The Princess Passes Part 21

Will you come?"

"Is he coming?"

"Lord Lane, tell him that you are."

"You are very good, Contessa----"

"There! You hear, it is settled."

"If--Lord Lane makes you a visit, I will also, as you are kind enough to want me."

Afterwards, when we had bidden the Contessa and her guardian dragons good-night, and it was arranged that we were to stay over to-morrow, on account of the lost bag, I said to the Boy on the way upstairs, "You've made a conquest of the Contessa."

He blushed furiously, looked angry, and then burst out laughing. "Are you jealous?" he asked.

"I ought to be."

"But are you?"

"I haven't had time to a.n.a.lyse my emotions. Why did you never tell me you sang?"

"I wasn't ready--till to-night. Now--I sang for you."

"I thought it was for the Contessa."

"Did you? Well"--with sudden crossness--"you may go on thinking so, if you like. Can she sing?"

"Rather well."

"As--better than I can?"

"You must judge for yourself when you hear her."

"You might tell me. But no! I don't want you to, now. It's spoiled.

Good-night."

"Good-night. Dream of your conquest."

"Probably she's only trying to--to bring you to the point, by being nice to me. I wonder if you care?"

I would not give the little wretch any satisfaction. I merely laughed, and an odd blue light flashed in his eyes. He was making up his mind to something, for the life of me I could not tell what.

The Contessa and her satellites should have gone on to Chamounix next day, but Gaeta frankly announced her intention of waiting, so that we might make the journey together. They were driving over the Tete Noire, and we would go afoot, to be sure; still, said she, we could keep more or less together, exchanging impressions from time to time, and lunching at the same place. She made me promise, as a reward to her for this delay, that the Boy and I would not take the way of the Col de Balme, by which no carriage could pa.s.s. If we did this, our party and hers must part company early in the day, and she would be left to the tender mercies of the Baron and Baronessa for many a _triste_ hour.

"But why should you be imposed upon by them, if they don't amuse you?"

I ventured to ask; for Gaeta was so frank about her affairs that one was sometimes led inadvertently to take liberties.

"Oh, it was the brother who amused me, and he amuses me still,"

replied she, with a _moue_, and a shrug of her pretty shoulders. "At least, I don't _think_ I shall be tired of him, when I see him again.

He is a whirlwind; he carries a woman off her feet, before she knows what is happening, and we like that in a man, we Italians. We adore temperament. I was nice to the Baron and Baronessa for Paolo's sake.

He had to go away from Milan, which is my real home, you know--(if I have a home anywhere)--to have a medal for his air-s.h.i.+p, and many honours and dinners given him in Paris; so, without stopping to think, I invited the Baron and Baronessa to visit me in Aix. Then they suggested that we should have a little tour first; and we are having it--_Dio mio_, so much the worse for me, till I met you! And now they make me feel like a naughty child."

"Will Paolo come also to the villa?" I asked, smiling.

"He has engagements to last a fortnight still. Perhaps afterwards he may run out to Aix."

The Boy's face fell when I told him that I had promised the Contessa to walk along the highroad, over the Tete Noire.

"Innocentina and I----" he began. Then his eyes wandered to Gaeta, who stood with her friends at the other end of the hail. She was looking extremely pretty, and chose that instant to throw a quick glance at me, demanding sympathy for some _ennui_ or other caused by the Baronessa. "Oh, very well," he finished, "it doesn't matter."

He was in suspense all day about his mysteriously important bag.

Though handbills had been hastily printed and scattered over the country, there was no certainty as to when we should hear or whether we should hear at all. Late in the evening, however, as we were finis.h.i.+ng dinner in the _salle-a-manger_, at the same table with Gaeta and her friends, a message came that a man desired to see the young monsieur who had advertised for a lost bag.

The Boy excused himself, and jumped up. I should have liked to go with him, but courtesy to the ladies forbade, and I sat still, feeling guilty of disloyalty somehow, nevertheless, because of a look he threw me. It seemed to say, "We were such friends, but a woman has come between. My affairs are nothing to you now."

I had thought that he would be back in time for coffee, but he did not appear, and the curiosity of Gaeta, who had been restless since the Boy's departure, could no longer be kept within bounds. "Do go and see if he has got that wonderful bag," she said. "He might come to tell us!"

I obeyed, nothing loth, but only to learn from the concierge that the young gentleman had gone away with the man who had called.

"Did he leave no message?" I asked.

"No, Monsieur. He talked with the man here in the hall for a few minutes; then he ran upstairs and soon came down again with a cap and coat. Immediately after, he and the man went out together."

"What sort of man was he?"

"An Italian, Monsieur; a very rough-looking peasant-fellow of middle age, poorly dressed in his working clothes. I have never seen him before."

I did not like this description, nor the news the concierge had given.

It was nine o'clock, and very dark, for it had begun to rain towards evening, and a monotonous drip, drip mingled with the plash of the fountain in the garden. Grim fancies came knocking at the door of my brain. It was a mad thing for a boy, little more than a child, to go out alone in the night with a stranger, a "rough-looking peasant-fellow," who pretended to know something of the vanished bag; to go out, leaving no word of his intentions, nor the direction he would take. As like as not, the man was a villain who scented rich prey in a tourist offering a reward of five thousand francs for a lost piece of luggage.

As I thought of the brave, innocent little comrade walking unsuspectingly into some trap from which I could have saved him had I been by his side, a sensation of physical sickness came over me.

"How long is it since they went out?" I asked quickly.

"Ten minutes, at most, Monsieur."

I could have shaken the concierge's hand for this good news, for there was hope of catching them up. I was in dinner jacket and pumps, but I did not wait to make a dash upstairs for hat or coat. I borrowed the blue, gold-handed cap of the concierge, not caring two pence for my comical appearance, which would have sent Gaeta into peals of silver laughter, and out into the rain I went, turning up the collar of my jacket.

I had forgotten the Contessa, and my promise to return immediately with tidings from the front. All I thought of was, which direction should I take to find the Boy. Ought I to turn towards the town or away from it?

Before I reached the garden gate, not many metres from the door, I had decided to try the town way; and lest I should be doing the wrong thing and have to rectify my mistake later, I ran as a lamplighter is popularly supposed to run, but doesn't and never did.

The Boy and his companion would be walking, and, if I were on the right track, I was almost sure to catch them up sooner or later at this pace, before they could reach the town and turn off into some side street.

I had not been galloping along through the fresh, grey mud for three hundred metres when I saw two figures moving slowly a few paces ahead.

One was small and slender, the other of middle height and strongly built.

"Boy, is that you?" I shouted.