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!”