The Guests Of Hercules Part 22

In a few minutes it was all arranged. And Lady Dauntrey bade Miss Grant goodbye, gayly, calling her a "mascotte." She turned the corner as if to go to the shop of the hats. But there was no hat there which she particularly wanted. She had merely sought an excuse to walk as far as the Hotel de Paris with Mary. When the girl had disappeared behind the gla.s.s doors, Eve went back quickly to the Casino, where her husband was playing. She could not bear to be long away from him when he was there.

It was agony not to know whether he had lost or won.

XV

After the aviation week Vanno Della Robbia still had the excuse of waiting for Prince Angelo and his bride. It was as well therefore to be at Monte Carlo as anywhere else in the neighbourhood of the villa they would occupy at Cap Martin.

They had been detained in England by a "command" visit to royalty, but would soon come to the Riviera. In a letter Angelo asked his younger brother to go over to Cap Martin and look at the house, which Vanno did: and prolonging his excursion to the ruined, historic convent on the Cap, met Miss Grant strolling there with Jim Schuyler and d.i.c.k Carleton. He pa.s.sed near enough to hear that Schuyler was telling the legend of the place: how the nuns played a joke on the men of Roquebrune, the appointed guardians of their safety, by ringing the alarm bell to see if the soldiers of the castle town on the hill would indeed turn out to the rescue. How the very night after the men had run down in vain, the bell pealed out again, and the guardians remained snugly in their beds, only to hear next day that this time the alarm had been real. Saracens had sacked the convent, carried off all the young and pretty nuns, and murdered the old ones.

Schuyler and Carleton both bowed to Vanno, whom they had met several times during the "flying week" at Nice, and Schuyler interrupted his story long enough to say to Mary, "That's Prince Giovanni Della Robbia, who invented the parachute Rongier tested so successfully the other day.

d.i.c.k met him once in Egypt. He goes star-gazing in the desert, I believe, consorting with Arabs, and learning all sorts of Eastern _patois_."

Neither Vanno (who caught the sound of his name in pa.s.sing) nor Schuyler guessed the half-reluctant interest with which Mary heard the name of her sulky neighbour at the Hotel de Paris, and learned those few details of his life.

Vanno had been more than once to Roquebrune since the first day, and knew that the cure had called twice upon Miss Grant, without finding her at home. He knew, too, that the priest had received no visit from her in return; nor had he again seen or heard of the "strange lady" who had come to question him about Prince Angelo.

Vanno was deeply disappointed at the failure of his plan, and feared that Mary wished to avoid knowing the priest; otherwise she might at least have gone to church at Roquebrune. She made other excursions, when she could tear herself from the Casino, on irresistibly bright afternoons. Not only had he seen her at Cap Martin, but in Nice and in Mentone; once, motoring into Italy with people whose faces were strange to Vanno, and unpromising; and with the same party again in the beautiful garden at Beaulieu, where it is fas.h.i.+onable to drink tea and watch the sunset. But she did not make time to go to Roquebrune, and show a little graceful grat.i.tude for the cure's kindly interest.

The desire grew stronger in Vanno to speak to her, to know something of her besides the perhaps deceiving beauty of her face, but he clung in firmness or obstinacy to the resolve of which he had told his friend. He knew that he could not help her as the cure might, and secretly he feared himself. Once the ice was broken in making her acquaintance, he was not sure that he could still be strong.

But one afternoon he had been taking a long walk alone, as was his custom every day. Coming down from a Ligurian fort, by an old mule track that ended on the upper Corniche road, he saw an automobile which had stopped at the foot of the path. A girl in a rose-red motor-bonnet and a moleskin coat was standing up in the car, her eyes raised, her chin lifted like a flower tilted in its stem, intent on something which Vanno could not see. The girl was Miss Grant, and Vanno's heart gave a bound, then seemed to contract at sight of her, so near him and alone.

The automobile was drawn up so close to the descending mule path that Vanno saw it would be impossible to pa.s.s unless the chauffeur started the engine and moved the car on a little; but rather than this should be necessary, he halted abruptly a few yards above the level of the road.

The rattle of footsteps on rough cobbles roused Mary from her study of the thing which Vanno could not see. She glanced up, expecting some peasant who would want to pa.s.s her car. At sight of the Prince halted on the path and looking down into her uplifted face, she blushed. It was just such a blush as had dyed her cheeks painfully the night when he frowned in answer to her friendly smile; and Vanno knew that she was thinking of it. The remorse he had suffered then, when too late, came back to him. If she had not blushed now in the same childlike, hurt way, he was sure that he could have kept to his resolution not to speak. He would simply have stood still, gazing away into distance until she was ready to go on; or at most he would have said with cool politeness, "Please don't let me disturb you. I am in no hurry to pa.s.s." But in an instant it rushed over him that here was his chance to atone for an unkindness, and that if he did not quickly seize it he would be sorry all the rest of his life. Besides, it flashed into his mind that by speaking of a certain thing he could easily lead up to the subject of the cure. He wanted very much to know whether she attached any importance to the visits of the priest.

Vanno took off his hat to Mary, bowing gravely. He had guessed her reason for bringing the car to rest at this place, and it gave him his excuse. A step or two farther down the mule path brought him near enough to speak without raising his voice. "I think," he said, "you must have stopped here to look at the marble tablet set in the rock. Will you let me tell you something about it--unless you know its history already?"

"I thank you. I don't know. I was wondering about it." Mary stammered a little, blus.h.i.+ng very deeply, partly with embarra.s.sment--though she was not embarra.s.sed when other strangers spoke to her--partly in surprise at hearing the "Roman Prince" speak English like an Englishman. "Please do tell me."

Before he spoke, she had given a quick order to the chauffeur to move on and leave the end of the mule path free. Now the heart of the motor began to beat, and the car rolled a few feet farther on. Vanno came out into the thick white dust of the much-travelled road, and he and Mary could both look up to the tablet he had mentioned.

It was an oblong piece of marble, set high on the face of gray rock which on one side walled the upper Corniche, Napoleon's road. On it was the curious inscription: "Remember eternal at my heart. February, 1881."

"It is so strange," Mary said, trying to seem at ease, and not show the slightest emotion. It was ridiculous to feel emotion! Yet she could not help being absurdly happy, because this man who had snubbed her once and apparently disapproved her always was speaking to her of his own accord, in kindness.

"'Remember eternal at my heart?' It's like the English of a person not English. But why did he not have the words put in his own language, which he knew?"

"That is what everybody wonders," Vanno said, finding it as difficult as Mary found it, not to show that this conversation was of immense, exciting importance. "It puzzled me so much when I first came this way that I couldn't get it out of my head. I asked a friend who has lived for years not many miles away, if he could tell me what it meant."

"And could he tell you?"

"He told me a story which he believed but would not vouch for. Only, a very old inhabitant told it to him. It appeals to me as true. It must be true." A new warmth stole into Vanno's voice as he spoke. They had both been looking up at the tablet on the rock, but as that thrill like a chord on a violin struck her ear, Mary turned to him. Their eyes met, as they had so often met, but to-day there was no coldness in Vanno's, or hurt pride in Mary's.

"Can you think of any reason for the bad English?" he asked. He longed to hear what she would say.

She thought for a minute. "Could it be," she reflected aloud, "that the person who had the tablet put up a.s.sociated this place with some one who was English--maybe a woman, if he was a man--and so he wanted to use her language, not his own?"

"You have guessed right!" exclaimed Vanno, boyishly delighted with her intuition. "He was an Italian. He loved an English girl." The romantic dark eyes which had so often burned with gloomy fire in looking at her burned with a different flame for an instant; then quickly, as if with a common impulse, the girl and the man tore their looks apart. "They met here on the Riviera," Vanno went on, not quite steadily. "It was at this spot they first found out that they loved each other, according to the story of my friend."

He paused involuntarily. His mouth was dry. When he began to explain the tablet, he had not realized what it would be like to tell the story to this girl at this place. It was as if some other voice, talking above his with his words, gave a meaning and an emphasis which must be unmistakable to her. It was hard to go on, for with each sentence he would surely stumble deeper into difficulty. Yet the silence was electrical. Unsaid things seemed rustling in ambush. He dared not look again at Mary, and he felt that she dared not look at him. But it was necessary to go on, and he took up the narrative clumsily, fearing to tangle the thread.

"The Italian asked the girl to marry him--here, where we stand. And they were engaged. But in a few weeks or months something happened. My friend is not sure whether she died, or whether some one came between them. He is sure only that they parted. And afterward the man had this tablet put up to mark the spot where he had lived his happiest hour."

"It is a sad story," Mary said.

"Yes. It is sad. But it is beautiful, too. He was faithful. 'Remember eternal at my heart.'"

"Perhaps those were the very words he spoke to her here, when--they loved each other and he was trying to talk in her language."

"I thought of that, too. It's almost certain he said these words, to a.s.sure her that he could never forget this place."

"No one else can forget, who knows the story. It makes the tablet seem haunted."

"Would you be afraid to see the ghosts of those lovers?" Vanno asked.

"No," Mary answered. "For if he too is dead--and 1881 is quite a long time ago!--they must be happy together now. Happy ghosts would try to give happiness to others."

Instantly the sentiment was uttered Mary regretted it. She feared that the man might think she a.s.sociated herself with him in some vague hope of happiness. "I trust at least," she hurried on, "that the story of the lovers is true."

"It was the cure of Roquebrune who told it to me. He thinks it more probable than two or three other tales," Vanno said, speaking slowly, to impress the name of his informant upon the girl. "The cure is a most interesting man. Perhaps you've met him?" He asked this question doubtfully, lest Mary should guess that it was to him she owed the cure's visits; but she was unsuspicious.

"No. He called on me when I was out. I don't know why he came," she said. She looked a little guilty, because she would have gone up to the church of Roquebrune after the second call if she had not been afraid that the cure had been sent to see her by some one at home who had found out that she was on the Riviera. Vanno, misunderstanding her change of expression, said no more, though he had begun his story with the intention of leading up to this. They parted with polite thanks from Mary for his information, thanks which seemed ba.n.a.l, a strange anti-climax coming after the story of the lovers. Yet they went away from one another with an aftermath of their first unreasoning happiness still lingering in their hearts. That night at dinner they bowed to each other slightly; and during the week that followed before Christmas eve, sometimes Vanno almost believed in the girl; sometimes he lost hope of her, and was plunged from his unreasoning happiness to the dark depths of a still more unreasoning despair. But he knew that she thought of him. He saw it in her eyes, or in the turn of her head if she ostentatiously looked away from him. And he did not know whether he were glad or sorry, for he saw no good that could come of what he began to call his infatuation.

The morning of Christmas eve arrived, and with it a telegram to say that Angelo and his bride Marie were delayed again until the eve of New Year's Day, the great fete of France. Vanno was disappointed, for he had expected them that night, and would have liked to be with them on Christmas. He resolved to invite the cure to dine with him on Christmas night; and meanwhile, strolling on the Casino terrace in the hope of seeing Mary, he ran across Jean Rongier, the airman, the young French baron who had achieved a sensational success at Nice for the new Della Robbia parachute. On the strength of this feat the two had become good friends, and Vanno had been up several times in Rongier's Bleriot monoplane.

"A favour, _mon ami_," Rongier began as they met. "I was on the point of calling at your hotel, to ask it of you. Go with me to-night to a dance on board the big yacht _White Lady_, that you can see down there in the harbour."

"Many thanks, but no!" laughed Vanno. "I haven't danced since I was twenty; and even if I had I don't know _White Lady's_ owner."

"That is nothing," said Rongier. "n.o.body knows him, but every one is going--that is, all the men we know are going; and you will go, to please me."

"I'd do a good deal to please you, but not that," Vanno persisted.

"If I tell you a lady whom I am anxious--particularly anxious--to please, will be angry with me if you refuse? She makes it a point that I bring you."

"That's a different matter," said Vanno good-naturedly. "I suppose she doesn't make it a point for me to stay through the whole evening?"

"You can settle that with her," Rongier rea.s.sured him. "I thought you wouldn't fail me. She's heard about your blue comet and your yellow desert, and your new parachute, and has probably mixed them all up; but the result is that she wants to meet you."

"Very kind. I wish I could do the comet and the desert the same credit you do the parachute. But who is 'She'?"

"Miss Holbein, the daughter of the yacht's owner. English people here, I understand, won't know her father because he was once an I. D. B. and is now a money-lender; but thank heaven we who have Latin blood in our veins are neither sn.o.bs nor hypocrites. By the way, Holbein called some fellow at the Casino a 'sn.o.b' the other night, and the man returned, 'If I were a sn.o.b, I wouldn't know you.' Holbein thought it so smart he goes about repeating the story against himself, which proves he balances his millions with a sense of humour. Miss Holbein is handsome. Jewesses can be the most beautiful women in the world, don't you think? and though she is snubbed by the _grandes dames_ here and perhaps elsewhere, I notice that snubs generally come home to roost. She will have all the millions one day, and she is clever enough to pay people back in their own coin--not coin that she would miss in spending. And she is clever enough to be Madame la Baronne Rongier, wife to the idol of the French people, if she thinks it worth while! Just for the moment, though, I am on my probation. I dare refuse her nothing she wants, and she wants Prince Giovanni Della Robbia at her mother's dance."

"That unworthy person is at her service," Vanno said, bored at the prospect, but willing to please his friend.