"Afraid of women! Why, man, he backed two musical shows in the States a few years ago."
"Musical comedies?" The gla.s.s dropped from the colonel"s eye. "That"s going tigers one better. Forty women, all waiting to be stars, and solemn Courtlandt wandering among them as the G.o.d of amity! Afraid of them! Of course he is. Who wouldn"t be, after such an experience?" The colonel laughed. "Never had any serious affair?"
"Never heard of one. There was some tommy-rot about a Mahommedan princess in the newspapers; but I knew there was no truth in that. Queer fellow! He wouldn"t take the trouble to deny it."
"Never showed any signs of being a woman-hater?"
"No, not the least in the world. But to shy at meeting Nora Harrigan...."
"There you have it; the privilege of the G.o.ds. Perhaps he really has business in Menaggio. What"ll we do with the other beggar?"
"Knock his head off, if he bothers her."
"Better turn the job over to Courtlandt, then. You"re in the light-weight cla.s.s, and Courtlandt is the best amateur for his weight I ever saw."
"What, boxes?"
"A tough "un. I had a corporal who beat any one in Northern India.
Courtlandt put on the gloves with him and had him begging in the third round."
"I never knew that before. He"s as full of surprises as a rummage bag."
Courtlandt walked up the street leisurely, idly pausing now and then before the shop-windows. Apparently he had neither object nor destination; yet his mind was busy, so busy in fact that he looked at the various curios without truly seeing them at all. A delicate situation, which needed the lightest handling, confronted him. He must wait for an overt act, then he might proceed as he pleased. How really helpless he was! He could not force her hand because she held all the cards and he none. Yet he was determined this time to play the game to the end, even if the task was equal to all those of Hercules rolled into one, and none of the G.o.ds on his side.
At the hotel he asked for his mail, and was given a formidable packet which, with a sigh of discontent, he slipped into a pocket, strolled out into the garden by the water, and sat down to read. To his surprise there was a note, without stamp or postmark. He opened it, mildly curious to learn who it was that had discovered his presence in Bellaggio so quickly.
The envelope contained nothing more than a neatly folded bank-note for one hundred francs. He eyed it stupidly. What might this mean? He unfolded it and smoothed it out across his knee, and the haze of puzzlement drifted away. Three bars from _La Boheme_. He laughed. So the little lady of the Taverne Royale was in Bellaggio!
CHAPTER X
MARGUERITES AND EMERALDS
From where he sat Courtlandt could see down the main thoroughfare of the pretty village. There were other streets, to be sure, but courtesy and good nature alone permitted this misapplication of t.i.tle: they were merely a series of torturous enervating stairways of stone, up and down which noisy wooden sandals clattered all the day long. Over the entrances to the shops the proprietors were dropping the white and brown awnings for the day. Very few people shopped after luncheon. There were pleasanter pastimes, even for the women, contradictory as this may seem. By eleven o"clock Courtlandt had finished the reading of his mail, and was now ready to hunt for the little lady of the Taverne Royale. It was necessary to find her. The whereabouts of Flora Desimone was of vital importance. If she had not yet arrived, the presence of her friend presaged her ultimate arrival. The duke was a negligible quant.i.ty. It would have surprised Courtlandt could he have foreseen the drawing together of the ends of the circle and the relative concernment of the duke in knotting those ends.
The labors of Hercules had never entailed the subjugation of two temperamental women.
He rose and proceeded on his quest. Before the photographer"s shop he saw a dachel wrathfully challenging a cat on the balcony of the adjoining building. The cat knew, and so did the puppy, that it was all buncombe on the puppy"s part: the usual European war-scare, in which one of the belligerent parties refused to come down because it wouldn"t have been worth while, there being the usual Powers ready to intervene. Courtlandt did not bother about the cat; the puppy claimed his attention. He was very fond of dogs. So he reached down suddenly and put an end to the sharp challenge. The dachel struggled valiantly, for this breed of dog does not make friends easily.
"I say, you little Dutchman, what"s the row? I"m not going to hurt you.
Funny little codger! To whom do you belong?" He turned the collar around, read the inscription, and gently put the puppy on the ground.
Nora Harrigan!
His immediate impulse was to walk on, but somehow this impulse refused to act on his sense of locomotion. He waited, dully wondering what was going to happen when she came out. He had left her room that night in Paris, vowing that he would never intrude on her again. With the recollection of that bullet whizzing past his ear, he had been convinced that the play was done. True, she had testified that it had been accidental, but never would he forget the look in her eyes. It was not pleasant to remember. And still, as the needle is drawn by the magnet, here he was, in Bellaggio. He cursed his weakness. From Brescia he had made up his mind to go directly to Berlin. Before he realized how useless it was to battle against these invisible forces, he was in Milan, booking for Como. At Como he had remained a week (the dullest week he had ever known); at the Villa d"Este three days; at Cadenabbia one day. It had all the characteristics of a tug-of-war, and irresistibly he was drawn over the line. The night before he had taken the evening boat across the lake. And Herr Rosen had been his fellow-pa.s.senger! The G.o.ddess of chance threw whimsical coils around her victims. To find himself shoulder to shoulder, as it were, with this man who, perhaps more than all other incentives, had urged him to return again to civilization; this man who had aroused in his heart a sentiment that hitherto he had not believed existed,--jealousy.... Ah, voices! He stepped aside quickly.
"Fritz, Fritz; where are you?"
And a moment later she came out, followed by her mother ... and the little lady of the Taverne Royale. Did Nora see him? It was impossible to tell.
She simply stooped and gathered up the puppy, who struggled determinedly to lick her face. Courtlandt lifted his hat. It was in nowise offered as an act of recognition; it was merely the mechanical courtesy that a man generally pays to any woman in whose path he chances to be for the breath of a second. The three women in immaculate white, hatless, but with sunshades, pa.s.sed on down the street.
Courtlandt went into the shop, rather blindly. He stared at the shelves of paper-covered novels and post-cards, and when the polite proprietor offered him a dozen of the latter, he accepted them without comment.
Indeed, he put them into a pocket and turned to go out.
"Pardon, sir; those are one franc the dozen."
"Ah, yes." Courtlandt pulled out some silver. It was going to be terribly difficult, and his heart was heavy with evil presages. He had seen Celeste. He understood the amusing if mysterious comedy now. Nora had recognized him and had sent her friend to follow him and learn where he went. And he, poor fool of a blunderer, with the best intentions in the world, he had gone at once to the Calabrian"s apartment! It was d.a.m.nable of fate. He had righted nothing. In truth, he was deeper than ever in the quicksands of misunderstanding. He shut his teeth with a click. How neatly she had waylaid and trapped him!
"Those are from Lucerne, sir."
"What?" bewildered.
"Those wood-carvings which you are touching with your cane, sir."
"I beg your pardon," said Courtlandt, apologetically, and gained the open.
He threw a quick glance down the street. There they were. He proceeded in the opposite direction, toward his hotel. Tea at the colonel"s? Scarcely.
He would go to Menaggio with the hotel motor-boat and return so late that he would arrive only in time for dinner. He was not going to meet the enemy over tea-cups, at least, not under the soldier"s tactless supervision. He must find a smoother way, calculated, under the rose, but seemingly accidental. It was something to ponder over.
"Nora, who was that?" asked Mrs. Harrigan.
"Who was who?" countered Nora, snuggling the wriggling dachel under her arm and throwing the sunshade across her shoulder.
"That fine-looking young man who stood by the door as we pa.s.sed out. He raised his hat."
"Oh, bother! I was looking at Fritz."
Celeste searched her face keenly, but Nora looked on ahead serenely; not a quiver of an eyelid, not the slightest change in color or expression.
"She did not see him!" thought the musician, curiously stirred. She knew her friend tolerably well. It would have been impossible for her to have seen that man and not to have given evidence of the fact.
In short, Nora had spoken truthfully. She had seen a man dressed in white flannels and canvas shoes, but her eyes had not traveled so far as his face.
"Mother, we must have some of those silk blankets. They"re so comfy to lie on."
"You never see anything except when you want to," complained Mrs.
Harrigan.
"It saves a deal of trouble. I don"t want to go to the colonel"s this afternoon. He always has some frump to pour tea and ask fool questions."
"The frump, as you call her, is usually a countess or a d.u.c.h.ess," with asperity.
"Fiddlesticks! n.o.bility makes a specialty of frumps; it is one of the species of the caste. That"s why I shall never marry a t.i.tle. I wish neither to visit nor to entertain frumps. Frump,--the word calls up the exact picture; frump and fatuity. Oh, I"ll go, but I"d rather stay on my balcony and read a good book."
"My dear," patiently, "the colonel is one of the social laws on Como. His sister is the wife of an earl. You must not offend him. His Sundays are the most exclusive on the lake."
"The word exclusive should be properly applied to those in jail. The social ladder, the social ladder! Don"t you know, mother mine, that every rung is sawn by envy and greed, and that those who climb highest fall farthest?"
"You are quoting the padre."