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.