Читать книгу Prodigals of Monte Carlo - E. Phillips Oppenheim - Страница 10

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Robert arrived late for lunch to find Violet seated before an almost Sybaritic repast. A grave manservant stood behind her chair; a maid fluttered around. He felt a little awkward.

“Sorry I’m late,” he apologised.

“It really doesn’t matter,” she assured him.

He took his place and was promptly served.

“Had a good time?” he enquired.

“Wonderful!”

“You didn’t mind my having a drink with that young woman?” he asked. “She was standing by me at the tables and helped me with my French.”

“Not in the least,” Violet replied, a little ruefully, “but it seems to me that Monte Carlo is not a very good place for a respectable young woman like me. I, too, felt very much like an apéritif this morning. I found myself passing a café, and Sir Hargrave talked to me for five minutes. Then another lady arrived and he sent me away. I came down the hill hoping to meet you, and when I did you were sitting with that little French girl—quite pretty she was, too—and again I got no apéritif. What is one to do? I think I must collect an admirer.”

“You won’t have much trouble,” he assured her.

“Honestly, I don’t think I should,” she admitted. “Something will have to be done another morning.”

“Who was the lady Sir Hargrave was waiting for?” Robert enquired.

“A very beautiful Russian woman, the Princess Putralka.”

“I heard them talking about her at the café this morning when her car went by,” he said. “Her husband for some reason or other was with the French army during the War. An Englishman was saying that they were one of the few great Russian families who didn’t lose their money. She even had her jewels here.”

“She looked wonderful,” Violet sighed. “There was something about her clothes which seemed to have been thought into them, and her figure was too beautiful. She is very pale and has large, blue eyes, almost violet. I have never seen any one in the least like her.—Tell me, did you win any money at roulette?”

“I lost,” was the gloomy response.

“As soon as the sun goes down,” Violet announced, “I am going in to try what I can do. I think I shall go to the Club, though. Until then, Robert, shall we ask if we can have an automobile?”

Robert was half engaged to visit a thé dansant at the Café de France, but in a spirit of magnanimity he acquiesced.

“We’ll go just as far as we can into the mountains,” Violet proposed. “Perhaps we can find a little café and have tea. Robert, it will be wonderful! I can scarcely believe that those mountains really exist—that there are really roads to those strange-looking houses.”

“An automobile is entirely at Mademoiselle’s disposition,” the butler interposed respectfully. “It is now just half-past one. Shall I order it for two or before?”

They decided upon a quarter to two. Afterwards they had coffee and smoked cigarettes upon the balcony. Violet shook her head at Robert’s copious liqueur.

“One must take care out here,” she enjoined. “I scarcely dare to drink anything at all. The atmosphere is like wine, and up in the mountains—why, it must be heavenly!”

Robert, after his excellent lunch, was at peace with the whole world. He took Violet’s hand into his without noticing her faint reluctance.

“Sorry if I seemed to be neglectful this morning,” he observed. “That game does take hold of you, and it was just an accident meeting the little girl outside who had helped me.”

“My dear boy, I don’t mind at all,” Violet assured him. “The only thing is, I do hope some one will be able sometimes to look after me.”

“I shall do that,” he promised. “No one is going to take my place, Violet.”

She looked at him with a sudden queer spirit of intuition. In London his very misery, the depression of his daily life, and his need of her, had kept her thoughts loyally from ever wandering. She wondered now what effect this brief period of prosperity might have. His first claim upon her was abruptly removed, and with its absence she was almost horrified to find a faint but distinct loss of interest. His clothes were expensive, but he had been impatient of suggestions, and they were not quite the sort of clothes she would have selected. The pattern of his tie annoyed her. She found herself indulging in a self-conscious comparison—feeling suddenly guilty almost of disloyalty. She took his arm affectionately.

“I’m going to get ready, Robert,” she said. “What a lovely afternoon we shall have!”

Yet there was something unsatisfactory about it. The heights which filled her with wonder made him, he declared, giddy. The fairylike panorama which unrolled itself as they mounted, tongues of green villa-dotted land spitted into the blue sea, Monaco with its Cathedral and Royal Palace, falling into the distant spaces as they climbed towards La Turbie, the unfamiliar vegetation, the orange trees and the budding mimosa, kept Violet all the time breathless with interest. Robert’s responses to her enthusiasms were, to say the least of it, half-hearted. Presently she abandoned attempts at conversation and leaned back in her corner, absorbed in her thoughts. Robert, smoking interminable cigarettes, glanced often backwards at the Casino. They passed Eze, and short of Nice turned into the Lower Corniche. As soon as their faces were once more set towards Monte Carlo, Robert recovered his spirits. He took out his jettons and counted them.

“It’s a wonderful life,” he declared.

She agreed a little listlessly. Her eyes were upturned towards the hills, her thoughts had wandered. A goatherd was standing motionless upon a ridge of the rock-strewn turf whilst his flock browsed amongst the scanty herbage. He watched them pass without interest or movement. He was almost like a part of the landscape, lifeless, soulless, eternal. A car rushed by them up the slope. They both recognised Hargrave. Robert indulged in a little exclamation of admiration.

“That’s the best-looking woman I’ve seen here yet!” he declared. “I wonder who she is.”

“The woman we were speaking of, the Princess Putralka,” Violet answered. “He told me he was going over to Cannes this afternoon to play tennis.”

“What a life!” Robert murmured enviously. “Fancy being able to do it all the time.”

“Couldn’t we play tennis now and then?” Violet suggested. “We’re neither of us so bad.”

He shook his head doubtfully.

“Later on, perhaps. Just at present there’s too much to do.”

“Tennis would interest me,” she observed, a little coldly.

“You can play tennis at any old place in London,” he scoffed.

“So can you drink cocktails with beautiful young demimondaines,” she retorted.

“You needn’t bring that up again,” he grumbled. “It’s the roulette that interests me, the excitement, the music at the cafés, the people.”

They were set down at the Sporting Club, where Robert found a seat and began to play at once. Violet wandered around, watching the play, a little interested, a little bored. Presently she seated herself upon a couch near the table where Robert was playing. A woman, apparently young, and fashionably dressed, seated a few yards away, was talking to a short, round-faced man of good-natured appearance, whose horn-rimmed spectacles and accent pronounced him an American. She held in her hand what appeared to be a cable, and she referred to it more than once. Violet, after her first careless glance, would have looked away, but for the sudden mention of Hargrave Wendever’s name. Afterwards she found herself half subconsciously listening.

“It’s a pretty tough proposition to find out what a man like Hargrave Wendever’s driving at,” the man declared meditatively. “I’ve been sizing it up all the way coming down. I’d say that it was up to you, Nina.”

The woman shook her head doubtfully. Violet had a better view of her now. She seemed to be about thirty-five years old and she was distinctly attractive, fair with a beautiful complexion and perfect figure.

“What chance have I got?” she demanded. “That Putralka woman hangs on to him like grim death, the Duchess is all the time waiting for her look-in, and Diane declared last night, when she sent Charlie Peters away, that Sir Hargrave was the only man here with ‘chic’.”

The American smiled.

“Say, you’re becoming modest, aren’t you, Nina?” he remarked. “I’ve heard you talk differently to that in the old days. I’ve heard you say that there wasn’t a man you couldn’t wheedle off his perch if you wanted him.”

She rose abruptly to her feet.

“This man is different,” she said. “We will go into the bar. There are too many people round here for conversation. Something must be done. The sooner you go over to Nice the better.”

Violet watched them disappear with curious eyes. There was nothing unusual about their appearance, but from the first she was conscious of a peculiar feeling of aversion to both of them, of a profound distrust of the good-natured exterior of the man. Whatever their interest in Hargrave Wendever might be, she was convinced that it was an unfriendly one. A sense almost of fear oppressed her, as though they had left some baneful influence in the atmosphere. She rose and moved towards the chair where Robert was seated. Just as she neared him, however, he stood up.

“Going to change my table,” he announced. “I can’t do any good here and none of the croupiers understand a word of English. That bewigged old Frenchwoman opposite has pinched two of my stakes already.”

“Come and have some tea first,” she begged.

He assented a little unwillingly, himself drinking a whisky and soda. At the opposite table were seated the man and the woman who had been discussing Hargrave Wendever. They were still talking earnestly, and more than once the woman read extracts from the cable which she held in her hand. Robert listened without much interest to Violet’s whispered but breathless confidence.

“Adventurers, I daresay,” he commented. “Sir Hargrave is just the sort of man they would go for. Ripping looking woman!”

“She’s very handsome,” Violet agreed, “but I don’t like her expression.”

They were suddenly conscious that they themselves had become objects of interest to the people whom they were discussing. The woman appeared to have directed her companion’s attention to them.

“Now, what does that mean?” Violet murmured. “They are talking about us.”

Robert shook his head.

“Beyond me,” he admitted. “Besides, I don’t see that it matters much, anyway. Come and watch me start at one of the other tables.”

They left the room, followed by the curious glances of their opposite neighbours. Robert made his way to one of the tables in the further salon, and settled himself down with a little pile of counters before him.

“When these have gone I’ve finished,” he announced.

“I shall risk five louis,” Violet decided, handing a hundred-franc note to the croupier.

She staked her money piece by piece, and lost. Then she rose to her feet and as she strolled away she saw that her place had been taken by the woman who had spoken of Hargrave Wendever.