"I am Spanish; he was, I understand, French. But then that presents no difficulty. There are such things as international marriages."
"Yes. Your mother"s sister married an uncle of my husband"s, didn"t she?"
"Quite so. It is settled," agreed the Marchese gravely.
"Well, then, that is the sharp end of the wedge. I will do my best and cleverest to insert it," said Joan. "As you have just arrived, it will be the easier. We are cousins. It can appear to all those whom it does not concern (meaning the gossips of the hotel) that you have run on to see your cousin. For the rest, you must trust me for a day or two, or perhaps more."
Joan had tea--with her cousin--at Miremont"s; and they saw the Ffrenches and Sir Justin Wentworth, also having tea. Violet Ffrench looked at Joan with the same side-glance of half-grudging admiration as before, and Joan looked, now and then, at Violet Ffrench with a charming, frank gaze, which seemed to say: "You are so sweetly pretty that I can"t keep my eyes off you, and I like you for being pretty." In reality it said something quite different, but it was effects, not realities, which mattered at the moment.
Thus the campaign had begun, though the enemy was blissfully ignorant of the activity upon the other side.
Joan went back to the hotel rather earlier than she had intended, and going straight to the large, empty dining-room, rang for the head waiter. When he appeared, she asked if it were yet arranged where a new arrival, General Ffrench, was to sit with his daughter. The waiter pointed out a small table or two, near the centre of the room; but before his hand withdrew from the gesture, it was turned palm upward in answer to a slight, silent hint from Joan. Finally, it retired with a louis in its clasp. "I want you to put my table close to theirs," said she. "It shall be done, madame," replied the man; and it was done.
Therefore Joan and Violet could scarcely help exchanging more glances from between their red-shaded candles that night at dinner, which Joan ate alone, unaccompanied by the wistful Villa Fora.
The Ffrenches appeared to know n.o.body in the hotel, and of this she was glad. There was the more chance for her.
After dinner there was conjuring, and Joan contrived to sit next to Miss Ffrench. Villa Fora was on the opposite side of the big drawing-room, where he had reluctantly gone in obedience to his "cousin"s"
instructions. The conjuring made conversation, and Joan was not surprised to find the heiress open to flattery. When the performance was over, she kept her seat; and by this time, having introduced herself to Miss Ffrench, the introduction was pa.s.sed on to the father. He, good man, was too well-born to be actually a sn.o.b, but he had no objection to t.i.tles, even foreign ones, and the Comtesse de Merival was so pretty, so modest, altogether such good form, that he had no objection to her as, at least, an hotel acquaintance for his daughter.
It seemed that General Ffrench had been ordered to Biarritz for his health, and that he hoped to do some golfing; but Miss Ffrench hated golf, and as she had no friends in the place, she expected to be very dull.
At this, Joan reminded her gaily of the friend with whom she and her father had been walking in the afternoon.
"Oh, but he is such an old friend, he doesn"t count," exclaimed Violet, blushing a little.
"She isn"t a bit in love with him," thought Joan. "What a shame!
But--_tant mieux_. She is vain and romantic; often the two qualities go together in a woman. The ground is all prepared for me."
By and by, Sir Justin Wentworth strolled in from his hotel. Though she was dying to stay and meet him, and perhaps have a few words, Joan rose and walked away. This course was approved by General Ffrench. He would have known what to think if the beautiful Comtesse had made herself fascinating, at such short notice, to his son-in-law elect.
Joan talked with her "cousin," who had been in the smoking-room, and Violet Ffrench had time to be intensely curious as to the connection between her charming new acquaintance, the Comtesse de Merival, and the handsome, dark young man who had been in her hotel at Paris. He had looked at her then; he looked at her now. What was he to the Comtesse?
what was the Comtesse to him?
Next morning, both General Ffrench and Sir Justin Wentworth walked off to the golf-links, leaving Violet to write letters in the gla.s.s room that looked out on the sea. Presently Joan came in, with a writing-case in her hand, and Violet stopped in the midst of the first sentence of her first letter. Joan did not even begin to write, nor had she ever cherished the faintest intention of doing so.
Violet rather hoped that she would mention the dark young man, but she did not; and then, of course, Violet hoped it a great deal more. The two girls drifted from one subject to another, and finally, by way of a favourite author and a popular novel of the moment, they touched the key of romance.
"I used to think that romance was dead in this century, but lately I have been finding out that it isn"t," said Joan. "Oh, not personally.
Romance is over for me. I loved my husband, you see, and he died the day of our wedding; I married him on his death-bed. That is not romance; it is tragedy. But I am speaking of what I should not speak of, to you, so let us talk of something else."
"Why?" asked Violet.
"Oh, because--because I have an idea that you are engaged."
"How can that matter?"
"It does matter. I oughtn"t to explain, so you mustn"t urge me."
"You rouse my curiosity," said Violet; but this was not news to Joan.
"Engaged girls shouldn"t have curiosity about anything outside their own romances," replied the Comtesse de Merival mysteriously.
"I"ve never had a real romance," sighed Violet. "I"ve always been more or less engaged to Sir Justin Wentworth ever since I can remember. He is a splendid fellow, as you can see."
"I hardly noticed," said Joan; then added, in a whisper, but not too low a whisper to be heard: "I was so busy pitying someone else."
Violet"s colour rose, and she was really a very pretty girl, though vanity made her eyes cold.
"Sir Justin"s father and mine were old chums," went on Violet. "Our place and his lie close together in Devonshire. We have even some of the same money-interests--mines in Australia. He has heaps of money, too, so there"s no question of his needing to think of mine."
"As if any man could think of your money when he had you to think of!"
exclaimed Joan. "No doubt you will be very happy. Such a long friendship ought to be a good foundation for the rest, and yet--and yet--it"s a pity that you should have to marry and become a placid British matron without first knowing some of the wild joys of _real_ love, real romance."
"I thought you doubted there being any left in the world?"
"No; I said I had found at least one case which had built up my faith again; a case of pa.s.sionate love, born at first sight, and strong enough to carry the man across the world, if necessary, to follow the woman he loves."
"Such love isn"t likely to come my way."
"It has come your way. It is here--close to you. Oh, I have done wrong! I should not have spoken. But I am so sorry for him--my poor, handsome cousin."
"Your cousin!" This was a revelation, and Violet"s eyes were not cold now, but warm with interest.
"Yes, the Marchese Villa Fora, the best-looking and one of the best-born young men in Spain. But indeed we must not talk of him. What a lovely day it is! I must have my motor-car out this afternoon. How I should love to take you with me!"
Violet would ask no more questions; but all that had been dark was now clear, and she could think of nothing and no one except the Comtesse"s cousin, the Marchese Villa Fora.
Joan had been in the hotel at Biarritz for ten days, and by the trick of "being nice" (she knew how to be very nice) to the unattached old ladies and middle-aged dowagers, she had been accepted on her own valuation.
She did not flirt, she had a t.i.tle, she appeared to be rich, she owned a motor-car, therefore none of her statements regarding herself was doubted. General Ffrench made an inquiry or two concerning her, was satisfied with the replies, and therefore consented to let his daughter join an automobile party arranged by the Comtesse for the afternoon.
Somehow, in the motor-car, Violet sat next to the Marchese Villa Fora, who gazed at her sadly with magnificent eyes and said very little. It was extremely interesting, she discovered, to sit shoulder to shoulder with a man who was dying of hopeless love for you, and had followed you across France, though he had never spoken a word to you until to-day.
It was he who helped her out when they came back to the hotel, and the thrill in her fingers after his had pressed them almost convulsively for an instant remained for a long time.
CHAPTER XII--A New Love and an Old Enemy
Now, the thin end of the entering wedge, of which Joan had hinted, was well in, and after this day events moved swiftly. The Comtesse de Merival and Miss Ffrench were close friends. Violet opened her heart to Joan and told her everything that was in it--not a long list. Joan sympathised and advised. She did so want dear Violet to be happy, she said, for happiness was the best thing in the world; and love was happiness. She wanted her to have that.
The two girls were together constantly, and this meant that Joan soon began to see a good deal of Sir Justin Wentworth. Quickly she diagnosed that he cared nothing for Violet Ffrench, except in a kindly, protective, affectionate way, but that he had a deep regard for her father. He would never try to free himself of the tacit understanding into which he had drifted as a boy; if any change were to come, the initiative must be taken, and firmly taken, by Violet.
Meanwhile, two things were happening. If Violet was not precisely falling in love with Villa Fora, she was in love with the idea of him which was growing up in her mind; and Justin Wentworth had discovered that he craved for something more in life than Violet Ffrench could ever give him.
He had gone on contentedly enough for the several years during which he had definitely thought of the marriage. There had been the Boer war, and then the interest of coming home to England and his beautiful old place in Devonshire, which he loved. But now, quite suddenly, he had awakened to the fact that contentment is no better than desperate resignation; and though he was hardly aware of it yet, the awakening had come to him when looking into Joan"s eyes.
He would not confess to himself that he loved her, but he thought that she was the most vivid creature he had ever met, and he could not help realising how curiously congenial they were in most of their thoughts.
Often he seemed to feel what she was feeling, without a word being spoken on either side, and unconsciously he was jealous of the handsome Spanish cousin with whom (General Ffrench innocently suggested) the Comtesse would probably make a match.