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.”