The Guests Of Hercules Part 46

"I will answer no more questions from you, Prince Della Robbia," she said, with an almost stern dignity which had never been hers. Angelo felt this, but it made him see her as a woman more dangerous to Vanno than he had supposed, because it revealed in her unexpected strength, tenacity, and even subtlety.

"Very well," he replied. "It is your right to refuse. But this you must understand. I shall not permit my brother to marry you in ignorance of--we will say the stories told of your past, since you deny their truth. If you refuse to tell him, I myself will do it. I will tell him exactly what has happened to-day. And I shall see that the detective whom Idina employed against my wife does not go away before Vanno returns, at any rate without leaving her address. Also I must say this: I cannot compel my brother to give you up if he chooses you as his wife in spite of all, and if you love him little enough to do him so great a wrong. But I can control my wife's actions. Frankly, I do not consider you the right companion for her."

Mary's cheeks blazed, not with shame but with indignation. She quivered from head to foot with anger such as she had not known that she could feel. Never had she experienced so strong a temptation as now, when she burned to fling the truth in this man's haughty face. How it would change if she accused the wife he put so far above her! And how easily she could prove that the burden of guilt was Marie's. It was as if in a vivid lightning-flash she saw Angelo withered by the knowledge, his pride in the dust; and a tigress instinct of revenge leaped into life, longing to see him thus in reality, burning to use her power to crush and annihilate his happiness forever. But she fought with herself and resisted. For an instant she was silent, gathering the reins of self-control. Then she said only: "I will go away from your house at once, Prince Della Robbia."

"That must be as you wish," he replied. "I do not ask you to go."

"You believe unspeakable things of me. That is the same as telling me to go. In my country they suppose people innocent until they're proved guilty. With you, it seems to be different. Without waiting for proof, you take it for granted that I'm guilty, that I've deceived Vanno and you."

"Your silence when you might have defended yourself from Miss Bland and from the American woman was proof in itself. If you are not the person concerned in their story, surely you would have denied your ident.i.ty with her. You said nothing. You bowed your head under the storm. Only now, when you're alone with me, knowing me to be ignorant of any facts against you, do you raise it again. But enough of recrimination. Vanno can decide for himself when he comes, and when he knows all from you or me. Meanwhile you may stay in my house if you choose. I offer you its shelter because you are a woman alone and because my brother who loves you put you under my protection. But I do not intend that my wife shall have any further communication with you; and to prevent talk among the servants which might spread outside, I suggest that if you remain you keep your room, as an invalid, until Vanno returns."

"I thank you for your consideration," Mary said bitterly, "but I shall not stay. I shall pack my things immediately myself; for I will not be helped by one of your servants, or owe anything more to you. When Vanno comes, as you say, he can decide for himself."

"You will write to him?" Angelo inquired.

"I will write to him. And you need have no further trouble with anything that concerns me."

Without another word, or a look at him, she turned away and walked into the house.

Almost mechanically she went upstairs to the pretty room that had been hers. She was too intensely excited to think. She could only feel. And throughout her whole life she had felt about her thoughts, rather than thought about her feelings. Less than ever did she try to a.n.a.lyze them now. She hastily gathered her things together, and piled them without folding into trunks and dressing-bag. She had not made up her mind where to go or what to do. The first thing and the most important thing was to get away from this house. Once away, breathing freer air, it would be time enough to plan.

As she packed furiously and unskilfully, she feared that Marie might come in and beg her forgiveness or try to explain. She felt that she could not bear this. And she shrank from the idea of seeing Marie again.

She was afraid that she might be tempted to say something terrible. The one clear thought in her brain was the thought of Vanno; and he was in her mind as an image rather than a thought. She said over and over to herself almost stupidly as she prepared to leave Angelo's house: "If only Vanno were here--if only Vanno were here!"

Before she was ready to go she suddenly remembered that she must have a cab. Nothing would induce her to take Prince Della Robbia's car, even if it were offered. She rang for a servant, gave a generous present of money, and said that she had received news calling her away at once. A carriage must be found quickly.

As it happened, the descendant of the great French family was stationed at the edge of the olive wood with his little victoria. The weather had changed since morning. The mistral had begun to blow, and Jacques had found little to do, for people were keeping indoors. When Mary started, with one trunk on the front of the little cab, the world was very different from the happy blue and gold world of the morning. Had she been on foot, the gale sweeping down from Provence would have blown her like a rag from the path; and the small but st.u.r.dy horse seemed to lean on a wall of wind as he trotted toward Monte Carlo.

Mary had resolved to beg Rose Winter for a night's shelter. She believed it might be possible, without betraying the secret, to tell Rose that something disturbing had happened which had decided her to leave Prince Della Robbia's house. She felt sure of advice and welcome from the Winters, and she thought it probable that they would ask her to stop longer than the night; but she made up her mind in advance not to accept such an invitation. People who knew that she was visiting Princess Della Robbia would talk if they saw her in Monte Carlo, especially while Vanno was away. There had been more than enough gossip already. When she started for Monte Carlo she had no idea where to go after leaving Rose, as she determined to do next day; but it was as if a voice came to her on the wind, saying: "Why not stay at the Chateau Lontana?"

Mary caught at the suggestion. She had felt vaguely guilty in deciding that she could not grant Hannaford's wish, and live in his villa. It had seemed impossible to be happy there. She had thought that tragic memories would haunt the house and echo through the rooms, though strangers who knew nothing of Hannaford's story might find it a pleasant place. But now she was not asking or expecting happiness for the present. She wanted a refuge, where she might think and wait quietly, out of gossip's way--a place whence she could write Vanno: "When you come you will find me here."

As she said these words in her mind they took a different form. "_If_ you come," she began; then stopped hastily and changed the "if" to "when." Vanno would come. She had done nothing because of which she deserved to lose him, and she would not lose him. Somehow, everything must be made to come right. She would think of a way.

In front of the big, balconied building where the Winters lived Jacques stopped and put Mary's small trunk and dressing-bag inside the door, while his little white horse stood tranquilly among pa.s.sing motors. She asked him to call later at the Villa Mirasole for her other luggage, which she had already packed and labelled, and take it to the cloak-room at Monte Carlo railway station, where it could be called for. Then she paid him generously for everything, and won the man's heart by saying goodbye to his miniature dog, Pomponette.

Mary had no doubt that the Winters would take her in for the night; and it was a blow to be told by Nathalie that Monsieur and Madame had gone to Nice to bring back the aunt of Monsieur who had fallen ill at a hotel. They would return by the train arriving at seven. Would Mademoiselle wait or look in again?

Mary hesitated, not knowing how to rearrange her plans. It was evident, as the dreaded aunt had come down upon them after all, that the Winters could not keep another guest even for a night, unless they made a bed in the drawing-room, or the chaplain went out and gave up his share of Rose's room. But Mary did not think for an instant of putting her friends to this inconvenience.

"No, thank you," she said, recovering from the first shock of disappointment. "Tell Madame I regret very much not seeing her, but I called to get my jewel-case which she kindly kept for me. And--say that I will write."

Already Mary had made up her mind that she must go at once to the Chateau Lontana. She knew that Hannaford had put in a caretaker when he bought the place--a woman he had described as an interesting creature "discovered" in some odd way. What the way was, or precisely what Hannaford had said of the woman, Mary had forgotten; for she had often listened absent-mindedly to Hannaford's talk of his beloved villa and all concerning it; but the great thing was the certainty that a woman lived in the house. Mary could go there alone without fear.

She was glad that Rose had given her the key of the cabinet in which her jewel-case was kept, because she had very little money, and as it was already five o'clock the banks would be shut. It would not be an agreeable necessity, but she could go to the jeweller in the Galerie Charles Trois where she had bought many of her beautiful things and, explaining that she needed ready money, ask him to buy back a diamond pendant or brooch.

When she had taken the jewel-case, which was in the shape of an inconspicuous hand bag, she gave Nathalie the key of the cabinet, and said nothing of the luggage waiting on the ground floor. She knew it would grieve George and Rose Winter to guess that she had come expecting to stay. Downstairs she spoke to the concierge, saying she would return with a cab to fetch the things away. She would go, she thought, to the railway station and inquire about trains for Ventimiglia. Then having settled the hour of departure, she would dispose of a little jewellery and call in a cab at the Winters' for her luggage.

The sun had set, and the early darkness of the Riviera night had fallen, though it was only five o'clock, but the Boulevard d'Italie and the Boulevard des Moulins were brilliantly lighted. The shops looked bright and enticing, but Mary did not notice them as she would once have done.

She walked quickly, and at the top of the gardens was about to turn down toward the Casino and more distant railway station when she came upon Lord and Lady Dauntrey.

If she could she would have avoided them, but it was too late. They were standing together, talking with great earnestness, and Mary had brushed against Lord Dauntrey's shoulder on the narrow pavement before she recognized the pair. Both turned with a start, as if they had been brought back by a touch from dreams to reality; and a street lamp on the opposite side of the gardens lighted up their features with a cruel distinctness. Instantly Mary knew that some terrible thing had happened.

Lord Dauntrey was like a man under sentence of death, and though his wife's expression was not to be read at a glance, the look in her eyes arrested Mary. The girl stopped involuntarily, as if Eve had seized her by the arm. "What is the matter?" she asked, without any preface of greeting. A conventional "How do you do?" would have been an insulting mockery flung at those set, white faces.

"For G.o.d's sake, tell her not to drive me mad," Dauntrey said in a voice which was strange to Mary. It was not like his, though she had heard him speak raspingly when ill luck at the tables had depressed him. It seemed to her that such a voice might come from one shut up in a cell, or from a man enclosed in armour with visor down. It was a voice that frightened her.

"Oh, Lady Dauntrey, what does he mean?"

Eve caught the girl by the hand, holding it tightly, as if she feared that she might take alarm and run away.

"I've told him that I shall hate him if he's a coward," she answered in a voice cold and hard as iron.

"If I'm a coward, what are you?" Dauntrey retorted. "You want me to crawl to those people for a few wretched louis, and you're too selfish to stick by me through it all. I've told you I'd go, if you'd go with me."

"I won't!" Eve flung at him. "You ought to be ashamed to ask it. Coward!

He's brought us to this, and now he's afraid to do the one thing that can help."

"Please, please, let me go away," pleaded Mary, sick with shame for both, and for herself because she was a witness of the scene. "I oughtn't to be hearing this. I--unless I can do some good----"

"_You_ can go with him, if you want to do good," Eve cut her short almost savagely. "I'm broken--done! But you--you've nothing to ask them for yourself. You might see him through, if he's too weak to go alone.

We're down, both of us, in the mud; but you're high up in the world.

You're of importance now. Maybe they'd do for you what they wouldn't for one of us."

"I don't know what you mean. I'm in the dark."

"How could she know?" Dauntrey asked his wife, controlling his rage.

"We've lost everything in this beautiful h.e.l.l," Eve explained sullenly.

"Haven't you heard any news of us this last week?"

"No, nothing--nothing."

"It began with a row at a hotel," Eve went on. "I lost my temper--I had the best excuse--but I struck a woman who dared to cut me. There was a scene. Then all the people who were left at our house turned against us and walked off the same day----"

"Yet she says everything is my fault!" Dauntrey threw out his hands with a disclaiming gesture.

"Hold your tongue!" Eve shrilled at him, seeming to care no more than a wounded animal for the astonished stares of pa.s.sers-by. It was only Dauntrey who made some poor attempt to cloak and screen the squalor of their quarrel. "What I say is true. Everything _is_ your fault. Who gambled away the money I made, slaving in the house, taking boarders and trying to hold my head up? It was for your sake I worked; and now you refuse to do your part, yet you expect me to keep on loving you."

"Oh, don't, don't!" Mary pleaded. "I'll go with him, anywhere you want me to go."

Instantly Eve became calmer. "Will you do the thing if she stands by you?" she asked her husband.

"Yes," he answered, dully.

"Then for heaven's sake start at once, before you change your mind. I'll wait for you here, on a seat. I must sit down or I shall drop."

"Wouldn't you rather go home if--if I ordered you a cab?" Mary suggested. "You will be so cold--so miserable--sitting out of doors in this sharp wind, with clouds of dust blowing."

"Home!" Eve repeated. "We haven't any home. We've had to leave the villa. We couldn't pay the rent. The beast of a landlord ordered us out.