
+
+“Mademoiselle is the daughter of working folk,” Christopher explained.
+“She requires clothes of good quality, if you will, but clothes in
+which she can seek a situation. That is so, is it not, Myrtile?”
+
+The girl’s eyes were fixed anxiously upon Gerald.
+
+“I should like to have what Monsieur Gerald would wish me to have,” she
+replied.
+
+“Mademoiselle has a figure so fashionable,” Madame Lénore murmured, “so
+slim yet so elegant, and an expression altogether spirituelle. I have
+some frocks only this morning arrived from Paris, in which she would
+seem a dream.”
+
+“We do not desire mademoiselle to become a dream,” Christopher said
+stoutly. “We have the charge of her for a short time only, and the sort
+of toilette which you have in your mind, I think, Madame Lénore, would
+be highly unsuitable. Am I not right, Gerald?”
+
+“Oh, I suppose so,” the young man agreed. “I’d rather like to see her
+in one of Madame Lénore’s creations, though.”
+
+“Milord and monsieur,” Madame said, “leave it to me. Return in an hour.
+There shall be two costumes ready. You shall take your choice. If
+mademoiselle will have the goodness to step this way----”
+
+The two young men wandered out. They made their way back to the
+Terrace, where Lord Hinterleys walked for a time, leaning on Gerald’s
+arm. Mary drew Christopher on one side.
+
+“So that is your little protégée,” she remarked.
+
+“That is she,” Christopher admitted.
+
+“I do not wish to seem a prude,” Mary continued, “or anything else
+disagreeable, but do you really think that you are doing the right
+thing, Christopher, in sitting about on the Terrace with a peasant girl
+dressed--er--according to her position? The whole escapade, I think, is
+ridiculous. I am not so surprised at Gerald but I am surprised at you.”
+
+Christopher was conscious of some irritation. He liked and admired Lady
+Mary, but it seemed to him that her attitude was a little unsympathetic.
+
+“I can quite understand the whole incident seeming ill-advised,” he
+admitted, “but, looking back at it, I honestly cannot see what else we
+could have done.”
+
+“You could have left the girl where she was,” Mary insisted.
+
+Christopher shook his head.
+
+“You didn’t see her,” he replied. “No one could have left her. When I
+think of what we saw in her face, even now I am inclined to shiver.”
+
+“Is she different, then, from other girls faced with an uncomfortable
+home situation?”
+
+“I think that what I am going to say may sound absurd,” Christopher
+admitted, “but she is different. She may be only a peasant by birth,
+but she has a soul.”
+
+“Really!” his companion murmured.
+
+“No actress could have simulated the horror we saw shining out of her
+face,” he persisted. “I don’t think that I should ever have thought of
+bringing her away--it was Gerald who did that--but I think that he was
+right, and I should never consent to sending her back unless she were
+willing to go.”
+
+“And exactly what do you two young men propose to do with her, then?”
+Mary enquired. “The girl is very attractive. You are aware, I suppose,
+that the situation lends itself to misconstruction?”
+
+He looked at her reproachfully.
+
+“I suppose there are very few of our actions which might not be
+misinterpreted in one way or another,” he replied.
+
+She accepted the challenge of his eyes, looking him squarely in the
+face.
+
+“It is not you I am so much afraid of,” she said. “It is Gerald.”
+
+“But you don’t believe----” he began.
+
+“I believe that Gerald’s intentions are always good,” she interrupted;
+“he is capable, even, of idealism. On the other hand, he is fatally
+weak, especially where women are concerned. I fancy,” she went on, “you
+will find that you have assumed a dual responsibility, and I fancy,
+too, that some day you will be sorry for it.”
+
+They slackened their pace. Just ahead, Gerald and his father had met
+two women, old friends, with whom they were exchanging greetings. Lord
+Hinterleys was talking with the elder; Gerald to her daughter. The
+slight air of boredom, which the latter so often wore, had completely
+disappeared. He was leaning towards the girl tenderly, almost
+affectionately. His eyes were holding hers, he was talking earnestly
+and apparently with conviction. Lady Mary touched her companion’s arm.
+
+“That is the Gerald whom you have to fear,” she said. “You might trust
+him in any other walk of life, but, although he is my own brother,
+I don’t believe that he has a grain of conscience where women are
+concerned. He doesn’t care about that girl, she is not the sort of
+person he ever would care for, yet she will go back to lunch to-day
+convinced that she has made a conquest, thinking of what he has said to
+her, and finding every one else’s manner and words ordinary. Gerald has
+the spirit of the philanderer in his blood. If the girl attracts him
+sufficiently, you, at any rate--and probably he--will be sorry you did
+not leave her to her village lover.”
+
+“You have described Gerald correctly when you called him a
+philanderer,” Christopher admitted. “I put myself in court, and on his
+behalf I plead guilty to the charge. On the other hand, I have greater
+faith in his kindness of heart and his sense of honour than you seem to
+have. This child is helpless and innocent. For that reason I believe
+that she will be as safe with Gerald as with me.”
+
+Lady Mary sighed. The look of trouble still lingered in her eyes.
+
+“I hope that you may be right,” she said. “I am not a superstitious
+person, but I have some sort of foreboding about that child. I feel
+that she is going to bring trouble, somehow or other.--In any case, let
+us change the subject. The Rushmores have arrived and want some tennis.
+Shall we play--say--Wednesday afternoon?”
+
+“Delighted!” Christopher assented, already pleasantly conscious of a
+changing atmosphere.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+It is a fact that when the two young men reëntered the establishment
+of Madame Lénore, they both failed utterly to recognise the girl who
+was standing in a distant corner, talking to the proprietress. It was
+not until she detached herself and came hesitatingly up to them that
+they realised, with varying sensations, who she was. Gerald laughed
+with pleasure and held out both his hands. Christopher’s admiration was
+tempered with a certain amount of distinct disapprobation.
+
+“Well, what does milord think?” Madame demanded.
+
+“My congratulations!” Gerald replied enthusiastically. “My dear
+Myrtile, I wonder if you realise how charming you are?”
+
+The girl looked shyly up at Gerald, her face soft and eloquent with
+pleasure.
+
+“Mademoiselle, like that, can go anywhere,” Madame continued. “She
+can lunch, if you will, with a prince at the Hôtel de Paris, spend
+the afternoon at the Sporting Club, or attend the reception which the
+Spanish Ambassador is giving this afternoon. She is absolutely correct
+and in the latest môde.”
+
+The two young men still contemplated their charge. She was clad in
+a fine white serge costume, trimmed with silver braid. Her lace
+blouse was delicately filmy and transparent, the cut of her skirt
+as scanty as the last word from Paris had decreed; her white silk
+stockings and suède shoes, procured from a neighbouring establishment,
+irreproachable; her large hat, a gossamer-like confection of tulle
+and lace. Of the charm of her appearance there could be no possible
+question, but, in exact proportion with Gerald’s satisfaction,
+Christopher’s disapproval seemed to grow.
+
+“I do not criticise your clothes, Madame, or your taste,” he said,
+“but we have given you the wrong idea. Mademoiselle is in search of a
+situation. She is a working girl for whose future as a working girl
+my friend and I are anxious to provide. Those clothes are entirely
+unsuitable.”
+
+Christopher’s words fell like a bombshell in the little establishment.
+Myrtile’s eyes slowly filled with tears. Gerald was frankly angry.
+Madame shrugged her shoulders.
+
+“I did not understand that the position of mademoiselle debarred her
+from being dressed becomingly,” she said, a little drily. “In any case,
+it is a great waste not to give mademoiselle the advantage of charming
+clothes. Her figure--why, it is adorable; of her complexion and
+carriage you can judge for yourselves. Mademoiselle, dressed as she is
+now, and with one or two evening gowns which I have in my mind, would
+make the sensation of the season in Monte Carlo.”
+
+“And what good would that be to her?” Christopher demanded.
+“Mademoiselle has need to earn her living, and to earn it honourably.”
+
+“Look here, Chris,” Gerald interrupted, “you’re taking this thing too
+seriously. We know very well that Myrtile must be found something to do
+later on, but in the meantime she may as well have a little fun. Can’t
+you see for yourself how wonderful she is? She will puzzle the whole of
+Monte Carlo for a week.”
+
+“And after then?” Christopher asked.
+
+Gerald turned impatiently away. Madame held up a wonderful confection
+of white lace and silk.
+
+“This is what I figure to myself for mademoiselle’s first evening
+frock,” she said,--“this and a hat of black lace, with a string of
+pearls which I could perhaps borrow. I promise you that she would make
+a sensation you do not dream of.”
+
+“It is not our wish that she make a sensation of this sort,”
+Christopher persisted harshly. “It appears to me that you both wish to
+provide the child----”
+
+He stopped short. Gerald’s eyes were filled with sudden fire; the girl
+was trembling.
+
+“You’re talking like an ass, Christopher,” Gerald declared. “This is my
+affair.”
+
+“It is nothing of the sort,” Christopher rejoined stubbornly. “It is
+our affair. I claim an equal right in disposing of Myrtile, and I will
+not have her decked out in these clothes. What we need for her is a
+plain blue serge suit and a small hat. She will always look charming,
+she will always be attractive, but nothing in her future walk of life
+justifies our arraying her in clothes like these.”
+
+Madame shrugged her shoulders more disparagingly than ever.
+
+“It is as milord and monsieur desire, of course,” she said. “I can
+provide such garments as monsieur describes.”
+
+Gerald looked at Myrtile once more. The admiration in his eyes this
+time, at any rate, was absolutely genuine.
+
+“I can’t see the harm in having the child properly turned out for, say,
+one week,” he protested, turning to Christopher.
+
+“And at the end of that week, what?”
+
+There was a deadly directness about Christopher’s gaze. Gerald,
+although there was no definitely formed thought of evil in his mind,
+avoided it.
+
+“If you are proposing to marry Myrtile,” Christopher continued, “then
+the clothes you have selected are suitable. Unless you have made
+up your mind to do that, I beg that Madame will show us something
+different.”
+
+There was a somewhat hectic silence for several moments. Frenchwoman
+though she was, and full of tact, Madame Lénore could scarcely conceal
+her contempt for the crudeness of this puritanical Englishman. Myrtile
+herself felt as though a dream of Paradise were fading away. Gerald,
+because he was good fellow enough at heart, felt further insistence
+impossible. He was quite content to drift into danger; he was not
+casuist enough to evade a plain warning.
+
+“Well, I suppose we shall have to let this disagreeable fellow have his
+way,” he declared. “Take her along, Madame, and see what you can do.
+You hear my friend’s idea--plain blue serge buttoned up to the throat,
+cashmere stockings and square-toed shoes.”
+
+“There will be a compromise,” Madame declared firmly.--“And for the
+rest, little one, do not trouble too much,” she whispered, as she led
+Myrtile away. “I shall keep these clothes just as they are, until the
+other gentleman has made up his mind to meddle no longer. Come to me
+when you are ready. I can make you look so that milord will take notice
+of no other woman.”
+
+Myrtile’s eyes were swimming with tears.
+
+“It was just for him that I wanted to keep these clothes,” she said. “I
+wanted him to take me out and to feel that I looked like other girls.
+As for Monsieur Christopher, I detest him!”
+
+“Mademoiselle has reason,” the woman murmured. “He has not the chic of
+milord. It is a pity that he should interfere. Perhaps later on milord
+will bring you here without him.”
+
+Myrtile’s eyes shone. Reluctantly she stretched out her arms and felt
+the dress slip away from her.
+
+In the showroom outside, neither of the two young men was particularly
+disposed for conversation. Christopher felt a distinct return of his
+first apprehension concerning Gerald’s attitude towards Myrtile,
+whilst Gerald himself was conscious of a vague sense of resentment
+at his friend’s interference, the more poignant, perhaps, because
+of its wisdom. Anything in the nature of an explanation between the
+two was rendered impossible by the smallness of the room and the
+presence of the shop assistants. So Gerald contented himself with
+lighting a cigarette, while Christopher studied a book of fashions.
+Suddenly an event happened which created a new atmosphere in the little
+place. Gerald relinquished his cigarette, Christopher laid down his
+volume of fashions, the shop assistants and mannequins, figuratively
+speaking, stood to attention. The manageress came hastening forward.
+An automobile had stopped outside, a footman had thrown open the door,
+Madame and Mademoiselle de Ponière entered. The latter was simply
+enough, though richly dressed, and she entered the shop with the air of
+one conferring a peculiar honour upon the establishment. She carried
+a little Pekinese dog under her arm; the footman remained standing
+outside as though on guard. The greeting of the manageress was almost
+reverential.
+
+“Mademoiselle desires to see our new models?”
+
+The newcomer glanced half unconsciously towards the two young men,
+who had risen to their feet. Then she passed on, followed by the older
+woman, to the most distant corner of the room. It appeared that she
+wished to look at hats, and the whole establishment seemed at once
+infected with an eager desire to serve her. Hats were produced on
+every side, and passed from hand to hand with an air of deep anxiety.
+Mademoiselle, however, it transpired was not easy to please. She
+sat watching the various confections which were produced for her
+inspection, with an air of tolerant indifference. Gerald moved to the
+side of the bookkeeper, who alone remained at her place behind the
+little desk.
+
+“Tell me,” he whispered, “who is that young lady?”
+
+“She appears in our books, milord, under the name of Mademoiselle de
+Ponière,” was the discreet reply.
+
+“But what is her real name?” Gerald persisted. “Who are her friends? Is
+it possible to make her acquaintance?”
+
+The woman looked at him with a slight smile. She had a tired and rather
+faded face, and her hair was lined with grey.
+
+“One hears only rumours as to whom she may be,” she answered. “For the
+rest, milord should apply to Madame herself.”
+
+Gerald waited for Madame’s reappearance with a new impatience.
+Presently Myrtile came out to them once more. The transformation was
+still amazing, but the blue serge costume was absolutely plain except
+for its thick edging of braid, and the little toque, with its dark
+blue quill, absolutely free from ornamentation. Yet it seemed almost
+incredible that this graceful girl who came towards them a little shyly
+but with perfect self-possession should indeed be the peasant child who
+had been under their care for rather less than twenty-four hours.
+
+“Mademoiselle is transformed,” Madame Lénore declared. “She has natural
+elegance. In the simplest clothes I could give her, she would still
+create an impression. I have done my best, milord and monsieur. I trust
+that you are satisfied?”
+
+“Entirely,” Gerald assented. “But, Madame Lénore, I want a word with
+you.”
+
+“If milord would excuse me for one moment,” Madame begged, with a
+glance towards the further end of the shop. “One of my most valued
+clients has arrived.”
+
+Gerald drew her on one side. Myrtile glanced a little anxiously into
+Christopher’s face.
+
+“Monsieur Gerald does not seem satisfied,” she complained. “He has no
+longer any pleasure in looking at me. He does not like me in these
+clothes.”
+
+“Nonsense!” Christopher replied. “Believe me, they are far more
+suitable than the others.”
+
+Myrtile was still not altogether satisfied.
+
+“They are very wonderful,” she acknowledged, looking at herself in the
+glass, “and I am very, very grateful, but when I came before, his whole
+face seemed alight with pleasure, and this time he scarcely took any
+notice of me at all.”
+
+“There is something else on his mind,” Christopher assured her. “I am
+certain that he is satisfied.”
+
+Gerald found Madame Lénore quite obdurate.
+
+“It is impossible, milord,” she declared firmly. “With many of my
+clients, yes. There would be no cause for hesitation. But to present
+you to mademoiselle would be impossible. She would not respond. She
+would never pardon the liberty.”
+
+“Then will you tell me who her friends are?” he persisted. “Let me
+know, at least, where I should be likely to meet her?”
+
+Madame’s manner had lost much of its amiability. She seemed genuinely
+worried.
+
+“Milord,” she said, “none of these things are possible.”
+
+“But who is she, then?”
+
+Madame Lénore turned away.
+
+“No one knows,” she answered under her breath. “It is not for us to
+know. Milord will excuse me.”
+
+Gerald rejoined his companions with a cloud upon his handsome face.
+Myrtile watched him timidly.
+
+“You do not approve of these clothes?” she ventured.
+
+“I approve of them so much,” Gerald announced, pulling himself together
+with an effort, “that I am going to take you to Ciro’s to lunch. Come
+along, Christopher. Madame Lénore is a disobliging old cat.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+The two women sat on the terrace of their wistaria-covered
+villa,--Madame de Ponière hunched up in her chair, smoking a cigarette
+through a long tube; Pauline, her reputed niece, her coffee and
+cigarette alike neglected, gazing fixedly seawards. Their immediate
+environment suggested at once a taste for luxury and the means to
+gratify it. The linen and silver on the little table at which they
+had just lunched was of the finest possible quality,--the former
+lace-bordered and adorned with a coronet. A bowl of pink roses occupied
+the centre of the table. The coffee had been served in little cups
+of the finest Sèvres china. In the background, a single servant was
+standing, dressed in plain black livery, a man grey-haired and with
+lined face, but tall and of powerful build. He possessed to the full
+the immobility of feature of the trained English servant, but there was
+something entirely foreign in his sphinx-like attitude and expression.
+He had the air of one who neither saw nor heard save at his mistress’s
+orders.
+
+“I am weary of everything here except the sun,” Pauline declared
+deliberately.
+
+The woman opposite knocked the ash from her cigarette. Hers was an aged
+and withered face, but her black eyes were still full of life and fire.
+Her long, thin hand, on which flashed several strangely set rings, was
+suddenly extended towards the waiting servant. Without a word he bowed
+and disappeared.
+
+“One must wait,” Madame de Ponière declared.
+
+“For what?” the girl asked lazily.
+
+The older woman’s eyes glittered for a moment.
+
+“For what will surely come,” she declared. “The portents are all there.
+The writing is no longer upon the wall--it blazes to the sky.”
+
+“And meanwhile,” Pauline murmured, “the sun shines, my heart beats in
+tune to it, and I feel all the time the weariness of the days.”
+
+“It is the insurgence of youth,” the older woman conceded indulgently.
+“I suppose the greatest must feel it some day.”
+
+“There was a girl in the dressmaker’s shop,” Pauline went on. “The good
+Madame Lénore amused me by speaking of her. She is a peasant, it seems,
+picked up on the road by two young Englishmen and brought here for the
+first time in her life only yesterday. These young men have amused
+themselves by decking her out in the clothes of another class. The girl
+is beautiful, and she sees fairyland everywhere. She is in love with
+one of the young men, of course. One could see that in her face.”
+
+“A very ordinary affair,” the older woman observed. “What of it?”
+
+“Nothing except that I rather envy the girl.”
+
+Madame de Ponière’s black eyes glistened dangerously.
+
+“It would be easy to change places with her,” she said coldly. “You are
+probably as beautiful, and the trifle of breeding you possess might be
+considered an asset.”
+
+Pauline smiled, and her face was at once more attractive than ever.
+There were little creases about her soft brown eyes, her mouth lost its
+discontented curve and became at once tremulous and gentle.
+
+“It is an encouraging thought,” she murmured, “especially as the young
+man whom the girl appears to fancy has already endeavoured to make my
+acquaintance.”
+
+“It is the worst of this place,” Madame de Ponière declared, a little
+viciously. “The men are all _boulevardiers_. _Canaille!_”
+
+“The young man in question happens to be an aristocrat,” Pauline
+observed, her eyes fixed upon the adjoining villa.
+
+“The more reason for care,” the woman muttered.
+
+Pauline sighed.
+
+“I might perhaps save him from the peasant girl. They tell me
+that these young Englishmen often regard an intrigue of this sort
+differently from our own people. He might even be led to marry her. He
+looks like a man of weak character.”
+
+The older woman thrust another cigarette into her tube and lit it. She
+inhaled with the long, regular breaths of the confirmed smoker. Her
+delicately shaped but talon-like fingers were stained with nicotine.
+
+“Zubin arrives this week,” she announced.
+
+Pauline yawned.
+
+“More mysteries,” she murmured, “more false hopes, more exaggerated
+stories. Nothing good will come of Zubin’s visit but the money he
+brings, unless by any chance he has news of Stepan.--Meanwhile, dear
+Madame, I bore myself. I rather wish that I had been born an American.”
+
+The woman showed no sign of anger, yet somehow or other she seemed to
+diffuse an atmosphere of contempt.
+
+“It is perhaps a pity,” she admitted, “that you are descended from one
+of the greatest rulers the world has ever known. It is perhaps a pity.”
+
+“Give me something to rule over,” the girl declared, “and I will be
+repentant--the souls and liberties of a few million people, or the
+hearts of a few men. I am twenty-three years old and the sun is warm.
+And then there is the music, our one resource when there is no money
+to gamble with. What is the use of music, Madame, to one who lives
+behind the bars? It simply makes one pull at them a little harder. I am
+as badly off as Stepan himself, who loves me from behind the fortress
+walls. Sometimes I wish that I were there with him.”
+
+Madame de Ponière reached for an ivory-topped stick and rose to her
+feet. Almost as though by magic, from somewhere within the dim, cool
+recesses of the room beyond, the grey-haired manservant was by her
+side. She leaned upon his arm.
+
+“We drive at four o’clock, Pauline,” she said. “Afterwards, we will
+watch the play at the Sporting Club.”
+
+Pauline shrugged her shoulders. It was the same yesterday afternoon,
+and every day behind. It would probably be the same to-morrow,--the
+same for her, but not for that peasant girl. For her there was no
+stereotyped routine. She looked intently across the narrow gorge
+towards that other villa. A two-seated car had turned in from the road
+and was crawling up the winding avenue. She stretched out her hand for
+the field glasses which lay on the table by her side. The young man at
+the wheel was the young man at whom the peasant girl had looked.
+
+Pauline rose to her feet. Almost as mysteriously as the manservant had
+appeared a few moments before, a black-robed maid hastened towards her.
+Pauline shook her head.
+
+“This afternoon I do not wish to rest,” she decided. “I shall walk in
+the gardens.”
+
+“Mademoiselle desires that I shall attend her?” the maid asked.
+
+Her mistress hesitated.
+
+“I desire to be alone,” she announced.
+
+Pauline descended the stone steps, crossed the drive, and plunged into
+a narrow footpath which wound its way through a plantation of stunted
+but sweet-smelling pine trees, downwards towards the sea. The path was
+not an easy one, and Pauline’s shoes were scarcely designed for such
+an adventure. Nevertheless, she persevered. She had almost to push her
+way through a grove of oleanders, and to wrap her skirts carefully
+around her as she passed between some spiky cactus trees. As last,
+however, she gained her end. She stood upon the little strip of sand,
+besprinkled with rocks, which bordered the sea. Only a few yards away
+the shimmering blue water rocked towards the land in little wavelets.
+She turned and looked back. The villa from which she had come seemed
+like a doll’s house shining out of its sheltering clump of cypresses.
+More directly above her now was the far more extensive residence of
+Lord Hinterleys. She looked towards it searchingly. There were several
+people upon the broad verandah, amongst them the slim figure of a young
+man at its farther edge, gazing intently in her direction. She smiled
+a little as she picked her steps across the yellow sand to the edge
+of the sea and clambered on to a rock. There was a breeze here which
+she had scarcely anticipated. For the first time she realised that she
+was bareheaded, ungloved,--she to whom usualness in all things was
+almost an instilled religion. A queer fit of heedlessness, however,
+was upon her. She stood upon the top of the slippery rock, finding a
+strange pleasure in the salt-laden air and the wind which brought a
+thousand ripples of light to the trembling blue sea, which blew her
+skirts about, and even brought disarrangement to her smoothly bound
+hair. This tempering of the sunshine brought a new joy to its warmth.
+She stood there basking in a purely sensuous pleasure, forgetful for a
+moment of the depression of the morning. The sound of tumbling stones
+in the little gorge behind scarcely disturbed her. It was not until
+she heard footsteps upon the strip of beach that she turned her head.
+Coming towards her, already only a few yards away, was a young man of
+personable appearance and unwontedly determined expression. For once in
+his life, Gerald had made up his mind.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+
+Gerald, although he was in reality brimful of confidence in all
+his relations with the other sex, had sometimes a not altogether
+unattractive appearance of shyness. He stood bareheaded for a moment,
+looking up at Pauline.
+
+“I am so sorry if I startled you,” he said. “I was looking for my
+sister. I know this is a favourite place of hers, and when I saw you
+standing there I rather jumped to the conclusion that you must be she.”
+
+“Really?” Pauline replied. “Are we so much alike, then?”
+
+“Not in the least,” he declared frankly.
+
+“That seems to make your explanation a little insufficient, does it
+not?” Pauline remarked.
+
+Gerald settled down to business.
+
+“I know that I ought to have turned back,” he said, “but, after all,
+wasn’t it much more natural of me to come on? I have been trying, ever
+since I first saw you, to get some one to introduce me--we are, after
+all, as I have just discovered, to my great delight, neighbours--and
+this is the Riviera, not Berkeley Square. May I tell you that my name
+is Gerald Dombey, that my father and sister have the villa up there,
+and that, from the moment I saw you, I have been anxious to make your
+acquaintance?”
+
+She looked at him in silence for a moment, half critically, half
+thoughtfully. There was nothing absolutely discouraging in her
+attitude, and yet Gerald somehow conceived the idea that this might
+not, after all, be so easy an affair as he had hoped.
+
+“Are you used to enlarging your acquaintance in this manner?” she asked.
+
+“I very seldom feel the desire to do so,” he assured her. “Don’t be
+annoyed, please. I am really quite a respectable person. I will call
+upon your aunt, if she will give me permission.”
+
+For the first time Pauline smiled. It was rather a cold smile, but the
+fact that it was a smile at all was encouraging.
+
+“I fancy that you had better dismiss that suggestion from your mind
+altogether,” she said. “My aunt does not receive here, and she
+certainly would not welcome you as a caller.”
+
+“Why not?” Gerald enquired, a little perturbed.
+
+“Because you are a young man,” Pauline replied. “There are two things
+which my aunt dreads more than anything else in life,--a bad throat for
+herself, and young men for me.”
+
+“I don’t see how she can hope to keep young men away from you
+altogether,” Gerald declared. “You don’t mind my saying, do you, that
+you are the sort of girl whom young men would want to know?”
+
+Her smile returned. She even laughed slightly, showing some very
+wonderful teeth.
+
+“Really, you are a most singular person,” she observed. “Do all young
+Englishmen talk to casual acquaintances in this unrestrained fashion?”
+
+Gerald was puzzled. Pauline was not altogether falling into line with
+the conclusions he had arrived at concerning her.
+
+“I don’t know that I am very different from the others,” he said. “Tell
+me, what is your nationality?”
+
+“Why should I tell you anything about myself?” she asked, a little
+coldly.
+
+“It appeared to me that it might--er--help our acquaintance.”
+
+“Have I acknowledged the acquaintance?”
+
+“Well, you are talking to me, anyhow,” he pointed out, with a slight
+twinkle in his eyes.
+
+“I scarcely see how I could help it,” she replied. “If you are really
+curious about my nationality, I will tell you that I have some French
+blood in my veins. France, however, is not my native country.”
+
+“And you live--where?”
+
+“Nowhere,” she answered, a little sadly. “At present we are
+wanderers--what you call in England adventurers.”
+
+Gerald raised his eyebrows.
+
+“That is scarcely the word,” he murmured.
+
+“My aunt has a curious objection to meeting people upon our travels,”
+Pauline continued. “I myself find her aloofness sometimes a little
+tedious. That is why I am misbehaving to the extent of letting you talk
+to me.”
+
+“Your aunt seems a very difficult person,” Gerald sighed. “I don’t see
+why I can’t make her acquaintance and ask you both out to dine.”
+
+“Do not think of such things!” the girl enjoined hastily. “Before I say
+another word to you, promise me that you do not present yourself at the
+Villa or give any indication of knowing me, if we should meet at the
+Club or anywhere.”
+
+“But why on earth not?” Gerald demanded. “If your aunt is such a
+stickler for propriety, surely I can find some one to present me?”
+
+“If you do not promise me what I ask,” she threatened, holding her
+skirts in one hand and looking as though prepared to jump down from the
+rock, “I shall leave you at once.”
+
+“I promise, of course,” he assented. “Meanwhile, may I be allowed to
+ask, as between us two,--do I know you or do I not?”
+
+“We are complete strangers,” she declared.
+
+“Accept my profound apologies for addressing you,” Gerald begged, with
+a low bow.
+
+Pauline reflected for a moment.
+
+“As a matter of propriety,” she said, “you certainly ought to leave me
+at once. As a matter of fact, I was about to propose something else.”
+
+“Let me hear it, at any rate,” he insisted.
+
+“I watched you drive up to your father’s villa in your car. Will you
+take me a little way in it?”
+
+“Rather!” he assented eagerly. “Where shall I pick you up?”
+
+“Outside the Villa gates,” she replied. “My aunt is absolutely certain
+to sleep for two hours. It is the only liberty I have during the day.
+Please go at once and fetch the car.”
+
+She dismissed him with an imperative wave of the hand. As soon as he
+was out of sight, she jumped down from the rock, crossed the little
+strip of sand, and commenced her leisurely ascent to the Villa. Once or
+twice she laughed softly to herself.
+
+It was an excursion which Gerald pondered on many times afterwards.
+Pauline had settled down in the low bucket seat by his side and leaned
+back with an air of absolute content. She had, in fact, the appearance
+of one enjoying a rare pleasure. As soon as Gerald slackened speed,
+however, with the idea of entering into conversation, she became curt
+and almost rude, and his proposition that they might take the higher
+road and have tea at Nice she promptly negatived. When, after an
+absence of about an hour and a half, they drew up at the gates of the
+Villa, she left him with the merest nod of farewell.
+
+“You will come for another ride soon--perhaps to-morrow?” he asked
+anxiously.
+
+She shook her head.
+
+“I can make no plans,” she replied. “I should think it very improbable.
+I thank you so much for your kindness. Your car is quite wonderful.”
+
+She walked away with the air of one who has conferred a great favour.
+Gerald drove slowly back to the Villa d’Acacia and joined his sister on
+the terrace.
+
+“Do you know anything about the two women at the next villa, Mary?” he
+asked.
+
+She looked up from her novel doubtfully.
+
+“One never knows one’s neighbours here,” she answered. “I saw them
+driving, the other day--a strange-looking old lady and a very
+good-looking girl. Isn’t there something queer about them, or is it my
+fancy?”
+
+“There is something unusual,” Gerald replied. “They seem curiously
+indisposed to forming acquaintances, which is odd in a place like
+this. I happened to be talking to the younger woman for a few minutes.
+She gave me the impression, somehow, that they were people of greater
+consequence than their manner of living here would indicate.”
+
+“I expect I am uncharitable,” Mary observed. “An elderly lady with no
+friends, who takes a rather beautiful young woman about with her to
+public places, does certainly invite comment, doesn’t she? Tell me
+about your little protégée?”
+
+“We lunched with her, Chris and I,” Gerald replied.
+
+“Goodness gracious! Where?”
+
+“At Ciro’s. We bought her some clothes at Lénore’s, this morning.”
+
+Lady Mary lit a cigarette and threw down her book.
+
+“I am not the guardian of your morals, Gerald,” she observed drily;
+“a girl, nowadays, has all she can do to look after her own--but I
+honestly think you ought to send that child back to her people.”
+
+“Too brutal,” he replied. “They wanted to marry her to some horrible
+old man.”
+
+“Whatever the position was, your interference was most uncalled for,”
+his sister declared. “As for Christopher, I am really surprised at him.
+Where is he this afternoon, by-the-by?”
+
+“I left him with Myrtile,” Gerald replied. “You’d better talk to him.
+He’s been lecturing me all the time--kicked up a row, even, because I
+wanted to buy the child pretty clothes.”
+
+The butler came out on to the terrace.
+
+“Mr. Rushmore has telephoned from the tennis club, my lord, to know if
+you and her ladyship will make up a set. They are waiting now for a
+reply.”
+
+Mary rose to her feet.
+
+“I am all for it, if you can, Gerald,” she declared.
+
+“Tell Mr. Rushmore that we’ll be down as soon as we can change,” Gerald
+directed the butler. “You needn’t order a car. I’ll run you round in
+the coupé, Mary.”
+
+“Shan’t be ten minutes,” his sister promised.
+
+On their way up the hill, they passed Christopher and Myrtile. Gerald
+rather enjoyed his sister’s look of amazement.
+
+“Doesn’t she look a topper!” he remarked, as he turned to wave his hand.
+
+“She has an amazing flair for wearing clothes,” Mary admitted drily. “I
+think you two young men ought to be thoroughly ashamed of yourselves
+for what you are doing, and I shall just look forward to an opportunity
+of telling Christopher so.”
+
+Gerald glanced at his sister’s profile and chuckled.
+
+“Good old Chris!” he murmured. “I’ll let him know what’s coming to him!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+Myrtile was suddenly tired. She seated herself upon the trunk of a
+tree, and Christopher followed her example. Below them stretched the
+motley panorama of Monte Carlo, the wide bay and the glittering sea.
+The hillside and all the country within sight was dotted with villas.
+There was one especially, overhanging the sea, towards which she gazed
+wistfully.
+
+“Do you know,” she said, “that I have not seen Monsieur Gerald for
+three days?”
+
+“He has been busy,” Christopher answered shortly.
+
+“Busy?” she queried.
+
+“He plays golf and tennis every day. Then his father and sister take up
+a good deal of his time.”
+
+“You always find time to come and see me every morning,” she said.
+“Besides--it was not his sister with whom I saw him motoring yesterday.”
+
+“You must remember,” Christopher reminded her, “that Gerald had many
+friends before you came here.”
+
+“I know,” she answered. “I cannot hope to count for very much. But why
+cannot he be at least kind like you? If only he knew how long the days
+seem when I do not even catch a glimpse of him!”
+
+Christopher braced himself for an effort.
+
+“Myrtile,” he began, “you know that I am fond of you.”
+
+“You have been very kind,” she answered listlessly.
+
+“Because I want to be kind, I am going to say things that may sound
+harsh,” he went on. “You are a very foolish girl to waste your time
+thinking and dreaming of Gerald. You should only let your thoughts
+dwell upon one man continually when there is some chance in the end
+that that man may become your husband.”
+
+Her listlessness passed. She settled down to the subject seriously.
+
+“But, Monsieur Christopher----”
+
+“Christopher,” he interrupted.
+
+“Christopher, then--you ask me to do what I plainly see no one else
+does. Wherever you have taken me here--wherever we go--there are men
+and women together who are fond of one another. One only needs to look
+at them to see it. It is so in the restaurants, in the gardens where we
+sit, in the cafés. I have seen love in the eyes of many girls since I
+have been here. They do not all expect to marry the men they are with.”
+
+Christopher leaned over and laid his hand upon hers.
+
+“Myrtile dear, will you listen to me?” he begged. “Look at me for a
+moment. I am twenty-six years old. I have lived in cities as well as
+the country. In London I am what you call an _avocat_. I have to use my
+brains every day, I have to understand my fellow creatures. Will you
+get that into your head?”
+
+“It is not difficult,” she assured him, with a little smile. “I think
+you are very clever, and you know many, many things.”
+
+“And as for you, Myrtile,” Christopher went on, “when one thinks of
+your upbringing, it is amazing to realise how much you have read, how
+much you know. But listen to me. Nothing that one reads can teach one
+what life is like. You spent many hours wondering what was at the end
+of the road. You think now, because you have passed over the hill, that
+you are there. My dear, you are not even at the beginning of the way.”
+
+She plucked some grasses and twined them round her fingers.
+
+“Go on,” she whispered.
+
+“This is not life that you watch day by day. Mostly it is a very garish
+imitation of it. And in the same way, that light which you see is not
+always love. It is sometimes a very unworthy imitation of it.”
+
+“They seem very happy,” she murmured.
+
+“They are not happy--they are only gay,” Christopher insisted.
+“Sometimes they are only pretending to be gay. Sometimes their pretence
+comes from very unworthy motives. There are dancing girls who smile
+upon a king, but there is no love in the matter.”
+
+“You mean that these people who seem so happy are not in earnest?” she
+asked.
+
+“I mean that if they are in earnest,” he explained, “it is only for the
+moment. It is a sham earnestness which spoils the real thing when it
+comes. What you see here is not life. It is not even a very wonderful
+reflection of it. Mostly it is a little company of pleasure-seekers,
+come to cast aside for a time the serious side of life and gamble with
+their pleasures as they do with their money.”
+
+“But some must be in earnest,” Myrtile protested.
+
+“One of them who is not in earnest is Gerald, and I tell you so,
+although Gerald is my friend,” Christopher said. “He is here to amuse
+himself, and he would prefer to amuse himself without giving any one
+else pain. If that is impossible, however, he is sufficiently reckless
+not to count the cost where the other person is concerned.”
+
+She drew a little away.
+
+“That does not sound like the speech of a friend,” she reminded him
+reproachfully.
+
+“But I can assure you that I am his friend, although a candid one,”
+Christopher declared. “All that I have said to you, I have said to him,
+and a great deal more. You will let me finish?”
+
+She made no reply. She had gathered herself up into an attitude which
+in any one else would have been ungraceful, her chin resting upon her
+hands, her back curved. Her eyes were fixed upon the exact spot where
+the sea seemed to melt into the clouds. The grace of her slim body lent
+beauty even to the hunch of her shoulders.
+
+“You are like a child who has been let out of a dark room,” Christopher
+went on. “Everything seems beautiful, but you don’t see clearly--your
+eyes aren’t strong enough yet. What you imagine to be love is a worse
+thing. Gerald does not love you. He can never marry you. He belongs to
+that world at which you are looking with blurred eyes.--Myrtile, how
+old were you when your mother died?”
+
+“Ten years old.”
+
+“I thought so!” Christopher exclaimed, in despair. “I am certain your
+mother was a good woman, Myrtile.”
+
+“I know she was,” Myrtile answered.
+
+“I wish to God she were alive!” he groaned. “Myrtile, don’t you want to
+be good?”
+
+“I want to be happy,” Myrtile replied. “I shall always be good.”
+
+“How do you know that?”
+
+“Because I am all good inside,” she said. “I couldn’t do any of the
+things that wicked people do.”
+
+Christopher sat for a moment in puzzled thought.
+
+“Look here,” he went on, “if you love Gerald, and Gerald doesn’t love
+you, and you are content with the pretence of his love, and you go on
+loving him, and you know that you cannot be his wife, then you are not
+good any longer.”
+
+She shook her head.
+
+“There is only once in my life,” she said, “that I have ever come near
+sin, and that is when I thought of staying at the farm and marrying
+Pierre Leschamps. I love Gerald. All that I need to be happy and good
+is that he should love me.”
+
+“But Gerald does not love you and never will,” Christopher declared
+bluntly. “He is far too selfish. At the present moment he takes some
+one else for a motor ride every afternoon, and doesn’t get up in time
+to come and see you in the mornings because he is entertaining the
+young ladies of the Russian Ballet at supper every night.”
+
+She looked at him sadly.
+
+“And you are his friend,” she reminded him again.
+
+“Dear, stupid little girl,” he said, “don’t you see that because I
+am his friend, and because I am your friend, and because I share the
+responsibility of having brought you away, I insist upon your realising
+the truth. Gerald, at the present moment, at any rate, is incapable of
+a stable affection, and if he were capable of it, his people would not
+allow him to marry you.”
+
+“I do not wish him to marry me,” she declared, with a little choke in
+her voice.
+
+“Perhaps not,” he replied. “In that case, you should listen to me more
+patiently. I want you to leave this place and go to some friends of
+mine in England.”
+
+“What, alone?”
+
+“Alone.”
+
+She shook her head.
+
+“Christopher,” she said, suddenly slipping her arm through his,
+“I think you want to be kind to me. I believe that you are very
+good--perhaps you are better than Gerald. But so long as Gerald wants
+me near, I shall stay. Even if he goes about with other people, he
+thinks of me. He has told me so, and he has promised to take me to one
+of those supper parties this week. I am looking forward to it more than
+to anything else in the world.”
+
+Christopher’s face hardened.
+
+“You will not go to one of those supper parties, Myrtile,” he insisted.
+“I would rather take you back to the farm.”
+
+She turned her head and looked at him. There was something in her eyes
+from which he shrank,--something very much like hate.
+
+“If you try to stop me,” she threatened, “I shall hate you for ever.”
+
+She saw the pain in his face and she was suddenly remorseful. She clung
+to his arm again. Her cheek almost touched his.
+
+“Christopher--dear Christopher,” she pleaded, “I did not mean to hurt
+you. I know how good you are, but just think how wonderful it would
+be for me to go with Gerald, to meet other girls, to laugh and talk,
+to sit by his side, his guest, to dance, perhaps--oh, it would be
+Paradise! Everybody else goes to parties, Christopher.”
+
+“I will take you to the Opera,” he promised.
+
+Her eyes glowed.
+
+“It would be wonderful,” she murmured, “but you must not prevent my
+going to the party.”
+
+“Myrtile,” he pointed out, “the young women whom you would meet there
+are not fit for you to know.”
+
+“But what harm can they do me?” she persisted. “I know that they are
+not nice. I went to the hotel for a few minutes with Annette last
+night--she had to go and give her keys to her aunt--and in the distance
+I saw Gerald, and I hated the people he was with. But what does it
+matter? Gerald will take care of me.”
+
+Christopher rose to his feet. There was a certain hopelessness about
+his task that he was slowly beginning to realise.
+
+“Come,” he said, “it is time we went back. I am playing tennis with
+Gerald’s sister this afternoon.”
+
+She took his arm as they scrambled down into the road.
+
+“You are not cross with me, Christopher?” she ventured, a little
+timidly.
+
+He shook his head.
+
+“No, I am not cross.”
+
+“You look so gloomy--even a little miserable,” she went on, clinging
+to his arm and looking up into his face. “I am a very great trouble to
+you, I fear. Are you not sorry that you ever brought me away?”
+
+“I am not sorry yet, Myrtile,” he answered. “I only hope that I never
+may be.”
+
+Her mood suddenly changed. She laughed gaily.
+
+“Oh, là, là!” she cried. “If you look so glum, I shall sing and dance
+to you, here in the road, as we do at festival time. Gerald says that I
+must have dancing lessons. He is going to send me to a woman here.”
+
+She pirouetted lightly on one foot, a miracle of buoyancy and grace.
+Then she went suddenly rigid, took her place by his side and clutched
+at his arm. An automobile whizzed past them, on its way up the hill:
+Gerald was leaning back in the low driving seat, the sun gleaming on
+his dark, closely brushed hair, his head bent towards his companion;
+Pauline sat a little aloof, haughty, unbending, her beautiful face
+cold, unrelieved by any light of sympathy or interest. Her eyes swept
+carelessly over Christopher and his companion, as they passed. Gerald
+did not even see them.
+
+“Who is she?” Myrtile whispered.
+
+“No one knows much about her,” Christopher replied. “She and her aunt
+have the next villa to Gerald’s father. She calls herself Mademoiselle
+de Ponière.”
+
+Myrtile laughed quietly. She was already herself again.
+
+“Mademoiselle is a very stupid girl,” she declared. “Gerald was looking
+at her and she looked only at the road. She does not care. Gerald will
+find that out.”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Gerald came to the tennis courts, an hour or so later, and played
+several sets almost in silence. He had lost for the moment all that
+light-hearted gaiety which made him, even amongst the foreigners who
+frequented the place, easily the most popular of the tennis-playing
+fraternity. He played brilliantly at times, but with obvious
+carelessness. He had the air of a man whose thoughts are busily engaged
+elsewhere. He took Christopher on one side, during one of the periods
+of rest, and flung his arm around his shoulder.
+
+“Chris, old man,” he confided, “that girl is driving me mad.”
+
+“Myrtile?” Christopher asked, with wilful obtuseness.
+
+“Don’t be an ass,” was the impatient reply. “You know very well that
+I mean Pauline de Ponière.--Tell me, are you dining at the Villa
+to-night?”
+
+“Not to-night. Your people are dining with the Prince.”
+
+“I am engaged to Carruthers but I shall throw him over,” Gerald said
+eagerly. “I want to talk to you.”
+
+“And I have a few words I want to say to you,” Christopher rejoined.
+
+“We’re in this set,” Gerald pointed out, rising to his feet. “Let’s be
+alone somewhere, then--Ciro’s Grill at eight-thirty.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+
+Gerald and Christopher were a little disappointed with their
+rendezvous, so far as regards its possibilities for intimate
+conversation. Although it was twenty minutes to nine when they entered
+the place, there was still a fair number of loungers around the bar,
+drinking cocktails, and many of the little tables around the room
+were already taken. They chose as remote a one as possible, however,
+and seated themselves side by side, with their backs against the
+wall. Gerald ordered the dinner and the wine. Then he started the
+conversation with a somewhat abrupt question.
+
+“Chris,” he asked, “exactly what do you think of Mademoiselle de
+Ponière?”
+
+“I don’t know her,” Christopher reminded him.
+
+“As a matter of fact, neither do I,” Gerald declared, a little
+bitterly. “She permitted me to introduce myself down on the sands
+below the Villa, and she has been for a ride with me in the car every
+afternoon since; yet she does this secretly, and if I meet her with her
+aunt I am not allowed to speak to her or to expect recognition. I am
+not permitted to call at the Villa, I don’t know where they come from,
+I don’t know even her nationality. Furthermore, they do not appear to
+know a soul in Monte Carlo, nor have we ever stumbled across a single
+mutual acquaintance.”
+
+“The situation seems peculiar,” Christopher admitted. “I can’t see the
+faintest reason why she shouldn’t introduce you to her aunt.”
+
+“Neither can I,” Gerald agreed. “I flatter myself that for my few but
+well-spent years I have seen something of the world and its snares, but
+I honestly cannot place these two women.”
+
+“What is mademoiselle’s attitude towards you when you are alone?”
+Christopher asked.
+
+“Ridiculously reserved,” Gerald answered. “I once touched her fingers
+and I thought she would have struck me. Humiliating though it may be,
+I am half inclined to believe that it is the motoring alone which
+attracts her in the slightest degree, and that I represent very little
+more to her than the man who is driving the car.”
+
+“Do you wish to represent more?” Christopher asked bluntly.
+
+“I don’t know,” Gerald answered, after a moment’s hesitation. “She
+attracts me horribly. She has done so from the first.”
+
+Their conversation was momentarily interrupted by the arrival in the
+place of a newcomer, a stranger to both the young men. He was tall
+and broad-shouldered, sallow-skinned, with a mass of black hair, good
+features, but with hard, almost brutal mouth. Although the night was
+warm, he wore a huge overcoat, from which he seemed to part with some
+reluctance. He was in morning clothes of fashionable cut, and he wore
+a singular number of rings upon his massive fingers. Immediately he
+had been relieved of his coat, he made his way to the bar, drank two
+cocktails in rapid succession and lit a cigarette. Then he wandered
+to the table adjoining the one at which the two young men were
+seated, and, having given his order for dinner, busied himself making
+calculations upon some scraps of paper which he tore up as soon as they
+were filled with figures. Gerald spoke to the waiter who served them,
+with whom he was well acquainted.
+
+“A stranger here, Charles?”
+
+The man glanced over his shoulder and lowered his tone.
+
+“A Russian gentleman, milord,” he announced, “staying at the Hôtel de
+Paris--Monsieur Zubin, he calls himself. They say that he has been
+playing very heavily.”
+
+“Russians who play high are no great novelty here,” Gerald remarked,
+under his breath. “There are not so many of them with money, nowadays,
+though.--Chris,” he went on, as the man left them, “you asked yesterday
+what was the matter with me. I’ll tell you. It’s this uncertainty about
+Mademoiselle de Ponière. It’s an absolute torment to me. It’s getting
+on my nerves.”
+
+“Define the exact nature of your uncertainty?” Christopher suggested.
+
+“Define it? What the devil do you mean?” Gerald answered gloomily.
+
+“Is it the character and reputation of these ladies concerning
+which you cannot make up your mind, or is it mademoiselle’s lack of
+reciprocation to your overtures which you find distressing?”
+
+“For God’s sake, chuck that legal tosh!” Gerald begged. “It’s both!”
+
+“Has she ever mentioned the subject of money, directly or indirectly?”
+Christopher asked.
+
+“Not once,” Gerald replied. “She always has the air of having plenty,
+and her clothes are quite wonderful. Furthermore,” he went on, helping
+himself to wine, “she doesn’t encourage me in the slightest. I wish to
+God she would! She really seems to look upon me just as a chauffeur.”
+
+Christopher laughed quietly. There were people who called Gerald the
+most spoilt young man in London, and his present predicament had its
+humourous side. Gerald himself made a little grimace.
+
+“It’s all very well, Christopher,” he said, “but I am a great deal too
+near being in earnest over this. Pull yourself together and suggest
+some way of getting hold of the truth.”
+
+“If the girl herself won’t help you,” Christopher replied, “how can any
+one else?”
+
+“I suppose you’re right,” Gerald assented gloomily.
+
+“Ask her pointblank where she was brought up and how it is she knows no
+one here,” Christopher went on.
+
+“I’ll try it,” Gerald agreed. “The worst of it is, she has such a
+terrible way of looking at you when you ask anything she doesn’t
+approve of; she makes you feel as though you’d been guilty of an
+impertinence. Only yesterday, I suggested Mary’s calling on her. I’m
+not at all sure that Mary would have played up, but I risked that. ‘My
+aunt is not receiving here,’ was her only reply. Hang it all, you know,
+Chris, I’m not a snob, but that does seem a trifle offhand, considering
+all things.”
+
+“I should call it a little ominous,” Christopher pronounced. “If she
+and her aunt really are wrong ’uns, she’d be jolly careful not to put
+you in a false position by letting your sister call upon her. She knows
+quite well that’s the sort of thing a fellow doesn’t forgive.”
+
+The place had become very crowded indeed. A small orchestra was playing
+in the far corner. Several unattached young ladies, who preserved an
+air of haughty indifference towards the company generally, but seemed
+to be on remarkably good terms with the head waiter, had brought
+colour into the little assembly. The large man who was reputed to be a
+Russian had called for pen and ink, and between the courses was writing
+a letter. The _maître d’hôtel_, who knew Gerald, stooped and whispered
+in his ear.
+
+“Monsieur Zubin, the large gentleman you asked me about, milord,” he
+announced, “has just won two million francs over at the Casino. Some
+of these people have followed him over. He must have the money in his
+pocket.”
+
+To Christopher the scene was a novel one, and he leaned forward in
+his seat. Two young ladies had seated themselves at the next table
+to the Russian, and the nearest was glancing tentatively at him now
+and then, without, however, evoking the slightest response. A rather
+seedy-looking individual, seated upon a stool before the bar, had made
+one or two moves in the same direction and was apparently only waiting
+for the Russian to finish his letter before he addressed him. On every
+side were signs of a sort of parasitical hero worship. People from
+all quarters were whispering together and glancing towards him. The
+object of all these attentions continued to write his letter unmoved.
+Presently he called for a _chasseur_, thrust his letter into an
+envelope and addressed it. The boy made a prompt appearance and stood,
+cap in hand, waiting for his orders. The man who had just won two
+million francs handed him the letter, gave him some brief directions
+and a handful of coins. The _chasseur_ saluted and hurried off. Gerald
+gripped his companion by the arm.
+
+“Did you hear that, Chris?” he whispered.
+
+“I heard nothing,” Christopher replied.
+
+“I saw the address, too,” Gerald continued eagerly. “The letter is to
+Madame de Ponière, Villa Violette!”
+
+The dispatch of the letter was the signal for certain almost
+imperceptible advances on the part of those who had been watching
+the great man. The young lady at the next table leaned over and
+congratulated him on his good fortune, an overture which was received
+a little gruffly and without enthusiasm. Mademoiselle smiled, however,
+and did not take the rebuff to heart. A bottle stood in ice by her
+neighbour’s side, and she judged that a more propitious moment would
+arrive. The seedy-looking stranger slid from his stool, leaned over
+the table and whispered a few words in the Russian’s ear. He was a
+sandy-haired man, with puffy cheeks and a nervous manner. His clothes
+had once been well enough but were now shabby. He had the gambler’s
+restless air.
+
+“Sir,” he began, “forgive my addressing you.”
+
+“What do you want?” was the blunt rejoinder.
+
+“I stood behind your chair in the Rooms. I flatter myself that I
+brought you fortune, as I have brought it to many others. I have been
+an immense loser at the tables, but, in proportion to my own losses, my
+friends have always won.”
+
+“What of this?” the other asked brusquely.
+
+“The fortunes which control winning or losing are strange ones,” the
+sandy-haired man continued. “There are many who contend that they are
+influenced by the good or evil will of a bystander. I admired your
+courage, monsieur. I willed you to win. I have lost as much at the
+tables as you have won. Will you grant me the loan of a meal?”
+
+“Go to hell!” was the brutal reply. “I have nothing to do with cadgers.”
+
+The man staggered as though he had received a shock. He was used to
+rebuffs, but not such rebuffs as this.
+
+“Monsieur!” he stammered.--“Perhaps five hundred or even two hundred
+francs----”
+
+“Not a sou, and be off. Do you want me to complain to the manager?”
+
+The sandy-haired man went back to his stool, a little dazed. He held
+out his hand as though for a drink, which the bartender forgot to
+serve. A young man dressed in the height of fashion rose from his
+place at the other side of the room, and came over to talk to the two
+girls for a few moments. Then he turned to the Russian, addressing him
+courteously and with an air of respect.
+
+“I congratulate you, monsieur,” he said, “upon your splendid gambling.
+I watched you for an hour this afternoon. It is not often that one sees
+the bank broken four times.”
+
+The Russian looked at the newcomer with his bushy eyebrows drawn
+together. His champagne had been served and he had drunk a couple of
+glasses of the wine. His expression, however, seemed colder and more
+menacing than ever.
+
+“My gambling is my own affair, sir,” he said. “I do not discuss it with
+strangers.”
+
+The young man smiled. He was not in the least offended.
+
+“There is a freemasonry here,” he explained, “which sometimes dispenses
+with introductions. All of us visitors who measure our wits and our
+pockets against those of Monsieur Blanc are in a sense allies. When one
+triumphs, it is permitted to the others to congratulate him.”
+
+“My experience is,” the Russian declared, unmoved, “that, after the
+congratulations are over, a little request usually follows. I do not
+acknowledge the alliance you speak of. I play for myself, my own
+pleasure and my own profit.”
+
+“It is your right,” the young man acknowledged, his tone still
+good-tempered, although there was a malicious twist at the corners of
+his lips. “Since my congratulations offend you, I withdraw them. May
+you lose back again your two millions, and may some of it flow into our
+pockets.”
+
+The Russian laughed mirthlessly.
+
+“Whatever of my two millions flows into your pockets,” he replied,
+“will come via Monsieur Blanc--I can promise you that! I am a stranger
+here, and I desire no acquaintance. Your table, I think, is on the
+other side of the room.”
+
+The young man edged away. The smile remained upon his lips but his
+expression was curiously malevolent. Gerald smiled as he saw him cross
+the floor.
+
+“Horribly bad character, that,” he remarked to Christopher. “I missed
+him here last season and asked where he was. They told me that he was
+in prison for stabbing his mistress.--I suppose I shall get it in the
+neck, Chris, but I’ve got to talk to the old brute. I can’t afford to
+miss an opportunity of speaking to some one who knows Pauline.”
+
+“I shouldn’t, if I were you,” Christopher advised. “You see he isn’t in
+the humour to talk to anybody, and if there really is any mystery about
+the De Ponières, he won’t care about being asked questions about them.”
+
+Gerald was, for him, however, determined.
+
+“Those others were all wrong ’uns, and he probably knew it. The
+fellow’s manner is brutal, but I believe he’s a personage. I shall try
+my luck in a moment or so.”
+
+Mademoiselle returned to the attack. She leaned once more towards her
+neighbour.
+
+“Monsieur’s wine appears to be excellent,” she ventured.
+
+The Russian, who had begun to eat seriously, summoned a waiter without
+raising his head.
+
+“Serve two bottles of wine,” he directed, “to mademoiselle and her
+friend, and bring me another.”
+
+“Monsieur is a prince,” the girl murmured.
+
+The big man flashed a sudden look at her. Then he went on with his
+dinner.
+
+“You are welcome to the wine,” he said. “It does not please me, for the
+moment, to converse. Besides, I am hungry.”
+
+Mademoiselle murmured another word of thanks and turned back to her
+companion. She knew her world and she was content.
+
+“Monsieur must not be interfered with,” she declared. “He has been
+playing since the Rooms opened, and he is weary. The fortune of some
+people is marvelous,” she went on, watching the coming of the wine. “If
+I were to win a mille, I should be crazy with delight.”
+
+Gerald waited for several minutes, until his neighbour had entered upon
+another course. Then he leaned a little towards him.
+
+“A trifle communistic, the ideas of the world about here,” he remarked.
+
+The Russian looked at him and shrugged his shoulders.
+
+“I come from a country where I have learnt to hate that word,” he
+said. “Be so good as not to repeat it in my hearing.”
+
+“You are a Russian?” Gerald ventured.
+
+“It is entirely my business of what nationality I am,” was the cold
+reply.
+
+“Naturally,” Gerald agreed. “At the same time, we are all human. The
+man who wins a couple of millions here is a public character. You will
+probably find old ladies rubbing their five-franc pieces against your
+coat sleeves, as you enter the Rooms.”
+
+“So long as they do not attempt to talk to me, I shall be content,” was
+the curt retort.
+
+“You are not exactly looking for acquaintances, I perceive,” Gerald
+remarked.
+
+“I have none here, nor do I desire any.”
+
+Gerald smiled. He had reached the point at which he had been aiming.
+
+“That,” he observed, “is not strictly true. You have just dispatched a
+note to some ladies of my acquaintance.”
+
+Monsieur Zubin had so far met Gerald’s tentative overtures with the
+cold rudeness of one who recognises an equal. At his last words,
+however, a look almost of fury flashed into his face. He struck the
+table with his fist.
+
+“I ought to have remembered the sort of people by whom I was likely to
+be surrounded here,” he declared. “One comes to beg for alms, another
+to tout for a loan or to pave the way for a robbery, and you, who
+look as though you ought to know better, cast sneaking glances over
+my shoulder to read the superscription of a private letter. What a
+riffraff!”
+
+Gerald bit his lip. He kept his temper perfectly.
+
+“I saw the address, I assure you, entirely by accident,” he said. “I
+happen to be acquainted with one of the ladies or the name would not
+have attracted my notice. Madame and mademoiselle occupy the next villa
+to my father’s.”
+
+“Acquainted? That is a lie!” the Russian exclaimed. “The ladies of whom
+you have spoken have no acquaintances in Monte Carlo.”
+
+Gerald shrugged his shoulders.
+
+“At least,” he said, “I will agree with you so far as to admit that
+this is no place in which to discuss them.”
+
+Monsieur Zubin rose deliberately to his feet. One realised then his
+extraordinary height. He must have been at least six feet, four inches,
+and broad in proportion. Gerald, although he himself was considerably
+over average height, seemed like a child by his side.
+
+“If you mention their names again,” he threatened, “I shall throw you
+out of the place.”
+
+Gerald looked him over for a moment, unmoved but intensely curious. The
+mystery of Madame and Mademoiselle de Ponière had only been increased
+by this chance meeting.
+
+“Pray sit down,” he begged. “You are making every one uneasy. I have
+no wish to quarrel with you. I simply took you for an ordinary human
+being.”
+
+The Russian resumed his seat. Mademoiselle raised her glass and laughed
+into his eyes. Gerald called for his bill.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+
+During their short walk to the Sporting Club, where the two young men
+had arranged to spend the rest of the evening, Christopher endeavoured
+to bring the conversation round to the subject of Myrtile.
+
+“It is time,” he insisted, “that we did something a little more
+definite about Myrtile.”
+
+“What can we do?” Gerald replied carelessly. “She’ll find a job
+presently.”
+
+“She won’t unless we help her,” Christopher replied, “and meanwhile
+this life is horribly bad for her. She is all the time unsettled and
+uneasy, and I don’t wonder at it. You don’t take her seriously enough,
+Gerald.”
+
+“In what way?”
+
+“She told me this afternoon that you had promised to take her to one of
+your supper parties.”
+
+Gerald was not altogether at his ease.
+
+“It was rather a rash promise,” he admitted, “but after all, why not?
+She’d create quite a sensation.”
+
+“That child’s immediate future is a charge upon our honour,”
+Christopher said sternly. “You and I know the class of young women you
+invite to your parties. They’re smart enough--the best of their sort,
+without a doubt. At the same time, they’re not fit companions for
+Myrtile. She’s full of hysterical impressions, as it is. She mustn’t
+come near them. She mustn’t breathe the same atmosphere.”
+
+“Are you in love with Myrtile?” Gerald asked curiously.
+
+Christopher loathed the question but he remained outwardly unperturbed.
+
+“Myrtile is a child,” he said. “It will be time enough to think of
+such things when she has become a woman. The one deadly and pernicious
+certainty is that she is in love with you. Be careful, Gerald. You
+don’t want to walk on the floor of hell.”
+
+They had reached the steps of the Sporting Club. Gerald ran lightly up.
+
+“My dear Chris,” he said, turning around as he prepared to divest
+himself of his overcoat, “don’t be a melodramatic ass. We’re in the
+wrong atmosphere for that sort of thing. Jupiter! Here is the family!”
+
+“Well, you might appear a little more pleased to see us,” Mary
+declared. “Dad and I looked in here on our way back from the dinner
+party. Dad met an old friend there--Sir William Greatwood--and he
+insisted upon our coming. It seemed so ridiculously early to go home.
+They’ve hurried in to make sure of places at the first roulette table.”
+
+“Let’s find a corner in the bar and have some coffee,” Christopher
+suggested. “Gerald is too electric to-night for a man of my staid
+temperament.”
+
+“I’m not so sure of your staid temperament as I was,” Mary rejoined.
+“However, I’d like some coffee. We’ll take those two easy-chairs.”
+
+Gerald soon drifted away and the two were left alone. Mary leaned back
+in her corner and studied her companion thoughtfully.
+
+“Christopher,” she began, “I am not at all sure that you two young men
+are behaving nicely in Monte Carlo. Father was saying this afternoon
+that we scarcely saw you at all except at tennis.”
+
+“Will you play golf and lunch with me to-morrow morning, Lady Mary?” he
+begged.
+
+“With pleasure,” she replied. “And now that you have made your peace,
+do tell me about Gerald. He seems to have an extraordinary craze
+for taking the mysterious young woman next door out motoring every
+afternoon. Who is she?”
+
+“I haven’t the faintest idea,” Christopher confessed. “Neither has he.
+That, I think, is part of the attraction.”
+
+“Does any one know her?” Mary asked, a little doubtfully. “She looks
+all right, but, after all, ours is such a very small world that it
+seems odd no one knows anything about her.”
+
+Christopher shook his head.
+
+“I believe that Madame Lénore--the woman from whom we bought the things
+for Myrtile--knows something about them, at any rate.”
+
+Lady Mary played with the pearls which hung from her neck.
+
+“To leave the subject of our mysterious neighbours, then, have you
+succeeded in finding any employment for your little protégée yet?” she
+enquired, looking up at her companion.
+
+“Not yet,” Christopher replied. “I have written to a cousin of mine in
+London, who goes in for that sort of thing, to see if she can find her
+a post as nursery governess. The housekeeper at the hotel would take
+her as a chambermaid, but for once I agree with Gerald--I think she is
+far too good for anything of that sort.”
+
+“I can’t imagine what you two young men think you know about it,” Mary
+remarked. “The girl has lived all her life as a peasant, and I am still
+old-fashioned enough to believe that it is exceedingly unwise to
+pitchfork any one into a position to which he is unaccustomed.”
+
+“The girl is altogether unusual,” Christopher pointed out. “Her father
+and mother were both school-teachers. Sometimes I feel inclined to
+regret that we ever discovered her, but so long as we did, and brought
+her here, we must try and start her properly.”
+
+“In Monte Carlo?” his companion observed, a little drily.
+
+“I shall send her to England, if my cousin agrees to take her,”
+Christopher declared.
+
+“And, in the meantime, the poor little fool is hopelessly in love with
+Gerald. Well, you both know what you are doing, I suppose. I should be
+sorry to have your responsibility.--I think I ought to go and see how
+dad is getting on with his mille.”
+
+“Wait one moment,” Christopher begged, laying his hand upon her arm. “I
+want you to watch this.”
+
+She looked up curiously. Gerald had just entered the crowded little
+room, and, at the same moment, Mademoiselle de Ponière and her aunt
+appeared on the other threshold. Madame was dressed in black clothes of
+old-fashioned but distinctive cut. A wonderful black lace shawl drooped
+from her shoulders. Her ears and fingers blazed with gems. She leaned,
+as she walked, upon an ivory-topped stick, and her eyes had their usual
+trick of wandering around the room as though she saw no one. Pauline’s
+wonderful figure seemed sheathed in a black net gown, which fitted
+her with almost magical perfection. From the curve of her large hat,
+which framed her pale face and heavily-fringed eyes, to the tips of
+her black and white patent shoes, she seemed to represent a perfection
+unobtrusive but inevitable. Gerald, who had been on his way to join
+his sister and Christopher, paused at their approach, as though bent on
+challenging some recognition, however slight, from the girl. In this,
+however, he was disappointed. Without any appearance of avoiding him,
+without even turning her eyes away from his direction, she passed by as
+though in complete unconsciousness of his presence, and followed her
+companion through the other door. Gerald stood for a moment in silent
+fury after they had left. The cigarette which he had been holding
+between his fingers slipped on to the carpet, crushed to pieces. He set
+his heel upon it and crossed the room. Lady Mary recognised the sense
+of disturbance in him and welcomed him with the tactful smile of one
+who has noticed nothing unusual.
+
+“Tell me whether to play _trente et quarante_ or roulette to-night,
+Gerald?” she said. “Or shall I go and play baccarat? If only the people
+there weren’t so alarming!”
+
+Gerald looked across at Christopher. He seemed as though he had
+scarcely heard his sister’s words.
+
+“Did you see that?” he asked, in a low tone.
+
+Christopher nodded.
+
+“Personally,” he admitted, “I should find it intolerable, but then, as
+you know, I hate all mysteries. I should feel inclined to go up to the
+young woman and ask her if she were tired after her motoring.”
+
+“I believe I have an average amount of pluck,” Gerald declared, “but I
+tell you honestly I couldn’t face it. I believe I should get the most
+colossal snub which has ever been inflicted upon a human being.”
+
+“The girl is extraordinarily attractive,” Mary observed. “Shall I
+really be brave and call, Gerald? One doesn’t do that sort of thing
+abroad, but she must be lonely. If they aren’t what they should be, it
+won’t hurt me.”
+
+“No good, old dear,” Gerald groaned. “I’ve suggested something of the
+sort already, but she only threw cold water on the idea.”
+
+Lady Mary laughed softly.
+
+“After all,” she decided, “there is something humourous in the
+situation. I always look upon Gerald as being the most woman-spoilt man
+I know. Quite a new experience for you, dear, isn’t it? I can’t think
+how you ever progressed so far as you have done.”
+
+“Sheer British pluck,” Gerald declared. “I can assure you I never
+shivered so much during my three years in France, as I did when I
+walked up to the rock where the girl was standing. I don’t remember,
+even now, how I made the plunge.”
+
+“You probably asked her if her name wasn’t Smith and if you hadn’t met
+at the Jones’ ball,” Mary remarked. “After all, there have been other
+people in the world who haven’t wished to make acquaintances. They are
+both in half-mourning, too.”
+
+“I should cheer up, old fellow,” Christopher advised. “They won’t hold
+out for ever. You will probably find that to-morrow afternoon the young
+lady will shyly invite you in to meet her aunt.”
+
+“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Gerald growled. “There! Did
+you see that?”
+
+Through the open doorway, Madame de Ponière and her younger companion
+were plainly visible, making their way towards one of the roulette
+tables. They had come face to face for a moment with a little
+Frenchman, who stopped and bowed with every mark of respect. Both of
+the women acknowledged his salutation graciously. Gerald sprang to his
+feet.
+
+“That’s Henri Dubois, Monsieur Blanc’s representative there!” he
+exclaimed. “He knows them! Thank heavens, I’ve come across some one at
+last who does!”
+
+He crossed the room in half a dozen strides, and accosted Monsieur
+Dubois in the private way leading to the Hôtel de Paris. The usual
+civilities were exchanged.
+
+“Monsieur Dubois, you can do me a favour,” Gerald confided, as he drew
+him towards the bar and ordered two liqueur brandies.
+
+“If it is possible, it is done,” Dubois declared. “If it is impossible,
+it shall be done.”
+
+“I want you to tell me,” Gerald continued, “who the two ladies in black
+were, to whom you just bowed--Madame and Mademoiselle de Ponière, they
+call themselves?”
+
+The courteous smile faded from the lips of the little man. He was
+watching intently the pouring of the brandy into his glass.
+
+“Milord,” he regretted, “I cannot tell you anything about those two
+ladies.”
+
+Gerald was a little staggered. Monsieur Dubois was a well-known gossip,
+to whom he had been indebted for the history of many of the visitors to
+the place.
+
+“You, too!” he exclaimed. “What on earth is the mystery about them?”
+
+The Frenchman looked at him in bland surprise.
+
+“Mystery, milord?” he repeated. “Is there one?”
+
+Gerald avoided a fruitless discussion. He laid his hand on his
+companion’s shoulder in friendly fashion.
+
+“Look here, old fellow,” he said, “I will ask you one question, and one
+question only. What are their real names?”
+
+Monsieur Dubois smiled. His difficulties were at an end.
+
+“Milord,” he declared, “you wrong those very respectable ladies in
+imagining that they would present themselves here under names to
+which they had no right. Both ladies, who are, as you have doubtless
+surmised, related, are entitled to the name of De Ponière. The first
+Christian name of the older lady is Anastasie, of the younger--Pauline.
+I am happy to be able to satisfy milord. A thousand excuses. They call
+me from the baccarat room.”
+
+Gerald returned dejectedly to the room where his sister and Christopher
+were waiting expectantly.
+
+“It appears that there is no mystery at all,” he announced. “Dubois
+assures me that they are related and that their names are indeed De
+Ponière.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+
+Myrtile rose in the morning, as was her custom, at a little after
+seven o’clock, carefully made her bed, dressed, and walked for an hour
+upon the Terrace. These early diurnal wanderings were tempered with a
+certain sadness, although she was always finding something new--new
+beauties or new sores--in this amazing spot to which she had been
+transported. She saw the mists which wreathed the hilltops before
+the sun had power to burn them away,--mists grey some mornings and
+opalescent on others, but always of wonderful shape, always fantastic,
+dissolving sometimes at unexpected moments to reveal unexpected
+beauties, hanging down the hillsides at times in long, ghostly arms, to
+sever the pine woods, the strips of pasture and the small vineyards.
+The little town itself had the air of being in déshabille, of somewhat
+resenting this early riser’s curious gaze. Where the coloured lights
+had burned last night, and the music of violins made sad and sweet the
+throbbing atmosphere, was a desert waste,--tables piled on one another,
+chairs turned over, the débris of cigars and cigarette ends and
+burned-out matches still littering the ground. There were water carts
+in the streets and sweepers upon the pavement. The beshuttered and
+becurtained shops looked with blank eyes upon this scene of renovation.
+It was too early, as yet, even for the mannequin or the seamstress; the
+streets were filled only with the ghosts of last night’s giddy throngs.
+The Casino itself, closed and silent, seemed brooding over that hive
+of passion, of disappointment and strident joy of a few hours ago. The
+villas on the hill were barely opening their eyes. A ragpicker stole
+along the Terrace, making his furtive collection. To Myrtile, whose
+life as yet was composed mainly of externals, everything was still
+beautiful. The sun warmed her with the promise of love. She was never
+tired of watching the little waves breaking upon the sandy strip, and
+the million scintillating lights upon the bay. She looked up with a
+glad smile at the silent hotel where Gerald was sleeping. Perhaps he
+was dreaming of her at that very moment. Love had crept into her life
+and found her very ignorant. As yet it was a beautiful and simple
+thing. That it was capable of change and division never even occurred
+to her. She loved Gerald, and, although he sometimes disappointed her,
+it must be that Gerald loved her. She had few doubts about it all. All
+her confidence, all her will, went freely with that warm, sweet impulse
+which filled her heart and thoughts, and which seemed to her the
+sweetest and most wonderful thing in life. She was intelligent, almost
+brilliantly intelligent, and, even in those few days, the sordid and
+ugly side of other people’s lives and aspirations had sometimes been
+revealed to her, only to be brushed aside as something very remote,
+something from which love made her forever free. Gerald’s attitude
+often puzzled, sometimes even distressed her, but she put his vagaries
+down to her own lack of understanding. She was convinced that all would
+be well when she saw more of him, and she harboured a dull sense of
+resentment against Christopher, who she believed was always working for
+some unknown reason to keep them apart.
+
+At half-past eight she returned to her rooms and deliberately attacked
+a great mass of sewing, which was sent to her daily from the hotel,
+and the payment for which, by arrangement, provided her with board
+and lodging. From that time onwards, she sat in the window with but
+one hope,--the hope of seeing Gerald. Once or twice he had come and
+taken her out to luncheon, but Christopher was unfailing in his
+visits. He presented himself every morning at about the same time,
+and even if Gerald appeared, he always accompanied him. Gerald once,
+obeying a curious impulse, had sent her a great box of roses, over
+which she had wept with delight, and which she kept alive by every
+known artifice. Christopher brought her, day by day, the little
+things she needed,--gloves, stockings, handkerchiefs, and often
+a few simple bonbons and flowers. Despite her resentment against
+him, it was always a pleasure to hear his firm tread and to watch
+his tall, broad-shouldered figure and good-humoured, intelligent
+face as he crossed the road, invariably with some small parcel in
+his hand. He seemed to have much more time to spare than Gerald, a
+fact which, womanlike, she half resented, ignorant of the fact that
+Gerald sat up half the night enjoying himself in his own fashion, and
+that Christopher often gave up his morning round of golf to be her
+companion. She found an evil counsellor, too, in Annette, the maid at
+the hotel, who occupied the other bedroom in the little cottage and
+generally looked in for a few minutes on her way to work. Annette,
+who was thoroughly French, was completely puzzled by the situation.
+She could account for it in her own mind only from the fact that the
+two young men were English and therefore presumably mad. Of her own
+preference she made no secret.
+
+“But how mademoiselle is industrious!” she exclaimed, looking in at the
+door soon after Myrtile had returned from her early morning walk and
+settled down to her sewing. “I hope my stingy old aunt pays you well
+for all that sewing.”
+
+“She gives me my board and lodging here,” Myrtile replied, with a
+smile. “That more than contents me.”
+
+“Board and lodging! Oh, là, là!” Annette declared, sinking into her
+accustomed chair. “That would not content me. Even one’s salary at the
+hotel is not sufficient. It is the tips from which one can buy one’s
+clothes.”
+
+“Soon I shall have to think of clothes,” Myrtile confided. “At present
+Monsieur Gerald has given me all that I need.”
+
+“It is a very chic costume and doubtless expensive,” Annette admitted,
+“but for evening clothes mademoiselle has nothing.”
+
+“I do not go out in the evenings,” Myrtile replied, a little wistfully.
+“Monsieur Christopher took me once to the Opera, but we sat in a box.”
+
+“Monsieur Christopher!” the maid repeated, with a little shrug of the
+shoulders. “He is well enough but he is heavy. He speaks French like
+an English schoolboy. But Milord Dombey--ah, he is superb! He speaks
+French like a Parisian, he dances divinely, he is gay all the time. Oh,
+if he were on my floor, that I could see him sometimes, I should be
+happy!”
+
+Myrtile said nothing. She had learnt that the best way to make Annette
+talk was just to listen.
+
+“It amazes me,” Annette continued, “that mademoiselle does not ask
+Milord Dombey for some evening frocks and attend one of his supper
+parties. Charles, the head waiter, brings me news often of them. They
+are of the most amusing. There are artistes there, and all manner of
+wonderful people. Has mademoiselle no curiosity to see life?”
+
+Myrtile threaded a needle carefully before she replied.
+
+“Milord Dombey,” she said, “would, I believe, take me, but Monsieur
+Christopher does not think it well that I go to those parties. He
+declares that they are for people whom I should not meet.”
+
+Annette threw herself back in her chair, revealing to the full her
+silk-stockinged legs. She clasped her hands behind the back of her
+head. She was vastly amused.
+
+“Oh, là, là!” she exclaimed. “That is so like Monsieur Bent! What does
+he make of life, that young man? Does he think it well for a girl as
+beautiful as mademoiselle to sit here alone at night and creep into
+bed, while monsieur who adores her spends his time with other women?
+Pooh! Mademoiselle should have courage.”
+
+Myrtile laid down her work. Her heart was beating fast.
+
+“Tell me, Annette,” she begged, “who are these guests of Milord Dombey?
+Why do they keep me away from them?”
+
+“It is not Milord Dombey’s fault,” Annette declared. “He is a _beau
+garçon_, that. It is the stupid Monsieur Bent who should have stayed
+at home in his dull London. They are all well enough, these guests of
+Milord Dombey’s. Some sing at the Opera; others, perhaps, have seen
+life in Paris, but for that what are they the worse--what harm can they
+do? It is perhaps Monsieur Bent’s idea that he keeps you away from
+Milord Dombey, who is so attractive, and takes you back to his stodgy
+England and marries you there himself. Oh, if I were mademoiselle, I
+should submit no longer!”
+
+“What should you do, Annette?” Myrtile asked, half fearfully.
+
+“I should put on all my prettiest clothes,” Annette replied, entering
+into the matter with animation, “and I should come to the hotel.
+I should find my way to Milord Dombey--that would be for me to
+arrange--and I should just tell him that I had come, that I was tired
+of being left at home. Then I would whisper one or two of the nicest
+little things I could think of into his ear, and I would put my arms
+around his neck, and--well--I know Milord Dombey--he would not send me
+away--not if I were mademoiselle.”
+
+The work had fallen from Myrtile’s hands. She was sitting up in her
+chair, her eyes very bright, her lips a little parted. How fortunate
+it was that Annette had come! Without a doubt, she would do this. Only
+one must beware of Monsieur Christopher. He was full of droll ideas. It
+was, perhaps, as Annette had suggested. He must be made to understand.
+Presently Annette departed, and when, a little later on, Christopher
+arrived to pay his morning call, Myrtile was seated as usual at her
+work, her manner unaltered except that she was a little gayer than
+usual, perhaps a little more kindly. Christopher, on the other hand,
+was inclined to be serious.
+
+“Myrtile,” he announced, “I have heard from my cousin in England. She
+thinks that she will be able to find you a place in about a month’s
+time.”
+
+“That is very kind of her,” Myrtile answered, without enthusiasm. “What
+does Gerald say about it?”
+
+“I have not mentioned it to Gerald yet,” Christopher replied. “He was
+dining out last night and had a supper party afterwards at the Carlton,
+and as a matter of fact he was fast asleep when I came out. I have no
+doubt, however, that he will be glad.”
+
+The girl made a little grimace.
+
+“He may not be so glad to get rid of me as you,” she remarked.
+
+“We shall neither of us be here in a month’s time,” Christopher
+reminded her. “Certainly I shall not, and Gerald, I believe, is due to
+go on to Biarritz before then.”
+
+Myrtile sewed industriously for a moment.
+
+“Perhaps,” she suggested, “he may want me to go on to Biarritz with
+him.”
+
+“You must not talk like that, Myrtile,” Christopher said sternly. “You
+must not say such things. If Gerald goes, it will be with some other
+young men to play polo. There would be no possible place for you in
+such a company.”
+
+Myrtile proceeded calmly with her sewing. She was beginning to be sorry
+for Christopher. He understood so little.
+
+“We must tell Gerald about it,” she conceded. “You understand that I
+should not do anything without his approval?”
+
+“Quite,” Christopher acquiesced. “We are both equally your guardians,
+Myrtile. Gerald is just as fond of you, I am sure, as I am.”
+
+She smiled without looking up. Some day he would know the truth, this
+kindly but rather foolish Englishman. He would know that she and Gerald
+loved one another. He should always be their friend, though. He was
+very good, in his way, only he would not understand.
+
+“What about a short walk before lunch?” he suggested.
+
+Myrtile dropped her work at once.
+
+“We will go along the Terrace,” she proposed, “and while I sit upon a
+seat, you shall go in and wake up that lazy Gerald. You shall tell him
+that I am waiting, and I am sure that he will hurry out.”
+
+Christopher assented, a little sadly. Once or twice before they had
+carried out the same programme, and he was wondering whether it would
+not have been better to have told Myrtile the truth,--that on two
+occasions Gerald had absolutely refused to join them, and that on the
+third he had been brought out almost by force. There was a little pang
+in his heart as he watched Myrtile’s gay preparations. Life was so
+wonderful to her that it seemed a shame to destroy a single illusion.
+
+“We’ll try and rout him out, at all events,” he promised.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+
+Myrtile was seated alone at the far end of the Terrace, outside the
+Hôtel de Paris, when the tragedy happened. Her first impression
+was that some very unusual people had found their way on to the
+promenade,--a fête-day excursion, perhaps, from one of the neighbouring
+villages. And then the colour seemed slowly drained from her cheeks.
+She would have got up and fled but her limbs absolutely refused their
+office. Her slight movement, however, had attracted the attention of
+the two men. With exclamations of incredulity, they hurried towards
+her. The incredulity turned swiftly to joy. Myrtile, in such clothes,
+represented, without a doubt, boundless wealth. It was a morning of
+good fortune, this!
+
+“Myrtile, thou little rascal!” her stepfather cried, gripping her
+pearl-coloured gloves in his horny fist. “Pierre, thou seest. It is she
+indeed. Amazing! It is veritably amazing!”
+
+Pierre Leschamps was not so fluent. His narrow, covetous eyes looked
+over Myrtile’s slim body lasciviously. What he had lost! He was filled
+with self-pity.
+
+“It is an escapade, this,” he said. “Thou art ready to return, Myrtile?”
+
+“Never!” the girl declared passionately.
+
+“Oho!” her stepfather exclaimed. “We shall see about that. There is
+the law, little one. The law does not allow an honest man to be robbed
+of his daughter--ay, stepdaughter, if you will,” he went on, checking
+a passionate protest on Myrtile’s lips. “Now, then, out with it, my
+child. Where did those clothes come from? Who brought you here? Who is
+supporting you?”
+
+“I am supporting myself,” Myrtile answered. “I sew all the mornings and
+most of the afternoons.”
+
+The two men laughed unpleasantly. Her father laid his hand upon her
+shoulder.
+
+“Listen,” he said, “you were carried away from home by two Englishmen
+in a motor car--rich Englishmen, by all accounts, with much luggage.
+Where are they?”
+
+“What do you want with them?” Myrtile demanded.
+
+“That is not for thy silly head, little one.”
+
+“There is a matter of compensation,” Pierre growled. “Tell us where to
+find these Englishmen?”
+
+Myrtile looked wildly around. She scarcely knew whether she prayed
+for or dreaded Christopher’s return. Then suddenly she saw him close
+at hand, accompanied, to her infinite relief, by Gerald. She gave a
+little cry of joy. Now, indeed, all would be well. Gerald would arrange
+everything.
+
+“So these are they?” her stepfather muttered, as the two young men
+approached.
+
+“They look like gentlemen of wealth,” Leschamps echoed.
+
+“The stepfather of Myrtile, as I live,” Gerald muttered, under his
+breath. “Heaven grant that we may escape a brawl out here! Must we----”
+
+“Of course we must,” Christopher answered curtly. “Can’t you see
+that the child is frightened to death? We’ll have them in the police
+station, if they make any trouble. The police here haven’t much
+sympathy with their class.”
+
+Myrtile called to them softly.
+
+“This is my stepfather,” she said, “and his friend, Pierre Leschamps.”
+
+“Mon Dieu!” Gerald exclaimed, in frank horror. “Are you the man whom
+Myrtile was to marry?”
+
+“I am he, indeed, monsieur,” the innkeeper acknowledged. “I have gone
+to great expense in the matter. My house was painted and whitewashed
+and my bedroom papered. The neighbours were all bidden. I had even laid
+in wine for the feast.”
+
+“Then you ought to have been ashamed of yourself,” Gerald declared.
+“Why, how old are you, my friend?”
+
+Leschamps patted his stomach.
+
+“I am but fifty years old,” he replied, “a man in the prime of life.
+Myrtile was promised to me. There is no one else like her. I am without
+a wife. It is a very serious position for a man with an inn to look
+after.”
+
+“And what about me?” her stepfather intervened, his voice rising with
+the recollection of his wrongs. “For many years I have kept that child.
+I have fed her and clothed her all that time. Now that she is eighteen,
+now that she is of some use in the world, how does she show her
+gratitude? What can I do without her, I ask? I was to marry the good
+Widow Dumay. Now she says ‘no!’ She declares that, without Myrtile, the
+care of the children is too much for her. She refuses to allow me to
+arrange for the wedding, unless either Myrtile returns or she has at
+least five hundred francs with which to arrange for help.”
+
+“Five hundred francs!” Leschamps groaned. “What is that for a wife like
+Myrtile! It is a blow to me, this. My health has suffered. I am gloomy.
+My business decreases. The neighbours will no longer drink a bottle
+of wine with a man who cannot sing a song or smile once during the
+evening. They go elsewhere. My connection tumbles to pieces. And there
+are my rooms all painted and my bedroom papered, and I have no wife.”
+
+“It appears to me,” Gerald proposed, “that we had better discuss this
+matter in my rooms over a bottle of wine--a bottle of champagne, eh?
+What do you say, gentlemen?”
+
+“Let it be this moment,” Myrtile’s stepfather insisted. “Let us know
+where we are without further delay. This matter makes me sad. I cannot
+sleep or eat. I have dug deep into my savings to come here. Oh, it has
+cost me much money, this journey!”
+
+“And I,” Leschamps declared, “I who have never been in a train before,
+who have never spent ten sous on my own pleasure, it is ruin, this
+journey. And I have been sick of the stomach.”
+
+“Follow me, gentlemen,” Gerald invited.
+
+He led them into the hotel, much to the amazement of the liveried
+servants, took them up in the lift, in which both nearly collapsed
+upon the floor, and ushered them into his sitting room. For a few
+moments, effrontery and avarice were alike powerless. They were dumb
+with amazement. They looked around them, muttering inarticulate words.
+Leschamps dabbed at the perspiration on his forehead with a bright,
+cherry-coloured handkerchief. Her stepfather looked helplessly across
+the room to where Myrtile was seated side by side with Christopher.
+Gerald ordered champagne, which was brought in by a servant dressed in
+knee breeches and silk stockings. Leschamps secretly pinched himself.
+Gerald, the central figure of the little party, towards whom every one
+turned and on whom Myrtile’s eyes were unswervingly fixed, began to
+rather enjoy the situation.
+
+“Now, gentlemen,” he said, after he had moved them up to the table and
+placed the bottle of wine between them, “let us deal with this question
+in a few words. Your stepdaughter, Myrtile, is not coming back to you,
+Monsieur Sargot; neither will she become your wife, Monsieur Leschamps.
+She will be well taken care of and that is all that concerns you. We
+would like, if possible, to arrange this matter pleasantly, although
+we admit no claim. At what price do you, Monsieur Sargot, place your
+daughter’s services? And you, Monsieur Leschamps, at what figure do you
+put your expenses in preparing for your wedding which will never take
+place?”
+
+“It is a hard question,” Myrtile’s stepfather declared, seizing the
+bottle and pouring himself out another glass of wine.
+
+“It will be a great loss for me,” the innkeeper groaned.
+
+“Myrtile did all the cooking,” Jean Sargot continued. “There was no one
+made such a ragout, and the children with her were like angels.”
+
+“That is not true,” Myrtile intervened calmly. “The children were
+always bad-tempered and difficult to manage.”
+
+“She has lost her head, the little one,” her stepfather lamented.
+
+“There is not another girl in the valley one would marry by the side of
+her,” the innkeeper muttered.
+
+Gerald waited until they had finished. He was leaning against the back
+of a sofa, smoking a cigarette which he had just lit.
+
+“Well, gentlemen,” he said, “it is for you to name a sum. All that I
+ask is that Myrtile be left in peace.”
+
+“The Widow Dumay,” Myrtile’s stepfather said, watching Gerald closely,
+“declared that I ought to have in the stocking another two thousand
+francs, if I am deprived of Myrtile.”
+
+Gerald opened his pocketbook.
+
+“Will the same sum content you, Leschamps?” he asked.
+
+Pierre Leschamps tried to sigh. His eyes, however, betrayed his greedy
+satisfaction.
+
+“I will accept it,” he said. “May Myrtile be happy!”
+
+Myrtile’s stepfather struck the table with his fist.
+
+“Look here, all of you,” he expostulated, “this is all very well, but
+why should Pierre Leschamps have as much as I--I who have lost my
+daughter----”
+
+“She was to have been my wife,” Leschamps growled.
+
+“It was I who was to give her to you,” the other retorted. “You have
+lost nothing because she never belonged to you. Five hundred francs
+would pay you many times over for all the expense you have been to in
+your miserable little house. The rest of your two thousand should come
+to me.”
+
+The faces of the two men were aflame. Pierre Leschamps was tugging
+viciously at his little black moustache. There was a purple flush on
+Sargot’s cheeks. They seemed about to fall on each other. Gerald struck
+the table with the flat of his hand.
+
+“Look here,” he enjoined, “unless you both want to be ordered out of
+the room without a sou, hold your peace.”
+
+No threat could have been more effective. They stood looking at him
+like dumb animals. He silently filled the glass of each with more wine.
+
+“Now remember that you are friends and comrades,” he begged. “There
+is, after all, something in what Jean Sargot has said. To lose a
+stepdaughter is more than to lose a promised wife. I will add a
+thousand francs to your amount, Jean Sargot.”
+
+“And I shall have my two thousand?” Leschamps cried.
+
+“You shall have your two thousand,” Gerald promised.
+
+Their eyes hung upon his pocketbook like the eyes of sick animals.
+Gerald counted out the money but retained it in his hand.
+
+“You, monsieur,” he said, addressing Myrtile’s stepfather, “will sign
+a paper which my friend here will write out, promising to resign all
+claim to Myrtile and never to attempt to see her again.”
+
+“I will sign it,” the man agreed.
+
+Christopher sat at the desk and wrote out a few brief sentences. Jean
+Sargot signed it without even confessing his inability to read. They
+stood up to receive the money. Myrtile, and even Christopher, watched
+them, fascinated. Their brown, nailless fingers clutched and trembled
+as they counted the notes. Each in turn buttoned them into the inside
+pocket of his coat. It was more than they had dreamed of, this.
+Myrtile, a village child, to be worth a fortune!
+
+“It is finished, then, this affair,” Sargot declared, as he drained his
+glass.
+
+“It is finished,” Gerald agreed. “I will ring for a page to show you
+out.”
+
+“You need have no anxiety about Myrtile,” Christopher said. “She will
+be found a suitable home and she will lead a suitable life.”
+
+Jean Sargot suddenly remembered that he was her stepfather. He brushed
+his coat sleeve across his eyes.
+
+“Little one,” he cried, “embrace me. This is, then, farewell.”
+
+Myrtile rose to her feet but she remained at the other side of the
+table.
+
+“I wish you farewell and I wish you good fortune,” she said. “I would
+rather not embrace you. You have been hard and cruel to me, as you have
+been to others. Try and be kinder to your own children. And as for
+you, Pierre Leschamps,” she went on, “do not dream for a moment that I
+would ever have married you. I would sooner have thrown myself into the
+quarry.”
+
+“The little one was always strange,” Leschamps muttered, almost
+apologetically.
+
+They stumbled out of the room after the page who presently arrived.
+Gerald broke into a shout of laughter as they disappeared. Myrtile’s
+eyes, however, were filled with tears. Christopher, too, was grave, but
+it was to Gerald the girl turned.
+
+“I have cost you a great deal, I am afraid,” she said. “Now I belong to
+you.”
+
+She leaned towards him. Christopher intervened almost harshly.
+
+“To us,” he declared, throwing down a little bundle of notes upon the
+table. “You and I are Myrtile’s joint guardians, Gerald. That was our
+understanding. I shall hold you to your promise.”
+
+Myrtile’s head was buried on Gerald’s shoulder. Gerald himself was
+for a moment half embarrassed, half carried away by Myrtile’s calm
+assumption. He looked into Christopher’s grey eyes, however, and he
+pulled himself together.
+
+“That’s all right, old chap,” he promised. “We’ll steer clear of
+trouble--somehow.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+
+Gerald found Pauline waiting for him at the accustomed spot, after
+luncheon that afternoon. As he slowed down his car to pick her up, he
+was conscious of a return of that feeling of irritation which had been
+growing stronger with him, day by day,--an irritation based upon her
+obvious desire to escape recognition when with him and to keep their
+acquaintance as far as possible a secret. She was waiting in the shadow
+of a great magnolia shrub, dressed in inconspicuous grey, with a veil
+thicker even than the exigencies of motoring necessitated. In the
+background was the same black-gowned maid who always attended her as
+far as the avenue and took her silent leave at his approach.
+
+Pauline stepped lightly into the place by his side, without waiting for
+him to vacate his seat.
+
+“Turn round, please,” she directed. “We will go the other way. I do not
+choose to pass through the town.”
+
+Gerald obeyed, although her request only added fuel to the smouldering
+fire of his resentment. He turned away towards the mountain road and
+maintained a silence which was not without its significance. His
+companion, after a few minutes, glanced towards him indifferently. He
+was leaning back in his place, his eyes, as usual, fixed upon the road,
+his left hand firmly grasping the steering wheel. The humourous twitch,
+however, had gone from his mouth. There was a distinct frown upon his
+forehead.
+
+“You are perhaps weary to-day?” she suggested. “You would like to
+shorten our drive?”
+
+Gerald turned and looked at her.
+
+“I am not weary,” he replied. “I am puzzled. I hate mysteries.”
+
+“The old complaint,” she yawned.
+
+“With a new reading,” he retorted. “I have shown myself ready, as you
+must know,” he went on, “to study your rather peculiar whims in every
+way, but when it comes to meeting you face to face at the Club and
+receiving nothing but the stoniest of stares, I must admit that the
+situation grows beyond me. You could surely find a hundred reasonable
+excuses for the most formal sort of recognition. I am not--well, I am
+not a disreputable acquaintance, am I?”
+
+She laughed quietly.
+
+“Not in the least. You belong to what they call in England the
+middle-class aristocracy, do you not,--two or three centuries old,
+with a damp house in a park and an armful of undistinguished titles?
+I suppose that sort of thing counted for something before your
+tradespeople and lawyers and bankers were all admitted into the magic
+circle.”
+
+“Are you a socialist?” Gerald enquired, a little taken aback.
+
+“Not at all,” she replied curtly. “I am an aristocrat.”
+
+“Are you afraid to present me to Madame de Ponière?” he asked, after a
+moment’s pause.
+
+“Terrified,” she admitted frankly.
+
+“Because my quarterings are insufficient? I might remark that my father
+is the ninth Earl and that I am his only son.”
+
+“It is not that at all,” she assured him indifferently. “There is
+really no reason why we should not meet in a place like this on equal
+terms, but my aunt is a woman with only one idea in her head, and for
+the successful development of that idea it is advisable that we make
+no acquaintances whatever here. There, my Lord Dombey, have I not been
+kind to you? I would see more of you if I could, because in a place
+like this the escort of a man is an advantage. As it is, I can assure
+you that I risk a good deal in taking these afternoon rides.”
+
+“You have explained nothing,” he insisted, a little doggedly. “I still
+do not see why I may not be recognised in public, why it would not be
+in order for my sister to call and invite you to tennis, why you and
+your aunt should not allow me to entertain you at dinner. I am just as
+far from understanding you as I ever was.”
+
+She sighed.
+
+“Well, do not be cross with me, please,” she begged. “If you knew how
+wearisome my life was and how grateful I really am to you for these few
+hours of escape, you would feel more kindly towards me. See, I give you
+my hand. Let us be friends.”
+
+It was the first time during all their acquaintance that she had
+accorded him the slightest mark of favour. The touch of her fingers
+thrilled and surprised him. He held her hand unresistingly for several
+moments. Then she drew it quietly but firmly away.
+
+“Well, that is settled,” she said. “Now talk to me about other things.
+Is there no news at the Rooms? Has no one been breaking the bank?”
+
+“There was something I was going to tell you,” Gerald replied, with a
+sudden flash of recollection. “I sat next to a man at dinner last night
+in Ciro’s Grill, who they say broke the bank several times during the
+afternoon. I believe they said that he was a Russian. I suppose you
+know all about him, however.”
+
+“I?” she exclaimed. “Why should I?”
+
+“Because, between the courses of his dinner, he wrote a letter and sent
+it off by messenger. He was at the next table and it was impossible for
+me to avoid seeing the envelope. It was addressed to Madame de Ponière.”
+
+She looked at him, amazed.
+
+“To my aunt?” she repeated. “But we received no letter from any one
+last night.”
+
+“I saw it sent off about twenty minutes to ten,” Gerald assured her.
+
+“We left for the Club at half-past nine,” Pauline reflected, “but I am
+quite sure that there was no note waiting for us when we got back. What
+was this man like?”
+
+“They said that he was a Russian and that his name was Zubin,” Gerald
+replied. “They also said that he had won two million francs in the
+afternoon.”
+
+“Zubin!” she exclaimed, with a little start. “Describe him at once, if
+you please.”
+
+“That is easy,” Gerald acquiesced. “He must have been at least six
+foot three or four, and he had tremendous shoulders. He was one of the
+most powerful looking men I have ever seen in my life. He had a sallow
+complexion, a lined face, black eyes and a mass of black and grey hair.”
+
+She put her hand upon his.
+
+“Stop the car, please,” she begged. “Turn round as quickly as you can.
+I must go home.”
+
+Gerald ran on to an adjacent widening of the road, reversed the car,
+and headed back for Monte Carlo.
+
+“If I had known that my news was going to shorten our drive,” he
+grumbled, “I shouldn’t have mentioned the fellow at all.”
+
+“My friend,” she said earnestly, “what you have told me may be of
+immense benefit for me to know.”
+
+“You recognise the man, then?”
+
+“He is probably my aunt’s steward,” she confided, after a moment’s
+hesitation. “There, you see I am telling you secrets. Do you know
+whether he played last night?”
+
+“I was only at the Club,” Gerald replied. “He did not come there. Is
+there anything I can do? Would you like me to go and look for him?”
+
+“Yes, you might do that,” she said thoughtfully. “When you have dropped
+me, drive down to the Rooms. If you find him there, touch him on the
+shoulder. Say that Madame de Ponière awaits him. You will not forget
+this?”
+
+“I’ll drive there at once,” Gerald promised.
+
+He set Pauline down, as usual, at the gates of her villa. She scarcely
+stayed to say good-by, but her smile was more gracious and her manner
+a little kinder. It was obvious, however, that she was disturbed by
+his information. Gerald, incurious though he was at most times, felt a
+growing interest in his mission.
+
+Arrived at the Rooms, he walked straight through to the Cercle Privé,
+visited each Roulette and _trente et quarante_ table, and strolled
+round the baccarat room. There was no sign here of the man of whom
+he was in search. He was already on his way out to the Sporting Club
+when it occurred to him that the Russian might be playing at one of
+the ordinary tables at the Casino. He turned back and visited them one
+by one. Towards the end of his quest, he was rewarded. Seated next
+to the croupier, at the most remote table, with a little crowd of
+people behind his chair, and with a great pile of notes before him, sat
+Monsieur Zubin.
+
+The Russian was betting in maximums, apparently on some system, and
+with varying success. To all appearances, he had not changed his
+clothes, bathed or shaved since the evening before. There was an
+untidy growth of beard upon his chin, a bloodshot streak in his eyes;
+his collar and tie were crumpled; his hair, over-luxuriant at the
+best of times, was unkempt and disordered. He had a card in his hand,
+upon which he marked the numbers as they came up, and from which his
+attention never wandered until the final word of the croupier was
+spoken, when he turned his attention to the board. Gerald leaned
+towards the attendant seated behind the croupier’s chair, under
+pretence of handing him a small stake.
+
+“Monsieur gambles?” Gerald remarked, with an inclination of his head
+towards the man who was the centre of interest.
+
+The attendant turned around with an expressive little nod.
+
+“Yesterday he broke the bank,” he whispered. “To-day he can do nothing
+right.”
+
+“He is losing, then?”
+
+The man’s grimace was significant. Gerald watched his own stake swept
+away and crossed to a place behind the Russian’s chair. In one of the
+intervals, he leaned over and touched him on the shoulder. The man took
+no notice. Gerald whispered in his ear.
+
+“Madame de Ponière awaits you at the Villa.”
+
+Zubin for a moment remained perfectly still. When at last he turned
+around, his face was ghastly. With his strong arm, he pushed back some
+one who intervened.
+
+“Who are you?” he demanded.
+
+“I am merely a messenger,” Gerald replied. “I know no more than that I
+was asked to give you that word if I saw you at the Casino.”
+
+The Russian rose slowly to his feet, left one of the plaques to guard
+his place, thrust a great pile of notes into his pocket, and led Gerald
+into a corner.
+
+“You sat next to me last night at Ciro’s Grill,” he said.
+
+“Quite true,” Gerald assented.
+
+“You have been spying on me.”
+
+“That is, on the other hand, a falsehood,” Gerald replied coldly.
+
+“It is through you that Madame knows I am in Monte Carlo.”
+
+“On the contrary,” Gerald reminded him, “you yourself wrote a note to
+her and dispatched it by messenger from Ciro’s.”
+
+“The note was brought back--Madame was out,” the man declared. “It was
+an accursed accident, that.”
+
+“One gathers that you have not been fortunate to-day,” Gerald remarked,
+after a brief silence.
+
+“That is my own affair,” was the grim reply. “What I desire to know is
+how you became acquainted with these ladies to such an extent that they
+should appoint you as their messenger.”
+
+“I do not recognise your right to ask me questions,” Gerald asserted,
+“but, as a matter of fact, my knowledge of them is of the slightest.
+Actually, I do not know them at all. I happened to have a few minutes’
+conversation with Mademoiselle de Ponière, and I mentioned your
+winnings. You will remember that I saw a letter from you to Madame last
+night.”
+
+Monsieur Zubin sat for a moment deep in thought.
+
+“Are you charged to deliver a reply to this message?” he demanded.
+
+“Certainly not,” Gerald answered. “I have not the privilege of visiting
+at the Villa.”
+
+“I should think not,” the other growled. “I wondered only whether you
+had been told to take a message to the back door.”
+
+“You are a very impertinent fellow,” Gerald told him calmly. “You
+appear to have come from a country where manners have ceased to exist.”
+
+The man laughed brutally.
+
+“One puts off manners when one deals with spies and meddlers,” he
+declared. “Get on about your business.”
+
+He walked back and took his place at the table. Gerald gazed after him
+in blank astonishment. Then he heard a little murmur of laughter from
+the couch behind, and, turning around, found seated there the girl who
+had been the Russian’s other neighbour on the previous night.
+
+“Monsieur grows no more amiable,” she remarked, moving her head towards
+where Zubin had reseated himself. “To-day, one perhaps excuses. Last
+night he was like all his countrymen--savage, drunken with the lust of
+gambling.”
+
+“And to-day?” Gerald observed.
+
+“To-day he loses all the time,” the girl replied. “Sometimes he leaves
+the table and comes back here and mutters to himself. Then he makes
+calculations and returns. One wonders sometimes whether he is playing
+with his own money.”
+
+Gerald left the Rooms a few minutes later and strolled out into the
+Square. He was in some doubt as to what he ought to do. Pauline had
+absolutely forbidden him to communicate with her in any shape or form,
+yet he had a conviction that Zubin’s exploits in the Casino should be
+made known to her. He strolled across to the establishment of Madame
+Lénore. Madame greeted him with a peculiarly knowing smile. He drew her
+on one side.
+
+“Madame,” he said, “you make gowns for Mademoiselle de Ponière.”
+
+The smile disappeared from Madame’s lips. Her face became impassive.
+
+“It is true, milord,” she admitted. “What of it?”
+
+“Just this. You are doubtless in frequent communication with her?”
+
+“Without a doubt,” Madame assented. “I shall telephone her within a
+quarter of an hour. Some lace she desired has just arrived.”
+
+“Then you can do me and her a great service,” Gerald continued. “I have
+some slight acquaintance with mademoiselle but I am not permitted to
+communicate with her. It is important that she should know that the
+Russian, Zubin, is gambling in the Casino, not in the Cercle Privé, and
+losing heavily.”
+
+“A big man?” Madame asked quickly,--“almost a giant?”
+
+“That is he,” Gerald assented.
+
+Madame turned towards the telephone.
+
+“Demand the Villa Violette,” she told the operator. “Say that I wish to
+speak to Mademoiselle de Ponière without delay.”
+
+Gerald turned away. Madame laid her fingers upon his arm.
+
+“My congratulations, milord!”
+
+“I don’t know what on,” Gerald replied, a little ruefully. “I am rather
+out of luck.”
+
+“The little peasant girl,” she whispered. “She is adorable. Such
+a figure I have never seen, such an air, such simplicity and yet
+such grace. With her hair done _à la Madonne_, and those eyes, under
+milord’s tutelage she would turn the heads of half the men in Europe.”
+
+Gerald sighed. The memory of the little scene earlier in the day was
+once more before him.
+
+“You must remember that I have a co-guardian of the strictest
+principles, Madame,” he said, “and besides, that isn’t exactly what we
+are planning for her.”
+
+Madame, steeped in the philosophy of her environment, shrugged her
+shoulders in genuine mystification. Gerald took his leave a little
+hurriedly, to avoid the comment which he felt was imminent.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+
+Madame de Ponière dismissed the servants with a little wave of the hand
+and looked thoughtfully for a few moments into the fire of pine logs
+which had been kindled in the grate. The dinner table at which she and
+Pauline were seated was piled with dishes of expensive fruits, and
+there was wine still in their glasses. Nevertheless, Madame de Ponière
+had not the air of one who has enjoyed her meal.
+
+“Pauline,” she said, “Zubin is already four days late.”
+
+Pauline made no immediate reply. Her aunt pointed to an escritoire
+which stood in a corner of the room.
+
+“These people,” she continued, “become abusive. Even Lénore has sent an
+account. You dispatched the telegram?”
+
+“I dispatched the telegram,” Pauline assented, “but it was needless.
+Zubin is here.”
+
+“Here in Monte Carlo?” Madame de Ponière demanded quickly.
+
+“I have heard so,” Pauline replied. “My information is very scanty, but
+I understood that he had sent you a letter last night.”
+
+The pallor of the older woman’s face seemed suddenly deepened. Her eyes
+glittered ominously.
+
+“Jean spoke of a note that had been brought and taken away,” she
+muttered. “Tell me at once what you know, Pauline?”
+
+“I have no definite information,” Pauline reiterated, “but I understand
+that he has been seen at the Casino.”
+
+Madame de Ponière sat like a woman who has received a shock. The shadow
+of fear was upon her face.
+
+“You do not know Zubin,” she groaned. “If he once smells the atmosphere
+of that place, it is like a deadly drug to him. And he loses! He always
+loses!”
+
+She leaned over and struck a bell which stood upon a table.
+
+“The car in a quarter of an hour,” she ordered. “Pauline, get ready. We
+must seek Zubin. If he has begun to gamble, he will go on to the end.”
+
+They drove first to the Casino, where they explored only the Cercle
+Privé. From there they went to the Sporting Club, where there was still
+no sign of him. Madame de Ponière became more hopeful.
+
+“He is perhaps resting in his hotel,” she said, “preparing to visit us.”
+
+“He would never come without sending word beforehand,” Pauline reminded
+her. “Besides, there are the ordinary tables at the Casino. We ought to
+have looked there.”
+
+Madame de Ponière gave a little shudder.
+
+“One sees too much of them as one passes through,” she declared. “The
+people and the atmosphere are intolerable.”
+
+They sat side by side on one of the settees, two rather lonely and
+disheartened women face to face with tragedy. Pauline saw Gerald in the
+distance and determined upon a bold step.
+
+“Aunt,” she said, “there is a young man standing by the easy-chair
+there, whose father lives at the adjoining villa to ours. He has once
+or twice offered me some small courtesies. He is alone and I am sure he
+would be glad to be useful. Let me send him to the Casino.”
+
+“Show him to me,” Madame de Ponière demanded.
+
+Pauline pointed him out. Her aunt sighed.
+
+“One breaks a cherished tradition,” she said, “but it must be done. I
+leave the matter in your hands.”
+
+Gerald and Christopher, strolling round the room, came presently to
+within a few feet of them. Gerald, bitterly though he resented it, was
+passing on after one swift glance at Pauline. She leaned over, however,
+and touched him on the arm.
+
+“Lord Dombey,” she said, “my aunt permits me to present you. Lord
+Dombey--Madame de Ponière.”
+
+Gerald, taken by surprise, bore the shock well. He bowed low and
+murmured a few polite words.
+
+“I am afraid you will think that we are very mercenary,” Pauline
+continued, “but we are going to ask a favour.”
+
+“It is granted,” Gerald assured her swiftly.
+
+“There is a Russian gentleman in Monte Carlo named Zubin.”
+
+“I know him by sight,” Gerald declared. “Besides----”
+
+“Then the rest is easy,” Pauline interrupted, with a warning look. “Our
+request is that you search the Casino for him, and, if he is there,
+that you bring him to us.”
+
+Gerald bowed.
+
+“Mademoiselle,” he promised, “if he is there, I will bring him to you
+within a quarter of an hour.”
+
+Gerald, on entering the Casino, made his way at once to the table at
+the farther end. The seat which had been occupied by Zubin, however,
+was vacant, though the table itself was crowded. He was on the point of
+continuing his search in one of the other rooms, when he suddenly saw
+the man of whom he was in search seated on one of the sofas against the
+wall. He made his way thither at once.
+
+“Sir,” he said, “I have brought you a message from Madame de Ponière.”
+
+The Russian lifted his head, and for a moment Gerald was afraid that he
+had had a stroke. His eyes were horribly red, the flesh about his cheek
+bones seemed to have become drawn tight, and his cheeks to display new
+hollows. His hands were trembling. All his truculence of manner had
+departed.
+
+“From Madame de Ponière?” he repeated. “Where is she?”
+
+“She is waiting now in the Sporting Club,” Gerald replied. “I will take
+you to her if you will accompany me.”
+
+The Russian rose to his feet and the two men left the place. Many of
+the bystanders gazed after them, and Gerald heard something of their
+whispers.
+
+“I’m afraid you’ve been having rather a bad time,” he remarked.
+
+His companion took no notice. He walked, indeed, like a man in a
+nightmare. Not only was he unshaven, but his clothes were creased and
+tumbled. He was altogether a dishevelled-looking object.
+
+“Might I suggest,” Gerald said, as they descended the steps of the
+Casino, “that you visit your hotel and freshen up a little before you
+come to the Club?”
+
+Zubin seemed suddenly to step down from another world. He looked
+vacantly at Gerald for a moment, at his smoothly brushed hair, his
+well-cut dinner coat, his faultless linen. Then, with a little start,
+he glanced at himself and shrugged his shoulders ponderously.
+
+“You are right, monsieur. Come this way.”
+
+He crossed the street with great strides and entered the Hôtel de
+Paris. He turned once more to Gerald as he entered the lift.
+
+“A quarter of an hour, monsieur,” he said. “I give you my word that I
+will not keep you longer than twenty minutes.”
+
+“I will be waiting here,” Gerald promised.
+
+After the departure of the lift, Gerald made his way by means of the
+private passage to the Sporting Club. Madame de Ponière and her niece
+were seated where he had left them, the elder lady sipping some coffee,
+Pauline looking around her with a languid air of half-amused interest.
+Save for the fact that Madame de Ponière’s lips tightened a little as
+she saw Gerald alone, there was not the slightest indication in their
+manner or expression that they were confronted in any way with an
+exceptional situation.
+
+“I have found our friend,” he announced. “He is making some alterations
+to his toilet. I am meeting him in a few minutes and shall bring him
+here.”
+
+“Was he playing?” Pauline enquired.
+
+“Not when I arrived,” was the cautious reply.
+
+Madame de Ponière stirred her coffee negligently.
+
+“Had he,” she asked, “the air of a man who has been losing?”
+
+“I fear,” Gerald admitted, “that he rather gave me that impression.”
+
+Pauline smiled up at him.
+
+“It is very good of you to give yourself so much trouble,” she said.
+“My aunt and I are greatly indebted to you. Please do not lose any time
+in bringing Monsieur Zubin here.”
+
+The words were almost a dismissal. Gerald made his way back through
+the passage and took a seat in the lounge of the hotel. Within the time
+promised, a transformed Monsieur Zubin made his appearance. Gerald
+found it difficult to restrain his surprise. His dinner suit was
+faultlessly cut, his black pearl studs were marvellous. He had been
+carefully shaved and his hair had been trimmed. He carried white kid
+gloves in his hand, a glossy silk hat, and a malacca cane crowned with
+malachite. He came over at once to Gerald and signed to a waiter who
+was hovering about with a bottle upon a tray.
+
+“You will give me three minutes,” he begged. “I was interested in a
+series of numbers, and I forgot to dine. I have ordered a bottle of
+wine. You will perhaps join me.”
+
+“Very good of you,” Gerald replied. “It is rather between times for me.
+I’ll have a _fine champagne_, if I may.”
+
+Monsieur Zubin bowed gravely and the brandy was brought. Without
+turning a hair, he drank two tumblerfuls of the wine. Then he turned
+courteously to his companion.
+
+“If you have no objection,” he proposed, “we will walk outside to the
+Sporting Club. The distance is the same and the air is fresher.”
+
+Gerald assented readily, and they started off side by side. The Russian
+was walking with his shoulders back, like a man on parade, and Gerald
+suddenly felt that his own stature had become insignificant. All the
+way his companion seemed to be reciting to himself in some foreign
+tongue, reciting something which now and then seemed to have the swing
+of blank verse. As they reached the steps which led up to the Sporting
+Club, he came to a full stop and glanced around.
+
+“Young man,” he said, facing Gerald, “you are probably a little curious
+about me. This is the truth. Let those know it who may be interested.
+I am the steward of Madame de Ponière and the trustee of as much as
+is left of her revenues. I came here ashamed of their scantiness,
+and the wild idea of enlarging them at the tables occurred to me. I
+have failed. There is a _voiture_ here, you see, by my side, and the
+commissionaire is there to help you. I apologise for the trouble I am
+giving. I charge you to deliver the expression of my undying devotion
+to Madame and Mademoiselle.”
+
+His right hand, which had been fumbling in the pocket of his dinner
+coat, shot out like lightning. A small revolver, flashing in the
+electric light, was pressed to his temple. There were two almost
+simultaneous reports. The last conscious action of the man was to half
+throw himself through the door of the carriage.
+
+Rumours were already floating about the Club when Gerald hurried in,
+five minutes later. Both women looked at him in half-fearful enquiry.
+Gerald was very grave.
+
+“Madame,” he announced, “I bring bad news.”
+
+Madame unfurled her black lace fan and fanned herself slowly.
+
+“One hears that a man has shot himself outside,” she said. “It is,
+perhaps, the man whom I sent you to seek?”
+
+“It is he,” Gerald acknowledged.
+
+Madame de Ponière rose to her feet. She was an ugly woman whom, up to
+that moment, Gerald had detested. He found himself now admiring her
+profoundly. She leaned a little upon the stick which she carried in her
+left hand. Her right she extended towards Gerald.
+
+“If you will give me the support of your arm downstairs, Lord Dombey,
+I shall be glad,” she continued. “I am an old woman, and these shocks
+become more poignant with the years. Zubin was a faithful servant of my
+house. I am much affected.”
+
+They made their slow progress from the room. Madame held her head high.
+Mademoiselle was a little paler than usual, but her good night to the
+commissionaire was as clear and gracious as ever. No signs of any
+disturbance remained outside,--Monte Carlo knows how to deal with these
+things. Their automobile was already in attendance, and the two women
+took their places at once.
+
+“We are much obliged for your assistance, Lord Dombey,” Madame
+declared. “I regret that we should have given you so tragical an
+errand.”
+
+“You will permit me to call, perhaps, at the Villa?” Gerald begged.
+
+“I shall not be receiving for several days,” Madame replied. “If you
+are so gracious as to leave a card, my servants will tell you when I am
+disposed to see friends.”
+
+The car glided off. Madame leaned back with closed eyes. Gerald caught
+just a faint glimpse of Pauline’s profile, ivory pale, a gleam of
+terror in her eyes, as though she knew that they were passing over the
+spot where Zubin had died.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+
+It was after dinner at the Villa Acacia, and Lady Mary and Christopher,
+hardiest of the little gathering, were strolling back and forth on the
+terrace in the violet darkness. Arc-like, at their feet, stretched
+the lights of the Bay of Mentone. The whole hillside seemed dotted
+with little points of fire from the distant villas. Out at sea, sheet
+lightning sometimes parted the dense clouds and spread a broad,
+phantasmal glare upon the rocking waves. The two were old enough
+friends to speak intimately on many topics. They were talking to-night
+of Gerald.
+
+“Gerald, as a rule,” his sister declared, “is almost over-candid about
+his love affairs. This is certainly the first time I remember him to
+have been mysterious.”
+
+“I don’t think he has seen anything of Mademoiselle de Ponière since
+the tragedy at the Sporting Club,” Christopher remarked.
+
+“It isn’t for want of trying, then,” the girl replied drily. “He’s
+called there every afternoon since. I’ve been mean enough to watch him
+up the drive with my glasses, but he hasn’t been allowed in once. They
+must be queer people.”
+
+“There was a distinct suggestion at first,” Christopher observed, “that
+they were adventuresses. Their present attitude doesn’t seem like it.”
+
+Lady Mary leaned over to gather a sprig of the trailing oleander. She
+was very becomingly dressed in a gown of deep rose taffeta, one which
+Christopher remembered that he had admired on a previous visit. She
+had completely lost her slight brusqueness of manner. Her tone and eyes
+were soft, as though the magic of the night had had its effect upon her.
+
+“Really,” she sighed, “you young men who should be our greatest comfort
+are actually our greatest responsibility. First of all you pick up a
+peasant girl on the road, over whom you both seem to have lost your
+heads more or less, and now Gerald is behaving like a lunatic about
+this young foreign woman.”
+
+“Has Gerald told you of the latest developments with regard to
+Myrtile?” Christopher enquired.
+
+“Good gracious, no!” Mary replied. “Have you found a post for her, or
+something?”
+
+“Her father and fiancé turned up,” Christopher declared,--“perfect
+brutes, both of them. We bought the child between us for five thousand
+francs.”
+
+Lady Mary frowned.
+
+“Exactly what do you mean, Christopher?” she asked.
+
+“Crudely put, but a statement of fact, nevertheless,” was the prompt
+reply. “Her stepfather and this other man came and made the dickens of
+a row; Gerald took the matter in hand and soon discovered that they
+were the usual covetous type of grasping peasant. We paid down five
+thousand francs between us, and they signed a paper giving up all claim
+to her.”
+
+“So now she is on your hands permanently,” Mary remarked.
+
+“I imagine so,” Christopher acknowledged. “On the other hand, I do not
+think that she will be a serious charge. I have some friends in London
+who have promised to take her for a nursery governess.”
+
+“Are either of you in love with her?” Mary asked, raising her eyes and
+looking her companion in the face.
+
+Christopher hesitated for several moments before answering. Mary began
+to tear into small pieces the sprig of oleander which she was holding.
+Her face seemed suddenly to have become very white and tired.
+
+“I am sure that Gerald is not,” Christopher answered. “As for me--well,
+that sort of thing is a little out of my line, isn’t it? The most
+serious part of the situation is that I am afraid the child is in love
+with Gerald.”
+
+“She will get over that,” Mary said drily. “Most of the girls I know
+have been in love with Gerald at some time or another. Sooner or later,
+the wise ones find him out and the butterfly ones flit away somewhere
+else. It may seem unsisterly, but I am more concerned about you,
+Christopher, than Gerald.”
+
+He passed his arm through hers, an action which their increasing
+intimacy seemed to render perfectly natural.
+
+“Mary,” he began, “you are just the one person in the world to whom
+I could confess an impulse of folly, and this is, I suppose, the one
+place I could do it in. I frankly don’t understand what you mean
+by being in love. When I have thought of marriage, it has been in
+connection with some dear woman friend who would make a home for me and
+be a companion. Of course, I expected to care for her and all that,
+but--promise you won’t laugh at me?”
+
+“I shall not laugh,” Mary promised.
+
+“For the first time in my life, that child has made me think of other
+things,” Christopher acknowledged simply. “I don’t know that it amounts
+to anything, I dare say really it is an unsuspected vein of kindness
+which she has touched; but there it is. I have an absurd feeling of
+fondness for her. The idea of her becoming a plaything for Gerald or
+anybody makes a madman of me.”
+
+“And she?”
+
+“Looks upon me as a kind person but an intolerable nuisance. She dreams
+of nobody but Gerald. If he lifts his little finger, she is his.”
+
+“Really!” Mary drawled coldly.
+
+“Please don’t judge her too harshly,” Christopher begged. “Myrtile is
+temperamentally incapable of a mean or an immoral action. She is just a
+child of nature, only instead of being swayed by the lower instincts,
+she is swayed by the higher ones. She loves Gerald, and nothing else
+counts with her. She would have thrown herself into the river sooner
+than have given herself in marriage to the innkeeper. She is equally
+capable of giving her life and her soul to Gerald, if he requires the
+sacrifice.”
+
+Mary turned her head towards the window.
+
+“I think that father wants his game of backgammon,” she observed. “We
+had better go in, I am afraid. We must talk of this again sometime.
+Will you go first and say that I shall be there directly?”
+
+Christopher stepped obediently through the window, and Mary passed on
+to the farther end of the terrace, where the shadows were deeper. For
+a moment her self-control slipped away. Her fingers gripped the ivy
+stalks fiercely. There were tears in her eyes, her rather firm but
+sensitive little mouth quivered passionately. It seemed so many years
+since Christopher had first represented to her all that she desired
+in manhood,--a man of character, a worker, a sportsman when the time
+came, always ambitious, always ready to pit his brain against others.
+She had fancied him in Parliament, a Cabinet Minister later in life,
+perhaps. She had thought with happiness of the many ways in which she
+could further his career; had dreamed with pleasure of playing hostess
+for him in a joint establishment.--She had pictured to herself, for
+weeks before their arrival, the coming of these two young men, had
+speculated joyfully as to the reason for Christopher’s unexpected
+holiday. She had told herself that he, too, had seen the things she
+had seen, had felt what she had prayed he might feel. Womanlike, she
+had taken note of the signs. She had known that the consummation of
+her wish was inevitable, unless something should come between. And
+something had most unexpectedly come between--this peasant girl,
+this birth of a spurious sentiment--nothing, in a man like Gerald,
+but very much to be dreaded in a person of Christopher’s poise and
+steadfastness. She was a proud young woman, for all her gracious ways,
+and, although she refused to find anything final in his attitude, the
+pain that she suffered in those few moments was not only of the heart.
+
+Christopher and his host, in the intervals of their game, talked of the
+latest suicide. With the usual amazing secrecy of the local Press, not
+one word had appeared in any paper published in the vicinity.
+
+“I feel a great deal of sympathy for our neighbours,” Lord Hinterleys
+remarked. “Old Colonel Huskinson, whom I met on the Terrace this
+morning, told me that the man was bringing them money for some estates
+he had sold, which were practically their only means of subsistence.”
+
+Gerald looked up from the sofa where he was lying. He had complained of
+a bad headache earlier in the evening.
+
+“I suppose, sometime or other,” he said, “the true story of that
+man will be known everywhere, and his actual connection with the De
+Ponières. The magistrate or coroner, or whatever he was, knew it this
+morning, but he wasn’t giving anything away.”
+
+“There seems to be a great deal of needless secrecy about the matter,”
+his father observed. “You were present in court, I suppose, Gerald?”
+
+“I was fetched by a small army of gendarmes,” Gerald told them. “They
+escorted me there in a carriage, although the court house was only
+about half a mile away. It was the quaintest scene. They were simply
+out for hushing the whole thing up in the most extraordinary manner.
+They summoned us there, but they apparently didn’t want anything from
+us in the shape of evidence. All that they were anxious about was to
+get rid of us as soon as they could.”
+
+Lord Hinterleys had paused in his game.
+
+“This is really a most extraordinary procedure,” he declared. “Do you
+mean to say, Gerald, that no witnesses at all were called?”
+
+“Not a soul,” Gerald replied. “The whole affair, from our point of
+view, was a farce. One was led to believe that he committed suicide for
+family reasons or because he had an incurable complaint. I saw Pritili,
+the manager of the hotel, just as I was coming out this evening, and I
+asked him pointblank who the man really was and whether the story he
+had told me himself were true. I was interested in knowing, because it
+was I who had fetched him away from the Casino at the request of the
+lady whose steward he was supposed to be. Pritili answered me as I have
+never been answered by a hotel manager in my life. He drew himself up
+and looked like an archbishop. ‘It is one of those things, milord,
+into which one does not enquire,’ he said. So that was an end of me.”
+
+Lord Hinterleys picked up his hand. Mary came in from the terrace and
+seated herself by Gerald’s side. The quietness of the evening, however,
+was almost immediately disturbed. The butler threw open the door,
+announcing guests.
+
+“The Ladies Victoria and Millicent Cromwell, Mr. James Cromwell, Lady
+Esseden.”
+
+They all trooped in--intimates of the young people of the house.
+
+“We want you to come down to the Club for an hour or two,” Lady
+Victoria, who was always the leading spirit, suggested. “Dad’s just
+paid my dress allowance, and I’m dying to lose it, and Jimmy’s going to
+give us supper and take us to dance somewhere afterwards.”
+
+“Added to which,” her sister, Lady Millicent, went on, “we have brought
+you news.”
+
+They were all suddenly attentive. Gerald, who had risen to his feet,
+leaned a little forward.
+
+“News?” Christopher repeated. “From England?”
+
+“No, you idiot!” Lady Victoria declared. “What news should there be
+from England? There’s no polo or cricket or tennis yet, and most of the
+people we know have already run away with some one, so there’s not even
+scandal left. We know all about the man who committed suicide the other
+night.”
+
+There was a dead silence, a most effective background for Lady
+Victoria’s announcement.
+
+“They tried hard to keep it secret,” she said, “but an English
+journalist discovered the truth. The man’s name was Zubin, and he was
+the steward of two unfortunate ladies who live near you. He had just
+arrived from Russia with a large sum of money for them, went into the
+Rooms, gambled with it and lost the lot. They say that it was nearly
+three million francs and that it was every penny those poor women had
+in the world.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+
+Christopher and Gerald were taking an early morning stroll and
+displaying an almost feminine partiality for the shop windows, when the
+former suddenly felt his friend’s hand tighten upon his arm. They had
+paused to look through the plate-glass window of a jeweller’s shop in
+the Rue de Paris.
+
+“What is it, old chap?” Christopher asked.
+
+Gerald pointed to a pearl necklace which hung in the window.
+
+“You see that?” he exclaimed tragically. “That belonged to Pauline--to
+Mademoiselle de Ponière. And that marquise ring below--I am perfectly
+certain her aunt was wearing it. Wait a moment, old fellow.”
+
+Gerald entered the shop hastily. A very suave Frenchman came forward to
+meet him.
+
+“Can you tell me anything about that pearl necklace and the rings
+below?” Gerald enquired.
+
+“But certainly, sir,” the man replied. “One moment.”
+
+He unfastened the window and brought out the stand on which the
+necklace rested. The colour of the pearls was wonderful. They were not
+large, but they had an almost pink glow.
+
+“I have no doubt monsieur is a judge and I need say little about these
+pearls,” the shopman began. “I would point out to you, however, that
+they were matched for royalty itself, and the quality of each one is
+superlative. If monsieur is a purchaser, I could quote him seven
+thousand pounds, and for that sum there is not such another necklace in
+the world.”
+
+“I recognise the necklace,” Gerald admitted. “I might, under certain
+circumstances, be induced to buy it. I came in, however, to ask you how
+you obtained possession of it, and the rings below?”
+
+The man’s manner changed.
+
+“Monsieur,” he said, “I am not able to explain exactly how this
+jewellery came into our hands. There are certain confidences which, in
+the interests of our clients, we are forced to respect.”
+
+“Quite so,” Gerald agreed, “but I can assure you that I am not an
+impertinent enquirer. This is my name,”--he handed the man a card--“and
+I was an acquaintance of Mademoiselle de Ponière, from whom you must
+have obtained this necklace. I last saw Madame and Mademoiselle de
+Ponière under very tragical circumstances, and I understand that they
+have now left Monte Carlo. I am most anxious to obtain word as to their
+whereabouts.”
+
+“As regards that, milord,” the jeweller said, with a measure of
+increased respect but with no signs of yielding, “I regret that I am
+unable to help you. The transaction, such as it was, is finished. I was
+entrusted with no address.”
+
+“You would not buy jewellery of such value,” Gerald persisted, “unless
+you knew something of your clients. You can probably tell me whether De
+Ponière is their real name, and you can at least give me a hint as to
+where they are to be found.”
+
+“I regret deeply that I am entirely powerless in the matter, milord,”
+the man replied.
+
+Gerald held up the pearls and let them slip through his fingers. He
+remembered something which Pauline had once said to him,--“Pearls are
+the maidens’ children. They love and care for them as such.”
+
+“I have reason to surmise,” Gerald went on, “that a misfortune has
+befallen these ladies. If they had confided in me, it would have given
+me the greatest pleasure to have offered them assistance.”
+
+The jeweller smiled inscrutably.
+
+“I fear that it would have been useless, milord,” he said. “I have had
+the privilege of knowing the elder of these ladies for some thirty
+years, and I supplied the first string of pearls which the younger lady
+ever wore, at the time of her confirmation. I would willingly have
+undertaken the payment of such debts as were owing in Monte Carlo,
+without security, but I should never have had the courage to suggest
+it. You will see an announcement in the evening paper, milord, that all
+claims against the ladies will be settled by me on demand.”
+
+“If I buy the necklace,” Gerald proposed bluntly, “will you tell me how
+and where to find Mademoiselle de Ponière?”
+
+The jeweller’s bow was almost frigid.
+
+“My word is passed to these two ladies, milord. I have no information
+whatever to give you.”
+
+“You cannot even tell me what relation they were to Monsieur Zubin?”
+
+“Monsieur Zubin?” the jeweller repeated, a little vaguely.
+
+“The man who committed suicide a few nights ago outside the Sporting
+Club.”
+
+The jeweller shrugged his shoulders.
+
+“There is no question of relationship, milord. Monsieur Zubin was,
+I understand, the steward entrusted with the realisation of certain
+properties belonging to Mademoiselle. I do not know whether I
+have a right even to say so much,” he continued, after a moment’s
+hesitation, “but it suggests itself that it was owing to Monsieur
+Zubin’s embezzlements--he is reported to have lost several millions at
+the tables here--that the ladies whom we have been discussing found
+themselves temporarily embarrassed.”
+
+Gerald laid down the pearls.
+
+“If you care to keep these for me for a week,” he proposed, “until I
+get the money from London, I will have them.”
+
+The man bowed.
+
+“Milord can take them with him,” he said, “or permit me to send them to
+the hotel. Payment can be as desired.”
+
+“You can send them round to the Hôtel de Paris,” Gerald directed. “If
+you are as loyal to all your clients, you deserve to prosper in your
+business.”
+
+The man bowed lower than ever as he showed Gerald out.
+
+“Perhaps some day,” he said, “it will be my privilege to explain to
+milord that loyalty.”
+
+“I have committed an extravagance,” Gerald confessed, as the two young
+men continued their stroll.
+
+“You have bought the presents for your supper party?” Christopher
+suggested.
+
+“I never thought of them,” was the candid reply. “I have given seven
+thousand pounds for a pearl necklace.”
+
+“Great Scott! Why?”
+
+“Because I was right in my surmise. It was Pauline’s necklace, left
+there so that they could pay their bills. Madame’s rings are there,
+too. Pretty sort of adventuresses, Christopher!”
+
+“But what are you going to do with the necklace?” Christopher, always
+intensely practical, demanded.
+
+“I am going to keep it until I meet Mademoiselle de Ponière again,”
+Gerald replied. “Then I shall beg to be allowed to present it to her.”
+
+“Have you found out who she is?”
+
+“I have not, but I have found a loyal and honest tradesman. If I had
+asked him another question, I should have felt a cad.”
+
+Christopher looked up towards the hills.
+
+“It’s too misty for golf,” he said. “Shall we go and see Myrtile?”
+
+“I suppose so,” Gerald agreed, without marked interest. “Any news from
+your nursery governess friends?”
+
+“They can’t take her for a month or so,” Christopher replied. “I don’t
+quite know what to do about it. I must leave on Thursday week.”
+
+Gerald laughed.
+
+“And you daren’t trust her here with me, old chap, is that it?”
+
+“Something like it, I’m afraid,” the other admitted frankly.
+
+Gerald sighed.
+
+“What a Lothario you must think me!” he declared. “As a matter of fact,
+Chris, I don’t think that the ingénue does attract me very much. I
+am too young and unsophisticated myself. It is hardened sinners like
+you who are bowled over by rusticity and morals. I prefer something a
+little more advanced in the world’s ways.”
+
+“Then, for heaven’s sake, leave the others alone!” Christopher enjoined
+curtly. “We have a difficult task before us with Myrtile, especially
+as, for once in her life, Mary doesn’t seem inclined to help us. Treat
+the child sensibly, for heaven’s sake.”
+
+“What do you mean by ‘sensibly’, old chap?”
+
+“Well, remember that she has to be a nursery governess and not a
+Parisian demi-mondaine. It’s idiotic to take her to these smart
+restaurants and dancing places. It’s outside her life. It gives her
+false ideas.”
+
+“This from the man who took her to the Opera on a gala night!” Gerald
+scoffed.
+
+“I took her to the Opera in a small box and in her ordinary clothes,”
+Christopher retorted. “I took her for the sake of the music, and she
+didn’t think of a thing except the music from the beginning to the end.”
+
+“Frankly, you bore me about Myrtile,” Gerald declared. “You ought to
+have been born in the days of dear old Oliver Cromwell. My idea is that
+girls were made to live like butterflies, to be happy just in the few
+hours when the sun shines.”
+
+“You have not even the philosophy of the pagan,” Christopher retorted.
+“You forget that the butterfly enjoys the supreme advantage of being
+unencumbered with a soul.”
+
+The street door was suddenly opened in their faces. They had arrived at
+Myrtile’s lodgings, to find her issuing into the street. She seemed to
+look through Christopher at Gerald, who was a pace or two behind. Her
+smile was wonderful.
+
+“I knew that something pleasant was going to happen this morning!” she
+exclaimed. “I felt it when I got up.”
+
+“You were quite right,” Gerald assured her. “Something very pleasant
+is going to happen. I am going to take you over to Nice in the car to
+lunch.”
+
+Myrtile clapped her hands.
+
+“Wait one moment,” she begged. “I must go and get some different
+gloves. I’ll catch you up before you get to the corner of the street.”
+
+The two young men strolled slowly on. There was a serious expression on
+Christopher’s face.
+
+“I am lunching with your people to-day, Gerald--at least I promised to
+if there was no golf,” he observed.
+
+“I heard Mary say so,” was the indifferent reply. “Good luck to you!”
+
+“And you are taking Myrtile to Nice--Mademoiselle de Ponière having
+left,” Christopher continued thoughtfully.
+
+Gerald frowned.
+
+“That was rather my idea,” he admitted. “Have you anything against it?”
+
+Christopher passed his hand through his friend’s arm. They had reached
+the end of the street and turned slowly back again.
+
+“Look here, old fellow, don’t be shirty,” he begged. “You know I’m
+right. We can only look after this girl decently in one way, and that
+is by finding her some sort of a situation not too far removed from the
+way she has been brought up, in which she can earn an honest living.
+I’m on my way to secure this for her, but if you go turning her head by
+taking her about to these smart restaurants, and developing her taste
+for the gaieties of life, you’ll only unsettle her terribly and spoil
+her chances of contentment.”
+
+“You’ve taken her out yourself once or twice,” Gerald reminded him.
+
+“I never take her to the very fashionable places,” Christopher insisted
+earnestly, “and I try all the time to impress upon her the necessity
+of work and the fact that life out here is merely a holiday existence.
+Take her to Nice, by all means, if you want to, Gerald, but don’t turn
+her head.”
+
+Myrtile came down the street towards them. Gerald’s face cleared--as he
+watched her, it was lit with a wave of admiration.
+
+“She is like a piece of floating sunshine,” he declared enthusiastically.
+“Chris, I’m not at all sure that she ought to be a nursery governess.
+She’s going to be beautiful enough to turn the heads of half the men in
+Europe.”
+
+“It will be very largely our responsibility,” Christopher said,
+lowering his voice a little as Myrtile drew near, “whether that beauty
+is going to be a curse or a happiness to her. Don’t you forget that,
+Gerald--or our bargain.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+
+Gerald was absolutely amazed as he led Myrtile back to their seat in
+the palm court of the hotel. They had lunched, wandered about the town,
+and afterwards made their way back to the hotel lounge, where a Thé
+Dansant was in progress.
+
+“Why, where on earth did you learn to dance like that, Myrtile?” he
+demanded.
+
+She laughed softly.
+
+“Learn?” she exclaimed. “Why, there has never been any one to teach me.
+I have never had a lesson in my life. I just listened to the music and
+watched the people, and then I saw that it was quite easy. Oh, how I
+love it!”
+
+“What a pity I can’t have you to my supper party to-night!” Gerald
+sighed.
+
+She leaned towards him. She was still a little out of breath. Her
+cheeks were pink, her eyes aglow.
+
+“Mayn’t I come, please, Gerald?” she begged. “I should be so happy.”
+
+Gerald looked doubtful.
+
+“There would be the devil to pay with Christopher,” he pointed out.
+“And, besides, it really isn’t the place for you.”
+
+“What do you mean?” she persisted.
+
+“Well, it’s a Bohemian sort of affair,” Gerald explained, a little
+awkwardly. “The girls aren’t all of them just what they should be.”
+
+Myrtile laughed again.
+
+“But what does that matter?” she protested. “They will not hurt me or
+I them. When I am not dancing with you, I can sit alone and talk to no
+one.”
+
+Gerald shook his head.
+
+“Can’t be done, little girl,” he decided regretfully. “Christopher is
+quite right when he says I ought not to encourage the taste for that
+sort of life in you at all. These girls all drink a lot of champagne,
+and smoke furiously--lead rotten lives, most of them--and their
+conversation sometimes--well, it wouldn’t be fit for you to listen to.
+Some evening or other I’ll have quite a small party--just one or two
+who I know are all right.”
+
+“That isn’t what I want,” Myrtile declared. “I want to go to the party
+to-night. You will dance with other girls if I am not there. I don’t
+want you to--not to-day, at any rate. You have danced with me, and it
+was wonderful.”
+
+“I begin to think that I don’t want to dance with any one else myself,”
+Gerald confessed, looking at her admiringly. “I’ll think it over on the
+way back.”
+
+“Must we start now?” she asked wistfully.
+
+“This moment,” Gerald insisted. “I have to dine with the family. It’s
+their last night. They are off to England to-morrow. I tell you what
+we’ll do, though, if you like. We’ll take the mountain road.”
+
+“Is it longer?”
+
+“About half an hour,” he replied. “There won’t be nearly so much
+traffic, though, and I love putting the old ’bus at the hills.”
+
+They made their way out to the open space in front of the hotel,
+where Gerald had left the car, and very soon they were on their way
+homeward. Driving, for the first half-hour, absorbed Gerald’s whole
+attention, and Myrtile leaned back in the low seat by his side,
+filled with the joy of their rapid ascent, the smooth, birdlike motion
+which seemed to be taking them, with scarcely an effort, up into the
+clouds. Soon all the signs of over-population which spoil the effect
+of the coast road became blurred and undistinguishable. The natural
+beauties of that wonderful line of coast reasserted themselves. Up
+here in the mountains were no cafés with flamboyant invitations, or
+jerry-built villas. One had the sensation of being lifted out of the
+tawdriness and artificiality of a region over-abundant in tourists,
+a little over-anxious to display for their benefit its charms.--Once
+Myrtile turned her head as they were about to round the last corner of
+the ascent, and looked backwards. Gerald, with quick comprehension,
+understood her thoughts and spoke for the first time.
+
+“This is the real road, Myrtile,” he said. “It comes straight from
+Cannes, straight from the gate over which you leaned. The other we only
+took that night for safety.”
+
+Her beautiful eyes sought for his and were rewarded with a momentary
+glance of sympathy. Gerald was at his best when driving. The slight
+weakness of his face disappeared in the concentration of watching the
+road. He drove always with his head a little thrown back, not in any
+way the action of a poseur, but simply the fixed desire of the born
+motorist to see as far as possible ahead of him.
+
+“I think,” Myrtile whispered, “that this is the real road which leads
+to happiness. The road down there is tangled and twisted. Here one
+seems to breathe more wonderfully, to come nearer to the things one
+feels but does not understand. It is more like the air around the farm,
+when I used to get up sometimes before the sunrise and walk through
+the violet patch and the cypresses to the gate. The sun rose at the end
+of the road.”
+
+“You are a quaint child, Myrtile,” Gerald reflected. “I wonder what
+would have happened to you if we had not passed along that night.”
+
+She shivered.
+
+“I know,” she answered. “I am quite sure that I know. I felt it in my
+heart when I leaned over the gate and looked to the end of the road.
+There was the mystery there towards which I seemed always to have
+groped. That night it was the mystery of life or the mystery of death.
+You came, and it was life.”
+
+They were travelling more slowly now, crawling along the level stretch
+of ledge-like road at its extreme summit. Gerald had never before felt
+the fascination of the girl by his side as he felt it in those moments.
+He stretched out his left hand and she gripped it in hers, tearing off
+her gloves so that her fingers could clasp his.
+
+“And since it is life,” he asked, “is the mystery passing?”
+
+Her eyes were swimming with the desire of happiness.
+
+“There is no mystery any longer,” she told him. “I know what lies at
+the end of the road, where the sun used to rise. I know now.”
+
+He moved a little uneasily. The descent was commencing, and he needed
+his left hand. There were portents already of the short twilight. Here
+and there, an early light glimmered out amongst the hills. The air was
+cool and crisp. Gerald, impressionable as ever, felt the spurious glow
+of exaltation, spurious because its influence was wholly external. His
+face became graver, his tone was almost stern.
+
+“What we hope you will find there,” he said, “is happiness.
+Christopher has explained to you about this post in England?”
+
+“Yes,” she answered.
+
+“You will like it?”
+
+“No!”
+
+He rounded a difficult corner and brought the car to a standstill in a
+wall-encircled arc of the road, a little space thrown out like a bay
+window, where one may pause for a moment from the strain of driving.
+Below lay the wonderful bay, the rock of Monaco, the white Casino
+standing over the dark blue sea. More lights were flashing out now. The
+blurred landscape seemed to gain in beauty of outline what it lost in
+colour.
+
+“But you must be happy, Myrtile. We want you to be happy,” Gerald
+declared.
+
+“If you want me to be happy,” she whispered, “I shall always be happy
+because it is you--you----”
+
+Gerald, a moment ago, had been full of good intentions, of good advice.
+Myrtile leaned towards him. Her slim body, sweet but throbbing with
+eagerness, prayed for his embrace. Her left arm stole out towards his
+shoulder, as though to turn his head.
+
+“Gerald!” she whispered.
+
+“Myrtile!” he begged, “you must not----”
+
+Then all Gerald’s good resolutions crumbled for the moment. Her lips
+were pressed to his, warm and sweet, passionate with the fervour which
+comes from the soul alone, which takes no count of lesser things than
+the Heaven where, to the innocent, love only dwells. She rested in his
+arms, tumultuously happy. Somewhere in the field below was a bonfire
+of fallen pine boughs, and for years afterwards the smell of burning
+wood, fragrant and aromatic, brought back to Gerald the memory of those
+few seconds.--There was a flash of lights below from an approaching
+automobile. Gerald drew away, pale and a little remorseful. Myrtile’s
+face was like the face of a child who has seen Heaven.
+
+“We must get on,” he said hoarsely.
+
+She lay back in her place without moving until they began the last
+descent into the town.
+
+“May I come to your party to-night, Gerald--now?” she whispered.
+
+“No!”
+
+She laughed quietly to herself. There was no longer any shadow of
+disappointment in her face.
+
+“But you are very foolish,” she remonstrated. “How can you think that
+it would not be well for me to be where you are? Besides, I want you to
+dance with me. They are very beautiful young ladies who come to your
+parties--Christopher showed me some of them at the Opera.”
+
+“There is not one of them so beautiful as you,” he declared.
+
+She smiled happily.
+
+“Will you think so to-night?” she asked.
+
+“I shall think so all the time--and I shall miss you horribly,” he
+assured her.
+
+“Perhaps you will, perhaps you will not,” she replied enigmatically.
+“You must put me down here. This is my corner.”
+
+She jumped lightly down, with only a touch of his fingers for farewell.
+Gerald, although he had set a stern face against the rush of ideas and
+anticipations which were crowding into his brain, felt a little pang of
+disappointment as she left him without further protest. He would never
+have allowed her to come, he told himself, as he drove slowly off. Yet
+at that moment he had a vision. He escaped a taxicab by a few inches.
+
+Myrtile waited until Gerald was out of sight. Then she crossed the
+Square, walked a few steps along the Rue de Paris, paused before the
+curtained door of Madame Lénore’s little establishment, and pushed it
+open. Madame Lénore herself came forward. There was something sinister,
+though not unfriendly, in the smile with which she greeted her visitor.
+
+“What can I do for mademoiselle?” she enquired.
+
+“Can I have the clothes for the evening which you showed me when I
+first came here?” Myrtile asked, a little anxiously.
+
+“But certainly, Mademoiselle,” the Frenchwoman answered graciously.
+“Mademoiselle desires them for this evening?”
+
+“I want to wear them to-night,” was the happy reply.
+
+Madame studied the slim figure before her, followed its beautiful
+lines, yielding her half grudging, half cynical admiration to its
+undeveloped perfection. Then she studied the girl’s face. She had not a
+doubt in her mind as to what this visit meant. She decided that, if she
+were properly handled, this peasant child might bring fame even to her
+establishment.
+
+“There are some other things mademoiselle will require,” she said
+thoughtfully, “and it will be necessary for mademoiselle to have the
+coiffeur. Mademoiselle will place herself in my hands for the evening?
+I will promise that there is not a girl in Monte Carlo who will be half
+so beautiful.”
+
+“I want to look as nice as it is possible for me to look,” Myrtile
+confided. “I will do just as you say, Madame.”
+
+“Is it a party which mademoiselle desires to attend?”
+
+“A supper party,” Myrtile replied. “It is at half-past eleven.”
+
+“At the Hôtel de Paris?”
+
+“Yes!”
+
+Madame glanced at the clock.
+
+“If mademoiselle will return at eight o’clock,” she said, “I will have
+a coiffeur here and give him instructions myself. Afterwards, we will
+dress her. I live here--my assistant and I--on the floor above. It will
+not incommode us.”
+
+“I shall be quite punctual,” Myrtile promised. “You are very kind,
+Madame.”
+
+The unwilling admiration shone once more in Madame’s beady eyes as
+Myrtile turned and walked lightly away.
+
+“It is a pity,” she sighed, “that the girl is such a fool!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+
+Once more Christopher and Lady Mary braved the night air on the terrace
+of the Villa Acacia. The latter pointed across the gorge to the villa
+on the other side, a shadowy-looking building, unlit, and without any
+sign of habitation.
+
+“I wonder what Gerald does without his little play-fellow in the
+afternoons,” she observed.
+
+Christopher frowned.
+
+“I know what he did this afternoon. He took Myrtile over to Nice.”
+
+“Myrtile?” Lady Mary repeated coldly. “Your little protégée?”
+
+“Yes,” Christopher assented.
+
+“The young lady you purchased from a sordid stepfather and an amorous
+suitor,” Lady Mary continued, the irony of her tone merging almost into
+bitterness. “You young men will end by getting into trouble with the
+police or your own consciences.”
+
+“I am not in the least afraid of either contingency,” Christopher
+assured her.
+
+“Then why do you look so disturbed every time the girl’s name is
+mentioned?” Lady Mary asked him, pointblank.
+
+They were passing one of the long, high windows. Christopher paused
+for a moment to look inside. Gerald and his father were playing
+chess,--Gerald slim, handsome, obviously a little bored with the game;
+his father keenly interested by a somewhat audacious move which had
+just been made.
+
+“If I do,” Christopher said, “as I tried to explain to you before, it
+is not on my own account.”
+
+Lady Mary laughed.
+
+“You can’t imagine that Gerald is likely to find her dangerous!” she
+scoffed. “Why, he was head over ears in love with that strange girl
+over at the Villa Violette yesterday, and, besides, Gerald isn’t
+vicious--you know that.”
+
+“Gerald is very weak sometimes,” Christopher said bluntly. “He has
+a man’s conscience where men are concerned, but with regard to
+women--well, he sees things differently. He has been terribly spoilt,
+of course, and in this particular instance the trouble is that the
+child fancies herself in love with him.”
+
+“In love with Gerald! How ridiculous!”
+
+“You don’t quite appreciate her, if you don’t mind my saying so,”
+Christopher declared, a little timidly. “She is extraordinarily
+ignorant and she is also extraordinarily innocent. All her life she has
+been starved for kindness and beauty. I don’t think there was ever a
+human being in the world who needed help and counsel more than she does
+to-day.”
+
+“Shall I remove her from temptation?” Mary enquired, after a moment’s
+reflection. “My maid has just broken it to me that she is going to stay
+here and get married. Shall I take your protégée back to England in her
+place?”
+
+“If only you would!” Christopher exclaimed eagerly. “You needn’t keep
+her. My cousin is going to find a place for her as nursery governess,
+but she isn’t quite ready yet.”
+
+Lady Mary considered the matter, leaning over the balcony, her head
+a little thrown back as though to enjoy the perfume of the pines. Her
+profile was luminously sweet against the dark background, but there was
+rather a tired droop at the corners of her lips. Her thoughts wandered
+for a moment from the subject of discussion.
+
+“I wonder whether I am glad to go home,” she ruminated.
+
+“We shall miss you,” Christopher declared.
+
+She turned her head and looked at him.
+
+“Will you?”
+
+“Immensely,” he assured her. “I shall miss our tennis more than
+anything. To tell you the truth,” he went on, “except for the tennis
+and the rather amazing golf, I don’t think Monte Carlo appeals to me
+very much.”
+
+“You are no gambler,” she observed.
+
+“I haven’t the faintest inclination towards it,” he confessed. “I hate
+the things in life which I cannot control.”
+
+“Isn’t that a little rash?” she ventured. “You might have to hate your
+own affections.”
+
+He was silent for a moment. She watched him curiously.
+
+“I don’t think I am the sort of person,” he said, “who would be likely
+to be led very far by his affections alone.--What about the child,
+Mary?”
+
+“I will take her if you wish it,” she decided. “She must be at the
+station at eight o’clock. You know that we have to make an early start.
+There will be nothing for her to do. Janet has packed and will arrange
+all my things for the journey.”
+
+Christopher drew a long breath of relief.
+
+“You are a dear!” he exclaimed enthusiastically. “You can’t imagine
+what a weight this is off my mind.”
+
+“I am doing it for your sake,” Lady Mary told him. “I do not like the
+child. I disapprove most strongly of the whole situation. However, I
+will do what I have promised. We are going straight to Hinterleys. She
+can remain there until your cousin is ready for her.”
+
+Gerald came strolling out to them, pausing on the way to light a
+cigarette. The game of chess was over and his father was buried in the
+_Times_, which had just been brought in.
+
+“What are you two conspiring about?” he enquired.
+
+“I have been saying good-by to your sister,” Christopher replied.
+
+Gerald passed his arm around her affectionately.
+
+“We shall miss you, dear,” he said.
+
+“I think I am really rather sorry to go,” Mary confessed. “Father is
+getting quite restless, though. He never cares to stay in one place too
+long.”
+
+Gerald glanced at his watch.
+
+“I must be off,” he announced. “I’ve a few of my frivolous friends
+coming in to supper after the Opera. Are you coming, Christopher?”
+
+“I don’t think so, if you don’t mind, Gerald,” was the apologetic
+reply. “I dance very badly, and none of those little lady friends of
+yours seems to understand my French. I shall stay and talk to your
+father for half an hour and then walk down.”
+
+For some unaccountable reason, Gerald felt relieved. He took his leave
+of his father and sister, started up his car, and drove through the
+scented darkness back to the hotel. All the time he was conscious of a
+little quiver of excitement for which he could not account. The Villa
+Violette, at which he gazed as he turned out of the avenue, was dark
+and empty. He thought of Pauline and sighed. The ghost in the empty
+seat by his side faded away. He was for a single moment a man, angry
+with himself, bitterly regretful.
+
+“I was a cad to kiss her like that,” he muttered. “All the same, a
+child has no right to such lips.”
+
+Gerald was met in the hall of the hotel by Charles, the _maître
+d’hôtel_ to whom he had left the arrangements for his supper party.
+
+“If milord will be so kind as to ascend with me,” the latter suggested,
+“I can show him the preparations I have made.”
+
+Gerald nodded and ascended to the first floor. The man threw open
+the door of a large apartment with smoothly polished floor. A round
+table, arranged for sixteen, stood in the middle of the room under a
+glittering chandelier. A heavily laden sideboard stood in a recess.
+At the farther end, on a slightly raised dais, three musicians were
+seated, looking through their music.
+
+“This is the most convenient suite for milord,” Charles explained,
+“because the door at the left-hand there communicates with milord’s own
+suite of apartments, where his friends, if they like, can leave their
+hats and coats. I shall serve the supper myself. Everything will be as
+commanded. The supper table can be moved into a corner of the room at
+any time desired,--as soon, in fact, as milord cares to start dancing.
+Monsieur Léon presents his compliments, and, although he has no desire
+to impose anything in the way of restrictions, he begs that the party
+may finish at half-past three, in order to avoid complaints.”
+
+Gerald nodded and dismissed the man. He stood for a moment in the
+centre of the waxed floor, his hands behind him and a freshly lit
+cigarette between his lips. The sight of these preparations for the
+night’s festivities had left him curiously unmoved. He could picture
+the whole affair,--a little cosmopolitan crowd of giggling, shrieking
+girls, half French, half Russian, with a dash, here and there, of the
+Egyptian and the Italian. It was a surge of femininity with which the
+room would presently be assailed, and he was conscious of a sudden
+sense of revulsion. Nadine, with her pale cheeks, her eyes half green,
+half yellow, like the eyes of a cat, her alluring smile. Somehow or
+other she would find her way to his side, she would whisper to him
+in corners, brazenly ignoring the fact that she was the guest of the
+American whose yacht was moored in the harbour, but who had gone to
+Paris for a week. Then there were Chlotilde and Phrynette, Parisians to
+the rosy tips of their fingers, more blatant still in their desires,
+frank and unashamed of the silken net they trolled. It was, after
+all, a dull game to play. The finesse of refusal had never seemed
+so flat, the ignominy of consent so repulsive. He moved impatiently
+to the window and stood looking across the strip of garden to the
+bay. The violinist behind was playing something very softly, nothing
+to do with the dance, a little fragment of music made for himself.
+Gerald leaned towards the cool darkness. The music helped him to a
+momentary escape. He thought of Pauline, cold as the snows, proud and
+indifferent, yet with the charm of hidden things in her clear eyes and
+delicate aloofness. Her indifference had hurt--how much he realised
+when he thought of the coming evening. And then, like a flash, his mood
+changed. There was the other type, as beautiful in its way, as serene,
+as wonderful in its strange, virginal passion, the lips that had clung
+to his with the frank offer of supreme, unselfish love.--Christopher
+was right. There was no pleasure amongst the herds.
+
+He turned away, and, crossing the room, opened the door leading into
+his own suite. A wondrous--an amazing--vision confronted him. For
+a moment he was aghast. Myrtile, transformed as though by the wand
+of an artist, her gown, simple and unadorned, retentive of all the
+grace of her girlhood, yet exquisitely suggestive of the woman to
+come,--Myrtile, her hair drooped low on either side of her oval face, a
+robed lily, unspoilt and untarnished by the cunning fingers which had
+produced a veritable triumph. Her bosom was rising and falling quickly,
+her lips were parted. Then she began to laugh softly. Everything was
+right with the world. Gerald’s look of transfixed admiration told her
+all that she needed to know.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+
+“Will I do?” Myrtile asked demurely.
+
+“You are wonderful!” Gerald exclaimed. “But--what does it mean?”
+
+“I have come to your party,” Myrtile announced, “and even Monsieur
+Christopher shall not send me away. I went to Madame Lénore. She
+dressed me and she had my hair arranged. It was so droll. When I looked
+in the glass I scarcely knew myself. You are pleased?”
+
+“I am more than pleased,” Gerald answered, taking her hand. “But about
+this party. I am not sure----”
+
+“You don’t want me?” she whispered.
+
+He could no longer resist the invitation of her lips. After a moment,
+however, she sprang away. The violinist in the room beyond had
+commenced a waltz. She dragged Gerald through the open door and gave a
+little cry of delight when she saw the room.
+
+“Dance with me,” she begged, “just you and I, all alone. Dance with me,
+Gerald!”
+
+They moved off to the music. The violinist smiled with pleasure. The
+other instruments took up the strain. Myrtile was as light as a feather
+in her partner’s arms, her feet flashed or lingered upon the floor like
+flecks of sunlight upon a wave-stirred sea. She closed her eyes, half
+fainting with the joy of the music, the smooth floor, Gerald’s arms.
+Presently he stopped. He was unaccountably out of breath. He took one
+of the gold-foiled bottles from the sideboard, opened it and filled
+two glasses with the foaming wine. Myrtile’s eyes shone like stars as
+she drank.
+
+“Oh, I am happy!” she murmured. “This is wonderful! Promise, Gerald,
+that you will never send me away. Promise?”
+
+There was a shriek of voices as the room was invaded. Nadine came
+through the door which led from his own suite.
+
+“Gerald,” she cried, “there is a cloak already upon your bed! I am on
+fire with jealousy. Who is your early guest?--Ah! A thousand pardons!”
+
+Gerald’s movement had disclosed Myrtile. Nadine, daringly, almost
+shamelessly dressed, raised her bare arms.
+
+“Heaven!” she exclaimed. “Gerald has robbed a convent!”
+
+Some men followed, accompanied by a little crowd of girls. Every one
+was curious about Myrtile. She shook hands shyly with those whom Gerald
+presented to her. When they asked for her name, however, he shook his
+head.
+
+“Mademoiselle is our guest for this evening,” he announced. “She is
+not, alas! of our world. Let us call her Mademoiselle X.”
+
+“Mademoiselle the Spirit, rather!” a Frenchman exclaimed. “I think that
+you have dragged her down from the skies. Present me, Gerald, or I
+shall be your enemy for life.”
+
+“The Marquis Chantelaine,” Gerald murmured, “Mademoiselle X. The
+Marquis is a shameless fellow, Myrtile, and you must not believe a word
+he says.”
+
+“I am shameless or not according to my surroundings,” the Frenchman
+declared. “No one could look into the eyes of Mademoiselle and speak
+other than the truth.”
+
+Chlotilde pouted.
+
+“Is no one going to say nice things to us others?” she complained.
+“Gerald, you ought to have warned us. I would have worn my new gown. It
+is exactly the colour of the sky. Even my maid declared that I, too,
+slipped down from heaven.”
+
+There was a little chorus of laughter. Cocktails were brought in and
+cigarettes lit. Every one gathered around and talked to Myrtile.
+She answered them naturally enough, but every now and then with
+embarrassment.
+
+“Mademoiselle X may be asked no questions,” Gerald insisted. “Where
+she comes from I shall not tell any of you. Whither she goes after
+to-night, you will none of you know.”
+
+“Mademoiselle is of the _haut monde_, perhaps?” Nadine whispered
+maliciously, under her breath.
+
+“Mademoiselle belongs to a world we are none of us privileged to
+enter,” Gerald answered. “It is the one favour I ask, as your host.
+Please accept my guest as a butterfly, born this evening, passing away
+to-morrow.”
+
+“Oh, là, là!” Chlotilde exclaimed. “We are all like that. Give me
+another cocktail, Charles. I have not had a drink all the evening, and
+my sylph dance was twice encored.”
+
+They made their way presently to the supper table. Myrtile sat at
+Gerald’s right hand, and next her, on the other side, was the Marquis
+de Chantelaine. Any form of tête-à-tête conversation, however, was
+impossible from the first. They all seemed to be talking together
+at the top of their voices in an almost incomprehensible argot, a
+jumble of personal quips and sallies. Myrtile listened sympathetically
+but understood little. Occasionally she laughed when the others
+laughed, but as a matter of fact she needed nothing to complete her
+happiness. She was next to Gerald, who whispered every now and then
+little words of encouragement in her ear. The Marquis, too, murmured
+occasional compliments, but he was man of the world enough partially
+to understand the situation, and he restrained his natural instincts
+towards unbridled gallantry. Presently Chlotilde jumped up and danced.
+Phrynette followed suit and executed a wonderful _pas seul_. There was
+a good deal of boisterous applause. Myrtile felt the colour burning in
+her cheeks. She glanced towards Gerald. He was laughing, so it must be
+all right. Nevertheless, she was relieved when at last Phrynette sat
+down.
+
+“I will show you,” Nadine suggested, “how they dance in Algiers.”
+
+There was a little chorus of applause. Gerald alone for a moment looked
+doubtful. He glanced towards Myrtile at his side.
+
+“Don’t overdo it, Nadine,” he begged.
+
+Nadine laughed subtly.
+
+“Is it for your ingénue you fear, or yourself?” she asked. “Very well,
+I will give you both something to think about.”
+
+She danced at first with all the quivering grace of restrained but
+passionate movements. Myrtile watched her with fascinated eyes. Then
+she suddenly broke loose. Myrtile looked down at her plate and gripped
+Gerald’s hand.
+
+“Remember I warned you, dear,” he whispered. “Don’t watch.”
+
+“Mademoiselle would perhaps care for a little stroll upon the
+balcony?” the Marquis whispered in her ear.
+
+Myrtile shook her head.
+
+“Thank you,” she murmured, “I do not wish to leave Gerald. As for the
+dancing, it is foolish of me but I have never seen anything like it. It
+never seemed to me possible that women could do such things. That is
+because I have not lived in the world. I shall progress.”
+
+The dance came to an end amidst uproarious applause. Nadine,
+dishevelled and breathless, pirouetted towards the door leading to
+Gerald’s suite.
+
+“I shall go into your bedroom and make myself tidy,” she called out.
+“You can come and fetch me when you want me,” she added, looking over
+her shoulder at her host.
+
+The corks began to fly faster still. Presently, couples stood up and
+danced. Then, indeed, happiness began for Myrtile. She danced with
+Gerald again and again, danced to music which was indeed of the best,
+for Gerald was somewhat of an epicure in such matters, until she forgot
+the loud voices, the haze of cigarette smoke, the slightly unsteady
+condition of one or two of the guests. To her, so long as it was
+Gerald’s arm which controlled her, it was all beautiful. By degrees
+she seemed to slip into her place, however incongruous it might be,
+in the little company. The first impulse of resentment against her
+presence, shown most clearly by Nadine after her prolonged but useless
+wait before Gerald’s looking-glass, soon passed away. She was accepted
+as one of the kaleidoscopic pictures of Monte Carlo flirtations. She
+had come, and there was an end of it. There were other hosts besides
+Gerald, other Englishmen crowding all the time into the place. The
+very singleness of her devotion made her to some extent a rival to be
+accepted philosophically. She at least made not the slightest response
+to the advances which were offered her freely enough by the other men
+of the party.
+
+It seemed incredible that four o’clock had arrived when Louis presented
+himself with many apologies. There was a ball that night at the
+Carlton, however, so every one was resigned. They invaded Gerald’s
+rooms for their coats and wraps. Myrtile remained talking with the
+Marquis, with whom she had been dancing. Her body was still swaying a
+little to the rhythm of the music.
+
+“So this is your first night, Mademoiselle?” her companion said softly.
+“I shall hope that we may meet many more times.”
+
+“If you are a friend of Gerald’s, I hope that we may,” Myrtile replied.
+
+“You have enjoyed yourself, on the whole?” he asked, looking at her
+curiously.
+
+Her ears were straining for Gerald’s voice. She could hear all the time
+the shrill laughter of Nadine and her friends.
+
+“I have enjoyed the dancing,” she said.
+
+“But not the dancing of Mademoiselle Nadine?”
+
+Her cheeks were suddenly hot. There was a look of trouble in her eyes
+which he had noticed before and wondered at.
+
+“No, I did not like that,” she acknowledged. “I cannot believe that
+Gerald liked it, really. It was not beautiful.”
+
+“She is very famous,” the Marquis remarked.
+
+“It was not beautiful,” Myrtile repeated. “It frightened me a little.”
+
+The Frenchman, a little intrigued, smiled.
+
+“I begin to believe,” he said, “that you are really as young as you
+look.”
+
+“I am eighteen,” she told him.
+
+“For that moment I was not thinking of your actual years,” he
+explained. “How long have you known Lord Dombey?”
+
+“Gerald?” she queried. “Only a very short time. I have never danced
+with him before to-day.”
+
+“It seems easy to believe,” he said, “that you slipped down from the
+skies, only nowadays Heaven does not part with its children so easily.
+Tell me, where did you come from, really?”
+
+“A little farm on the other side of the mountains,” she said. “Gerald
+and Monsieur Christopher brought me here. Monsieur Christopher wants me
+to go to England, but I hope that Gerald will not let me go.”
+
+“But what shall you do if you stay here?” he asked.
+
+“Gerald will take care of me,” she answered. “I shall be very happy if
+he lets me stay.”
+
+He looked at her thoughtfully. He was inclined to be a disbeliever, the
+accepted pose towards women at his age, but a little flicker of genuine
+feeling disturbed for a moment his placid and cultivated cynicism.
+
+“I am not at all sure,” he said, “if you are what you seem to be, that
+it would not be better if you went to England.”
+
+They all came trooping out. Myrtile got up to fetch her own cloak, but
+Gerald detained her. She stood by his side, bidding good night to his
+guests with him. The Marquis frowned slightly as he made his adieux.
+The look in his eyes haunted her for a moment as he turned away.
+Then she was conscious of a curious sense of disturbance. Throughout
+the dancing she had been soothed into a state of ecstatic happiness.
+Suddenly there was a change. She was alone with Gerald and he was
+looking at her strangely. Two of the musicians were packing up their
+music. Once more the violinist was playing softly, as though to himself.
+
+“You have been happy, Myrtile?” Gerald asked, and his voice seemed to
+come from a long way off.
+
+“Wonderfully,” she answered. “I--there is my cloak.”
+
+She moved towards the open door leading into Gerald’s suite. She seemed
+suddenly torn by a strange medley of sensations and memories. She saw
+Nadine pass through it, dishevelled and indecent, with that backward
+glance at Gerald which, even to her ignorance, seemed ugly. She heard
+the voices of all of them laughing stridently. Little half-understood
+sentences puzzled her. She passed into the sitting room. Gerald
+followed, closing the door. The sound of the music came more quietly.
+Myrtile felt suddenly faint.
+
+“You are tired!” Gerald exclaimed, bending anxiously over her.
+
+She put her arms around his neck like a child.
+
+“Gerald,” she whispered, “take care of me. I am afraid. Be good to me,
+Gerald.”
+
+Their lips met, but there was something absent from the warm joy of
+that first kiss. Side by side with her happiness came the feeling of
+discordant music all around her. Rank perfumes seemed to hang in the
+air. A ribbon from one of Nadine’s discarded garments lay upon the
+sofa. Yet when Gerald leaned towards her and his eyes sought for hers,
+a strange content seemed to creep like a flood over all these other
+things.
+
+The door of the sitting room was suddenly opened and closed.
+Christopher stood there, a little breathless, as though he had run up
+the stairs, pale, and with a look in his eyes from which both Gerald
+and Myrtile quailed,--Gerald with fuller understanding. His arms
+dropped. He was nearer fear than ever before in his life. Christopher
+spoke with marvellous calmness.
+
+“Gerald,” he said, “were you thinking of breaking your trust?”
+
+“Yes!” Gerald answered hoarsely. “Drop this Don Quixote business,
+Christopher. I’m sick of it.”
+
+Christopher came a step nearer.
+
+“Myrtile is coming back to her lodgings with me,” he announced. “She is
+going to England to-morrow morning. Your sister has promised to take
+her.”
+
+“But it is impossible!” Myrtile cried passionately.
+
+“It is arranged,” Christopher declared. “I went to your rooms to-night,
+Myrtile, to tell you. I received Annette’s lying message. I was told
+that you were in bed and asleep. I left a note. Then, for the first
+time since I have been here, I went to the Club and stayed late. I
+heard your guests downstairs speak of your good fortune, Gerald.”
+
+Gerald laid his hand upon Myrtile’s wrist.
+
+“Well,” he said, “what are you going to do about it?”
+
+“I am going to take Myrtile home,” Christopher insisted.
+
+“I refuse to let her go,” Gerald declared.
+
+Christopher looked for a moment away at Myrtile. She clung to Gerald
+like a frightened child.
+
+“Listen,” Christopher went on, “you and I have been friends all our
+lives, Gerald. We know one another pretty well. You know of me that I
+am a man of my word. I know of you that, though you are selfish and
+worship pleasure, you are white enough when the hour strikes. The hour
+has struck, Gerald. Let me take Myrtile home.”
+
+“Myrtile shall choose,” Gerald proposed.
+
+“Myrtile shall do nothing of the sort,” was the prompt reply. “You
+might as well ask her to choose the right path through a strange city.
+Gerald, old chap, don’t take this hardly. I am not here to sling abuse
+at you. And Myrtile--just doesn’t understand. Thank God I was in
+time!--Myrtile, take your cloak.”
+
+She clung to Gerald’s arm, looking anxiously into his face. Something
+else discordant had come into the room, something unbeautiful,
+something to be feared. She looked from one to the other of the two
+men. Gerald’s fist was clenched. For all his calm, there was a subtle
+threat in Christopher’s attitude.
+
+“I don’t want to quarrel,” Christopher went on. “Don’t let it come to
+that, Gerald, but you see it is inevitable that Myrtile should leave
+with me to-night. I shall not go without her. You know what that means.”
+
+“I am to remember, I suppose,” Gerald said thickly, “that you were the
+Varsity boxing champion?”
+
+“Please don’t,” Christopher begged. “Myrtile must come. I can’t always
+be in the way. To-night I am. To-night, at any rate, you have a
+reprieve.--Myrtile!”
+
+She stooped for her cloak. Christopher arranged it around her
+shoulders. His fingers shivered at the touch of the filmy laciness, as
+though he loathed it.
+
+“You are ready, Myrtile?” he asked.
+
+She looked once more at Gerald. He seemed so far away. And was it her
+fancy, or was there something in his face which she had seen in the
+faces of those others?--He lit a cigarette almost ostentatiously.
+
+“You had better go, Myrtile,” he said. “Christopher has the whip hand
+of us. We can’t have a row here.”
+
+“Good-by, Gerald,” she faltered. “It isn’t my fault.”
+
+“Of course not,” Gerald answered. “We are all a little overstrung, I
+think. Good-by, little one!”
+
+He kissed her almost carelessly and nodded to Christopher. The two left
+the room. The music had ceased.
+
+They walked through the empty streets in silence. When they arrived
+within a few yards of Myrtile’s lodgings, Christopher slackened his
+pace. Myrtile was crying quietly.
+
+“Myrtile,” he begged, “please listen to me.”
+
+“I am listening,” she told him drearily.
+
+“This morning at eight o’clock I shall be here to take you to the
+station. Please leave behind the clothes you are wearing, and I will
+return them to Madame Lénore. You will go to London, and Lady Mary will
+take care of you. Lady Mary is Gerald’s sister. Do you understand?”
+
+“Yes,” she faltered.
+
+“Please don’t think of me as an executioner,” Christopher went on, with
+a note of unusual feeling in his tone. “Love is a very wonderful thing,
+Myrtile, but it is also a very dangerous paradise. If you care for
+Gerald, and he cares for you, believe me, some day, you will belong to
+one another and you will be happy, but the love which brings happiness
+is not of a moment’s growth. It is not a matter of feeling only. To-day
+you love Gerald with your whole soul. Gerald has simply a little
+affection for you. You are a whim to him, a child whose softness and
+prettiness attracts him. The kingdom of love is a wonderful place, but
+no two people who are in the position of you and Gerald can enter it
+by the lower gates. If you are faithful, remember this. A year or two
+of life will bring womanhood to you, and you will understand just what
+was lacking to-night, just what, in a corner of your heart, Myrtile,
+I believe that you guessed was lacking. That something would have
+poisoned even your wonderful happiness. You must wait, dear. Nothing in
+the world will keep you and Gerald apart if your love for one another
+becomes the love that endures.”
+
+Myrtile crept away without a word. For an hour Christopher waited,
+unseen, at the darkened corner of the street. He waited until he saw
+the light go out in Myrtile’s room. Then he went back to the hotel,
+changed his clothes and rested for a couple of hours. When he returned
+to her room, she was waiting for him, dressed in her little blue serge
+suit, pale, mutely pathetic. Christopher carried her small bag and they
+made their way to the station.
+
+“Myrtile,” he said, as they stood together, watching the train come
+round the bay, “this morning I think that you are hating me. You think
+me very cruel. Try and not judge me for a year.”
+
+“I think that you mean well,” she sighed, “but you do not understand.”
+
+Christopher put money into her purse and took her up to where Lady
+Mary was standing with her little array of dependents. She spoke a few
+kindly words to Myrtile, who answered her politely but without any
+trace of feeling in her tone. Myrtile sat down on one of the trunks and
+looked steadily across at the sleeping white-fronted hotel. Christopher
+and Lady Mary walked for a moment apart.
+
+“I don’t know why I am doing this thing for you,” Mary said. “If you
+want to know the truth, I dislike the young woman intensely.”
+
+“If you can’t feel that you are doing it for my sake,” Christopher
+replied, “think that you are doing it for Gerald’s.”
+
+Lady Mary stared at him for a moment, and Christopher fancied that he
+could read in her somewhat haughty look some trace of that patrician
+superstition which claimed for its people the bodies and souls of their
+satellites.--The train thundered in.
+
+“You will come and see me in London?” she asked, a little softened.
+
+“Directly I return,” he promised. “I shan’t forget this, Mary,” he
+added, a little awkwardly. “You’ve been a brick.”
+
+She smiled, curiously gratified at his hesitating words. Christopher
+leaned towards Myrtile.
+
+“Good-by, Myrtile,” he said.
+
+She removed her eyes from the window for a moment.
+
+“Good-by, Christopher,” she answered--and looked back again at the
+white building, with its irregular front and close-drawn curtains.
+Behind one of them Gerald was sleeping. With a cloud of black smoke and
+a succession of hoarse, sobbing pants, the long train steamed slowly
+out of the station.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK TWO
+
+
+
+
+BOOK TWO
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+Gerald had been lunching at the Hyde Park Hotel and was on his way to
+pay a call in Curzon Street. Hence his progress through the sun-baked
+and dusty park at three o’clock on a Saturday afternoon in August.
+Christopher, who had been his fellow guest, caught him up just as he
+had reached the shelter of the trees. The two young men were apparently
+still on the same friendly terms. No one but themselves realised the
+slight cloud which had never wholly passed away from between them since
+the night in Gerald’s sitting room at the Hôtel de Paris, eighteen
+months ago.
+
+“Couldn’t get near you at lunch,” Christopher remarked. “What a squash!”
+
+“Hideous!” Gerald agreed.
+
+“Every one all right at Hinterleys?” Christopher enquired.
+
+“Haven’t heard for over a week. Aren’t they rather expecting you down
+there?”
+
+“I’m going to-morrow. Can’t take you, I suppose?”
+
+Gerald shook his head.
+
+“I can’t stand Hinterleys when there’s nothing to do,” he confided. “I
+shall be there on the 31st. all right.”
+
+“You’re not going to stay in town till then?”
+
+“I’m off to Bourne End this afternoon,” was the unenthusiastic reply.
+“I shall probably stay there a day or two. I ought to have gone up to
+Scotland this week, but I have put it off until the end of September.
+The Governor forgives a good deal, but he wouldn’t forgive me if I
+weren’t at Hinterleys for the 1st.”
+
+Christopher took his friend’s arm lightly. He had made several attempts
+to break through the slight restraint that existed between them, and
+Gerald’s appearance these days rather troubled him. He was thinner,
+his eyes were restless, his manner a little nervous. He was still fit
+enough, for he had had a great season at polo, and had played cricket
+half a dozen times for his county with almost startling success. Yet
+he had not the appearance of being the spoilt child of fortune that he
+certainly was.
+
+“I wonder you don’t get fed up with that Bourne End crowd,” Christopher
+remarked.
+
+“I very nearly am,” Gerald confessed. “They were much more amusing in
+the old days, before they took up marriage as a hobby. Now the most
+flagrant little hussy begins to talk about her people in the country
+and St. George’s, Hanover Square, if you hold her fingers. It’s all the
+fault of these callow youths--Christopher--Great Heavens!”
+
+They had passed the Achilles Statue and were making towards Stanhope
+Gate. The crowd here seemed more spiritless than ever. There was a
+sprinkling of ladies’ maids, sitting demurely alone, waiting patiently
+for the coming of romance; a few young men of doubtful types, a certain
+number of loafers pure and simple, and a few reasonable people,
+driven out by the craving for air which had some of the qualities of
+freshness. In chairs a little way back and apart from the others, two
+women, dressed in plain black, were seated. One was elderly, the other
+young. Both were weary, both sat there with the air of wishing to
+avoid observation. To Christopher they were entirely unfamiliar. His
+whole attention was absorbed by Gerald’s strange demeanour. Gerald’s
+long fingers had gripped his arm almost painfully. For the first time
+for many months, there was real feeling in his face.
+
+“It’s Pauline!” he exclaimed. “Wait for me, Chris.”
+
+Without hesitation, Gerald turned and threaded his way among the
+chairs. The two women watched his approach, the older one with stolid
+indifference, Pauline apparently with some faint resentment. Gerald,
+however, in these last few seconds had become a very determined person.
+He stood before them with his hat in his hand. His bow was lower than
+is customary amongst English people. His manner could scarcely have
+been more respectful if he had been paying his homage at Buckingham
+Palace.
+
+“May I be permitted to recall myself to the recollection of Madame de
+Ponière?” he begged.
+
+The woman looked at him with unrecognising eyes. The last eighteen
+months had dealt hardly with her. The flesh had sagged a little from
+her cheek bones, her mouth had become bitter, her throat was thin, her
+eyes cold and glassy.
+
+“You do not succeed in doing so, monsieur,” she said coldly.
+
+Pauline intervened. There was some faint note of courtesy in her
+manner, nothing whatever of kindliness.
+
+“This young gentleman,” she explained to her aunt,--“Lord Dombey, I
+believe his name is--was kind enough to be of assistance to us at Monte
+Carlo, on the night when Zubin met with his unfortunate accident.”
+
+Madame de Ponière inclined her head.
+
+“I trust that we tendered our thanks on that occasion,” she observed
+icily.
+
+Gerald held his ground. Pauline was paler than ever, and thin, but
+perhaps he fancied that there was a shade of encouragement in those
+soft, weary eyes.
+
+“Madame,” he said, “there was some slight previous acquaintance between
+your niece and myself, some trifling service I had been able to render
+which gave me the right to perform this further one. It gives me great
+pleasure to see you again in my own country.”
+
+The older woman laughed hardly.
+
+“It is difficult to believe,” she scoffed, “that the sight of us could
+give pleasure to any one; apart from which fact,” she added rapidly,
+“it is not our wish to make or renew acquaintances whilst we are here.”
+
+“Madame,” Gerald replied, “that was your attitude in Monte Carlo, an
+attitude which I may say occasioned me the deepest regret. I venture to
+hope that I may be able to induce you to modify it.”
+
+“And why should I?” she asked, almost insolently.
+
+“Because I have the sincerest and most profound admiration for
+mademoiselle,” Gerald declared stoutly, “and because, in my own
+country, there is the possibility that I may be of service to you.”
+
+Madame de Ponière opened a plain pair of lorgnettes and looked for a
+moment at Gerald.
+
+“For an Englishman,” she remarked coolly, “you seem to have some
+manners. Who is this, Pauline?”
+
+There was the faintest possible indication of a smile on Pauline’s lips.
+
+“His name is Lord Dombey,” she answered demurely. “He is the son of the
+Earl of Hinterleys.”
+
+“Dear me!” Madame de Ponière murmured.
+
+“The Earl of Hinterleys,” Pauline continued, “is one of the lesser
+English noblemen.”
+
+Notwithstanding his anxiety, Gerald’s sense of humour was touched. If
+only his father could have been standing by his side to assist in the
+conversation with these two shabbily dressed ladies!
+
+“Our titles are, at any rate, not unduly modern,” he pleaded
+deprecatingly. “Besides, is this of any real consequence?”
+
+“What precisely do you want of us?” the older lady asked, after a
+slight hesitation.
+
+“The privilege of renewing my acquaintance with you both,” Gerald
+replied.
+
+“You have done so,” Madame de Ponière reminded him.
+
+“With permission to pay my respects at your London residence,” he urged.
+
+“We do not receive in London,” was the curt reply.
+
+“I trust,” Gerald persisted, “that you will make an exception in my
+favour.”
+
+Pauline suddenly intervened. There was a shade of hauteur in her
+manner, but some frankness.
+
+“My dear aunt,” she said, “there are certain things which it is
+impossible to conceal. My aunt and I,” she went on, addressing Gerald,
+“are living in some impossible rooms in an impossible hotel in South
+Kensington. I see no reason, however, why we should not receive you
+there, if you are in earnest in your desire to call. We are without
+acquaintances in this city.”
+
+Madame de Ponière closed her lorgnettes with a little snap.
+
+“We are staying at Number 28, Erriston Gardens, South Kensington,” she
+said. “I believe they call the place the Erriston Gardens Hotel.”
+
+“If you will permit me,” Gerald suggested, “I will bring my sister
+to call upon you when she is in town. In the meantime, may I venture
+upon a daring suggestion? You are without acquaintances in town; so,
+for these few days, am I. Will you do me the great honour of dining at
+Ranelagh to-night with me? We shall escape this insufferable heat and
+be able to listen to music out of doors.”
+
+“I regret that it is impossible, sir,” Madame de Ponière replied.
+
+Gerald was naturally quick-witted. There were many little things he had
+already noted.
+
+“Mademoiselle,” he said, turning to Pauline, “I beg you to intercede
+with your aunt. I do not invite you to one of the established
+restaurants. The great charm of Ranelagh is its informality. The people
+who have been playing tennis and golf stay on to dine, with some
+trifling change in their attire. I myself should have to ask you to
+excuse my remaining in morning dress. It is a convention of the place.”
+
+“Milord Dombey doubts our wardrobe,” Pauline remarked, with a faint
+smile. “No,” she went on hastily, “please do not think we are offended.
+I think your discretion is admirable. And, aunt, I beg of you, let us
+accept Lord Dombey’s invitation. Think how much we are suffering from
+the heat. Think of our stuffy room, our unspeakable dinner! In short, I
+insist.”
+
+“If you will allow me, I will call for you at a quarter to eight,”
+Gerald proposed, turning to Madame de Ponière.
+
+Madame de Ponière hesitated for another moment. Perhaps it was
+something in the almost boyish quality of Gerald’s eagerness which
+decided her. This Englishman was at any rate no _boulevardier_.
+
+“We will await you at that hour,” she replied. “I trust,” she added,
+after a moment’s pause, “that you will not consider my hesitation in
+any way discourteous. There are reasons which make it difficult for my
+niece and myself to accept hospitality.”
+
+Gerald bowed low, and, acting on a momentary impulse, raised Madame’s
+fingers to his lips. She yielded them naturally enough, but with a
+little glance around, almost of fear. Mademoiselle also extended her
+finger tips. He took his leave and was received by Christopher, who was
+waiting for him, with a gaze almost of astonishment. Gerald was holding
+himself differently, his eyes were filled with a lustre which they had
+lacked for months, he was smiling again in his old manner.
+
+“My dear fellow,” Christopher exclaimed, “what on earth has happened?”
+
+“That old devil has recognised my existence at last,” Gerald declared.
+“I had almost to force myself upon her. Chris, they’re dining with me
+to-night!”
+
+“Before you say another word,” Christopher enjoined, “I want you to
+look at the man on that seat by the side of the tree. Look at him
+carefully, please.”
+
+The two young men slackened their pace. The person whom Christopher had
+indicated was a man of medium height, dressed, notwithstanding the heat
+of the day, in sombre black clothes, and wearing a black bowler hat. He
+was dark, and he was, or affected to be, reading a book. His complexion
+was sallow and he wore a slight black moustache. His hair was unusually
+long and even covered a portion of his ears.
+
+“Well, I see him,” Gerald admitted. “Not much to look at. Looks like
+one of the chaps who go in for this tub-thumping up at the far end.”
+
+“He came from that way,” Christopher said, “but the reason I am
+pointing him out to you is because he appeared to recognise your two
+friends at the same instant that you did. He was walking down between
+that last row of chairs. Directly he saw them, however, he stood quite
+still for a moment. He seemed almost as knocked over as you were. Then
+he slunk back into that chair and he has been watching them ever since.”
+
+Gerald attached no undue importance to the affair.
+
+“I’ll tell them about it this evening, if I can remember,” he
+promised.--“Chris, did you ever know such luck! She is more wonderful
+than ever. No wonder I could never get the feeling of her out of my
+blood, the thought of her from my brain! Her eyes--Chris, did you ever
+see such eyes in your life!”
+
+“Kind of hazel, aren’t they?” Christopher hazarded.
+
+“You ass!” Gerald declared contemptuously. “They’re brown--the most
+glorious shade of brown I ever saw. I’m going to call for them in
+South Kensington at a quarter to eight, Chris. We’re going to dine at
+Ranelagh.”
+
+“So you told me,” Christopher observed, smiling. “What about Bourne
+End?”
+
+Gerald’s radiant happiness was not for a moment disturbed. He took
+Christopher’s arm.
+
+“Bourne End,” he confided, “has, allegorically speaking, vanished into
+the blue horizon. Chris, I know now what has been the matter with me
+all these months. I knew it directly I saw her sitting there, tired and
+miserable, under the trees. I came up against the real thing and never
+knew it. I am in love with Pauline!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+Pauline leaned back in her chair with a little murmur of content.
+Through the drooping branches of the great plane tree was a fascinating
+little vista of scarlet-clad orchestra, of the terrace with its curving
+rows of lights, the little groups of people sitting about, the waiters
+in their quaint liveries. And beyond, the smooth lawn, the picturesque
+front of the house; up above, the deep blue sky, pierced here and there
+with an early star. Even the little murmur of conversation seemed to
+blend with the strains of the music. A breeze rippled in the tree tops.
+After the heat of London, it was a wonderful respite.
+
+“You are very kind,” she murmured to Gerald, “to bring us here.”
+
+“I was very fortunate to meet you,” he declared. “Don’t you think,
+after all the discouragement I have received, I was very brave to come
+and beard your aunt?”
+
+“Not so very,” she answered. “We were two defenceless women, very sad
+and weary with life.”
+
+“I wish,” Gerald said deliberately, “that you would tell me more about
+yourselves.”
+
+Pauline glanced across at her aunt, who was leaning back in her chair,
+also with the appearance of deep content, her eyes closed, her air of
+isolation complete.
+
+“My aunt does not approve of such questions,” she said quietly.
+
+“We speak in English,” Gerald reminded her, “and your aunt does not
+understand.”
+
+“My aunt understands English better than you would believe,” Pauline
+replied. “There is the fact, also, that I have confidence in her. I
+believe that she knows what is best.”
+
+“The best thing for you,” Gerald said firmly, “is to believe in me.”
+
+She looked at him with a slight smile. Her face, however, remained
+unsoftened.
+
+“Really? And why should I believe in you? And what is there to believe?”
+
+“That I am deeply interested,” Gerald replied promptly, “in everything
+that concerns you; that I wish to be your friend; that I wish----”
+
+She stopped him with a little gesture instinctively mandatory.
+
+“Neither my aunt nor I,” she interrupted, “are in a position to accept
+more than the simplest acts of good will from any one. I have tried to
+make that clear to you.”
+
+“You have,” Gerald admitted, “but before I accept your decision
+finally, I shall expect some further explanation.”
+
+“We do not belong to your world,” Pauline said. “We are what you call,
+I think, adventuresses.”
+
+“Of a unique type, then,” Gerald declared, smiling. “It is not the
+usual action of such people, having met with a great loss, as you did
+at Monte Carlo, to sell their jewellery to pay their bills, and leave
+without owing a penny.”
+
+“You are well informed,” Pauline remarked coldly.
+
+“I saw your pearl necklace in Desfordes’, the jeweller’s.”
+
+“I cannot believe that Desfordes----” Pauline began, in some agitation.
+
+“The man told me nothing,” Gerald interrupted. “I recognised the
+necklace and I bought it.”
+
+“You bought my necklace?” she repeated incredulously.
+
+“Hoping,” Gerald ventured, “that some day it would be my privilege to
+return it to you.”
+
+She was distinctly taken aback.
+
+“You are apparently a rich young man, Lord Dombey, as well as an
+impertinent one,” she said. “Are you often subject to these whims?”
+
+“I am well off,” Gerald replied, “that is to say that I have an income
+apart from my allowance. For the rest, I have never done anything of
+the sort before, because I have never felt the same inclination.”
+
+“I thought that you were rather by way of being the support of the
+ladies of the ballet at Monte Carlo,” she observed. “Did you not
+entertain them at supper and that sort of thing?”
+
+“I entertained them at supper occasionally,” Gerald admitted, “but that
+is the extent of my acquaintance with them.”
+
+“Then there was a child whom you and your friend found at a mountain
+farm--she became your ward, did she not?--a pretty child, with large,
+affectionate eyes?”
+
+“My family has relieved me of my responsibility in that direction,”
+Gerald replied. “She is living down at Hinterleys with my people. My
+father will allow no one else to read to him, my sister is devoted to
+her, and my friend is in love with her.”
+
+“I still do not understand what made you buy my pearls,” Pauline
+remarked, after a moment’s thoughtful silence, “or under what possible
+conditions you contemplated returning them to me.”
+
+“I bought them because I am in love with you,” Gerald declared.
+
+She turned her head and studied him deliberately. She was still
+lounging in her chair, but she gave him the impression that she was
+looking down at him.
+
+“That,” she said quietly, “is a style of conversation which you must
+keep for your dancing ladies or your village maidens.”
+
+“It happens to be the truth,” he insisted doggedly.
+
+Once more she looked at him, still puzzled, but this time a little more
+leniently. His dark eyes were aglow. He was obviously in earnest.
+
+“You must forgive me if I find your methods a little unusual,” she
+said. “Do I understand that you are proposing an alliance?”
+
+“I ask you to do me the honour of becoming my wife,” Gerald replied.
+
+Pauline turned to her aunt.
+
+“Aunt,” she said in French, “Lord Dombey desires to marry me. He has
+just told me so most eloquently.”
+
+Madame de Ponière’s expression was, for her, almost tolerant.
+
+“Never mind, my dear,” she rejoined, “he is a very amiable young man
+and he has given us an excellent dinner.”
+
+Pauline turned back to Gerald, smiling.
+
+“You see, my aunt is quite reasonable about the matter,” she remarked.
+“Order some more cigarettes, will you? And some coffee, I think.”
+
+Gerald obeyed promptly. Then he leaned forward.
+
+“Madame de Ponière,” he said, “do I understand that I have your
+permission to pay my addresses to your niece?”
+
+“You must not be foolish,” she replied soothingly. “We are exceedingly
+obliged to you for giving us dinner in this charming place. It is
+really quite a revelation to me. The _suprême de volaille_ reminded
+me--but that is not of any import.”
+
+“Mademoiselle de Ponière,” Gerald continued, appealing to Pauline,
+“will you be my wife?”
+
+“Monsieur Lord Dombey,” was the prompt but not unkindly reply, “I will
+not.”
+
+“Then may I become your suitor,” he pleaded, “hoping that you will
+change your mind when you find that I am very much in earnest?”
+
+“It appears to me,” she answered, “that the office would be a thankless
+one.”
+
+“I am content to take my chance,” Gerald pronounced. “I can command all
+the usual resources which might make life more endurable for you. My
+personal devotion you are already assured of.”
+
+“You had better not tempt us too far,” Pauline warned him, a little
+bitterly. “The good folk at Monte Carlo were only guessing when they
+called us adventuresses, but we are down on our luck just now--we might
+accept your offer.”
+
+“I will take my risk,” Gerald declared eagerly. “You have given me no
+encouragement. You have no responsibility. As for the rest, we are all
+adventurers or adventuresses, more or less. I am in quest of happiness,
+and I have met no one else except you who could give it to me.”
+
+There was a touch of real feeling in her eyes as she glanced towards
+him, feeling, however, composed of varying elements,--some curiosity,
+a tinge of scorn, an iota of compassion. She shrugged her shoulders
+slightly beneath her wrap of black lace.
+
+“How long do you remain in London, Lord Dombey?” she enquired.
+
+“As long as I can be of service to you,” was the quick reply. “I was
+going down to Hinterleys soon, for want of something better to do. A
+day’s visit there will suffice. I shall remain at your service.”
+
+“I am in love with another man,” Pauline assured him.
+
+Gerald considered the matter for a moment.
+
+“I do not believe it,” he declared.
+
+Pauline sighed.
+
+“Nevertheless, it is true,” she reiterated. “He is very bad-tempered,
+and if he knows that I am accepting all these attentions from another
+man, he will certainly quarrel with you.”
+
+“I will risk it,” Gerald decided.
+
+“How am I to get rid of this persistent young man?” Pauline asked her
+aunt.
+
+Madame de Ponière had a great deal to say about the subject in a rapid
+undertone. When she had finished, Pauline turned back to her companion.
+
+“My aunt was very much against a renewal of our acquaintance,” she
+told him, “but, as she justly remarks, one must live. This evening has
+turned our heads a little--a return to the fleshpots, you know, and
+that sort of thing. You shall be my suitor if you will, Lord Dombey,
+but of one thing you may be very sure--I shall never marry you.”
+
+“There is another thing of which you may be equally sure,” Gerald
+rejoined. “I shall never leave off trying to persuade you to.”
+
+“Gallant but pig-headed,” Pauline murmured. “You can judge of my
+aunt’s newly found tolerance when I tell you that she permits us to
+walk in the rose garden. I want to see whether those delphiniums are
+really as blue as they seem to be.”
+
+Gerald sprang eagerly to his feet and they moved off together across
+the lawn. He was obliged continually to half pause, to return the
+greetings of his many friends. Pauline walked steadily on, looking
+neither to the right nor to the left, composed and stately, her
+clothes, although they were not in the very latest style, individual
+and obviously the creation of an artist. People put their heads
+together and whispered. The same question must have been asked a score
+of times before they left the little crowd behind them, but no one
+knew, no one could even hazard a surmise as to whom Gerald’s companion
+might be.
+
+The walk in the rose gardens, although Gerald welcomed with intense
+satisfaction this new phase in his relations with Pauline, was in some
+ways a disappointment. Pauline looked around her all the time with
+serene pleasure. She was fond of flowers, she knew them all by name,
+and paused often to admire some wonderfully fine bloom. She acceded
+without demur to his suggestion that they should take one of the small
+boats moored against the bridge and lay back amongst the cushions
+whilst he lazily sculled round the small stretch of water. On the far
+side of the island he let the boat drift and laid the oar across his
+knees.
+
+“Pauline,” he said, leaning a little forward, “you are adorable.”
+
+“I suppose it goes without saying that you should find me so,” she
+answered composedly. “I suppose, also, that I must permit you the
+privilege of my Christian name. On the other hand, do not try to get
+on too quickly, will you? I must warn you that you have reached the
+extreme limit of my complaisance.”
+
+His eyes flashed for a moment. He was much too spoilt to regard her
+indifference as anything more than part of the game. It was a duel
+between the two, the result of which he scarcely doubted, but with his
+usual impetuosity he resented delay.
+
+“You will accept me some day,” he said. “Why not now? We could spend
+the honeymoon in Paris and go on to the Italian lakes. Or we could be
+married at the Embassy in Paris, if you liked. Enthoven, the first
+secretary, is my cousin, and would see things through for us.”
+
+“You are taking base advantage of this lonely spot,” she murmured,
+dipping her hand in the water. “I have told you that I am in love with
+another man.”
+
+“You will forget him in a week,” Gerald assured her. “I am a most
+companionable person.”
+
+“I have no doubt that you have given many people the opportunity of
+finding you so,” she replied drily. “However, I am not prepared just
+yet for such an experiment.”
+
+“Pauline, do you like me a little?” he asked earnestly.
+
+She looked him in the eyes.
+
+“Not very much,” she admitted frankly. “You see, the nicer part of
+me--the part with which I should care--is numb--numbed with misfortune.
+The most that I can say is that if you are very kind, I may change--to
+some extent. Personally, I think it hopeless.”
+
+“You wouldn’t consider, I suppose,” he suggested, “telling me your
+history now that we are on a slightly different footing?”
+
+“Nothing would induce me to do anything of the sort,” she replied. “I
+think that we have left my aunt alone quite long enough.”
+
+He took up the scull and dug it into the still, stagnant water. He did
+not speak again until they reached the landing stage.
+
+“Where is this other man?” he asked, as he handed her out.
+
+She thought for several moments before she answered. Then she turned
+towards him with the air of one who has arrived at a decision.
+
+“The other man,” she declared, “is my brother. He is in prison,
+condemned to what you call, I believe, penal servitude.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+Lord Hinterleys leaned back in his chair and prepared to enjoy his
+greatest treat during the day,--his one glass of vintage port.
+
+“So you did not go to Scotland after all, Gerald?” he remarked, on the
+evening of the latter’s arrival at Hinterleys.
+
+“No, I didn’t go, sir,” Gerald replied. “Some old friends of mine
+turned up in town. I have been spending a good deal of time with them.”
+
+“I would have preferred hearing that you had been on the moors,” his
+father observed, with a glance at his son’s pallid face and careworn
+expression. “London in August always seems to me intolerable.”
+
+“It was certainly very hot,” Gerald admitted. “I was on the river a
+great deal of the time, though.”
+
+There was a short silence. Lord Hinterleys was, as a rule, a reserved
+man, and he very much disliked the task which he had set himself. He
+dallied with it for a few moments, looking through the high window,
+across the terrace to the gardens below. His face softened as he
+glanced at the two girlish figures seated under the cedar tree, where
+coffee was being served.
+
+“You have been guilty, I suppose, Gerald,” he said drily, “of the usual
+number of indiscretions, but one action of yours which threatened
+to come under that heading, I shall always remember with gratitude.
+Myrtile is the most wonderful child who ever came to brighten a
+somewhat dull household.”
+
+“I am glad you approve of her, sir,” Gerald replied indifferently.
+
+“The more I study her,” Lord Hinterleys went on earnestly, “the more
+she fills me with amazement. It seems as though she must be some sort
+of a spiritual changeling. I have always been, as you know, rather a
+stickler for race. Myrtile is one of those marvellous exceptions which
+upset all argument. She is an aristocrat to the finger tips in every
+way, small or great, that counts. It seems as though it were absolutely
+impossible for her to do an ungracious or ungraceful thing. She has
+destroyed every prejudice I ever possessed.”
+
+Gerald was interested at last. It was many years since he had known his
+father so enthusiastic.
+
+“I am very glad you kept her here, sir,” he remarked.
+
+“I am more than glad--I am thankful,” was the fervent reply. “I look
+forward with a pleasure which I can scarcely describe to the hours
+she gives up for my entertainment. When I think that nothing but an
+outbreak of scarlet fever in the household to which she was bound was
+responsible for her staying here long enough for us to appreciate her,
+I can never feel sufficiently thankful. To watch her development, too,
+during the last year, has been like watching a beautiful flower.”
+
+“She’s made a conquest of you, at any rate, dad,” Gerald remarked. “I
+thought myself that she looked perfectly sweet to-night at dinner time.”
+
+“She has made a conquest of me to an extent which I should never have
+believed possible,” Lord Hinterleys admitted, glancing across at his
+son. “I have had an elderly man’s desire, Gerald, to welcome home to
+Hinterleys the woman whom you might decide to choose for a wife. I
+have kept a little list in my mind of the young women at present known
+to Society, whom it would give me pleasure to see here. I have never
+for one second contemplated the addition to that list of an unknown
+person. And yet----”
+
+“There is no question of anything of that sort between Myrtile and me,
+sir,” Gerald declared, breaking a somewhat embarrassed pause.
+
+Lord Hinterleys sipped his port and looked once more out of the window.
+Gerald, a little startled by his father’s unexpected suggestion, was
+suddenly conscious of that one wild moment after his supper party at
+the Hôtel de Paris, of Christopher’s stern figure, of that strange
+medley of sensations, the flare of passion which seemed to have
+perished in the shame of Christopher’s triumph. He, too, looked out of
+the window. Myrtile had been a child then. She was a woman now, more
+wonderful, more gracious, just as completely virginal. Yet to him she
+existed at that moment only as the picture of something that had passed.
+
+“I am afraid,” his father said, a little sadly, “that Myrtile does not
+look at it in quite the same way. However, that is nothing. It may
+be only a sort of hero worship with her. It was you, I understand,
+who took the initiative in bringing her away from her home. Her
+indifference to your sex is a little abnormal for her years. Doubtless
+it will pass when the right man arrives. I envy that man more than any
+other living.”
+
+Lord Hinterleys slowly finished his wine. Gerald produced his cigarette
+case.
+
+“You are ready, sir?” he asked. “Will you take my arm?”
+
+“Not for a moment,” was the quiet reply. “You perceive, from my
+references to Myrtile, that I am in a confidential frame of mind. I
+shall go even further to prove it.”
+
+“You won’t mind my cigarette, sir?”
+
+“Not in the least.--Gerald, I do not, as a rule, interfere in such
+matters, as you know, but I take a certain natural interest, I think,
+in your associates and your affairs generally. It has come to my
+knowledge through various channels that you have spent the greater part
+of the last month with two ladies bearing a French name--an aunt and a
+niece, I believe--both unknown to English Society.”
+
+“That is true, sir,” Gerald admitted.
+
+“Furthermore,” Lord Hinterleys continued, “although again I am a little
+outside my province, I must confess that I was somewhat disturbed to
+hear from Mr. Bendover that you had offered for sale a portion of the
+Lutsall property and were considering a mortgage upon Rhysalls.”
+
+“I do not know why Mr. Bendover should have troubled you with these
+details,” Gerald said, a little uneasily, “but in the main they are
+correct.”
+
+“I make you an allowance, as you know,” his father continued, “as my
+only son and the heir to Hinterleys, of five thousand a year, which
+I can well afford to do. You have yourself something like the same
+amount, I believe. You occupy a portion of Hinterleys House in town,
+and you have the use of my servants there. Your polo ponies, by express
+arrangement, have always been charged to my own stable expenses. You
+must forgive my feeling some surprise, therefore, at the fact that you
+have found it necessary to raise these large sums of money.”
+
+Gerald was silent for a moment, conscious of and inwardly resenting his
+father’s anxious scrutiny. Something of the bitterness which he was
+feeling showed itself, perhaps, in his tone.
+
+“I needed the money, dad,” he said. “It will probably all come back to
+me, or its value.”
+
+“If the necessity is occasioned by your losses at cards or on the
+turf,” Lord Hinterleys continued, “I should prefer making you some
+advance myself, to having you part with land which belonged to your
+great-grandmother, or executing a mortgage upon any part of your
+property.”
+
+“I have needed the money for quite a different purpose,” Gerald
+explained, “a purpose which precluded my applying to you. There are
+other people involved.”
+
+“I see,” Lord Hinterleys concluded drily. “We will leave the matter
+where it is, then, for the present.--If you will give me your arm now,
+we will take our coffee in the gardens.”
+
+“Sorry, dad, to seem mysterious and uncommunicative, and that sort of
+thing,” Gerald apologised, with an attempt at levity. “I’m not quite
+off my head, I can assure you.”
+
+“You have never presented yourself to my mind, Gerald,” his father
+admitted, “as being a likely tool for the adventurers or harpies of
+the world. I shall continue to believe that you are able to take care
+of yourself, although I am bound to say that I regret your lack of
+confidence.”
+
+“I shall be in a position to tell you the whole story very shortly,”
+Gerald promised. “The element of secrecy about it at present has
+nothing to do with me.”
+
+They made their way through the window, on to the terrace, down the
+steps and across the lawn to the cedar tree. Myrtile was standing
+behind the coffee tray, and Gerald, remembering his father’s recent
+words, gazed at her with a new, though somewhat languid interest. She
+was wearing a simple frock of grey muslin, her hair was parted in the
+middle and drooped low over her ears. The thinness of a year ago had
+given place to the slender perfection of early womanhood. She had the
+air of being wholly and gracefully at her ease, yet the sweetness of
+her smile, a certain ever-present but unobtrusive desire to please,
+seemed like the hallmarks of her constant but unexpressed gratitude.
+Lady Mary, sunburnt and amiable, lolled in a hammock, with a cigarette
+between her teeth. There was a telegram upon her knee. She seemed
+content with life.
+
+“Have you heard the news?” she asked. “Christopher has been invited to
+stand for West Leeds. It is a certain seat and he has accepted. He is
+coming down to-morrow afternoon.”
+
+“Good old Chris!” Gerald murmured. “Though what on earth he wants to
+spend half his time pottering about the House of Commons for, I can’t
+imagine.”
+
+“Your friend Christopher Bent,” Lord Hinterleys observed, “finds his
+pleasures, without a doubt, somewhat interfered with by the possession
+of some out-of-date principles. He will be very welcome here.--My
+coffee and the evening paper, if you please, Myrtile.”
+
+Myrtile’s attention had momentarily wandered. Her eyes were fixed upon
+Gerald, who was looking paler and more tired than ever in the clear
+evening twilight.
+
+“You found it hot in the city?” she asked softly, as she poured out the
+coffee.
+
+He frowned impatiently. There is nothing which irritates a selfish man
+more than the evidences of an affection which he does not covet.
+
+“If it was, I don’t deserve any sympathy,” he replied. “I was only
+there because it amused me.”
+
+He threw himself into a chair, declined coffee with unnecessary
+abruptness, and asked for brandy. Myrtile, with a little pain at
+her heart, no infrequent visitor there, took her place apart from
+the others, near Lord Hinterleys, and, spreading out the newspaper,
+commenced her evening task.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+The world seemed a very good place to Lady Mary as, from the depths
+of her chair under the cedar tree on the following afternoon, she
+watched Christopher, conducted as far as the terrace by the butler,
+descend the steps lightly and move across the lawn towards her. He had
+been away for a holiday earlier in the summer and was still healthily
+tanned. His grey tweeds became him. He walked with the dignity and
+assurance of a man whose life is being worthily lived. It was a long
+way across the lawn, and the girl who waited for his coming had time
+for a crowd of pleasant thoughts as she watched the approach of the
+man on whom she had set her heart. Everything that he did and had
+done in life appealed to her. She even appreciated now the reticence
+which he had shown in their many conversations, the absence of any
+indications of more than ordinary interest in her. He had sentiment
+enough,--that was proved by the tenderness for Myrtile to which he
+had confessed that night at Monte Carlo, a night which she had always
+remembered as one of the unhappiest of her life. She had long since
+been convinced, both by his manner and Myrtile’s, that the tenderness,
+such as it had been, had become merged in a purely fraternal and kindly
+regard. Of his reticence towards herself she thought nothing. He was
+possessed, as she well knew, of a very high sense of honour, and she
+had always felt that, however greatly she might have desired to hear
+his declaration, he would say nothing until he had passed definitely
+out of the somewhat miscellaneous category of rising young men into the
+position of one whose future is assured. To-day he was the youngest K.
+C., and a seat in Parliament was almost within his reach. She thought
+of her own fortune with a deep sense of pleasure. It was larger than he
+imagined, larger than any one else except herself and her father knew.
+Christopher would be free to make the best of himself, free for all
+time from any shadow of financial worry. How well he looked, how strong
+and eager! She held out both her hands as he drew near, and her smile
+of welcome made her for a moment radiantly beautiful.
+
+“How delightful to see you, Christopher!” she exclaimed. “And what
+wonderful news! It’s just what you wanted, isn’t it, and just what we
+all wanted for you.”
+
+He took her hands and stood smiling down at her. Her heart was
+beginning to beat more quickly. She hoped that he would suggest walking
+in the gardens.
+
+“It is a wonderful stroke of fortune, isn’t it?” he agreed. “It all
+came about through going down to help Andrew Hodgson at the Darlington
+election. I knew I’d got on pretty well with the speech-making down
+there, but I never thought it would lead to this.”
+
+He did not sit down, nor did he suggest the gardens. He had looked
+around for a moment, almost as though disappointed to find her alone.
+Still her heart did not misgive her. She thought him a little nervous,
+and she smiled tolerantly.
+
+“You were a dear to telegraph to me at once,” she said. “I can’t tell
+you how interested and flattered I was.”
+
+“I wanted you all to know,” he declared, looking around once more. “How
+is every one?”
+
+“In excellent health, thank you,” she answered. “Father is having
+his usual afternoon sleep. Gerald has been here, but, as I dare say
+you know, he went away this morning. We must talk about him later,
+Christopher. I am rather worried--but that can wait. Will you sit down,
+or would you like to see how wonderful the gardens are?”
+
+He looked at her a little apologetically, yet without the slightest
+idea of how great an apology was needed.
+
+“I wondered,” he said, “if I could see Myrtile.”
+
+“Myrtile?” Mary repeated.
+
+He assented a little sheepishly, yet with a rather engaging smile.
+
+“I wanted to see her and tell her about it,” he confided. “She won’t
+understand just what it means, perhaps, but she’s so much more of a
+woman now.”
+
+His voice seemed to come from a long way off. It seemed all part of a
+horrible nightmare, something unreal, some black thought, the figment
+of a nocturnal fancy.--Then she was conscious of his standing before
+her, waiting, expectant, with the eagerness of a lover in his eyes.
+
+“Myrtile went down to gather some roses,” she told him. “You will find
+her at the end of the pergola.”
+
+He was gone almost before the words had left her lips, gone with some
+sort of mumbled excuse, unconscious of the tragedy he had created,
+clumsily oblivious of the fierce struggle which had kept her calm and
+collected. She turned her head and watched him go, watched his long,
+eager footsteps, saw his tall figure stoop as he entered the pergola.
+Her fingers tore at the sides of her chair. She looked at the distance
+between her and the terrace steps. If only she could escape! Her limbs
+for the time seemed powerless. She sat there with all the healthy
+colour drained from her cheeks, her fixed eyes seeing nothing but
+the ruin of her confident hopes. There were three old ladies in the
+family of Hinterleys--one her father’s sister, the others a little more
+distantly related--prim beings, full of the weaknesses and prejudices
+evolved by their unlived lives. She remembered now how she had shrunk,
+even in her school days, from the thought of ever finding herself in
+a similar situation. But she was suddenly face to face with it now.
+She could see herself growing old, marching down the avenues of time,
+preserving in a certain measure, perhaps, her dignity, but growing day
+by day a little more jealous and narrow, a little more captious of the
+happiness of others. There was only one Christopher, and he was there
+at the bottom of the pergola with Myrtile. Even in her bitterness she
+did not blame him for a moment. There were a hundred different ways
+in which she might have misunderstood him. She had made the foolish
+mistake of many ignorant young women. She had mistaken companionship,
+and the desire for companionship, on his part, for the subtler and
+rarer gift which she herself had been so ready to offer. Christopher,
+she remembered, had even warned her, more than a year ago, at the villa
+in Monte Carlo that night when they had paced the terrace together. She
+had refused to take him seriously, and he had never once reverted to
+the subject. It had seemed to her, indeed, that he had almost avoided
+Myrtile during his visits to Hinterleys, and she had commended him for
+his discretion. Myrtile was sweet and full of charm, but what use could
+she be as a wife to an ambitious man like Christopher? How she herself
+could have helped with her sympathy, her social influence, her tact,
+to say nothing of her great fortune! It was amazing what follies a man
+could commit for the sake of a fancy! She could call it nothing else.
+
+Presently she rose calmly to her feet and walked towards the house.
+Soon it swallowed her up, the key was turned in the door of her room,
+the long minutes that passed were her own. She never counted them then,
+she never dwelt on them afterwards. The period of her agony was, in
+fact, short enough. Her pride came to her rescue. When her maid tapped
+on the door she had already bathed her eyes, and there remained nothing
+to denote her suffering but a little tired look about her mouth and a
+slight weariness of gait. She opened the door at once.
+
+“Mr. Bent is obliged to go back to town almost immediately, your
+ladyship,” the maid announced. “He has asked specially whether he could
+see you for a moment.”
+
+“Tell Mr. Bent that I shall be down in five minutes,” her mistress
+enjoined.
+
+The maid departed, and Mary turned once more anxiously to the mirror.
+This was a trial which she had scarcely expected. Her fingers passed
+over her face, anxious to smooth out its lines. Her lips moved, as
+though she were uttering a prayer. She was, indeed, appealing to
+herself, to the strength and pride of her young womanhood. When she
+entered the library where Christopher was waiting for her, she knew
+that she was free from all trace of disturbance.
+
+“Christopher, you don’t mean that you are going to leave us at once?”
+she protested. “And where is Myrtile? I expected to see you both
+together.”
+
+“I left Myrtile where I found her,” Christopher answered, a little
+harshly. “Will you keep my secret, please, Mary, and forget my visit?”
+
+“Forget your visit?” she repeated wonderingly.
+
+“Myrtile does not care for me,” Christopher explained, “not in the way
+I want her to. It is the same with her now as from that first moment. I
+thought it was a fancy of which she might have been cured. I find it is
+nothing of the sort.”
+
+At that moment Mary hated herself, hated the joy which swelled up in
+her heart, hated the sudden passionate rush of blood through all her
+veins, the sense of grotesque, immeasurable relief. She hated the lying
+words she spoke.
+
+“Oh, Christopher, I am so sorry!” she said. “I do not understand, but I
+am very, very sorry.”
+
+“Myrtile loves Gerald,” he continued. “She will love him all her days.
+She is one of those strange creatures who will never change, to whom
+love is just one final thing for good or for evil. She loved Gerald
+when she stepped into the car and we carried her with us along the road
+around the end of which she had woven all her dreams. She cares for him
+so much that I am not sure whether, at the bottom of her pure heart,
+she does not hate me because I once kept them apart.”
+
+She laid her hand upon his arm. That sense of sickening joy had gone.
+She was a woman again, feeling nothing but sorrow for the suffering of
+her man.
+
+“Christopher dear,” she begged, “Myrtile will see the truth in time.
+Gerald cares nothing for her, nothing for anybody except himself and
+his own pleasures. She will understand this presently. Remember,
+although she has grown so sensible and so gracious in her attitude
+towards life, she is really only a child.”
+
+“In one way she will always be a child,” he answered sadly. “Her love
+will last her time, whether Gerald ever returns it or not.”
+
+“There is still your work,” she went on, “great, wonderful work waiting
+for you. And your friends. Don’t take this so hardly, Christopher.”
+
+He looked down at her with a very forced smile.
+
+“Oh, I shall get over it,” he assured her. “I am not the first man who
+has had to face this sort of thing. It is odd, though, that it should
+have happened to me. Whatever thoughts I may have had in the past about
+marriage were so different.”
+
+“Isn’t it just possible, perhaps,” she ventured, “that those other
+thoughts were the wisest?”
+
+“Wisdom has so little to do with life, really,” he answered drearily.
+“I should have planned it differently if I could.--Well, I had to see
+you, Mary. You’ve been perfectly sweet, as I knew you would be. I want
+to get off without seeing a soul now, if I can. You won’t mind?”
+
+“Of course not! You wouldn’t like me to speak to Myrtile?”
+
+“Absolutely useless,” he replied. “She was really shocked when she
+knew why I had come. I believe it seems to her a trifle irreligious to
+discuss the possibility of her caring for any one except Gerald. No,
+I’m not going to encourage any false hopes, Mary. I’ve had my answer
+and there’s an end of it. What I want to do is to get away.”
+
+“That you can do and shall,” she assented. “I did so want to hear about
+Leeds, but that must be another time. You won’t keep away from us
+because of this, Christopher?”
+
+“Of course not,” he promised half-heartedly. “I’ll write, if I may.
+There are heaps of things I want to tell you. You won’t mind?”
+
+She smiled and let him open the door, taking him by a devious way to
+the courtyard where his car was still standing.
+
+“There,” she directed, “you can go out by the south drive, across the
+deer park, and you won’t meet a soul.”
+
+He held her hand tightly for a moment at parting.
+
+“God bless you, Mary!” he said. “You’re a wonderful pal.”
+
+“Thank you,” she answered simply.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+“Well, thank heavens you haven’t forgotten how to hold your gun
+straight!” Lord Hinterleys remarked, a few days later, laying his hand
+affectionately upon his son’s shoulder. “It is always a treat to see
+you shoot, Gerald. I used to fancy myself when I was your age, but I
+could never have touched your performance to-day.”
+
+“You mustn’t forget the difference in the guns, dad,” Gerald reminded
+him, “and the powder. You were pretty useful yourself at those last two
+drives.”
+
+Lord Hinterleys mounted his pony.
+
+“I brought down a beautiful high one at Smith’s corner,” he
+admitted.--“Are you sure, you people, that you wouldn’t like to have a
+car sent down? I shall be home in ten minutes or a quarter of an hour,
+and Oliver could be here with the shooting brake whilst you are having
+a cup of tea with Mrs. Amos.”
+
+No one, it appeared, was tired. Gerald shouldered his gun and passed
+his arm through Myrtile’s.
+
+“Come along,” he invited, “we’ll go home through the forty-acre wood.
+It isn’t more than a mile. It seems to me we’ve been standing about all
+day.”
+
+“I should like it very much,” Myrtile assented joyfully.
+
+“We are all coming presently,” Mary remarked. “Amos is just making up
+the bag. Dad wants the exact figures. Don’t you want some tea, Myrtile?
+Lady Hadley and I are going to have some.”
+
+Myrtile shook her head.
+
+“I do not care for tea very much, as you know,” she said, “and I should
+like to walk with Gerald.”
+
+“Showing thereby your good taste, my child,” Gerald observed, as they
+strolled off, “and also a wise regard for your digestion.”
+
+“One sees so little of you nowadays,” Myrtile sighed. “You are all the
+time in London.”
+
+“You’re not going to lecture me?”
+
+“That would not be for me,” she said gravely. “If you think it well to
+be there, it is well. I am only glad that you are here to-day. It has
+made your father so happy.”
+
+They crossed the meadow and entered the little wood. The path here
+was so narrow that Gerald took Myrtile’s arm again. He was quite
+unconscious that at his touch she shivered with emotion.
+
+“Myrtile,” he confided, “I saw Chris yesterday.”
+
+“Yes?”
+
+“Poor old chap,” Gerald went on, “he looked absolutely done in. I made
+him come and have some dinner with me. I don’t think he meant to tell
+me, but it all came out in time. He told me about his visit here.”
+
+She walked on, her head uplifted, her face a little tense.
+
+“Yes?” she murmured.
+
+“I’d no idea,” Gerald continued, “that he was seriously in love with
+you, Myrtile. He’s such a sober sort of chap really--no lady friends,
+you know, or anything of that sort. When he takes a fancy to any one,
+it’s a serious affair.”
+
+“He is not like you, Gerald,” she said quietly.
+
+“You’re quite right, he isn’t,” Gerald acknowledged frankly. “We all
+have our different hobbies. I candidly admit that the society of your
+sex has been one of mine. Christopher has never been like that, though.
+You are his first love, Myrtile.”
+
+“It is a great pity,” she declared.
+
+“You used to seem very fond of him,” Gerald hazarded, “and he certainly
+looked after you jolly well at Monte Carlo.”
+
+“Do you mean,” Myrtile asked calmly, “when he came to your room in the
+Hôtel de Paris, after the supper party?”
+
+Gerald was completely taken aback. She had turned and was looking at
+him with her large, serious eyes. She was deliberately forcing upon him
+the memory of an episode which he had slurred over in his mind.
+
+“I wasn’t thinking of that altogether,” he replied, with a certain rare
+awkwardness. “All the same----”
+
+“All the same, what, please?” she insisted, after a moment’s pause. “I
+should like you to finish your sentence.”
+
+“Well, from old Chris’s point of view, he was doing the chivalrous
+thing, and all that,” Gerald explained clumsily. “He must have thought,
+of course, that I was going to be a perfect brute.”
+
+“Were you not?” she asked.
+
+He was amazed at her coolness. She, whose purity seemed rather to
+increase with her larger knowledge of the world, seemed to be forcing
+him to speak of those very ugly moments.
+
+“I am afraid that I can’t say what would have happened,” he admitted.
+“I was very much attracted by you, and you hadn’t the faintest idea
+what it all meant. So, you see, you do owe him a very great debt of
+gratitude, Myrtile.”
+
+“I do not think so,” she replied.
+
+Gerald was more startled than ever. Her deliberate speech seemed to him
+almost a challenge.
+
+“You are about the only person in the world who would say that,” he
+observed.
+
+“Perhaps so,” she admitted. “Perhaps, too, I am the only one who is in
+a position to know.”
+
+Gerald was poignantly interested. He looked down at her face, calm
+and serious. There was no added colour in her cheeks, no sign of any
+confusion.
+
+“You mean that you are sorry that Christopher interfered? That you
+would have risked my forgetting--all that I ought to have remembered?”
+
+“I am sorry that Christopher interfered,” she said distinctly. “At
+that moment I loved you, and I did not know that it was wicked for me
+to love you. If afterwards you had got tired of me, as you would have
+done, then I should have killed myself when I understood. But I should
+have been happy first.”
+
+“But aren’t you happy now?” he asked.
+
+“I am very contented,” she answered, “and I am very, very grateful.
+I think that no one in the world has ever received such wonderful
+kindness as I have. But happiness, it seems to me, is a thing apart.
+It is a great and a wonderful and a rare gift. I do not think that
+very many people possess it, although they think they do. I should
+have possessed it, for however short a time, if Christopher had not
+interfered.”
+
+Gerald was staggered. It seemed to him that this girl, walking so
+sedately by his side, had suddenly become his monitress; was trying to
+explain to him, as though he were a pupil, great and elemental things.
+
+“Myrtile,” he declared, “you surprise me very much. I never dreamed
+that you would feel like that. Supposing, then, I were to say to
+you--‘Come away from here with me to-morrow; come up to London and be
+my companion there’?”
+
+“You could not do that,” she said simply. “You could not offer me so
+terrible and so ugly an insult. Surely you understand that then I did
+not know that you did not love me?”
+
+“I see,” he murmured.
+
+“I loved you,” she went on, her eyes lifted a little to the interlacing
+boughs of the trees under which they were passing, “when you came like
+a prince to the gate where I stood shaking with terror, and laughed
+at my fears. I loved you when you pointed to the end of the road and
+promised to take me there. I loved you in those first few moments, and
+just as it seemed to me then that I had loved you before I was born,
+so I know that I shall love you after I die. That is just the kind of
+wisdom which even children have. Where I was simple and ignorant was
+that I did not understand that love could be one-sided. I thought that
+love belonged to two people. Now I know very differently.”
+
+“Myrtile----” he began.
+
+She checked him gravely.
+
+“To-day,” she continued, “there is more for me to say than for you,
+because I am rather glad that you should understand. Only you must not
+talk to me about Christopher. I am very sorry, but I think that he is
+foolish. I was a peasant child and I knew nothing. But a wise, clever
+man like Christopher should understand. It seems to me absurd that he
+should think it possible that I might love him. It is so absurd that
+I do not believe his love is a real thing. I think that he will soon
+forget.”
+
+“What is to become of you, then, Myrtile?” Gerald demanded.
+
+She looked up at him with a smile.
+
+“What happens to all those others,” she asked, “who go through life as
+I shall go through it? They are very content. Very many pleasant things
+come their way. They are spared a great deal of suffering. So it will
+be with me. Now that we have had this talk, Gerald, I can speak to
+you, perhaps, a little more frankly. I watch you so closely that I see
+things which others might not notice. You were without actual happiness
+before because you did not understand what happiness was. Now you are
+unhappy. That is so sad.”
+
+“Yes,” Gerald admitted, “I am unhappy.”
+
+“There is some one for whom you care?”
+
+He had no idea of evading the issue. He replied at once, simply and
+directly.
+
+“It is Mademoiselle de Ponière, whom I met at Monte Carlo, and who used
+to go out with me in the car. I have met her again.”
+
+“And yet you are not happy?”
+
+“I am not happy,” Gerald acknowledged, “because I have not the least
+idea whether she cares for me or not. She is very mysterious. She has
+troubles which she will not let me share.”
+
+It seemed to him that Myrtile smiled. They were out of the wood now and
+crossing the park.
+
+“All that you tell me is very strange,” she confessed. “I do not
+pretend to understand it. One hears, Gerald, that in your way you have
+cared for very many women. That is rather a pity, but, if it is true,
+you perhaps do not know your own mind. Are you sure that you love this
+young lady?”
+
+“I only know that she makes me feel and suffer as no one else in the
+world has ever done,” he answered a little drearily.
+
+They were approaching the house now. Myrtile laid her fingers timidly
+upon his arm.
+
+“It seems to me, Gerald,” she said, with a rather pathetic smile, “that
+we have changed rôles. You asked me to walk home with you that you
+might talk to me about Christopher, and now we have finished all that
+and it is your own affairs only which remain.”
+
+“There is nothing about my affairs which even lends itself to
+discussion,” Gerald sighed.
+
+“Not at present,” Myrtile assented, “but in the end there must come
+happiness, because where there is love there is always happiness.--May
+I say one word more?”
+
+“Go ahead,” he answered.
+
+“It is of your father. Why is he so troubled about you?”
+
+Gerald frowned.
+
+“I am afraid, Myrtile,” he said, “that that is a matter which I cannot
+altogether explain to you.”
+
+“Perhaps you are right,” she admitted. “I must dare to say this,
+though, because, you see, I am with your father many hours in the day,
+and he is not so strong as he was and so he shows his mind more easily.
+Something about you is worrying him. That is not right, is it?”
+
+Gerald was silent for a moment. A telegraph boy, who had been riding
+down the drive which curved through the park, seeing them, had
+dismounted from his bicycle and was crossing the turf towards them with
+an orange-coloured envelope in his hand. Gerald took it from him, tore
+it open, and read the few lines which it contained. Then he gave the
+boy a coin and dismissed him. He looked once more at the message.
+
+“It is good news?” Myrtile enquired gravely.
+
+“Good enough,” Gerald answered. “I have been living in a miserable
+state of uncertainty. Now it will all be cleared up.”
+
+“There will be no more trouble, then?”
+
+“I cannot say that,” he replied, “but at least there will be action.
+Next week will see the beginning of the elucidation. I leave for Russia
+on Tuesday.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+The change in Pauline’s manner, when Gerald was ushered by an
+untidy-looking waiter into her sitting room on the following afternoon,
+was almost electrifying. In place of her usual languid greeting, she
+sprang lightly to her feet and gave him both her hands. The slight
+sullenness had all gone from her face. There was no living person just
+then who would not have found her beautiful.
+
+“You received my telegram?” she demanded eagerly.
+
+“And I came to you at once,” was the prompt reply.
+
+She drew him down to her side upon the sofa. Her manner and tone
+displayed an animation entirely new to her.
+
+“Reusser returned the night before last,” she said. “He seems to
+have had a comparatively easy journey, and he reports conditions
+over there very much more lenient in many ways. He had no difficulty
+in landing, or in making his way wherever he wished to go. On the
+other hand, the stories he brings back as to the distress and misery
+everywhere are simply shocking. The country bleeds to death. There are
+few trains running, no order, no discipline, despotic and arbitrary
+police surveillance everywhere. But there is also corruption. People,
+especially the official classes, are looking everywhere for the means
+to live. A merchant who was imprisoned only a month or so ago on a
+charge of murder, to which he actually pleaded ‘Guilty’, was set free
+the day before Reusser left. It cost him little more than five thousand
+roubles.”
+
+“Did this man Reusser discover where your brother was?” Gerald asked.
+
+“For ten thousand roubles,” she answered, “he could have searched every
+police register in Russia. Paul is at the Fortress of St. Maria, at a
+small town called Sokar, about three hundred miles south of Petrograd.
+It is a bad journey, of course, but the place is accessible. The
+Governor of the prison is a Major Krossneys. He is half an Austrian and
+half a Pole. When he is sober, he is simply greedy. When he is drunk,
+he is reckless. He is to be managed with ease, but always it is to be
+remembered that Paul is his chief prisoner. If Paul were to escape,”
+she went on thoughtfully, “he would, without a doubt, lose his post,
+certainly his promotion; he might even have to flee the country. To buy
+him would probably cost a sum of money sufficient to support him for
+the rest of his life. There are still people who would tear Paul to
+pieces if they knew who he was.”
+
+“This Major Krossneys,” Gerald enquired, “does he speak French?”
+
+“Fortunately, yes,” was the eager assent. “Tell me, Gerald, what do you
+think of it all?”
+
+“Just this,” he replied. “I shall sail on Tuesday. There is a steamer
+from Hull. In less than two months I will bring your brother back.”
+
+Her eyes shone. She seemed to be trembling in every limb. There was
+ecstasy in her face, passion on her quivering lips. Yet even as he drew
+a little nearer to her, Gerald was drearily conscious that she had
+almost forgotten his presence. It was the thought of her brother which
+had wrought this transformation.
+
+“If I bring him back to you, Pauline----” he began.
+
+She suddenly seized him by the shoulders.
+
+“Bring him back!” she interrupted passionately. “I make no bargain. I
+give no promise--you should know better than to ask for any such. All
+that I can tell you is that I would give my soul to see him again.”
+
+Gerald clenched his hands almost in pain.
+
+“Pauline,” he pleaded, “for heaven’s sake, soften just a little. You
+keep me all the time in torment. Paul shall be set free--I swear it. If
+it costs me my fortune, my liberty, even my life, he shall be set free.
+But I’m doing it for love of you. My love is choking me. Soften for one
+moment. Remember what you will be to me some day. Give me at least a
+memory to take with me.”
+
+She laid her hand upon his. It seemed to him that it was as cold as the
+snows. Her eyes looked into his. They were soft and beautiful, full of
+colour and sweetness, yet they looked him through as though he were a
+denizen of some other world.
+
+“When I give, I give all,” she said. “You do not understand the people
+of my race. We cannot give in driblets--a kiss here, a caress there,
+the promise of more to-morrow. God never made us Russians like that.
+When I give, it will be the full glory of love. Bring Paul back to me
+and you may know what that can mean.”
+
+Gerald rose to his feet.
+
+“I should go to my task a stronger man,” he complained, a little
+bitterly, “if you could throw me the dole one might give to a beggar.”
+
+She gave him her finger tips. She was standing by his side, so near
+that the desire to hold her in his arms and take from her lips the one
+kiss he craved was almost irresistible. At that moment he almost hated
+her.
+
+“Haven’t you even the grace to pretend?” he muttered.
+
+She laughed, wringing her fingers slightly as though his lips had
+seared them.
+
+“You have been spoilt,” she murmured. “The women you have played with
+have been your too willing slaves. A trifle of homage, a trifle of
+philandering, a few shadowy caresses--that is all you have known of
+love.--Wait!”
+
+Gerald spent that afternoon in the City, the next few days in making
+restless preparations for his absence from London. On the afternoon of
+the last day, he was permitted to see Reusser, and he recognised in
+him at once the man whom he had seen watching over Madame de Ponière
+and her niece in Hyde Park. The meeting took place in the sitting room
+of the South Kensington hotel. Reusser, who leaned heavily upon two
+sticks, was brought thither by a tall youth, his son, who waited for
+him outside the door. He was as thin as a skeleton, his cheeks were
+sunken, and every now and then his voice seemed to die away.
+
+“It is my first day out of the hospital,” he told Gerald
+apologetically. “I caught cold on the way back, and my lungs are not
+good. Please ask what questions you desire. I am subject to attacks of
+weakness.”
+
+“I understand,” Gerald said, “that you reached Sokar?”
+
+“I reached it,” he admitted, “but, alas! I was powerless to act. I
+took with me every penny of money we could scrape together, but by
+the time I reached the city I was penniless. I lodged at the house of
+a saddler, whose name you will find in the book I have given you.
+He took me to look at the fortress. He showed me the room where the
+brother of Mademoiselle lies. He told me much about Major Krossneys,
+the commandant of the fortress. But of what avail was it? We had not
+enough money between us to pay for a bottle of wine.”
+
+“How do you propose,” Gerald enquired, “that I approach Krossneys?”
+
+“The way is arranged,” Reusser replied eagerly. “There is a woman
+living in the town, half German, half English. Her name is Elsa
+Francks. To-day Krossneys is her slave. You go first to her. Her
+address is in the little book you have. She speaks English and French,
+besides her own language; even some Russian. Talk to her frankly. She
+will bring you to Krossneys. There is one thing, though. You must go as
+an American. No one will do anything to help you, although they are all
+greedy for money, if they think that you are English. It will be quite
+easy, that. There are many Americans in Russia, prospecting. There is a
+great oil field on the plains south of Kreussner. Some say there is oil
+there; others deny it. That is how your bribes must be worked. You will
+buy property. It will be worth nothing. You will find that Krossneys
+has land to sell; so has Elsa.”
+
+“I understand,” Gerald said.
+
+“You leave to-morrow?”
+
+“At ten o’clock from King’s Cross,” Gerald assented. “The boat leaves
+at night.”
+
+Reusser raised his right hand.
+
+“The Father of God speed you!” he said. “Speed is very necessary. The
+Government has kept that young man alive, hoping that some day he would
+be useful as a bribe or a hostage, but there are still many fanatics
+in Russia, haters of his race, who would tear him limb from limb if
+they knew.”
+
+“I shall be in Petrograd in a fortnight,” Gerald declared, “and at
+Sokar, I hope, a few days later.”
+
+Reusser once more raised his hand and muttered inaudible words.
+Nevertheless, though his strength seemed departed, he tried to kneel
+when Pauline came into the room. She raised him to his feet and called
+to his son.
+
+“All is well,” she said, dismissing them. “Take care of your strength,
+Reusser. You must be one of the first to welcome him.”
+
+The man bowed his head and prayed silently. Then his son led him away.
+
+Gerald also rose to his feet. He had nerved himself for this interview.
+
+“I shall have the pleasure of wishing Madame farewell?” he asked.
+
+“My aunt sends you her excuses and her prayers,” Pauline replied. “She
+is too agitated to risk a meeting. You do not quite know what this
+means to us.”
+
+“I know,” Gerald said, “what its results may mean to me.”
+
+She looked at him a little sadly.
+
+“My unhappy country,” she sighed, “is to-day only a furnace of woe
+and suffering, yet in the jumble of it there are a few millions still
+who would kneel through the night and pray for you, if they knew your
+mission. I bid you farewell, Gerald, and every throb of my body will
+live with you. I have sworn that no word of love shall pass my lips,
+nor any feeling of love linger in my heart, so long as my brother lies
+in that fortress. But I am here. I would give you anything that would
+speed you on your journey. It is for you to choose.”
+
+She stood perfectly passive, her arms hanging by her sides. Her eyes
+looked sadly into his, her lips were composed and still. For a moment
+the fires burned in his blood. He took a quick step forward. She
+waited, unmoved, yet without shrinking. So they faced one another for a
+moment. She extended her hand. Gerald seized it, then dropped it.
+
+“I shall do my best,” he promised hoarsely. “Good-by!”
+
+She listened to his departing footsteps; she even moved to the window,
+watched him leave the hotel and step into his waiting automobile. He
+was well enough to look at, good-looking as ever in his slim, lithe
+way, and with his fine carriage. Nevertheless, there was neither love
+nor pride in her eyes as she watched him. There was something else,
+which seemed to point back down the avenues of the history of her
+family, something, perhaps, which had sounded the knell of their doom,
+generations before. It was there in her lips, in her eyes, spelled out
+in her fixed stare,--the cruelty of a race whose heart is given only to
+passion.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+
+Christopher was warmly welcomed at Hinterleys when he made his promised
+appearance there, about a fortnight after Gerald’s departure. He would
+have preferred postponing his visit altogether but for Gerald’s urgent
+request, made on the night before he had started for abroad. It all
+seemed very natural, however. Myrtile welcomed him without a shade of
+embarrassment, Lady Mary with her usual delightful friendliness, and
+Lord Hinterleys with more than his usual hospitality.
+
+“Any news from the traveller?” Christopher asked, as they sat round the
+fire in the hall, before going up to change.
+
+“Just a telegram yesterday from Petrograd,” Mary replied,--“‘_Arrived
+safely. Love._’”
+
+“Satisfactory so far as it goes,” Christopher remarked.
+
+“So far as it goes,” Lord Hinterleys grumbled, “but what on earth
+Gerald wants to go over to that barbarous country for, at this time of
+the year, I can’t possibly imagine. Who are these friends of his, Bent?
+Do you know anything about them?”
+
+“Very little,” Christopher admitted. “I gather that they are Russian
+_emigrées_, but really I don’t know a thing more about them. Gerald
+seems to have made their acquaintance at Monte Carlo, when they were
+occupying the next villa to yours.”
+
+“I saw them out driving once or twice,” Lord Hinterleys ruminated.
+“The girl was beautiful and looked well-born. The aunt might have been
+any one.”
+
+“I think there is no doubt that they are aristocrats,” Christopher
+pronounced.
+
+“Wasn’t there something rather strange about the way they left Monte
+Carlo?” Mary enquired, from the depths of her easy-chair.
+
+“Strange but not discreditable,” he hastened to assure her. “Their
+steward had brought them out a large sum of money, which appears to
+have been all that they possessed in the world, and instead of handing
+it over, he gambled at the tables, lost it and committed suicide. The
+two women apparently sold all their jewellery, scrupulously paid their
+debts and disappeared. I believe Gerald discovered them living at a
+cheap hotel in South Kensington.”
+
+“Don’t like the type,” Lord Hinterleys muttered.
+
+“The girl is very attractive,” Myrtile ventured. “I used to see her
+driving sometimes with Gerald.”
+
+“All the same, I can’t see why Gerald wants to go mixing himself up
+in their affairs,” his father observed pettishly, “especially in the
+middle of the shooting season.”
+
+“He expects to be back before you shoot the coverts,” Mary reminded
+him. “I don’t know the reason for his journey to Russia any more than
+you do, but I don’t imagine he’ll want to stop there any longer than he
+can help.”
+
+“I should think not,” Lord Hinterleys grumbled,--“a country of madmen
+and anarchists. I expect he’s there on some fool’s errand.”
+
+“I shouldn’t be surprised,” Mary declared, laying down the book which
+she had been studying at intervals, “if Gerald didn’t know perfectly
+well what he was doing--if he hadn’t, in fact, stumbled upon some
+sort of a romance. The only time I have ever seen these two women,
+except in the distance at Monte Carlo, was at Ranelagh on a quiet day
+after the season was over; I expect Gerald had given them vouchers.
+They were walking about the gardens, and I was with Susan Armitage.
+Lord Armitage, as you know, was on the Staff at Petrograd in the
+old days. We met them crossing the lawn and I heard Susan give a
+little exclamation. Then she stopped quite short and stood almost to
+attention, looking steadfastly at the girl. I am perfectly certain that
+she was going to curtsey. I could see it in her eye. And I am perfectly
+certain, too, that this Madame de Ponière and her niece knew who she
+was. They took not the slightest notice, however, so Susan unbent and
+came along.”
+
+“But surely you asked her who they were?” Lord Hinterleys enquired.
+
+“Of course I did,” Mary assented. “Susan, however, was exceedingly
+mysterious. Since Jack began to fancy himself a diplomatist, she apes
+all his little ways. ‘I may be mistaken, my dear,’ she said. ‘In any
+case, the ladies did not desire to be recognised.’ I pressed her hard,
+but she wouldn’t even tell me who she thought they were. Before that I
+had asked Gerald if he would like me to go and see them, but he told me
+they were in great trouble and were not receiving anybody at present.”
+
+“This is all very well and charitable and that sort of thing,” her
+father remarked, “but I don’t quite see why Gerald should have had to
+raise thirty thousand pounds within the last few weeks.”
+
+“Frankly, I cannot think that these two women are responsible for it,”
+Mary declared. “Gerald told me, the day before he left, that they were
+still living in that poky little South Kensington place.”
+
+“Young men are much better married, anyway,” Lord Hinterleys growled.
+“Why don’t you get married, Christopher? You could afford to, and a man
+like you, with a political future, needs a wife.”
+
+Christopher smiled imperturbably.
+
+“Give me time, sir,” he begged. “It’s different with Gerald. He has the
+estates, and very little else to think about.”
+
+“Gerald’s an ass,” was the irritable reply. “He’s too fond of women
+to understand them, or even to realise when he comes across the right
+thing.”
+
+“Gerald may have his faults,” his sister observed, “but at least he has
+spared us the usual musical comedy infliction. There goes the gong.
+Christopher, come into my room for a moment and I’ll show you those
+photographs.”
+
+They trooped up the great oak staircase, and Mary led their guest into
+her own little boudoir. She closed the door carefully behind them.
+
+“Christopher,” she said, “I am so glad you came. Honestly, I am anxious
+about Gerald. He came to see you, didn’t he, the night before he
+sailed?”
+
+“He did,” was the cautious admission.
+
+“He must have told you a little more than he told us,” she went on.
+
+“Very little,” Christopher assured her. “He mumbled something about
+Russia being an uncertain country just now, and got me round to his
+rooms to witness his will. Of course, I don’t think there was any
+secret that he was going over on business connected with these two new
+friends of his. What that business is, though, I haven’t the slightest
+idea.”
+
+“Honest?”
+
+“Honest! If I were to make a guess, I should say he was going over to
+see if he could do anything about their estates, if they have any. On
+the other hand, if he’d been doing that, I should have expected him to
+have taken a lawyer.”
+
+“Gerald in matters of business,” his sister sighed, “is a perfect
+idiot. I hope he isn’t going to get himself into trouble.”
+
+“Well, they can’t eat him,” Christopher declared consolingly, “and
+they seem to have left off murdering people, at any rate for the
+present. Besides, they have common sense enough to know that molesting
+Englishmen is an expensive amusement, even in Russia.”
+
+“You’re a dear, cheering-up sort of person,” Mary said gratefully.
+“And, Christopher, I haven’t had an opportunity of saying so before,
+but I am still very sorry.”
+
+“Thank you, Mary.”
+
+“You’ll have another try, I suppose? You’re a tenacious person.”
+
+He shook his head.
+
+“Never,” he answered firmly. “Myrtile is a strange little creature, but
+she was cast in the mould of all good women. She loves Gerald, and so
+long as she lives she will never love anybody else.”
+
+“And Gerald----” Mary murmured.
+
+“Gerald will never love any one,” Christopher interrupted, “not unless
+something changes him--trouble or some great disaster. It’s quite
+hopeless, Mary, and I know it. I have sealed the chamber down tight,
+and here I am, as you see, very much as usual.”
+
+She pressed his arm.
+
+“Dear old Christopher!--You’ll find you’re in the oak room at the end
+of the corridor, as usual. Howson, Gerald’s servant, is down here doing
+nothing. He will look after you. After dinner you must tell me about
+the election. I am so interested, and so is dad, when he can spare a
+moment from thinking about his pheasants. He is certain to insist upon
+Myrtile’s reading to him after dinner, and you and I will knock the
+balls about in the billiard room.”
+
+Christopher would have been less than human if he had not realised the
+pleasure of having a very charming and attractive young woman, who was
+also his hostess, keenly interested in the one subject which was just
+then absorbing the whole of his time and attention. Mary knew a great
+deal about politics, and her shrewd comments were not only sympathetic
+but at times fairly helpful. They were left undisturbed throughout
+the whole of the evening in the billiard room, and Christopher was
+surprised at the ease with which he forgot that slim, frail figure
+with the haunting eyes and tremulous smile, who had sat opposite him
+at dinner. There is something about inevitability which sets its mark
+upon all enterprise and sensation. He knew perfectly well that Myrtile
+would never alter. She was as far removed from him as though she had
+become a beautiful picture or an exquisite piece of statuary. The
+conviction itself had a certain soothing effect. No man was ever known
+to sigh his heart out for the unattainable. With the merest chance
+of some alteration in her feelings, he would have been a persistent
+and unchanging lover. There was no chance, and he knew it. The
+disappointment was there, a dull pain in his heart whenever he thought
+of certain chambers in the building of that house of his future. But it
+was a pain of the past, a pain from which frequent escape was at least
+possible. He found the coming of the footman with whisky and soda that
+night unwelcome and surprising.
+
+“Eleven o’clock!” he exclaimed. “Why, what has become of the evening?”
+
+“Flatterer!” she laughed. “Never mind, I was just thinking the same
+myself. One game of billiards, and then to bed. You’ll have a long day
+to-morrow, for you’re walking in the morning, at any rate, and dad
+always relies upon you to do the outsides.--Here’s Myrtile come to wish
+us good night.”
+
+“Haven’t you people played yet?” Myrtile enquired, looking at the
+unused table in surprise.
+
+“Not yet,” Christopher replied. “Lady Mary and I have been talking
+politics.”
+
+Myrtile made a little grimace.
+
+“Politics!” she sighed. “Lord Hinterleys has tried to explain English
+politics to me, but I think that I am stupid. I do not think that I
+have ever heard of anything quite so dull.--Good night to you both. I
+am going to bed.”
+
+She waved her hand and disappeared. Mary looked after her thoughtfully.
+
+“Sometimes,” she said, “Myrtile presents herself to one as a problem. I
+wonder whether it is really for their happiness to transplant any one.”
+
+“Don’t you think that Myrtile is happy?” Christopher asked.
+
+Mary shook her head.
+
+“No girl is really happy without love in her life,” she declared. “You
+can realise for yourself how little chance Myrtile has of ever being
+rewarded for her devotion.”
+
+He frowned.
+
+“Poor child!” he said. “But aren’t you a little sweeping, Mary? There
+are lots of girls who seem to get everything they want in life, and
+to be perfectly happy without a man--without caring for any one in
+particular, that is. Yourself, for instance?”
+
+Mary selected a cue with great care.
+
+“I suppose I am an exception,” she admitted. “Come along, I’ll play you
+one fifty up before I go to bed.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+Gerald, worn out with long and comfortless travel, pulled the long,
+iron bell outside the closed door of Elsa Francks’ house in Sokar, with
+a sense of relief that the first part of his quest was accomplished.
+The street was one which formerly had been possessed of some
+pretensions. The houses were tall, solidly built, and had apparently
+been occupied by a wealthy class of merchant. They were now mostly let
+out in tenements. Exactly opposite where Gerald stood waiting, men
+and women--shrunken-looking creatures, most of them--were continually
+passing in and out of a broad entrance, from which the gates had been
+done away with altogether, with sacks or baskets of partly finished
+boots, and the sound of fitful hammering seemed to denote a factory
+devoid of machinery. In the centre of the road were some rusty rails,
+around which some grass was growing,--the remains of an electric car
+service. Most of the houses seemed empty or over-full,--locked and
+barred, with broken window frames and closed shutters, or converted
+into tenement houses. The long street, full of holes and strewn
+with all manner of refuse, ended in a steep hill. Way beyond it,
+the so-called fortress, a sinister, grey building of many stories,
+glittered in the afternoon sun.
+
+The door in front of which Gerald was standing was suddenly opened.
+A dark-visaged, corpulent woman, dressed apparently in nothing but a
+petticoat and shawl, thrust out her head. Gerald handed her a card, on
+which, through the friendly offices of the hotel porter, was inscribed
+his desire to see Madame Francks. The woman turned it over, looked
+Gerald up and down with wide-mouthed astonishment, and finally motioned
+him to enter. As soon as he had done so and stepped into the little
+cobbled courtyard, she drew the bolt and muttered something which he
+understood as an invitation to follow her. She pushed open a heavy door
+on the right, and they ascended a gloomy staircase. The atmosphere was
+close, almost stifling. There seemed to be no window, or any means of
+giving light or ventilation. Arrived on the first floor, she threw open
+the door of a room and departed, with a wholly incomprehensible grunt.
+Outside, she began to shout, apparently through the door of another
+apartment. There was a vigorous duet, the other voice shriller but
+scarcely more pleasant. Then there was silence, followed by the sound
+of some one moving about in the adjoining room.
+
+Gerald took a seat upon a couch, upholstered in stained purple velvet,
+over which several soiled coverings of imitation lace had been thrown.
+The room itself was large and lofty, but scantily furnished. There was
+a huge undecorated stove in one corner, which, notwithstanding the
+heat of the day, already exuded fumes of burning coke. The polished
+floor was innocent of any rug or carpet, and covered with stains
+and fragments of cigarettes and cigars. There was a piano, littered
+with soiled and torn copies of music, in a distant corner, a small
+gramophone with black enamel mouthpiece, blistered by the continual
+heat of the room. The walls were hung with the faded remains of some
+former attempt at decoration. The windows were covered with a sort of
+wire netting, which kept out alike light and air. There was everywhere
+an odour of stale tobacco smoke, mingled with a strange smell of cheap
+incense or crude perfume of some sort. Gerald, exceedingly sensitive to
+surroundings, felt a momentary faintness as he sat and waited for the
+woman whom he had come to visit. He began to fidget in his place. He
+walked up and down. He was even meditating an attack upon one of the
+window fastenings, when he was aware of the sound of heavy footsteps
+outside. The door was opened. A woman entered and came towards him with
+an enquiring expression upon her face.
+
+It seemed to Gerald that the newcomer alone was needed to complete the
+squalour of his surroundings. She was a big woman, coarsely built,
+and with indications of obesity. She wore a dressing gown of some
+red material, trimmed with soiled white fur and fastened round her
+waist with a girdle. Her hair was a bright yellow, abundant but badly
+arranged. It lay in loose coils upon the top of her head, fastened
+with some flamboyant ornament. Her features were not ill-shaped, but
+were partly concealed under a thick coating of powder. She had eyes of
+a peculiarly light blue shade, large and saucer-like when she first
+entered the room, but with a habit of narrowing at intervals. She spoke
+in English, with a strong German accent.
+
+“You wish to see me, sir? I am Elsa Francks.”
+
+Gerald rose to his feet and bowed.
+
+“Madame,” he said, “I have found my way here under the name of Harmon
+P. Cross. I have told every one that I am an American, looking for an
+opportunity to invest money. That story is not true. It is my wish, if
+you will allow me, to be perfectly candid with you?”
+
+“You can sit down,” she invited, regarding Gerald with suspicion not
+unmixed with favour. “I will hear what you have to say.”
+
+She threw herself in a lump at the far end of the sofa, and pointed to
+a battered horsehair easy-chair.
+
+“Bring that to the side of me,” she continued. “I do not hear very well
+and it is some time since I listened to English. Tell me what you want?”
+
+“I have a further confession to make,” Gerald began. “I am an
+Englishman.”
+
+“There are Englishmen and Englishmen,” she said indulgently. “Some are
+different from others. You are not like those whom our officers have
+had to correct in the streets and cafés of Berlin. Now what is your
+business, please?”
+
+“It is very difficult to state,” Gerald admitted frankly, “and I am
+only emboldened to approach you because in these difficult times, and
+in Russia especially, one needs money. If you will do me a service, I
+can find you a great deal of money.”
+
+Gerald’s methods had at any rate succeeded in exciting the interest of
+the woman he had come to visit. Her becarmined lips were parted; her
+pale eyes were filled with the light of cupidity.
+
+“There is not much we would not do for money, nowadays, over here,” she
+declared, laughing hardly. “You are a very interesting man. Go on.”
+
+“Major Ivan Krossneys is a friend of yours,” Gerald said.
+
+“Ho, ho!” the woman laughed. “So you dabble in politics, eh? Never
+mind, Krossneys is my friend. What of it?”
+
+“He is the Governor of the fortress here,” Gerald went on. “He has a
+great number of prisoners under his care.”
+
+“One hundred and thirty-seven,” Elsa Francks replied promptly. “I see
+some of them exercising when I am at the fortress. What he keeps them
+alive for, I cannot imagine. They crawl about the yard like lice. What
+about these prisoners?”
+
+Gerald moved his chair a little nearer. The woman smiled at him
+graciously.
+
+“If one of them should escape,” he remarked significantly, “there would
+be a great deal of money.”
+
+“What do you call a great deal of money?” she asked.
+
+“I do not bargain,” Gerald replied. “I know very well that the escape
+of a prisoner is a serious thing. I have at my disposal the sum of ten
+thousand pounds.”
+
+The woman started so that she nearly rolled off the sofa. She sat
+suddenly upright. She was too stupefied for emotion.
+
+“Ten thousand pounds?” she almost shrieked. “Why, it is two million
+roubles! Ivan Krossneys would sell you his whole batch of prisoners
+for that, and throw the fortress in! Why, if it rested with me,” she
+went on, “you could have Krossneys as well, for a quarter of that. Talk
+sense, please! There is not an Englishman there. Of that I am certain.”
+
+“The prisoner whose liberty I desire to buy,” Gerald confided, “is a
+Russian. I do not know under what name he passes, but his number is
+twenty-nine.”
+
+Elsa Francks rose to her feet, opened the door and shouted to her maid
+in Russian. Then she took up a battered telephone instrument.
+
+“I will speak with the Major,” she said. “I am the only civilian in
+the town with a telephone. It is a great favour. You can wait whilst I
+speak with him.”
+
+There was a good deal of delay before she was connected, and a further
+delay before the person with whom she desired to speak arrived. In
+time, however, the conversation was finished, apparently to her
+satisfaction. She set down the instrument.
+
+“The Governor is on his way down,” she announced triumphantly. “Come,
+we will see to this little affair quickly. You can remain.”
+
+The maid entered the room, carrying a tray on which were bottles of
+beer and glasses. The woman eyed them with satisfaction.
+
+“You are not Russian,” she said, “so I do not offer you the samovar.
+Beer every one drinks--the English especially. That is so, is it not?”
+
+“That is so,” Gerald admitted. “I shall drink to your good health,
+Madame.”
+
+“You may call me Elsa,” she invited graciously, coming over to his
+side with a glass in her hand. “We will drink to the success of our
+enterprise.”
+
+Gerald accepted the glass and exchanged courteous amenities with his
+hostess. She eyed him with growing favour.
+
+“It is a pity that you are not staying longer,” she observed. “We might
+become friends. Who knows?”
+
+“In that case,” Gerald replied gallantly, “I might have to quarrel with
+Major Krossneys, and that would not do at all.”
+
+She snapped her pudgy fingers. A man who had ten thousand pounds to
+dispose of! What was Krossneys!
+
+“Do you think,” she scoffed, “that I shall stay here with him if I
+can get hold of half that sum you spoke of? Not I! I shall choose a
+different companion. I shall go to Monte Carlo. I shall never enter
+this accursed country again. Even to think of leaving it makes me
+giddy with happiness. It will be you who will be my deliverer. Let us
+drink again together.”
+
+“Perhaps,” Gerald suggested, “the Governor will not give up his
+prisoner.”
+
+Her exclamation of contempt was almost a shout. The very idea, while
+she scouted it as ridiculous, seemed to infuriate her.
+
+“Give him up? Of course he will give him up!” she declared. “If he
+refused--why, I would take him by the beard--I would kill him!”
+
+Her eyes were lit with cruelty. The snarl of an animal of prey twisted
+her lips. Then she burst into a fit of laughter.
+
+“Why do I make myself furious?” she exclaimed. “Why, Ivan would sell
+every one of his hundred and thirty-seven prisoners for a tenth part of
+the money you speak of! Come, let us be gay. I will put something on
+the gramophone. You shall dance with me, yes?”
+
+“What about His Excellency the Governor?” Gerald asked.
+
+The woman made a little grimace.
+
+“You are perhaps right,” she acquiesced. “One must wait--wait until
+everything is arranged. After that I shall snap my fingers at Ivan. He
+wearies me, and he is an old man. Will you take me out of the country,
+my friend? We might go into Poland--I have friends at Warsaw.”
+
+There were heavy steps outside. She held up her hand as though to warn
+him.
+
+“It is the Governor,” she announced. “It is Ivan Krossneys who arrives.
+Mind, he is very jealous. Be careful.”
+
+Gerald, with all his nerves on edge, was yet able to indulge for a
+moment in a grim smile. The door was opened. The maid poked her head
+in and muttered something unintelligible. Close behind her entered the
+Governor of the fortress.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+
+The Governor was a large, corpulent, untidy-looking man in an
+ill-fitting uniform, with coarse features and a straggling beard. He
+clicked his heels together and made some pretence at a military salute,
+as Elsa introduced her visitor. She whispered a word or two apart
+with him in Russian, and then continued in French, which she spoke
+apparently with less ease than English.
+
+“This gentleman,” she declared, “has a great affair of business to
+discuss with you. He was sent here by a friend of mine whose name I
+may not give. He is an Englishman pretending to be an American, but
+that makes for little. He is entrusted with a great sum of money for a
+certain purpose.”
+
+Into the Governor’s eyes flashed for a moment some reflection of the
+cupidity which had gleamed in the woman’s. Money was scarce in Russia;
+pay was small and irregular in coming. The thought of money whetted his
+interest.
+
+“Let me hear what this gentleman has to say,” he invited.
+
+“I have come with a very bold proposition,” Gerald began, “but it is
+one which I hope you will consider carefully. You have many prisoners
+in your fortress who are detained largely through misfortune. There are
+many there whose offences are trivial, who will probably be released
+shortly in any case, and who might just as well be free as remain a
+charge upon the Government.”
+
+“You seem to know a great deal about my prisoners,” the Governor
+remarked ungraciously. “Many of them are criminals of the worst order.”
+
+“It is not one of these whom I wish to discuss with you,” Gerald
+assured him. “It happens that you have a young man there who is not of
+the criminal class at all. He has very wealthy friends.”
+
+“Ha!” the Governor exclaimed. “How wealthy?”
+
+The woman broke into the conversation. She gripped her friend by the
+arm.
+
+“Ivan,” she cried, “it is incredible! Do you know the sum which
+monsieur speaks of? It takes one’s breath away! He speaks of ten
+thousand pounds! It is two million roubles! What do you think of that?”
+
+“Holy mother of God!” Krossneys muttered. “A prisoner of mine?”
+
+“A prisoner of yours,” Gerald repeated. “I will be quite frank with
+you, sir. I speak, I know, to a man of honour, but I will ask you to
+remember that this young man is unconvicted of any crime, and that the
+Government by whom he was sent to you is tottering. This is not a bribe
+which I am offering you. It is the price of an act of justice. The
+money is to be paid in cash.”
+
+Krossneys was showing now as much agitation as the woman had displayed.
+Mingled with his emotion, however, was a fear, signs of which were at
+once manifested in the anxiety which distorted his face, the eagerness
+of his demand.
+
+“The number?” he cried. “Tell me the name or the number of the prisoner
+you desire?”
+
+“Number twenty-nine,” Gerald replied.
+
+The Governor struck the table with his clenched fist, so that the
+glasses rattled.
+
+“A million devils curse and blast you both!” he shouted.
+
+He kicked a footstool which was close at hand across the room. Then he
+flung himself into an easy-chair and sat there with his arms crossed,
+glowering at Elsa. The woman gazed at him as though he had suddenly
+gone mad.
+
+“Are you out of your senses, Ivan?” she asked. “Twenty-nine or
+thirty-nine--what does it matter? Is not one prisoner like another? Who
+comes to visit them? Who knows which cell is empty? Bah!”
+
+“So you thought you were rich for life, did you, Elsa?” the man in the
+chair muttered. “Well, you can just rid yourself of the idea. And as
+for you, sir,” he went on, with a malicious glance at Gerald, “you may
+think yourself fortunate if you leave this country as easily as you
+entered it.”
+
+The woman drew a little nearer to him. There was the look of a wild
+animal in her face.
+
+“Listen, Ivan!” she cried. “Are you mad? It is a fortune which this
+man carries in his hand! What is there amongst the scum that infests
+your prisons of account against that? You terrify me. The money is for
+us, to be divided. Cash, Ivan! Money to spend--to-morrow--the next
+day--every day!”
+
+“You fool!” the Governor retorted. “Of what use is money when your feet
+dangle in the air and your neck is broken? That for you, and a dozen
+rifle bullets in my heart! You are a bold man who came to Russia on
+such a mission,” he added, glowering at Gerald.
+
+She turned to her visitor.
+
+“What does this madman mean?” she demanded. “Who is this prisoner whose
+freedom you seek?”
+
+“I do not know,” Gerald replied. “I am only an emissary.”
+
+The Governor sat up in his chair.
+
+“I will tell you,” he declared hoarsely. “Number twenty-nine is all
+the fortress records say of him, but his name is Paul, Grand Duke of
+Volostok, Prince of Tamboff, hereditary Grand Duke and Ruler of all
+the provinces of the Dvina, nephew of Nicholas, the late Tsar, head
+of the House of Romanoff,--himself, if the people changed their fancy
+to-morrow, Tsar of all the Russias! There, my woman, now you know the
+secret of my fortress! You can guess where we might be if I traded with
+this lunatic!”
+
+The woman flopped upon the sofa. She was pale through all her rouge and
+powder. Her yellow hair had broken loose from its band of ribbon. Her
+dressing gown had fallen away a little from her ample bust. She sat
+breathing heavily for several moments. Gerald, of the three, was the
+only one who kept his head.
+
+“All that makes for nothing,” he said calmly. “You excite yourself
+greatly for nothing. The Romanoff dynasty is past. There will never be
+another Tsar in Russia. This young man has rich friends and they want
+him out of the country. I should think your Government would be glad to
+be rid of him.”
+
+Gerald’s words were not without their effect, especially upon the woman.
+
+“After all,” she muttered, “this man speaks sense. Who cares about
+Grand Dukes, nowadays? There are plenty of them who have already
+escaped. What does one more or less matter?”
+
+“But this one--I have told you who he is!” the man growled.
+
+The woman was beginning to pluck up spirit. She scoffed at him openly.
+
+“When the people of Russia want the days of Tsardom back again,” she
+said, “they will find one of the brood fast enough. But that day will
+not come yet. This young man in your fortress is of no account. You
+are a fool, Ivan. You cannot see the truth. You have not thought to
+yourself what ten thousand pounds may mean.”
+
+Krossneys sat back in his chair, biting his finger nails.
+
+“Who are you?” he demanded suddenly. “And where does this money come
+from?”
+
+“My name is Dombey,” Gerald replied. “I have admitted to Madame Francks
+that I am an Englishman. This money has been collected in London by
+friends and relatives of the young man. The desire for his release has
+not the slightest political significance.”
+
+“And what the devil excuse can I make for letting him go?”
+
+“I should put one of your less important prisoners into his cell and
+say nothing about it,” Gerald suggested.
+
+“There is an inspector of State prisons,” Krossneys muttered. “He does
+not often come, but who knows when he might take it into his head to
+pay us a visit?”
+
+“The last time he was here,” Elsa Francks reminded him, “you met him at
+the station and took him to the hotel. Afterwards, you brought him on
+here and he was so drunk that he had to stay for two days. He did not
+even go near the fortress. Your papers and books were brought down here
+for him to sign.”
+
+“It is true,” Krossneys assented, “yet next time another man might
+come. And again, how will this number twenty-nine get safely out of
+Russia?”
+
+“Think less of these difficulties and more of what one could do with
+ten thousand pounds,” the woman insisted. “You are not asked, Ivan, to
+run a risk for nothing. I say that it is worth it.”
+
+“For you, yes,” Krossneys sneered, “because you risk nothing and you
+have the spending of the money. For me it is different. I have an
+official position. I am Governor of the fortress; I wear the uniform of
+the Russian Republic.”
+
+Elsa Francks laughed loudly and scornfully. She pointed jeeringly at
+Krossneys.
+
+“Uniform of the Russian Republic!” she exclaimed. “A pity they didn’t
+make it to fit you! Official position, indeed! What do you get out of
+it, I should like to know? Would you not starve if it were not for the
+contributions of the prisoners themselves?”
+
+“It is true,” Krossneys assented gloomily. “It is a dog’s life.”
+
+“And a dog’s country to live it in!” the woman proclaimed. “Listen to
+me, Ivan.”
+
+She sat upon the arm of his chair and talked to him in Russian. Soon it
+was evident that he was yielding. She fetched him beer and then spirits
+of some sort from a cupboard. Once or twice she turned and winked
+stealthily at Gerald. At last she turned towards him in triumph.
+
+“It is arranged,” she announced.
+
+“Not so fast,” Krossneys intervened. “Let us hear how this money is to
+be paid?”
+
+“In cash,” Gerald replied. “I have drafts upon your own banks.”
+
+“Well, well,” Krossneys muttered, “the money is right enough, then. At
+ten o’clock to-morrow morning,” he went on, “present yourself at the
+fortress. Enquire for me. I shall give you an audience. The affair may
+be concluded at once. Get back to your hotel now and be careful not to
+speak of your real business.”
+
+Gerald rose blithely to his feet. The idea of leaving the horrible
+atmosphere of that room was undiluted joy to him. He bowed to the
+Governor. Elsa took him to the door and, under pretext of calling the
+servant, passed out with him into the passage.
+
+“You can come back later if you like to talk with me again,” she
+whispered. “Be careful, though, for he is very jealous.”
+
+She shouted something to the Russian maid and stepped back into the
+room with a meaning smile. Gerald put money into the hand of the woman
+who opened the postern gate and stepped into the street with a gasp of
+relief. The clear air was wonderful. He drew in great gulps of it as he
+made his way along the uneven pavements, stared at by every passer-by.
+He could scarcely believe that his task was coming so easily to an end.
+If all went well, in twenty-four hours he might be on his way back to
+England.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+
+Gerald, after a weary climb out of the town, stood at last, at the
+appointed hour on the following morning, before the rusty iron gates
+of the fortress. Untidy and neglected though the whole place seemed,
+there was still something sinister about the various crude precautions
+against the escape of a prisoner. For a quarter of a mile, on the
+outside of the walls, not in themselves formidable, everything in the
+shape of trees, shrubs or dwellings had been razed to the ground, and
+every fifty paces around the walls, on the top of a buttress, was
+mounted a machine gun, from which an iron ladder led to the ground.
+The walls themselves were about eight feet high, of stone covered with
+white plaster. The fortress itself was built of a kind of grey-coloured
+brick, a square, solid building, with a curiously unexpected pointed
+top. The barred windows were no more than slits. The space of open
+ground by which the main building was surrounded was inches deep in
+dust.
+
+A porter in stained and ill-fitting uniform admitted Gerald to the
+building, escorted him across the yard, and passed him on to a
+duplicate of himself, to whom Gerald once more presented the card which
+had obtained him admittance. He was led down a stone passage, which had
+apparently neither been cleaned nor swept for months, into a lofty but
+bare apartment at the farther end. Krossneys, who was sitting before
+a wooden table, apparently expecting him, dismissed the attendant and
+motioned Gerald to sit down. He looked at his visitor in unfriendly
+fashion.
+
+“Why did you not come to me direct instead of going to Elsa Francks?”
+he demanded.
+
+Gerald was not unprepared for the question.
+
+“I knew your reputation as a soldier and a man of honour,” he replied.
+“I feared that unless this matter was put to you in the proper light,
+tactfully, as a woman can put it, you would have nothing to say to me.”
+
+The Governor grunted.
+
+“It was a mistake,” he declared sourly. “The woman is greedy. She will
+demand her full share of the money. It is scarcely justice.”
+
+“I am sorry,” Gerald said. “I acted as I was advised.”
+
+“Supposing I accede,” Krossneys went on, after a short pause, “how do
+you propose to get Number Twenty-nine out of the country?”
+
+“I was hoping,” Gerald admitted, “that you might have been able to help
+with some suggestion.”
+
+The Governor stroked his beard.
+
+“Suggestions,” he muttered, “are worth money.”
+
+Gerald acquiesced.
+
+“I have not command of much more than the amount I spoke of,” he
+said, “but if you can show me how to get our friend safely out of the
+country, I will add a thousand pounds to your share.”
+
+“Which sum,” the Governor insisted quickly, “will not be mentioned to
+Elsa Francks and will belong to me alone.”
+
+“Agreed,” Gerald acquiesced.
+
+“Show me your papers,” the Governor demanded.
+
+Gerald produced them without hesitation,--his passport, an urgent
+letter of recommendation by the one statesman who was in good odour in
+both countries, banker’s drafts, which needed only his signature to
+produce a never-ending flow of cash. The Governor’s eyes glittered as
+he turned them over in his hand. It was horrible that a share of these
+treasures must go to the woman! She was well enough under his thumb,
+the slave of his command, but with money in her pocket--they were
+neither of them in their first youth, but, so far as looks went, in his
+eyes she still had charm--if she were independent of him, all sorts of
+things might happen. He threw down the documents with a little oath.
+The passport, however, he kept in his hand. His manner, as he looked at
+Gerald, changed. He became almost servile.
+
+“You, too, are an aristocrat, then,” he remarked.
+
+“I am of the English aristocracy,” Gerald admitted. “I have another
+passport in my pocket, which proclaims me an American citizen.”
+
+The Governor nodded. He pushed a box of black cigars across to his
+visitor. The latter contented himself, however, with accepting a
+cigarette. Then he touched a bell. The attendant brought in beer, which
+was poured into two glasses. As soon as they were alone, Krossneys
+motioned Gerald to draw his chair close to the desk.
+
+“Now here is my scheme,” he said. “Number Twenty-nine is of your height
+and build. You shall see him for yourself and judge. Number One Hundred
+and One, also a young man, died yesterday afternoon of malarial fever.
+His death has not yet been officially reported. Very good! I take you
+to the cell of Number Twenty-nine. You exchange clothes with him. You
+give him your American passport. You go in with me to his cell. He
+comes out with me. You remain.”
+
+“The devil I do!” Gerald muttered.
+
+“Do not be a fool!” the Governor exclaimed impatiently. “I beg your
+pardon, Excellency,” he added a moment later, as he remembered his
+visitor’s identity. “Your stay there will not be long. I shall explain
+in a moment. I drive Number Twenty-nine to a small station on the
+line, eleven miles off. I take leave of him there. He is an American
+who has bought my oil concessions. The station is in the middle of the
+district. My presence with him will remove all suspicions and prevent
+their examining the passport too closely. He will travel through to
+Petrograd. There, I take it, you have made arrangements.”
+
+“I have a ship waiting,” Gerald replied.
+
+“That is my scheme, then.”
+
+“So far, I approve of it,” Gerald declared, “but what about me?”
+
+“You will bore yourself for twenty-four hours,” the Governor replied.
+“I will see, though, that you have beer and newspapers. If you will,
+Elsa can come and see you.”
+
+“For heaven’s sake, no!” Gerald begged. “I mean,” he added hastily, “I
+shall need no society. I am very tired. I shall sleep.”
+
+“As you will,” the Governor acquiesced. “In the morning, Number One
+Hundred and One--I should say his remains--will be carried secretly
+down to your cell. You will be moved up to the cell of Number
+One Hundred and One. I shall at once report the death of Number
+Twenty-nine. He will be buried in the cemetery here before intervention
+is possible. Now the question comes how to dispose of you.”
+
+“I was getting interested in that myself,” Gerald admitted.
+
+“Number One Hundred and One’s time was up,” the Governor explained.
+“He could have gone home last week if he had been strong enough. I
+have his papers of release here, signed by myself. To-morrow morning
+early, I shall provide you with suitable clothing, and I shall drive
+you to the railway station. I myself have leave of absence in my
+pocket, granted to me a fortnight ago, but, to be honest with you,
+I have not used it because I have had no money with which to enjoy
+myself. I shall travel with you myself to Petrograd. You will have
+acted as my clerk in the prison, and I take some interest in you. In my
+company you are absolutely secure. No one will venture even a question.
+Arrived at Petrograd, I will drive with you to the docks, you shall
+take me on board your ship, and we will drink a bottle of champagne
+together.--What do you think of my plan?”
+
+“Capital!” Gerald replied.
+
+“I will conduct you now,” the Governor announced, “to Number
+Twenty-nine. We will lock ourselves in his cell. You shall explain
+the scheme to him and change clothes. I will bring pen and ink with
+me, also the deeds which will put Harmon P. Cross in possession of my
+oil properties. You shall pay over the drafts. After that you must be
+patient.”
+
+“I am ready,” Gerald declared, rising to his feet.
+
+Krossneys unlocked a drawer and took out a bunch of keys which shone
+like silver,--the only clean thing, it seemed to Gerald, that he had
+seen in the prison. They tramped up two flights of stone steps.
+
+“I am a humane man,” the Governor said, “and it does not please me to
+turn my prisoners into vermin. I have cells underground, without light
+or air, which were used by my predecessors. I have had them blocked up.
+You will find it not so terrible here.”
+
+They had reached a long, whitewashed passage with arched roof. The
+Governor dismissed the attendant who had followed them, inserted the
+key into the lock of the door over which “29” was painted in black
+letters, and entered himself, motioning Gerald to follow him.
+
+In the sudden sombre twilight of the cell, Gerald’s first impressions
+were that a man opposite had hanged himself against the wall. At their
+entrance, however, the figure dropped to the ground, releasing his
+clutch of the rusty bars to which he had been clinging. A tall, thin
+young man, with sunken cheeks, long, unkempt hair, and eyes a little
+more than ordinarily bright, stood gazing at them. His clothes seemed
+to be the remains of a prison uniform. The trousers, always too short,
+had worn away at the bottom of the legs, and he wore neither socks nor
+shoes. He stared at the two men--at Gerald especially--in wonder, but
+remained silent.
+
+“You speak English?” Gerald enquired.
+
+Number Twenty-nine shook his head.
+
+“I speak French better,” he replied.
+
+“What were you doing when we came in?” the Governor asked.
+
+Number Twenty-nine smiled wanly.
+
+“For an hour every day,” he told them, “sometimes for more, I spring
+till I catch those bars, and I hang on until I am tired. I can always
+see the sky; sometimes, if I am feeling strong, I can lift myself so
+that I see a little of the country.”
+
+“Well, you have something better to do now,” the Governor declared.
+“You were a man when you were brought in. I have seen you play a
+man’s part. Remember, if you faint or do anything foolish, you spoil
+everything. Set your teeth and take off your clothes. You are going to
+be set at liberty.”
+
+Number Twenty-nine scarcely faltered.
+
+“I am to be shot, I suppose,” he said coolly. “I trust that your
+warders are better marksmen than they are soldiers.”
+
+“There is a long story,” Gerald intervened, “of which the Governor
+will tell you as much as he chooses. I am an Englishman, sent here by
+relatives of yours. I have been able to arrange for your freedom. In a
+few days’ time, you will be steaming for England.”
+
+“Cut it short,” the Governor interrupted. “I will do all the
+explaining.”
+
+Gerald took a letter from his pocketbook.
+
+“Read that letter,” he invited. “It is from Pauline. She is my friend.
+I am Lord Dombey, an Englishman. We shall meet at Petrograd later.
+On the steamer I will explain everything. Meanwhile, take off your
+clothes. You will have to wear mine for a couple of days.”
+
+The young man took off his coat almost mechanically. His shirt was
+ragged. He had apparently no underclothes. His fingers began to shake.
+
+“I cannot,” he faltered.
+
+“But it is necessary,” Gerald assured him. “See, I am half undressed
+myself.”
+
+He took off his coat and waistcoat. At the sight of his silk
+underclothes, the other man began suddenly to sob.
+
+“I--I have had no water here for a fortnight,” he groaned.
+
+Gerald looked him in the eyes.
+
+“We’ve done campaigning, both of us,” he said. “I read of you when you
+led your regiment into Germany. I was in a trench myself for five days
+at a stretch. Those things don’t really matter. Five days was quite
+long enough there in the mud. We didn’t worry about soap then. Get on
+with it, please.”
+
+Number Twenty-nine closed his eyes as he shed his last garments. Then
+he drew on Gerald’s. Presently the Governor laughed.
+
+“Upon my word,” he declared, “it is better than I thought. I have
+ordered the barber into the next cell. He is a prisoner himself, so
+there is not much chance of his blabbing. Come along. We will be back
+in five minutes,” he added, turning to Gerald. “In time to take your
+orders for lunch, eh? Give you time to settle down.”
+
+They passed out. Gerald felt a queer sense of loneliness as the door
+closed behind him. He looked around him half fearfully. Everything was
+worse than he had feared. The floor was of concrete, and there was not
+a single article of furniture of any description in the room except
+a straw mattress already full of holes. The floor had apparently not
+been swept for weeks. While he sat there, however, there was the click
+of a key in the door and a burly Russian entered. Without a word he
+commenced some effort at cleansing the place. When he had finished,
+he threw in a rug and disappeared. Gerald breathed a little more
+freely. Then he heard footsteps outside again. The Governor and Number
+Twenty-nine entered, the latter curiously changed in appearance.
+
+“By all the Saints,” the Governor chuckled, “I never realised that the
+barber was so wonderful a person! This little scheme of mine marches
+well. Now, then, for your share.”
+
+He handed a fountain pen to Gerald, who endorsed the drafts he had
+brought, wrote out a further cheque for a thousand pounds, and handed
+them, together with his American passport, to Krossneys. The latter
+thrust a document into Number Twenty-nine’s pocket.
+
+“You may not know it,” he said, “but you are now the owner of five
+hundred acres of forest where oil may some day be found.”
+
+He roared with laughter. Neither of the young men moved a muscle.
+
+“Now, listen, both of you,” he went on, “the only automobile in the
+town awaits me outside. We depart in a minute. Say your farewells,
+you two. At one o’clock to-morrow morning,” he concluded, turning to
+Gerald, “you will be moved into cell ‘101,’ and later you will go to
+attend your own funeral. From now until one or perhaps half-past one
+to-morrow morning, you will have to make the best of it. I will come
+and superintend your removal myself and let you know that all is well.”
+
+“I shall try to sleep until then,” Gerald announced. “I am very tired.”
+
+“You shall have a little meal in my office in the intervals of being
+changed,” the Governor promised him. “I shall lock the door and no one
+will know.--Now, Mr. Harmon P. Cross, please, American speculator who
+has bought my oil fields, come with me. I am going to drive you to the
+train.”
+
+Number Twenty-nine held out both his hands to his deliverer. There was
+a simple dignity in his few words.
+
+“Sir,” he said, “I know nothing of you, but my life will not be long
+enough for me to express my gratitude. The day after to-morrow----”
+
+“The day after to-morrow there will be much for us to talk about,”
+Gerald interrupted. “What I have done, I have done joyfully. So far,
+it has been much easier than I expected.”
+
+The Governor and his charge took their leave. The door closed behind
+them. Gerald heard their footsteps die away on the paved floor. He
+threw himself down on the mattress and tried to sleep. It was an
+impossible task but there was plenty to think about.--At one o’clock
+the same burly Russian entered, bearing a bowl of something which was
+half stew, half soup. Gerald smelt it, looked at it, and set it in a
+distant corner of the room. Then he walked back and forth, counting
+how many paces it took him from wall to wall. Presently, with a throb
+of joy, he remembered his cigarette case. He smoked two cigarettes.
+Afterwards, he dozed for a little time. Towards evening, he amused
+himself trying to make his predecessor’s daily jump. It was not until
+the seventh attempt that he succeeded, and then the rust of the bars
+cut so deeply into his palms that he let go almost at once. At eight
+o’clock, the Russian appeared again with a bowl of soup similar to the
+last. Gerald waved it away.
+
+“Not hungry?” the man asked in German.
+
+Gerald shook his head. Somehow or other, it was a relief to find that
+he was not shut out altogether from communication with the outside
+world.
+
+“You speak German, eh?” he asked.
+
+The man shook his head.
+
+“Few words.”
+
+“Bring me something better to eat,” Gerald begged. “Can’t I have some
+beer?”
+
+The man held out his hand and Gerald filled it with silver. He
+disappeared and returned presently with two bottles of beer concealed
+in his baggy trousers, and a loaf of bread.
+
+“Not understand this,” he said, shaking his head. “Where Number
+Twenty-nine gone?”
+
+Gerald shook his head.
+
+“Better ask no questions until the Governor comes back,” he enjoined.
+
+“No fear talk,” the man declared with a laugh. “Governor given me
+twenty marks. If talk, I get twenty lashes instead. Good night!”
+
+He departed finally, closing and locking the door behind him. Gerald
+ate some bread hungrily and drank the beer. Then for a time he dozed.
+When he woke up and looked at his watch, it was twelve o’clock. Very
+soon he would begin to expect the Governor. He sat up on the mattress
+with his back to the wall. Between twelve and one o’clock he looked
+at his watch twenty times. One o’clock came and passed; half-past
+one. Then he rose to his feet and began pacing the cell restlessly.
+Two o’clock came; half-past. He held his watch in his hand now, to
+save himself the continual dragging it out from his pocket. Every few
+minutes he stopped to listen. The great fortress apparently slept.
+There was no sound anywhere. Only time went on. Three o’clock arrived
+and passed--four!--five! Presently streaks of daylight began to appear.
+At six o’clock at last there were footsteps outside. The warder entered
+once more. This time he carried a jug of hot liquid.
+
+“Tea,” he announced, “from kitchen. Give me something.”
+
+Gerald gave him more silver. The tea was the colour of straw and water,
+but the faint smell of it was refreshing.
+
+“Where is the Governor?” he asked.
+
+The warder shook his head.
+
+“Not ask questions,” he begged. “Governor not here.”
+
+Gerald pulled himself together and dismissed the man. He drank the
+tea slowly. Once more he sat down on the mattress. The room now was a
+little lighter. He could see as far as the opposite wall. He sat down
+and waited. Every nerve in his body seemed tingling. He tried to keep
+his mind off the subject of what could have happened to detain the
+Governor, to turn his thoughts back to England.--He suddenly found
+himself by the roadside, watching the mending of the puncture, looking
+impatiently along the white ribbon of road which led to Cannes, and,
+beyond, to Monte Carlo, where the lights were burning and the violins
+were playing their pagan overture. He saw Myrtile’s pale, terrified
+face gleaming out against the background of the cypress trees, heard
+her pathetic story throbbing in the pine-sweetened stillness. He
+remembered their drive. All those things seemed part of another world.
+He remembered those few furious moments when Christopher had taken her
+from his arms. A faint feeling of shame crept over him as he sat there,
+huddled up. Then, with a rush, came the memory which swept everything
+else out of his mind. He saw Pauline, felt the disturbance of her
+presence, remembered the slow ebbing away of her pride, her first few
+kind words, the half-spoken promise. What was there about her, he
+wondered vaguely, which had brought him, with all his experience, so
+completely to her feet? She had shown him no kindness. She had not even
+been gracious. He had read dislike in her eyes more often than any
+other feeling. There remained, too, the pitiless truth that all the
+favours he had won from her he had bought, indirectly if not directly.
+Yet there she was, ruling over his life, the one sweet, dominant
+figure, for whose sake he sat in these miserable clothes, a forgotten
+figure,--perhaps, even, in danger.--He took out his watch with
+trembling fingers. It was ten o’clock. His thoughts mocked him now. He
+could find no escape by means of them. He could think of nothing but
+the present. Something had gone wrong with their plans. What would it
+mean for him? Not a soul in the world knew where he was. If he had a
+name at all here, it was the name of the man whom the people of Russia
+had once threatened to tear limb from limb.
+
+At last there came a little stir, an unaccustomed sound of voices.
+Presently he heard footsteps outside, the key turned in the lock.
+His heart turned sick with disappointment--it was the warder alone!
+Gerald dug his hand once more into his pocket. This time he brought
+out a note. For some reason or other he was terrified. Even the stolid
+features of his visitor seemed disturbed.
+
+“Where is the Governor?” Gerald demanded. “See, there is this note if
+you will go and fetch him.”
+
+The man returned to the door and shook it to be sure that it was
+fastened. Then he came back to Gerald.
+
+“A strange thing has happened,” he said. “There is a German woman in
+the town. Last night the Governor spent at her house. They were both
+drunk. They quarrelled. Elsa killed him. The Governor is dead.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+
+The telegram was brought in to Lady Mary as she sat alone in her little
+sitting room, in the hours between tea and the dressing bell,--hours
+which, so far as possible, especially during the last few months, she
+tried to keep to herself. It had been handed in at a branch office
+in the north of London and contained the news for which she had been
+waiting:
+
+  Elected majority two thousand heartiest thanks for good wishes.
+
+                                                     CHRISTOPHER.
+
+Her first impulse was one of genuine pleasure. She started to her
+feet, meaning to take it to her father, who was with Myrtile in the
+library. Then she stopped short and slowly resumed her seat. That
+little orange-coloured form might have meant so much more, so much
+food for her ambitions, her natural and proper ambitions for the man
+she loved. It might have been such a pledge for the interest of their
+life together, such a wonderful life, brimful of movement and colour
+in which she, too, might well hope to take a part. In her quiet way,
+she had for years looked upon her marriage with Christopher, sooner
+or later, as a certainty. Without the slightest desire in any way to
+mislead her, Christopher had subconsciously encouraged the idea. She
+knew perfectly well that, as soon as his position was a little more
+assured, he had intended to ask her to be his wife. It was one of
+those pleasant yet wonderful arrangements which seemed to develop
+automatically. Christopher was well-born, his friends were her friends,
+his disposition accorded with hers. She could never have married an
+idle man. Christopher had many a worthy ambition. She was precisely
+the wife to further them. Her money and her social influence would
+save him years of fruitless labour. He could leave the Bar whenever he
+liked, and turn his whole attention to politics.--And now the dream
+had crumbled. This slip of paper was nothing but a friendly message,
+telling her of the success of a friend with whose career she had no
+intimate concern. Her disposition was too kindly not to feel a certain
+amount of pleasure at his success, but that very pleasure brought its
+shadow of personal grief. She sat looking into the fire, twisting
+the little slip of paper in her hands. She knew very well that she
+was cursed with that one terrible and self-mortifying virtue, the
+unalterable fidelity of the woman who permits in her mind the thought
+of one man only and who can never replace him. The very thought of
+marriage with any one but Christopher was revolting. It seemed to her,
+as she sat there, that she was doomed to a career of lovelessness and
+inutility. She might labour in good works till her hair was streaked
+with grey and her face lined, and she knew very well the fruitlessness
+of all that she would accomplish. The best work of a woman, as she well
+knew, is the work done for the man she loves.
+
+It was perhaps natural that her thoughts should turn to Myrtile. She
+wondered for a moment, slowly and painfully, at the instinct which
+had warned her of coming trouble when the two young men had told her
+of their adventure. She had felt it when first she had seen the
+frightened child, whose unspoken appeal for protection had met with so
+cold a response from her. She had been conscious of a cruelty wholly
+foreign to her nature, in those days at Monte Carlo, whenever the name
+of Myrtile was mentioned. She had puzzled Christopher and her brother
+alike by her lack of sympathy. Well, she was punished now. The child
+had justified all that she had felt. She had robbed her, unconsciously
+and unwillingly, of the greatest thing in life. As she sat there, the
+telegram crumpled up in her fingers, all that old hardness came back
+to her. It seemed to her a bitter thing that this unknown child should
+have been brought into the august household in which her own serene
+days had been spent, to rob her, the benefactress, of the crown of her
+life, to draw the sunshine from her days and send her down to a joyless
+grave. For a moment she was on the verge of a passion. She hated
+Myrtile, hated the sight of her gentle movements, the thought of her
+and all to do with her. She rose to her feet with an unaccustomed fire
+in her eyes and swung round--to find that the slight noise which had
+disturbed her meditations had been caused by the entrance of Myrtile
+herself.
+
+There are moments when revelation is self-illuminative. This was
+one of them. Myrtile, gazing almost in terror into the face of her
+benefactress, knew that she was hated, and, with an extraordinary
+insight, she knew why. She saw the crumpled up telegraph form; she
+guessed at everything which had lain unspoken between them. She closed
+the door firmly behind her, came across to Lady Mary’s chair, fell on
+her knees and struggled with her sobs.
+
+“I know! I know!” she cried. “I am very miserable!”
+
+Mary looked at her coldly and critically. All the natural impulses of
+her heart seemed dried up. Even her pride refused to come to her aid.
+The truth lay naked between the two.
+
+“I was a fool not to realise what bringing you here meant,” she said.
+“It is too late now. Here is the telegram. Christopher is elected.”
+
+Myrtile brushed it away. It was a thing of no account.
+
+“I care nothing for Christopher and you know it,” she declared
+passionately. “I do not care whether he is elected or not. Nothing
+about him makes any difference to me, or ever will.”
+
+Myrtile was speaking the truth. To Mary it seemed amazing, but she knew
+that it was the truth.
+
+“It is only a fancy which Christopher has for me,” Myrtile went on. “It
+will pass--oh, I am sure that it will pass! Deep down in his heart I
+know that there is another feeling.”
+
+“There was,” Mary agreed. “But for your coming, he would have known it
+himself before now.”
+
+Myrtile shook with the pain of it.
+
+“But for my coming!” she repeated. “And I have prayed that I might
+bring a little happiness to you who have been so good to me!”
+
+Her anguish was apparent. There was something almost unearthly in the
+sorrow which shone out of her eyes. Mary’s heart began to fail her. Her
+fingers rested on the top of the other girl’s head. A gleam of coming
+kindness shone mistily in her eyes.
+
+“It wasn’t your fault,” she said.
+
+“It is my fault that I am alive!” Myrtile moaned. “But listen, please.
+I have my plans. I am going away.”
+
+“What good would that do?” Mary asked doubtfully.
+
+“It would do great good,” Myrtile declared. “I shall remove myself
+altogether. Christopher’s fancy will pass. And besides--I must go.”
+
+“My father would never spare you,” Mary said, ashamed of the joy with
+which the thought filled her.
+
+“I have thought of everything,” Myrtile insisted. “Lord Hinterleys
+has been very kind to me, but he will forget. If he chooses to see me
+sometimes, it will be possible. Let me tell you, please. I have a plan.
+Only yesterday I heard from the curé. He is back again in the valley.
+He is at the church there now. He says, if I need ever to go back, I
+can teach at the school. All my people have gone away many, many miles.
+My stepfather has a larger farm. I shall go back. I should never have
+come away.”
+
+Mary looked at her searchingly. All the suffering in the world seemed
+to be quivering in Myrtile’s sensitive face. She leaned a little
+forward towards the kneeling girl.
+
+“Myrtile,” she whispered, “there is pain in your heart, too.”
+
+“Oh, God knows it!” Myrtile sobbed. “There will be for ever and ever.
+It is for my own sake that I must leave. I thought that love was a
+toy, and I laughed to find it in my heart. And now I know that it is a
+torment. I want to go back along the road I have come and hide.”
+
+“We have both been a little foolish,” Mary said kindly. “You looked out
+into life, expecting to find happiness, just as children go into the
+meadows to pick flowers. And I, too, forgot that happiness only comes
+when it is earned.--Now let us try and be sensible. I think that yours
+is a very good idea. We shall miss you very much here, but perhaps it
+will be best for you to go away for a little time.”
+
+“I must go,” Myrtile insisted fervently.
+
+“But teaching?”
+
+“There is no need for me to teach,” Myrtile declared. “This letter
+that I have from the curé, it was written to tell me that my mother’s
+brother, who went to Geneva many years ago, has died and left me some
+money. An _avocat_ at Toulon has it for me. It is quite a great deal.
+I thought that I would buy a small farm and work in the fields there,
+work and work until I got brown and hard and grew like those other
+peasant girls there, lumps of the earth to which they stoop all the
+time. In a way I used to love the farm,” she went on, “when I was
+alone--those first few mornings when the fields began to show purple
+with the budding violets, and the still evenings when the cypress trees
+looked as though they had come out of a box of children’s toys--and the
+colours the sunset used to draw out of the mountains, the magentas and
+purples, and the pink glow coming in such unexpected places.”
+
+“Why, you’re positively homesick!” Mary exclaimed.
+
+“No, I am not homesick,” Myrtile assured her gravely, “but I am like an
+animal that has been hurt and wants to limp back to its home. A little
+time ago it was different. Every fibre of me longed for escape, to be
+where life was. Now I would like to go where I can forget it.”
+
+Mary sighed.
+
+“Fortunately,” she said, “you are very young. You will learn soon that
+there are many men of Gerald’s type, and that they are not to be taken
+too seriously. They have the trick of making you believe what they
+want you to believe, and they use it because they must. They are never
+quite honest. They are never quite bad. They certainly are not worth a
+broken heart.--Now we must take this message down to my father and send
+a reply. He does not altogether approve of Christopher’s politics, but
+he will be glad to know that he is elected. Afterwards, I will talk to
+him about you. I shall have to be very eloquent, for I know he will
+hate your going.”
+
+“If it could be before Gerald comes back,” Myrtile pleaded.
+
+Mary had even more trouble with her father than she had expected. At
+the first mention of Gerald’s name in connection with Myrtile’s desire
+to return to France, he stiffened.
+
+“Mary,” he insisted, “I shall require you to tell me the exact truth as
+to this matter.”
+
+“I will do so,” Mary promised.
+
+“How much blame is to be attached to Gerald, and precisely what are his
+relations with Myrtile?” Lord Hinterleys asked sternly.
+
+“Gerald is to blame only for thoughtlessness,” she assured him. “He
+is a born philanderer, just as Myrtile was born to be a ready victim.
+Myrtile loves him, and I am afraid she will never care for any one
+else. Other women have to bear their hurts, though, and I dare say she
+will get over it.”
+
+“Gerald is a fool,” his father declared. “Marrying in one’s own class
+is well enough in an ordinary way, but--well, there isn’t another woman
+like Myrtile in the world. Gerald is an ass not to realise it instead
+of going to Russia, risking his life and liberty for the sake of this
+Russian girl. I don’t like Russians--never did. You are a person of
+common sense, Mary. If you say Myrtile must go, go she must, but I’d
+much rather Gerald came to his senses and married her.”
+
+“Men are rather difficult in that way,” Mary rejoined, a little
+bitterly.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+
+The butler made his announcement to his mistress a little doubtfully.
+
+“There is a person here, your ladyship, who desires to see you.”
+
+“What sort of a person?” Lady Mary enquired.
+
+The butler coughed.
+
+“A woman, your ladyship. She struck me as being some sort of a
+foreigner. She assured me that her business was urgent. I have shown
+her into the morning room.”
+
+Mary rose to her feet at once.
+
+“A foreigner?” she repeated, with suddenly aroused interest. “Perhaps
+she has news of Lord Dombey.”
+
+Nevertheless, when she entered the little room where Elsa Francks was
+waiting, it scarcely seemed likely that news of so fastidious a person
+as her brother could come from such a source. Her doubts, however, were
+soon set at rest.
+
+“Are you Lord Dombey’s sister?” the woman asked bluntly, without
+offering to move from her chair.
+
+“I am,” Lady Mary acknowledged at once. “Have you brought news of him?”
+
+“I have brought him home,” was the unexpected reply.
+
+“You?” Lady Mary exclaimed.
+
+The woman laughed coarsely.
+
+“Yes, me!” she declared. “I have saved his life a dozen times over, as
+I dare say he will tell you some day. Even now I do not know why.”
+
+“But where is he?” Lady Mary demanded.
+
+“He is safe in the Charing Cross Hospital,” the woman replied, “and if
+you want to know all about him, you will give me some wine quickly.”
+
+Mary, scarcely conscious of what she did, rang the bell. This woman was
+certainly the strangest visitor who had ever penetrated the portals of
+Hinterleys House. She seemed larger and coarser than ever. Her clothes
+were showy, but unbrushed and crumpled as though she had slept in them
+for nights; her hair was yellow but untidy. The rouge and powder were
+distributed upon her face in ungainly daubs. She breathed an atmosphere
+of stale scent. Notwithstanding all these things, she had news of
+Gerald, Gerald who for seven months had been lost! Lady Mary waited
+eagerly for the butler, who entered the room, full of the confident
+anticipation that he would be asked to remove this incongruous visitor.
+
+“This lady would like some wine,” Lady Mary announced. “Do tell me what
+you would prefer?” she added, turning towards her guest.
+
+“Champagne, if you have it,” was the prompt reply.
+
+“Bring champagne, Richards,” his mistress directed. “Perhaps you had
+better tell his lordship. This lady has brought us news of Lord Dombey.”
+
+The woman held out her hand.
+
+“Don’t bring any lordships here,” she begged. “I will tell my story to
+you, ma’am. I am very near hysterics myself. To reach here from Sokar
+has taken us a month. We tried at seven places on the frontier before
+we could get into Poland.”
+
+“Poland?” Mary exclaimed. “But here is the wine. Do, please, help
+yourself.”
+
+The woman was served with champagne and dry biscuits, which latter she
+scornfully rejected. She drank three glasses of champagne, however.
+Then she filled a fourth glass for herself and began to talk.
+
+“How much do you know of your brother’s visit to Russia?” she asked.
+
+“Only that he went there on some mysterious errand at the instigation
+of two ladies, who are, I believe, Russians.”
+
+“One of them was called Pauline--his sweetheart, eh?”
+
+“I suppose so,” Mary admitted.
+
+“Well, here is my story,” Elsa Francks said, draining the contents of
+her glass and refilling it. “Remember it, for I shall never tell it
+again. It is a story I would like to forget.”
+
+“I will certainly remember it,” Mary promised.
+
+“Twelve months ago I went to live at Sokar,” Elsa Francks began. “It
+is a miserable place, but I went there to be near my friend Ivan
+Krossneys, the Governor of the fortress. In that fortress was confined
+a man whom your brother went to Russia to rescue. He came to me to ask
+me to help him bribe the Governor. That was in the month of October
+last year. He was a very different person then, and I thought that I
+liked him very much.”
+
+The woman sipped her champagne. The warmth of the room, and the wine,
+had moistened her face. A little streak of rouge had spread upon her
+left cheek. There were black lines under her eyes. Her voice, however,
+was stronger.
+
+“He offered a great deal of money and I agreed to help. I sent for Ivan
+and, although he made difficulties, he was easy to persuade. It was
+all arranged. The prisoner--Number Twenty-nine, we called him--walked
+out of the fortress in your brother’s clothes and with his American
+passport. Your brother was to take his place for twenty-four hours.
+Then he was to leave the prison in the funeral coach of another
+prisoner who had died.”
+
+“This was seven months ago,” Mary faltered.
+
+The woman wiped her lips, shivered at the sight of the colour upon her
+handkerchief, closed her eyes for a moment and recovered herself.
+
+“That seven months,” she said deliberately, “has seemed like seven
+years, and each year like a lifetime in hell!--Listen. I go on with the
+story. Your brother entered the fortress as arranged, changed clothes
+with Number Twenty-nine, who walked out of the place and came, without
+doubt, to London. Your brother was to spend that night in the fortress.
+Krossneys came down to me. We were both excited. It was a great sum of
+money which we had been paid, and life in Russia is a horrible burden.
+We drank a great deal of wine. The more we drank, the more quarrelsome
+Ivan became. He resented having to part with so large a share of the
+money to me. We quarrelled. Once or twice we made it up. Then Ivan’s
+anger flared out again. In the end, he declared that he would take away
+a part of my share. We had a struggle. Somehow or other, his revolver
+went off. He went backwards with a groan. He was dead.”
+
+The woman dabbed at her face. Mary could find no word of any sort. Her
+visitor’s eyes seemed fixed in a rigid stare. It was as though she were
+living through the scene again.
+
+“The police came,” she went on. “I was arrested. I told my story. There
+were no witnesses. After four days they had to let me go. The moment I
+was free I went to the fortress. Ivan’s deputy was taking his place.
+He was a man of a different type, a politician, a Bolshevist from
+conviction. Every time he mentioned Number Twenty-nine, he spat. I had
+much trouble with him.”
+
+“Go on,” Mary begged, glancing at the clock.
+
+“You need not worry about your brother,” Elsa Francks said. “He
+will not know you when you go to see him. He has forgotten most
+things.--This man’s name was Ahrensein. I told him the whole truth. I
+am quite sure that if he had come into charge of the prison whilst the
+real Number Twenty-nine had been there, he would have found some excuse
+for having him shot within twenty-four hours. He even told me so. He
+was furious at the trick which had been played,--‘But,’ he declared,
+‘the Englishman who has put himself in Number Twenty-nine’s place shall
+suffer for him!’ I was allowed to see your brother. He had got over
+the first shock of what had happened and I found him full of courage.
+We discussed several plans for his escape, which, however, we never
+carried into effect. I do not believe that any one could have bought
+the life of Number Twenty-nine from Ahrensein for a million pounds.
+With your brother, however, it was different. In the end, I made
+over to him one of your brother’s drafts--one I took back from Ivan
+Krossneys after he was dead--cashed one of the smaller ones, and one
+dark night we drove away from the fortress.”
+
+“But this is all so long ago!” Mary exclaimed wonderingly.
+
+The woman nodded.
+
+“We were in the train for Petrograd,” she went on, “when I had a
+message from Ahrensein, telling me that he was superseded. His
+successor had arrived, and was holding an enquiry into the escape of
+Number Twenty-nine. He advised me not to go near Petrograd. We left the
+train just as a company of soldiers from the fortress arrived on the
+platform. The train was held up and searched. We took a carriage and
+drove away, anywhere, away into the plains. We had money but nothing
+else. We bought the carriage and horses, bought the driver, body and
+soul. Driving by night, resting the horses and hiding ourselves by day,
+we travelled a hundred miles southeastwards.”
+
+“You must tell me the rest another time,” Lady Mary suggested.
+
+“What I am going to tell you, I shall tell you now or never,” Elsa
+Francks answered fiercely. “It won’t be much, I can promise you. When I
+leave this house, the story of these months is coming out of my mind,
+whether I have to dull it by drink, or even cut it out of my brain.--We
+were always in danger, always being tracked. We went short distances by
+train. Sometimes we hired carriages. We even travelled for the whole of
+one day in an electric car which crawled between two small towns. Seven
+times we tried to cross the frontier into Poland, and each time we were
+turned back. Once they had heard of us and we were placed under arrest.
+Your brother shot two of the guard and we escaped. After that it was
+life or death with us. We were passed across the frontier at last in
+a spot where the war zone had been. We were scarcely in Poland before
+half a regiment of Russians was after us. We were in Poland, however.
+We left them fighting. We heard afterwards that the Russians who had
+crossed the frontier were wiped out.--We got across Poland, somehow
+or other, into Germany. The rest was all discomfort and misery, but
+most of the danger was past. Your brother fell ill in Warsaw. Since
+then he has been dazed and weak, with a high temperature, and with
+fits of unconsciousness. How I got him here, I don’t know. We arrived
+at Fenchurch Street this morning. I drove to Charing Cross Hospital
+and they took him at once. He was shouting like a madman. Then I drove
+here.”
+
+She poured out the last glass of wine from the bottle and drank it.
+Then she rose to her feet.
+
+“It is a wonderful story, this!” Mary exclaimed. “You must not go away
+yet, or, if you do, you must come back again. My father will want to
+thank you.”
+
+“I do not want thanks,” the woman scoffed. “I started out on this
+adventure because your brother had paid a great sum of money and
+because I had a fancy for him. I have lost that fancy, but I made up my
+mind that I would bring your brother home, and I have done it. I do not
+wish for any further payment. I have spent your brother’s money freely,
+but I have enough left to give me all that I need in life. I do not
+like England and I am going away to-day. Is there any further question
+you wish to ask?”
+
+“None that I can think of for the moment,” Lady Mary admitted. “I think
+that it was very wonderful of you to run all these risks. You might
+have left my brother there and gone away with the money.”
+
+“I very nearly did,” the woman confessed bluntly. “Many a time, on the
+way home, I wished that I had done it. Your brother has a fine courage
+at times, but he is a weakling in the ugly places of life. Often when
+I dragged him along through the mud, and he had to sleep on a stone
+floor, with coarse food to eat, and no wine, he would rather have come
+out into the open and fought for his life and ended it. I dare say,
+when he recovers, he will be grateful to me. There have been many
+times when he has hated me.--Now I will go.”
+
+She rose to her feet, dabbed more powder on her face and looked at her
+hostess a little defiantly. Lady Mary rang the bell. Then she held out
+her hand.
+
+“Thank you very much for bringing Gerald home,” she said.
+
+Elsa Francks laughed hardly. She refused the hand.
+
+“You have no need for gratitude,” she said. “I started on the job
+because I had a fancy for your brother. When I lost that, I went on
+because I am an obstinate woman. As for recompense, I still have a
+fortune, but I am glad that these months are over. You can tell your
+brother that I took Krossneys’ share of the money as well as my own.
+When he comes to think it over, I think he will say I earned it.”
+
+She followed the butler out of the room. Mary watched her from the
+window with fascinated eyes, saw her hail a passing taxicab with her
+outstretched umbrella, watched her fling herself into it, put up her
+feet on the opposite seat and light a cigarette. She had the air of a
+woman who has accomplished a great task.
+
+Lady Mary rang the bell.
+
+“The car at once, Richards,” she ordered. “Lord Dombey is in London. I
+am going to fetch him home.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+
+Christopher had taken his seat--had already, indeed, made his maiden
+speech--when Gerald left the nursing home into which he had been moved
+from the hospital. The doctors, however, were far from satisfied with
+his condition. He was still thin, listless in manner, with long periods
+of absent-mindedness. He seemed, in a way, to have lost self-control.
+Mary, as they drove home together to Hinterleys House, made up her mind
+to break the long silence which had existed between them on the subject
+of Pauline.
+
+“Gerald,” she asked, “have you seen or heard anything of the De
+Ponières?”
+
+Gerald turned and looked at her out of his hollow eyes.
+
+“Nothing,” he confessed. “I wrote from the nursing home six times. I
+have had no reply. They must have left the hotel in South Kensington.”
+
+“Would you like me to try and find out?”
+
+“It doesn’t matter,” he answered. “I have made up my mind to go there
+myself this afternoon.”
+
+“May I come with you?” she begged.
+
+“If you like,” he answered half-heartedly. “They won’t be there,
+though. I am just hoping that I may hear of them.”
+
+The hope, however, was not realised. Madame and Mademoiselle had left
+the hotel many months ago, and had left no address behind. The hall
+porter, encouraged to tell what he knew by Gerald’s liberal tip, showed
+a great sheaf of letters which he had been unable to forward.
+
+“Can’t understand their leaving no address, sir,” he confided. “They
+paid their accounts well and regular, gave notice in the usual way, and
+just drove off. I asked if they wouldn’t leave an address in case there
+should be any letters, but the young lady replied that she would call
+round for them when she was in town again.”
+
+“And she hasn’t been here since?” Lady Mary enquired.
+
+“Never a sign of her,” the hall porter replied.
+
+Gerald handed the man his card.
+
+“It will be worth a five-pound note to you at any time if you should
+discover their address,” he said.
+
+“I’ll let you know within ten minutes, if I can get hold of it, sir,”
+the man promised. “I’ve a sort of an idea, though, that we shan’t set
+eyes on those two ladies again. The manageress,” he went on, dropping
+his voice to a confidential whisper, “wasn’t too sorry to see them go.”
+
+“Why?” Gerald asked.
+
+“Well, she don’t like foreigners, to start with,” he explained,
+“besides which we were always getting queer sorts of people here asking
+about them. Might have been detectives or anything. I’m not saying a
+word against them--they always paid their way right and generously--but
+there was a queer lot of people watching them all the time.”
+
+Gerald and his sister drove away from the hotel in silence.
+
+“You are disappointed?” Mary asked him anxiously.
+
+“I thought they might have left a message for me,” he admitted.
+
+“You’ll come down to Hinterleys to-morrow?”
+
+He shook his head.
+
+“I must find her,” he announced, in a tone curiously devoid of
+enthusiasm or hope.
+
+Mary said nothing then, but she took him to task that evening. They
+had dined tête-à-tête, Lord Hinterleys having already gone down to the
+country. For the first time Gerald showed some interest in Myrtile’s
+absence.
+
+“What did you say had become of Myrtile?” he enquired.
+
+“She has gone back to France,” his sister told him. “She had a little
+money left to her, and she wanted to go. I had a letter from her this
+morning. She has bought the old farm where you first saw her and is
+growing violets.”
+
+“Why did she want to go back?” Gerald persisted. “You were all kind to
+her, I hope?”
+
+“We all tried to be,” Mary answered. “Dad misses her terribly.--Why,
+here’s Christopher!” she broke off suddenly. “Whatever are you doing,
+neglecting your duties in this manner?” she asked, as Christopher,
+still in morning clothes, was shown in by the butler.
+
+“I’ve come to beg for some dinner,” was the smiling reply, “and
+incidentally to welcome Gerald back.”
+
+Mary coloured a little with pleasure. The butler was already arranging
+another place.
+
+“It’s awfully nice of you, Christopher,” she said.
+
+“Very good of you to take me in like this,” he replied. “There’s
+nothing doing at the House, and I felt sure you two would be alone. I
+should think you must have been about fed up with that nursing home,
+Gerald.”
+
+“I’m fed up with everything,” Gerald replied, a little wearily. “The
+doctors say I’m all right again, but I don’t know. I can’t sleep, and
+there seems to be an empty place in my head, somehow. If I begin to
+think, I get the jim-jams. Give me some champagne, Richards.”
+
+“The country for you, my boy,” Christopher declared. “If I were Mary,
+I’d take you down to-morrow.”
+
+Gerald shook his head.
+
+“I’ve something to do first,” he said. “By the bye, you know about
+Myrtile, I suppose? She’s gone back to the little farm.”
+
+Christopher nodded. Mary, who was watching him closely, fancied that
+his indifference was almost natural.
+
+“Queer thing,” he observed, “to think that she should end up there,
+after all. I wonder whether she blesses or curses us, Gerald, for
+taking her to the end of the road.”
+
+Gerald sighed a little wearily.
+
+“Curses us, I should think,” he replied. “All knowledge is pain; so is
+memory. Last night I woke up suddenly and I remembered fighting with
+that great brute on the Polish frontier.--Did Elsa tell you about the
+man I killed there?” he asked, frowning.
+
+Mary rose abruptly to her feet.
+
+“Remember the doctor’s orders,” she insisted. “The last twelve
+months are taboo. There are worse things in the world than killing
+Bolshevists, anyhow.”
+
+“The chap had some one who was fond of him, I suppose,” Gerald said
+gloomily. “You ought to have seen that woman who brought me home,
+Christopher. I can’t get the thought of her out of my brain. The first
+time I saw her, I went to persuade her to bribe her lover, Krossneys. I
+thought her the coarsest, most brutal, most ungainly creature who ever
+abused the name of Woman. Then I saw her month after month, playing
+a man’s part. She lied, she swore, she fought,--fought with her fists
+if there was nothing else handy; she drank; once she almost carried me
+over a mile of marshland, with some outpost sentries sniping at us all
+the time. She was a hideous, glorious, epic figure. There was a man
+whom we both knew to be a spy and on my tracks. I saw her wheedle him
+into her room. Two minutes afterwards, his blood was streaming out from
+under the door.”
+
+“Gerald!” his sister entreated.
+
+“All right,” he muttered. “I’m not sure that it doesn’t do me good to
+talk of these things. They’ve been a silent horror with me for so long.”
+
+Later, the doctor called to see Gerald, and Christopher led Mary across
+the hall into the billiard room.
+
+“Mary,” he confided, as soon as he had closed the door, “I had a reason
+for coming round to-night. I have seen the girl.”
+
+“Where?” Mary asked breathlessly.
+
+“Here in London. They were opening the gates of Marlborough House as I
+came along Pall Mall, and I was stopped for a moment on the pavement.
+A small brougham came out. The windows were closed, but I was within a
+few feet of it. The girl was inside with a young man.”
+
+“If only you could have found out where they went to!” Mary exclaimed.
+“Gerald will never be better until he has seen her.”
+
+“He can do that when he likes, then,” Christopher replied. “I jumped
+into a taxi and followed the carriage. It drew up before quite a small,
+detached house at the back of Roehampton Lane. I jumped out of my taxi
+quickly, and I was just in time to stop her as she was entering the
+gate.”
+
+“Go on,” Mary begged. “This is exciting.”
+
+“She recognised me at once,” Christopher went on, “and she made no
+attempt to get away. I told her that I was Gerald’s friend and that he
+was looking for her. ‘You can tell him,’ she replied, ‘that he can find
+me here.’”
+
+“What did the young man say?”
+
+“Nothing at all. He was very good-looking in his way, a great strong
+fellow, but he looked as though he had been ill.--What are you going to
+do about this? Are you going to tell Gerald?”
+
+She nodded.
+
+“I think so. I don’t believe this girl means to marry him. It is much
+better, however, that he knows the exact position.”
+
+“I wrote down the address and here it is,” Christopher said, handing
+her a card. “If I can be of any use----”
+
+“You dear man!” she exclaimed. “We must leave it to Gerald. I hope that
+he will let me go with him. I think he ought to find out just where he
+stands at once.”
+
+“I am not going back to the House,” Christopher remarked. “Could we
+have one game of billiards?”
+
+“I should love it,” she answered. “Gerald will come and look for us as
+soon as he has finished with the doctor. You used to give me fifteen,
+wasn’t it?”
+
+Gerald came in presently and sat watching them a little listlessly.
+When the game, which Mary won with some ease, came to an end, she went
+over and seated herself by her brother’s side.
+
+“Gerald,” she said, “Christopher has discovered Pauline’s address. It
+is quite close by here. You must go and see her to-morrow. Would you
+like either of us to come with you?”
+
+Gerald began to tremble.
+
+“She is here--in London--all right?” he demanded.
+
+“Absolutely,” Christopher declared. “She was looking quite well. Her
+brother was with her.”
+
+“I will go alone,” Gerald decided. “I will go to-morrow. Now you have
+told me something worth hearing. Perhaps to-night I shall sleep.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+
+Gerald, after all, derived small satisfaction from his visit on
+the following day. He found his destination easily,--a small,
+detached house in a retired back street, with a bell at the front
+gate and spiked railings. He was admitted without undue delay by an
+ordinary-looking parlour maid and conducted into a small sitting room.
+After waiting a minute or two, the door was opened and Madame de
+Ponière entered.
+
+“You have come to see my niece, Lord Dombey?” she enquired, after a
+word of conventional greeting.
+
+“Is it very surprising that I should come?” Gerald rejoined, a little
+bitterly.
+
+“Perhaps not from your point of view,” was the equable reply. “My niece
+has, in fact, been anticipating your visit.”
+
+“It would have been kinder of her,” Gerald ventured, “if she had let me
+know her whereabouts. I have been in the hospital and afterwards in a
+nursing home for some time.”
+
+“My niece had other matters to consider,” Madame de Ponière declared
+drily. “She is living in the utmost retirement, through force of
+circumstances.”
+
+“Can I see her now?” Gerald asked bluntly.
+
+“She will grant you an audience,” Madame de Ponière replied. “I have
+her permission to disclose her whereabouts, on one condition.”
+
+“She is not here, then?” Gerald exclaimed.
+
+“She is not here.”
+
+“But she was here yesterday.”
+
+“She was forced to come to London on a certain matter,” her aunt
+explained. “She left at nightfall. If you wish to make the journey, you
+can go and see her.”
+
+“Where is she?” Gerald asked.
+
+“I shall require,” Madame de Ponière said, “your word of honour that
+you will not divulge her whereabouts to any living person.”
+
+“I think that the dangers you conjure up are entirely imaginary,”
+Gerald remarked, a little impatiently, “but I will give you that
+promise.”
+
+“My niece is to be found at Duvenny Castle in Scotland,” Madame de
+Ponière announced. “It is a somewhat inaccessible place. Particulars of
+how to reach it are here.”
+
+She handed him a slip of paper.
+
+“In Scotland?” Gerald repeated, a little wearily. “But she was here
+yesterday.”
+
+“She left at night,” Madame de Ponière reminded him.
+
+Gerald folded the slip of paper and put it in his pocket.
+
+“Very well,” he said, “I will go to Scotland.”
+
+Madame de Ponière looked at him through her lorgnettes for a moment
+thoughtfully.
+
+“You have been ill,” she remarked.
+
+“I have been ill,” he assented.
+
+Madame de Ponière lowered her lorgnettes and closed them with a little
+snap.
+
+“If I thought that you would accept it,” she said, “I would give you a
+word of advice.”
+
+“I can at least hear it,” he suggested.
+
+“Go back to the manner of life you were living before you met
+Pauline--and forget her. Your visit to Scotland will be of no service
+to you. It will only end in disappointment.”
+
+Gerald shook his head.
+
+“That,” he said obstinately, “I must discover for myself.”
+
+Gerald, following in the main the directions on the slip of paper given
+him by Madame de Ponière, reached his destination on the afternoon of
+the third day. He was in the car which he had hired at the last town on
+the railway route, a town which seemed to him, unacquainted with this
+corner of Scotland, almost an outpost of civilisation. After miles of
+moorland, unbroken except for huge boulders, the way had led around a
+range of smaller mountains until he had suddenly encountered, when he
+had been least expecting it, the tang of the sea. Many hundreds of feet
+below, he saw at last his destination, a dwelling of stone as ancient
+and rudely fashioned, it seemed, as the massed-up boulders on every
+side. The road by which it was approached was precipitous, in places
+almost impassable. The last quarter of a mile was along a narrow bank,
+unprotected on either side, with the spray from the waves leaping up
+into his face. The road ended in a circular sweep, surrounded by a
+high wall. In front of him was a massive gate, closed and barred. The
+porter who appeared in answer to the bell kept him waiting while he
+communicated with the house. Finally the gates were pushed open and the
+car allowed to proceed up a steep, stone-paved ascent to a courtyard
+also flagged with stones and also surrounded by a high wall. In front
+was another massive door, which, however, already stood open. Two
+men servants, both foreigners, awaited his arrival. One attended to
+the closing of the door and remained with the chauffeur; the other
+silently beckoned Gerald to follow him across the stone floor of the
+bare, circular hall into a room at the further end. He stood aside to
+let Gerald precede him.
+
+“The gentleman will please be seated,” he said.
+
+Gerald found himself alone in an apartment not unduly large but
+exceedingly lofty. It was simply but magnificently furnished, but only
+a single rug lay upon the floor. The windows looked sheer over the sea,
+and the thunder of the waves against the jagged rocks seemed almost
+at his feet. The windows themselves were narrow--the windows of a
+fortress--and the depth of the window seat showed the thickness of the
+walls. Gerald had little time to take note of these things, however.
+Within a moment or two of his being left alone, the door opened and
+Pauline entered.
+
+Speech of any sort, it seemed to Gerald, must be pitifully inadequate.
+He stood looking at her, wondering if anything in her expression
+would give him the clue to her mysterious behaviour. She came towards
+him, however, as composed and unresponsive as ever. There was nothing
+whatever in her manner to indicate the fact that she was greeting the
+man who had risked his life in a mad enterprise for her sake.
+
+“You have had a long journey, Lord Dombey,” she said.
+
+He bowed over the hand which she had extended to him.
+
+“A long journey, indeed,” he assented, “a journey down into hell and
+back.”
+
+“Sit down,” she invited, “and I will give you the explanation I owe
+you.”
+
+“Thank you,” he answered, “I do not feel at home in this house. Let me
+remain standing until after you have told me what it all means. I have
+done your bidding. I have come to beg for my reward.”
+
+Her eyes looked at him coldly.
+
+“I promised no reward,” she reminded him.
+
+“Not in words,” he admitted, “yet you know what I desire.”
+
+“What you desire is absurd,” she declared. “That is what I wish to
+explain. You have discovered, perhaps, who I am.”
+
+“I learned who your brother was.”
+
+“My brother!” she smiled. “Well,” she went on, “listen. I am the Grand
+Duchess Pauline of Russia, Princess and hereditary ruler of the Caspian
+Provinces, and nearest in kin amongst living women to Nicholas, who was
+murdered by the people. The man whom you rescued is Paul, Grand Duke of
+Volostok, hereditary ruler of seventeen provinces, and nearest in the
+male line to the Crown of Russia. He is my cousin.”
+
+“Your cousin?” Gerald exclaimed.
+
+“And my husband,” she answered calmly.
+
+Gerald was extraordinarily cool. The situation began slowly to shape
+itself in his mind.
+
+“It has been the province of royalty,” Pauline continued, “to make
+use of their courtiers, without explanation, in whatever way may seem
+good to them. I have made use of you. I did not seek your acquaintance
+or your friendship. I have made you no promises. I have kept you
+much farther away even from hope than would many of my illustrious
+ancestresses. Yet, in these days, you will probably think that you have
+been ill-treated. I cannot help it. I and others of my race have been
+ill and mercilessly treated. Yours has been a small wrong. I made use
+of you and your devotion to free my cousin, to whom I was affianced.
+So far as my thanks can satisfy you, I tender them.”
+
+“You are very gracious,” Gerald acknowledged, forgetting all his
+weariness and holding himself like a man. “May I ask, were you married
+to the Grand Duke when I fetched him from his prison?”
+
+“I was not,” Pauline assured him. “I was married a month after his
+return to England, with the consent and the approbation of my relatives
+here. Paul and I have but one hope and one desire--to live until the
+time when the people of Russia return to their allegiance, and to
+reëstablish the Romanoff dynasty in Russia, either through ourselves or
+our children. For that reason we are living here with an unseen guard
+provided by the English Government. When you first met us, we lived in
+seclusion because already four times my life had been attempted. There
+are still men pledged to destroy us root and branch. Here they will
+not succeed. We are surrounded by faithful guards, and our lives are
+consecrate. Not until the children live and flourish who shall carry on
+our name, will I or my husband take the slightest risk. The world may
+see something of us later. For the present we have only one thought.”
+
+Gerald stood amongst the wreck of his dreams. He seemed to be listening
+to the thunder of the sea, to be watching the queer-shaped shaft of
+sunlight which stretched across the floor. He found speech almost
+impossible. The silence lasted so long, however, that he was compelled
+to break it.
+
+“Your Highness’ explanation is complete?” he asked.
+
+“It is complete,” she replied. “You will understand that your--shall
+I call it admiration?--was, in a sense, an offence to me. In Monte
+Carlo I will admit that through sheer weariness I was perhaps a little
+indiscreet. The situation then seemed hopeless.”
+
+“I understand,” Gerald murmured.
+
+“The Grand Duke, my husband, will wish to offer you some hospitality,”
+she said, touching a bell.
+
+“It is quite unnecessary,” Gerald replied.
+
+“Be so good as to await his coming,” she enjoined.
+
+Prince Paul entered the room a moment or two later, a touch of sunburn
+on his cheeks, erect and handsome, a very different person from the
+broken prisoner of a few months ago. He advanced towards Gerald with
+outstretched hand.
+
+“It gives me great pleasure,” he said, “to welcome you in my very bad
+English to our home. You see, I reached England safely.”
+
+“I was glad to hear of it,” Gerald remarked.
+
+“Some day you must tell me your own adventures,” the young man
+continued. “Perhaps you will give us the pleasure of your company to
+dinner to-night?”
+
+Gerald shook his head.
+
+“I have promised the owner of the car which I hired,” he said, “to
+return it to him to-night. I must, in fact, be leaving at once.”
+
+A servant entered with a tray bearing wine and whisky. Paul served his
+guest himself.
+
+“They tell me that this is the most hospitable country of the world,”
+he observed. “Even in Russia we should not let you depart without a
+toast. You will wish us those things for which Her Highness and I live.”
+
+Gerald bowed and raised his glass to his lips.
+
+“I shall drink to you and to your country,” he said, “and to the good
+of both.”
+
+He set down his glass empty. Pauline smiled her good-by, but
+they handed him over to the care of servants with the air of
+royalty.--Gerald drove through the opened gates, heard the bars grind
+behind him, and, looking around for a last view, was dimly conscious
+of men who watched. Years afterwards, this strange visit, with all
+its trifling events, assumed its proper proportions in his mind. That
+night, however, he drove over the moors and around the mountains
+absolutely without any direct emotions. It was impossible to believe
+that his visit had not been the phantasy of an afternoon’s slumber.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+
+After they had left Toulon, the two men seemed almost to change
+places. Gerald, who for the last four days had been in much the same
+mentally comatose state as he had been since his return from Scotland,
+sat up and for the first time began to look about him with interest.
+Christopher, on the other hand, who during the whole of their journey
+had been continually endeavouring to amuse and entertain his companion,
+gradually relapsed into a rare fit of thoughtfulness. They had passed
+through Hyères, however, and were winding their way around the Forêt
+du Dom, before any direct allusion was made to the subject which in
+varying degrees was foremost in the minds of both of them.
+
+“About an hour and a half beyond this, wasn’t it?” Gerald asked.
+
+Christopher nodded. It was significant that he made no comment upon the
+fact that Gerald had caught up with his own train of thought.
+
+“Just about this time of the year, too,” Gerald went on, ruminatingly.
+“I remember these orchards were just showing a little pink. And you say
+she’s back again there, Chris. I wonder why? There wasn’t any trouble
+at home, was there?”
+
+“Not the slightest,” Christopher assured him. “In fact, all the time
+you were in Russia your father seemed to rely upon her absolutely. It
+was a great blow to him when she made up her mind to go back.”
+
+“But what made her want to leave?” Gerald persisted.
+
+Christopher did not hesitate for a moment. He meant to take every
+possible advantage of this, the first sign of any real interest in life
+which Gerald had shown for months.
+
+“Because she is very finely strung,” he said, “and the situation was
+becoming impossible for her. She was very much in love with you, and
+you were crazy about some one else. I was very much in love with her,
+as I always had been, and I was ass enough to try and persuade her
+to marry me. Of course,” he went on, “I ought to have realised the
+unconquerable fidelity of a nature like hers. An ordinary woman,” he
+went on, leaning back in his corner and discussing the matter very much
+as he would have done a legal point presented for his opinion, “might
+select and prefer one man to all others, but if, for some reason or
+other, he did not return her affection, she would be able, in course of
+time, to feel practically the same thing for another man. Myrtile could
+never do that. She has that saint-like fidelity which is the joy and
+the curse of the best women. You are a very dear fellow, Gerald, and I
+am very fond of you, but I sometimes get fed up with your nerves, your
+blindness, your Grand Duchesses and your stark idiocy.”
+
+Gerald sat up in his place and stared at his friend in amazement.
+
+“How long have you been keeping that bottled up, Chris?” he asked.
+
+“Ever since Myrtile turned me down,” was the prompt reply. “She was as
+kind as she could be about it, but she did her job like a surgeon. She
+hurt, but I knew it was no use ever thinking about her again that way.
+I am a dispassionate observer now and I can see the truth.”
+
+“I suppose I have been rather an ass,” Gerald acknowledged, “but you
+must remember, Chris, I didn’t quite know what I was in for when I took
+on that visit to Russia, and I don’t think any one could go through
+what I had to go through without getting bowled over. Fancy being taken
+care of like a baby by that amazing woman, Elsa Francks!--Having to
+owe her your life half a dozen times over! Seeing that great coarse
+creature, with her hank of yellow hair, and her breath smelling of
+drink and patchouli, standing up one moment and defying death, and
+lying the next without a tremor to guards who would have set us up
+against the wall and shot us on sight if they had known the truth!”
+
+“She was an epic figure,” Christopher declared. “I wonder what has
+become of her.”
+
+“Heaven knows!” Gerald answered. “We may meet her queening it at Monte
+Carlo, or she may have married a respectable German tradesman and
+buried the past. She is wealthy enough. She got that fellow Krossneys’
+share of the money I took out, as well as her own.--How these pine
+trees smell, Chris! And what sunshine! One could sleep here.”
+
+Gerald leaned back in his place with half-closed eyes, and Christopher
+was well content to leave him alone. This was the first time he had
+spoken naturally of his journey to Russia and the terrible experience
+through which he had passed. All through the summer months he had
+lain about the gardens at Hinterleys, accepting life as an inevitable
+burden, gaining no strength, sleeping little, all the time engaged
+in a morbid struggle with the tyranny of his nerves. Nothing had
+moved or interested him. These last few sentences of his were the
+first evidences of his return to a natural outlook. Physically he had
+shrunken almost to a shadow. There was very little left of the gay and
+debonair young man who had passed his arm round Myrtile’s waist and
+drawn her into the car, mocked at Christopher’s remonstrances, and,
+with a few careless words, built up in Myrtile’s heart the fairyland at
+the end of the road. Yet, as they drew near the place where they had
+found her, he seemed to shake off some of his torpor. He sat up and
+looked about him with reminiscent eyes. One more bend and they would
+see the gate!
+
+“Would you like to stop for a moment?” Christopher asked. “Myrtile is
+almost certain to be here.”
+
+This was most assuredly a changed Gerald. He was almost diffident.
+
+“If you think she would like to see us,” he assented.
+
+He sat upright now, leaning a little forward. They were round the
+corner, in sight of the little grove of cypresses. And there at the
+gate--Myrtile!--Gerald gave a little exclamation which sounded almost
+like a sob. His incredulous stare had something in it alike of pain and
+fear.
+
+“I wrote her days ago and said that we should be passing,” Christopher
+hastily explained.
+
+She stepped out into the road to greet them. Even to Christopher, her
+coming was almost like a vision. The small differences of clothing and
+circumstance seemed scarcely to exist. It was Myrtile who welcomed
+them, shyly but joyfully. Her eyes were fixed upon Gerald, and there
+was a touch of sublime pity in them as she realised the change. But
+from her face shone the same things.
+
+“You will come in and see my home?” she begged. “The car can turn in
+here. The road is better than it used to be.”
+
+“I am tired of the car,” Gerald said. “I would rather walk.”
+
+They moved slowly down through the cypress avenue, Gerald leaning a
+little on Myrtile’s arm, Christopher loitering behind. On one side were
+the formal lines of the closely pruned vines, protruding from the rich
+brown earth; on the other a flush of purple from the field of violets.
+Myrtile answered some half intelligible question from Gerald.
+
+“I am very happy here,” she assured him. “There is so much to do. I
+have broken up some more of the land for growing violets, and presently
+I will show you my carnations. The vineyards, too, needed a lot of
+attention; they had been very much neglected. I hope you like the
+colour of the house? I had it painted pink because of the background.
+And you see what a lovely verandah I have had built? By moving a few
+yards one gets the sun all day.”
+
+“It is the most restful and the most beautiful place I have ever been
+in,” Gerald murmured. “Tell me, Myrtile,” he added, “do you know all
+that has happened to me?”
+
+“Everything! Christopher has written, and I had a long letter, too,
+from your father. Please do not speak of those things which are
+finished. You are here to forget.”
+
+Involuntarily he looked away towards the road and turned back with
+a shiver. Whatever his thoughts might have been, he said nothing. A
+little French maid, in spotless white cap and apron, came out on to the
+verandah in reply to Myrtile’s call.
+
+“A bottle of our own wine and glasses,” Myrtile ordered, “some fruit,
+and the sandwiches I told you to have ready, Marie. Come, we have
+another half-hour of sunshine. Gerald, you must take the sofa chair.”
+
+Gerald sank into a sea of cushions. Myrtile, bending over him, arranged
+them more comfortably. Her eyes were soft with the shadow of tears.
+Gerald, more weary than he had confessed, seemed for a moment almost to
+doze.
+
+“He is very weak,” Myrtile whispered, looking anxiously across towards
+Christopher.
+
+Christopher nodded.
+
+“It is the journey,” he answered. “I wish that it were over.”
+
+The wine was brought, but Gerald was now in a deep sleep. Christopher
+and Myrtile sat at the other end of the verandah and talked in an
+undertone. Presently the sun began to sink behind the forest-crowned
+hills, westwards. A cool breeze came stealing across the valley.
+Myrtile rose suddenly to her feet.
+
+“He must not sleep any longer,” she said firmly. “He ought not to be
+out at all as late as this.”
+
+They tried to rouse him. Three times Christopher laid his hand upon
+his shoulder and called him by name. There was no response. Gerald was
+sleeping heavily, his breathing was regular, the lines seemed to have
+faded from his face.
+
+“It is the first time he has slept like this for weeks,” Christopher
+declared. “It seems a shame to wake him.”
+
+“Don’t,” she begged eagerly. “You see the chair has castors. Wheel it
+into the sitting room, and if he doesn’t wake, leave him here. Marie
+and I can look after him, and Pierre, my head man, is a treasure. He
+could carry him upstairs if it were necessary.”
+
+“We’ll move him in and see if he wakes, anyhow,” Christopher agreed.
+
+They wheeled him into Myrtile’s sitting room, sweet and flower-scented,
+without his showing the slightest sign of being disturbed. Myrtile
+closed the outer doors and lit the fire of pine logs and cones which
+was already prepared upon the hearth. Then she and Christopher stole
+from the room.
+
+“This may be his salvation,” Christopher declared hopefully.
+
+There were tears in Myrtile’s eyes. All the time she seemed to be
+listening.
+
+“Leave him with me, Christopher,” she begged. “He needs rest.”
+
+Christopher nodded.
+
+“I’ll send two of his bags down from the car,” he proposed, “and some
+of us will come and have a look at him in a few days. His servant can
+stay here if you like, so that you have help if you want it.”
+
+She smiled through her tears.
+
+“I shall need no help,” she promised. “I will cure Gerald. Tell Lady
+Mary and Lord Hinterleys that I promise it. Only leave him alone with
+me. Do not come, any of you, until I send. If he wishes to leave, I can
+hire a car from San Raphael--he can be with you in a few hours. But I
+think he will be content. I think he will get better here.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+
+“And now,” Christopher said, as their car crawled up the last ascent,
+“to see if Myrtile has kept her word!”
+
+“Personally,” Lord Hinterleys declared, “I am confident. That young
+woman has powers beyond the ordinary human being’s. Besides, our
+telegrams every day have assured us that all is well.”
+
+“It seems curious to me that Gerald should have been so content,” Mary
+remarked. “Is this the place, Christopher?”
+
+Christopher nodded. The car was slowing up. On their right was the
+little grove of cypress trees and the gate.
+
+“Here they are!” Mary exclaimed. “Why, just look at Gerald!”
+
+The two young people came down the cypress grove, arm in arm. Gerald
+was walking with much of his old swagger. Once more his head was thrown
+back; once more there was all the joy of wild spirits in the abandon of
+his enthusiastic greeting. Myrtile, on the other hand, seemed quieter
+than usual.
+
+“Something deuced odd about the look of both of them,” Lord Hinterleys
+remarked. “Gerald, you rascal, how are you?”
+
+“Sane and sound, sir,” Gerald answered, stretching out his hand,
+“thanks to Myrtile.”
+
+Lord Hinterleys looked at her curiously. Her eyes suddenly fell. She
+had been laughing a little hysterically a moment before. Now a fit of
+trembling seemed to have seized her.
+
+“Gerald, what have you been up to?” his father demanded.
+
+Gerald laughed.
+
+“Listen to that, dad,” he said, “and see if you can’t guess.”
+
+The bell from the little white church was tinkling away crazily. Gerald
+passed his arm around Myrtile.
+
+“She’s terrified to death,” he declared. “Please every one tell her
+that they’re glad.”
+
+Myrtile was easily persuaded. Her father-in-law dispossessed Gerald as
+they turned towards the house. Mary walked on the other side.
+
+“You have now arrived in time for the celebrations,” Gerald continued.
+“The feasting tenantry are in view on the far side of the house. You
+will presently have the opportunity of hearing me make a little speech
+in my most perfect French, which I have just learnt by heart.”
+
+“So you are really married!” Mary exclaimed incredulously.
+“Gerald--Myrtile--how wonderful it all seems!”
+
+“Amazing!” Gerald agreed. “Matrimony was evidently my predestined
+Mecca. I am no longer ill. I have never been so happy in my life. I
+was ploughing for four hours yesterday, and practising approach shots
+over the road to get rid of a little superfluous energy after tea. What
+I really covet is the job of Pierre, the head man, but Myrtile won’t
+listen to it. She says I don’t understand the soil.”
+
+As they reached the house, the old curé came shuffling out, beaming
+with smiles, delighted to find that every one spoke his own language
+and that he could talk to them about Myrtile.--Luncheon was spread
+out on the verandah, and Marie and a young friend from the village,
+with great bunches of white carnations fastened to their frocks, were
+waiting to serve. Gerald himself uncorked the wine.
+
+“I propose to make a speech,” Lord Hinterleys announced, holding out
+his foaming glass.
+
+“It must be a short one,” Gerald insisted. “The omelette won’t wait.”
+
+“Then, as an omelette is my favourite dish and that one appears to be a
+_chef-d’oeuvre_, I drop the speech,” his father assented. “I will only
+say, Gerald, that you have made Mary and me very happy, and that no
+bride in the world was ever more welcome than Myrtile to our home and
+lives.”
+
+Every one began to talk at once. By and by, that curious sense of
+unreality, the feeling that the whole thing was a scene out of an
+old-fashioned comedy, passed away. Gerald, who was shamelessly holding
+Myrtile’s hand under the tablecloth, raised his glass and looked into
+her eyes.
+
+“It was I, after all,” he whispered, “who had no idea what lay at the
+end of the road. You were the wise lady and I the fool. You climbed, I
+pushed my way through the slough--but we found out.”
+
+All through the afternoon the villagers came and went, and the young
+people danced in the field at the back of the farm. Many toasts were
+exchanged. Every one was extraordinarily happy. Then the time came for
+Christopher, who was on his way back to England, to leave. Mary, who
+was spending the night with her father at Cannes, walked with him to
+the road. They paused for a moment at the gate.
+
+“And it was really here that you found Myrtile?” Mary remarked,
+looking around her with interest.
+
+“We found her on this very spot,” Christopher answered, “gazing along
+the road to the hills. All her life she had wondered what lay on the
+other side. Many of us never find out. I think that Gerald has been
+very fortunate.”
+
+“I am glad that you are happy about it,” she said, with quiet but
+tactful significance.
+
+“It is because I am happy about it,” Christopher rejoined, turning
+towards her, “that I am going to venture--that, Mary--well, I think I
+feel a little like the man who walked for a few minutes of his life in
+the moonlight and fancied that it was day. I honestly thought that I
+was in love with Myrtile. I know now that there is no one I ever really
+cared for but you, Mary.”
+
+She raised her head and looked at him, yielding unresistingly to the
+arm which was drawn around her.
+
+“I am quite sure,” she murmured, “that this is an enchanted land.”
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+NOVELS _by_ E. PHILLIPS OPPENHEIM
+
+“He is past master of the art of telling a story. He has humor, a keen
+sense of the dramatic, and a knack of turning out a happy ending just
+when the complications of the plot threaten worse disasters.”--_The New
+York Times._
+
+“Mr. Oppenheim has few equals among modern novelists. He is prolific,
+he is untiring in the invention of mysterious plots, he is a clever
+weaver of the plausible with the sensational, and he has the necessary
+gift of facile narrative.”--_The Boston Transcript._
+
+  A Prince of Sinners            The Way of These Women
+  A Maker of History             The Kingdom of the Blind
+  The Man and His Kingdom        The Pawns Count
+  The Yellow Crayon              The Zeppelin’s Passenger
+  A Sleeping Memory              The Curious Quest
+  The Great Secret               The Wicked Marquis
+  Jeanne of the Marshes          The Box with Broken Seals
+  The Lost Ambassador            The Great Impersonation
+  A Daughter of the Marionis     The Devil’s Paw
+  Havoc                          Jacob’s Ladder
+  The Lighted Way                The Profiteers
+  The Survivor                   Nobody’s Man
+  A People’s Man                 The Great Prince Shan
+  The Vanished Messenger         The Evil Shepherd
+  The Seven Conundrums           The Mystery Road
+
+Boston LITTLE, BROWN & COMPANY Publishers
+
+
+
+
+TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
+
+
+  Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.
+
+  Perceived typographical errors have been corrected.
+
+  Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.
+
+  Archaic or variant spelling has been retained.
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77836 ***