The Guests Of Hercules. C. N. Williamson
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must write to Reverend Mother and Peter, she thought, explaining why she was here, and how glad she was that she had happened to come. Then it struck her suddenly, though more humorously than disagreeably, that it would be rather difficult to explain, especially in a way to satisfy Peter. Perhaps dear Reverend Mother would be anxious for her safety, if Peter said any of those rather silly things of Monte Carlo which at the last she had said to her—Mary. After all, maybe it would be better to keep to the first plan and not write until she could date a letter Florence. Then she put the little worry out of her mind and gave her soul to the shop-windows in the Galerie Charles Trois.
It was a fascinating gallery, where lovely ladies walked, wonderfully dressed, pointing out dazzling jewellery in plate glass windows, to slightly bored men who were with them. Nearly everybody who passed sent out wafts of peculiarly luscious perfume. Mary walked the length of the gallery, so as to see all the shops there were to see, before deciding upon anything. She passed brilliantly lighted restaurants where people were having tea, some of them at little tables out of doors, protected by glass screens; and as she walked, people stared at her a good deal, especially the men who were with the lovely ladies; and the bored look went out of their eyes. Mary noticed that she was stared at, and was uncomfortable, because she imagined that her gray tweed and travelling hat drew unfavourable attention.
But she intended to change all this. She would soon be as well dressed as anybody, and no one would stare any more. In one window there were displayed, not only gowns, but hats and cloaks, and exquisite furs, all shown on wax models with fashionably dressed hair and coquettish faces. One pink and white creature with a startlingly perfect figure wore a filmy robe of that intense indigo just taken on by the sea. Underneath a shadowlike tunic of dark blue chiffon there was a glint of pale gold, a sort of gold and silver sheath which encased the form of the waxen lady.
"My hair is that colour," Mary thought, and imagined herself in the dress. The next thing was to walk in and ask a very agreeable Frenchwoman if the gown were likely to fit her without alteration. "I must have something at once," Mary explained. "My luggage has gone to Italy."
The agreeable Frenchwoman was sympathetic. But yes, the dress would fit to perfection, not a doubt of it, for Mademoiselle had the ideal figure for model robes. And if, unfortunately, the trunks had all gone, Mademoiselle would want not only one dress but several? And hats? Yes, naturally. Other things also, of the same importance. The house made a speciality of trousseaux. Had Mademoiselle but the time to look? She need not buy anything, or fear giving trouble. Then Madame added a few compliments against which Mary, unaccustomed to such food, was not proof.
She bought the blue chiffon over pale gold, which was hastily tried on behind a gilded screen; and the wax lady was robbed of gold embroidered stockings and golden shoes to match. There was a hat of dark blue with a crown of silver-threaded golden gauze, which was indispensable with the dress. To wear over this a long cloak of white satin with a wide collar of swansdown, was the dernier cri of Paris, Madame assured her customer. There were other dresses and hats too, for morning and afternoon, and even more extravagant dessous than those Jennings had tabooed in London.
After the first, Mary forgot to ask prices. She was lost in a delirium of buying, and ordered whatever she liked, until her brain was tired.
She then thanked Madame charmingly for her politeness and asked to have the things sent home at once.
But yes, they should go on the moment. And would Mademoiselle pay now, or at her hotel?
Mary laughed at herself, because she had forgotten about paying. It might as well be now, as she wished to go farther and get some gloves. Deftly Madame made out the account. It came to three thousand eight hundred and ninety francs.
When Mary had mentally turned francs into pounds she was a little startled; but luckily, against her aunt's advice, she had come away with a good deal of ready money, English, French, and Italian. It took nearly all she had to settle the bill, but, as Madame remarked gayly, Mademoiselle had left herself enough for an evening game at the Casino. This was, of course, true, as more could somehow be obtained to-morrow. For the moment Mary had forgotten her curiosity about the pleasant, basking animal in the garden, but she decided that, after dinner—which she must have soon, as she was already beginning to be hungry—she would walk into the monster's smiling mouth.
VI
Prince Giovanni Della Robbia, known to his friends in Rome as Vanno, went down early to dinner at the Paris. This, not because he was hungry, but having come to the hotel because he knew that his Juliet of Marseilles was there, he had no intention of missing a chance to look at her. If she did not appear early, he would go on dining until it was late, no matter how late.
Such a resolution, and just such an adventure as this into which he had flung himself with characteristic impulsiveness and passion, were strange for Prince Vanno, because since a first unhappy love, when he was a mere boy, he had avoided women. Adventure and romance were in his blood, the Italian blood of his father, the Irish-American blood of his beautiful mother. But his adventures had not been love adventures, since that first agony had driven him for comfort to the silence of the desert. Since then he had gone back to the desert for desire of great empty spaces, and the fire of eastern stars, needing comfort no longer for a lost love. That had passed out of his heart years ago, leaving no scar of which he was conscious.
He had just come back from the desert now, and an Arab astrologer who was a friend of his had told him that December of this year would be for him a month of good luck and great happenings, the star of his birth being in the ascendant. Almost it began to look as if there might be something in the prophecy; and Prince Vanno, laughing at himself (with the dry sense of humour that came from the Irish-American side of his parentage), was half inclined to be superstitious. Astronomy was his love at present, not astrology, and last year he had discovered a small blue planet which had been named after him and whose sapphire beauty had been much admired. Still, because he had always had a passion for the stars, and went to the east to see them at their brightest, he was tolerant of those who believed in their influence upon earth-dwellers; therefore he was ready to yield with confident ardour to sudden impulses in this the month of his star. Mary Grant's eyes had looked to him like stars, and he had followed them. Already he had had one stroke of luck in the adventure, for he had been bound to Monte Carlo from Marseilles, before he saw her, not to try his fortune at the tables, but to meet his elder brother and sister-in-law who were to finish their honeymoon close by, at Cap Martin, and to stay for an aviation week at Nice, when an invention of his would be tried for the first time. But if Mary had gone on beyond Monte Carlo, he too would have gone on. Having plunged into the adventure, for a pair of eyes, he was prepared to pursue it to the end wherever the end might be, even if he missed the flying week and broke an engagement with the bride and bridegroom. But it was luck that she should be getting out at the place where he had meant to stop for his own reasons.
He supposed, of course, that she was travelling with relatives or friends. Although he had seen her mounting the steps of a wagon lit apparently alone, this did not argue that some one who belonged to her was not inside. And when, from the window of the train whence he leaned at every station, he saw her again at Monte Carlo, she was surrounded by a crowd. One of the ladies shoulder to shoulder with her might be a mother or aunt, one of the men a father or uncle; and it had been the same when he followed, just in time to see her get into the Hôtel de Paris omnibus. Already the vehicle was full. She was the last in. His idea was that, being the youngest of her party, she had waited for them to be placed before taking a seat herself.
He knew of her now, having examined the visitors' book at the Paris, that she was "Miss M. Grant"; that the name was written in a very pretty, rather old-fashioned hand; that after it came "London" in the same writing. He was sure the name must be hers, because it was last on the page before he wrote his own; and she had gone in last, after everybody else, leaving the people she was with to do their name-signing before her. Also, the other women on the page were all "Madame" or "Frau" or "Mrs." He was rather surprised, somehow,