Nature had gone back to the simple apparel of her youth, here. She was idyllic and charming, but we were not to ask of her any more sensational splendours, by way of costume, for she had not brought them with her in her dress-basket. There were near green hills, and far blue mountains, and certain rocky eminences in the middle distance, but nothing of grandeur. Poplars marched along with us on either side, primly on guard, and puritanical, though all the while their myriad little fingers seemed to twinkle over the keyboard of an invisible piano, playing a rapid waltz.
Then we came at last into Aix-les-Bains, where I had spent a merry month during a "long," in Oxford days. I had not been back since.
Already the height of the season was over, for it was September now, but the gay little watering-place seemed crowded still, and in our knickerbockers, with our pack-mule and donkeys, and their attendants, we must have added a fantastic note to the dance-music which the very breezes play among tree-branches at light-hearted Aix.
"Pretty, isn"t it?" I remarked indifferently, as we pa.s.sed through some of the most fashionable streets.
"Yes, very pretty," said the Boy. "But what is there that one misses?
There"s something--I"m not sure what. Is it that the place looks huddled together? You can"t see its face, for its features. There are people like that. You are introduced to them; you think them charming; yet when you"ve been away for a little while you couldn"t for your life recall the shape of their nose, or mouth, or eyes. I feel it is going to be so with Aix, for me."
The villa which the Contessa had taken for a few weeks before her annual flitting for Monte Carlo, was on the way to Marlioz, and we had been told exactly how to find it. Still silent as to my ultimate intentions, I tramped along with the Boy beside me, Joseph and Innocentina bringing up the rear. We would know the villa from the description we had been given, and having pa.s.sed out of the town, we presently saw it; a little dun-coloured house, standing up slender and graceful among trees, like a charming grey rabbit on the watch by its hidden warren in the woods.
"I"m tired, aren"t you?" asked the Boy. "I shall be glad to rest."
Now was my time. "I shan"t be able to rest quite yet," said I, with a careless air. "I shall see you in, say "How-de-do" to the Contessa, and then I must be off to the hotel where I used to stop. I remember it as delightful."
"Why," exclaimed the Boy blankly, "but I thought--I thought we were going to stay with the Contessa!"
"You are, but I"m not," I explained calmly. "My friends the Winstons may very likely turn up at the same hotel" (this was true on the principle that anything, no matter how unexpected, _may_ happen); "and if they should, I"d want to be on the spot to give them a welcome. I wouldn"t miss them for the world."
"The Contessa will be disappointed," said the Boy slowly.
"Oh no, I don"t think so; and if she is, a little, you will easily console her."
"If I had dreamed that you wouldn"t----" The Boy began his sentence hastily, then cut it as quickly short.
I opened the gate. We pa.s.sed in together, Joseph remaining outside according to my directions, keeping f.a.n.n.y-anny as well as Finois, while Innocentina followed the Boy with the pack-donkey.
A turn in the path brought us suddenly upon a lawn, surrounded with shrubbery which at first had hidden it from our view. There, under a huge crimson umbrella, rising flowerlike by its long slender stem from the smooth-shaven gra.s.s, sat four persons in basket chairs, round a small tea table. Gaeta, in green as pale as Undine"s draperies, sprang up with a glad little cry to greet us. The Baron and Baronessa smiled bleak "society smiles," and a handsome, fair young man frankly glared.
Evidently this was the great Paolo, master of the air and ships that sail therein; and as evidently he had heard of us.
Now I knew what the Baron had meant when he said to his wife: "Something _shall_ happen, my dear." He had telegraphed a danger-signal to Paolo, and Paolo had lost not a moment in responding.
This looked as if Paolo meant business in deadly earnest, where the Contessa was concerned; for how many dinners and medals must he not have missed in Paris, how many important persons in the air-world must he not have offended, by breaking his engagements in the hope of making one here?
He was fair, with a Latin fairness, this famous young man. There was nothing Saxon or Anglo-Saxon about him. No one could possibly bestow him--in a guess--upon any other country than his native Italy. He was thirty-one or two perhaps, long-limbed and wolfishly spare, like his elder brother, whom he resembled thus only. He had an eagle nose, prominent red lips, sulky and sensuous, a fine though narrow forehead under brown hair cut _en brosse_, a shade darker than the small, waxed moustache and pointed beard. His brows turned up slightly at the outer corners, and his heavy-lidded, tobacco-coloured eyes were bold, insolent, and pa.s.sionate at the same time.
This was the man who wished to marry b.u.t.terfly Gaeta, and who had come on the wings of the wind, in an airship "shod with fire," or in the _train de luxe_, to defend his rights against marauders.
His look, travelling from me to the Boy, and from the Boy to Innocentina and meek grey Souris, was so eloquent of contempt pa.s.sing words, that I should have wanted to knock the sprawling flannelled figure out of the basket chair, if I had not wanted still more to yell with laughter.
He, the Boy and I were like dogs from rival kennels eyeing each other over, and thinking poorly of the other"s points. Paolo di Nivoli was doubtless saying to himself what a splendid fellow he was, and how well dressed and famous; also how absurd it really would be to fear one of us dusty, knickerbockered, thick-booted, panama-hatted louts, in the tournament of love. The donkey, too, with its pack, and Innocentina with her toadstool hat, must have added for the aeronaut the last touch of shame to our environment.
As for us,--if I may judge the Boy by myself,--we were totting up against the Italian his stiff crest of hair, for all the world like a toothbrush, rampant, gules; the smear of wax on the spikes of his unnecessarily fierce moustache; the ridiculous pinpoints of his narrow brown shoes; the flaunting newness of his white flannels: the detestable little tucks in his shirt; his pink necktie.
In fact, each was despising the other for that on which the other prided himself.
All this pa.s.sed in a glance, but the frigid atmosphere grew no warmer for the introduction hastily effected by Gaeta. To be sure, the Boy bowed, I bowed, and Paolo bowed the lowest of the trio, so that we saw the parting in his hair; but three honest snorts of defiance would have been no more unfriendly than our courtesies.
Not a doubt that Gaeta felt the electricity in the air, with the instinct of a woman; but with the instinct of a born flirt, she thrilled with it. Her colour rose; her warm eyes sparkled. She was perfectly happy; for--from her point of view--were there not here three male beings all secretly ready to fly at one another"s throat for love of her; and what can a spoiled beauty want more?
She covered the little awkwardness with charming tact, for all her childishness; and then the excuses I made for my defection caused a diversion. She was so sorry; it was really too bad. I was going to desert her for other friends. Were not we friends, nice new friends, so much more interesting than old friends, whom you knew inside-out, like your frocks or your gloves? But surely, I would come often, very often to the villa--always for _dejeuner_ and _diner_, till the other friends arrived, was it not? And I would not try to take Signor Boy (this was the name she had built on mine for him) away from her and the dear Baronessa?
I rea.s.sured her on this last point, promised everything she asked, and then got away as quickly as I could, lest I should disgrace myself by letting escape the wild laughter which I caged with difficulty. It was arranged that we should all meet that evening, after dinner, at the Villa des Fleurs, for one of those _fetes de nuit_ which Gaeta loved; and then I turned my back upon the group under the red umbrella, without a glance for the Boy.
I tramped into the town once more, with Joseph close behind, leading his own Finois and Innocentina"s f.a.n.n.y, and found my way to the hotel, in its large shady garden, where coloured lamps were already beginning to glow in the twilight. Soon I had all the resources of civilisation at my command: a white-and-gold panelled suite, with a bath as big as a boudoir, and hot water enough to make of me a better man (I hoped) than Paolo di Nivoli.
Later I dined on the wide balcony, with flower-fragrance blowing towards me from the mysterious blue dusk of the garden. I ought, I said to myself, to be well-contented, for the dinner was excellent, and the surroundings a picture in aquarelles. Still, I had a vague sense of something very wrong, such as a well brought up motor car must feel when it has a screw loose, and can"t explain to the chauffeur. What was it? The Boy"s absence? Nonsense; he didn"t want me, rather the contrary. Why should I want him? A few weeks ago I had not known that he existed. I drank a pint of dry champagne, iced almost to freezing point; but instead of hardening my heart against the ex-Brat, to my annoyance the sparkling liquid gradually but surely produced the opposite effect.
The fragrance of the flowers, the soft wind among the chestnut trees in the garden, the beauty of the night, all reproached me for my conduct to the young creature I had abandoned. What use was it to remind myself that I had merely taken a leaf out of his book, that I had even played into his hands, as he seemed to desire? The answer would come that he was a boy, and I a man. No matter what he had done, I ought not to have left him to flirt with Gaeta under the jealous eyes of the Italian, who was "a whirlwind, and caught a woman off her feet."
It was too late now to think of this, for I had refused Gaeta"s invitation to visit at her house, and having done so I could not ask for another, even if I would. Probably the Boy would know well enough how far to go, and to protect himself from consequences when he had reached the limit.
[Ill.u.s.tration]
CHAPTER XXI
The Challenge
""Do I indeed lack courage?" inquired Mr. Archer of himself, "Courage, ... that does not fail a weasel or a rat-- that is a brutish faculty?""--R.L. STEVENSON.
I drank my black coffee and smoked a cigarette. Then, a glance at my watch told me that it was time to keep the appointment at the Villa des Fleurs, five minutes" walk from the hotel. I expected the Contessa"s party to be late, but somewhat to my surprise they had already arrived, and a quick glance showed me that, outwardly at least, the relations of all were still amicable.
"Signor Boy did not wish to come," said the Contessa to me, "but I made him. He says that he does not like crowds. Look at him now; he has wandered far from us already, probably to find some dark corner where he can forget that there are too many people. But then, it was sweet of him to come at all, since it was only to please me."
It was true. The Boy had slipped away from the seats we had taken near the music. He had gone to avoid me, perhaps, I said to myself bitterly. I need not have spoiled my dinner with anxiety for his welfare; he seemed to be taking very good care of himself.
"I was horribly worried at dinner," whispered Gaeta to me, the light of the fireworks playing rosily over her face. "Those two--you know of whom I speak--weren"t a bit nice to each other. It was Paolo who began it, of course, saying little, hateful things that sounded smooth, but had a second meaning; and Signor Boy is not stupid. He did not miss the bad intention, oh, not he, and he said other little things back again, much sharper and wittier than Paolo, who was furious, and gnawed his lip. It was most exciting."
"Did you try to pour oil on the troubled waters?" I asked.
"I was very pleasant to them both, if that is what you mean, first to one and then to the other. After dinner, I gave Signor Boy a rose, and Paolo a gardenia."
"How charming of you," I commented drily. "If that didn"t smooth matters, what could?"
The aeronaut was sitting on Gaeta"s left, I on her right, with the Baronessa next me on the other side, and both were straining every nerve to hear our confidences, though pretending to be lost in admiration of the _feu d"artifice_.
When the Contessa laughed softly, her little dark head not far from my ear, the Italian sprang up, and walked away, unable to endure five minutes of Gaeta"s neglect. She and I continued our conversation, though our eyes wandered, mine in search of the Boy, hers I fancy in quest of the same object.
Soon I caught sight of the slim, youthful figure, in its rather fantastic evening dress, the becoming dinner-jacket, the Eton collar, the loosely tied bow at the throat, and the full, black knickerbocker trousers, like those worn in the days of Henri Quatre. As I watched it moving through the crowd, and finally subsiding in a seat under an isolated tree, I saw the boyish form joined by a tall and manly one.
Paolo di Nivoli had followed his young rival, and presently came to a stand close to the Boy"s chair. He folded his arms, and looked down into the eyes which were upturned in answer to some word.
We could not see the expression of the two faces. We saw only that the man and the boy were talking, spasmodically at first, then continuously.
"I do hope they"re not quarrelling," said Gaeta, in the seventh heaven of delight.