Chapter Ten.
Mask and Domino.
The world-famous Battle of Flowers had been fought in brilliant, cloudless weather along the Promenade des Anglais, and Liane riding alone in a victoria covered with violets and stocks set off with rose bows and ribbons, had been awarded a prize-banner, while Zertho, his coach adorned by Maréchal Niel roses and white lilac, entertained a party, and was a conspicuous figure in the picturesque procession. The crowd was enormous, the number of decorated carriages greater than ever before known, and as the contending parties, made up of people in carriages decorated with flowers and coloured ribbons, passed slowly along on either side of the broad drive, they kept up a brisk fire of small bouquets. As they went by, the occupants of the tribunes poured broadsides into the carriages, and the battle raged everywhere hot and furious. Liane, sitting alone embowered in violets, flushed with the excitement of throwing handfuls of flowers at all and sundry, found herself more than once in the very thick of the fray and was pelted until her hair escaped from its pins and she felt herself horribly untidy.
Brooker had excused himself from forming one of Zertho’s party and had gone for a long walk into the country; but that night he reluctantly accompanied them to the great Veglione at the Opera, where all were in grotesque costume, both Zertho and himself wearing hideous masks with enormous red noses, while Liane was attired in the beautiful costume of an odalisque, which, at Zertho’s desire, had been specially made for her in Paris. Folly reigned supreme in that whirlwind of light and colour, and although dancing was almost impossible in consequence of the crowded state of the beautifully decorated theatre, yet the fun was always fast and furious, and the first saffron streak had already showed over the grey misty sea before they entered their carriage to drive homeward.
Variety had now become Liane’s very life, excitement the source and sustenance of her existence. Within the few days which had elapsed since the evening when her father had urged her to marry Zertho a complete change had come upon her. No longer was she dull, dreamy, and apathetic, but eager to embrace any opportunity whereby her thoughts might be turned from the one subject which preyed upon her mind. She entered thoroughly into the Carnival fun and frolic, and Zertho, believing that her gaiety arose from contentment, felt flattered, congratulating himself that after all she was not so averse to his companionship as he had once believed. Knowing nothing of love or sentiment he had no suspicion that her bright amused smile masked a weary bitterness, or that, after dancing half the night radiant and happy, and charming the hearts of men with her light coquetry, she would return to the silence of her own room before the wave-beaten shore, and there lie weeping for hours, murmuring the name of the man she loved. So skilfully did she conceal the poignant sorrow wearing out her heart that none but her father detected it, and he, sighing within himself, made no remark.
Through the warm sunny reign of King Carnival Zertho and his handsome companion were prominent figures everywhere, although the Captain, who had grown as dull and dispirited as his daughter had become gay and reckless, seldom accompanied them. Since that night when beside the sea Zertho had told her of his love, he had not again mentioned the subject, although they were often alone together. Sometimes he would accuse her of furious flirtation, but always with a good-humoured amused air, without any sign of jealousy in his manner. Truth to tell, he felt satisfaction that she should be the most universally admired girl in Nice. He remembered that her success was due to him, for had he not paid for the costly costumes and milliner’s marvels which suited her beauty so well?
The bright cloudless days passed, full of frivolity. The King of Folly’s reign was short, therefore the excitement while it lasted was kept up at fever-heat, the grand climax of the many festivities being reached by the Corso Carnavalesque and Battle of Confetti which took place on Sunday, ten days after the gigantic effigy of the Monarch of Mirth had been enthroned on the Place Massena in his Moorish pavilion of rose and gold.
All the paper confetti conflicts, pretty and vigorous as they had been, were but preliminary scrimmages to the genuine battle fought with pellets of grey chalk, veritable bullets. So hard are these that it is unsafe to venture out without a wire mask, therefore Zertho and Liane, in assuming their costumes that afternoon, did not neglect the precaution. Zertho wore the white dress of a pierrot; with large velvet buttons of pale rose; while Liane, in a domino of pale rose satin trimmed with red—the colours of that season—wore a clown’s hat of rose. Both carried, strapped across their shoulders, capacious bags containing confetti, and a small tin scoop with which to throw their missiles. The mask of fine wire, like those used in fencing schools, having been assumed, they both entered the victoria and were driven down to the Jardin Public through which the Carnival procession, headed by the King himself, pipe in mouth, astride the turkey-cock, was at that moment wending its way.
The gun from the old Château had a few minutes before boomed forth the signal for the opening of hostilities, and the thousands of revellers on foot and in carriages, all wearing masks and dominoes, were carrying on a fierce and relentless combat. Alighting, Liane and her companion plunged into the rollicking riot, pelting the onlookers who were unmasked or who wore no dominoes, covering dark coats and dresses with great white dust-spots, and compelling the unfortunate ones to cry for quarter. On this, the maddest day of Folly’s reign, Nice, from two o’clock until five, presented the appearance of a town run mad with fun. Every balcony, decorated with red and rose, was filled with spectators laughing at the antics of the armoured, quaintly-dressed throng; the timorous, taking refuge behind closed windows, peered curiously out upon the wild conflict, while some, more brave than others, ventured out into the thick of the fray with no further protection than the black velvet half-mask. Woe betide these, however, when detected. Wire masks were the only safeguard from the showers of bullets which everywhere were projected from the small tin scoops.
Joining in the Corso were many carriages decked out to correspond with their occupants’ costumes, many in the carnival colours, one in pure white, another in a mauve, and a third, belonging presumably to a political enthusiast, in the Russian colours, orange and black. Everywhere were scenes of wild and reckless gaiety. In the side streets, in the open squares, in the cafés, on every side confetti was thrown. The garçons de café, compelled to stand amid the continuous cross-fire that swept across the streets, had all assumed masks, and the roads and pavements soon became an inch deep in confetti trodden to dust.
All along the line of the procession and in the thick of the fight bags of ammunition were offered by men, women or boys, who stood beside stalls or, mingling with the crowd, cried “Bonbon; Bonbon!” As Zertho and Liane walked together, pelting vigorously at a carriage containing three of their friends, an urchin came up to them crying, “Bonbon!” whereupon Liane, with a mischievous laugh, threw a handful of confetti straight at the crier, much to the urchin’s discouragement.
“Come, let us follow the procession,” Zertho suggested, and across the Place Massena they accompanied the corso, and down the gay streets until they entered the Place de la Préfecture, where the fun was at its height. The scene here presented was exceedingly picturesque. The band, which was really a band, and not merely a medley of ear-splitting, discordant noise which too frequently mars the Carnival, was the centre of attraction around which the maskers danced with wild abandon, joining hands and screaming with laughter. Liane, infected by the mad gaiety and as reckless as the rest, her domino whitened by the showers of confetti rained every moment upon it, plunged into the crowd of dancers and, hand-in-hand with Zertho, whirled round, laughing gleefully. The dancers made a human kaleidoscope of colour, framed by the amphitheatre-like tribunes, which were likewise filled with maskers, and made a setting as bright, and but one degree less animated, than the rollicking, ever-moving foreground.
From minute to minute the animation increased. Every street was aglow with colour, and the mêlée was general. Those seated in the tribunes made furious attacks upon those on foot, the latter retaliating with shower upon shower of pellets, until the battle became fierce in every quarter. Four occupants of a victoria, attired alike in pale blue dominoes, opened a vigorous fire upon Liane and Zertho as they passed, and received in return many scoopfuls of well-aimed confetti. But the pair were decidedly getting the worst of it, when suddenly a lithe little man in clown’s dress of cheap lustrine joined Liane in the defence, and next instant received a handful of confetti full in his face. For an instant he felt in his pouch, but found his ammunition had given out. Then espying a stall a few yards away he rushed across with sudden impulse, flung down a couple of francs, caught up four large paper bags each containing several pounds of confetti, and flung them one after another at Liane’s assailants. They were aimed with a sure hand, and as each struck the head or shoulders of one or other of the unfortunate occupants, the thin paper broke, completely smothering them with its contents. Yells of uproarious laughter arose at their discomfiture, and the coachman hastened his horses’ speed.
Then turning to Liane, the man, evidently an honest, happy-hearted Niçois from his Italian accent, bowed gracefully, and with a smile said,—“Mademoiselle, I believe we have taught them a lesson.” Before she could thank him he was lost in the turbulent, laughing crowd.
And as Zertho passed gaily along at Liane’s side, he sang softly to himself the refrain of “L’Amoureuse,”—the slightly risky parody, popular at that moment,—
“Voilà l’amoureuse,
À la démarch’ voluptueuse,
Qui se pavan’ soir et matin,
Avec des airs de p’tit trottin;
Voilà l’amoureuse,
À la demarch’ voluptueuse,
Elle est joli’ sacré matin!
Joli’ comme un petit trottin!”
Gradually they fought their way back to the Place Massena, and found it a scene of brilliant colour, but the fight had now become so general that the very heavens seemed obscured by the confetti, which, on striking, crumbled into dense clouds of fine, white dust. The fanfares of the Chasseurs Alpins were sounding, the great effigy of the King was slowly moving across towards the leafy public garden, and the colossal figure of an ingenue was sailing along with the crowd with folded arms, perfectly pleased with herself and the Carnival world in general. Everyone here wore the wire mask and domino, even the vendors of confetti being compelled to assume grilles to protect their sun-tanned faces from their own wares.
The Carnival contagion had now spread to even the puppets and musicians themselves; for these left their lofty perches on the cars where they had been observed by all during the processions, and descending to earth, whirled among that motley crowd of dancers and of forms gigantic, gay and grotesque.
Although conflict and retaliation were the order of the day, and disorder the spirit supreme, to the credit of Nice and her crowds be it said that on such a day, when so many liberties were possible, were so few taken. The Mayor had caused a precautionary notice to be posted up, prohibiting any confetti being thrown at the police, gendarmes, or musicians, but even the gendarmes, usually an awe-inspiring, spick and span body, when threatened in fun, would reply, “Fire away, your bullets don’t hurt,” and laughing defiance, would receive volley upon volley of the dusty pellets upon their dark uniforms without flinching, and laugh back defiantly.
Clowns, punchinelli, pierrots, furies, devils and ladies in dominoes fought with one another till every street in the neighbourhood of the Avenue de la Gare was swept from end to end by a hail of confetti, and Zertho and Liane trudged on through the thick dust into which it was every moment being trodden. Long “serpentines” of coloured paper, flung now and then, wrapped themselves about the lamp-posts and hung from windows and from the tall eucalypti, while from some of the houses the more enterprising showered upon the crowd thousands of small, advertising hand-bills. Those who, growing weary of the fight as the sun declined, sought shelter in the cafés, were quickly disillusioned, for from time to time disconcerting showers of pellets would sweep in at the open door, often falling into the bocks, mazagrans, and sirops, so that those who had had previous experience of Carnival ways sat with their wire vizors still down and their hands carefully covering their glasses.
On Confetti Day Carnival penetrates everywhere. In the streets, in the shops, in the churches, in the houses, the small pellets seem to enter by unknown means. They find their way down one’s neck into one’s boots, while ladies get their hats and hair filled with them and drop them wherever they tread. Confetti Day, apart from its interest and amusement as a brilliant spectacle, is the more remarkable because so many hundreds of human beings, prone to “envy, hatred, malice and all uncharitableness,” begin, continue and end the fun, in such glorious good humour. Everywhere the battle raged fiercely, yet it was all in boisterous mirth, and laughter loud and sincere rang out alike from victor and from vanquished. Mirth ran riot, and disorder was everywhere, but spite was never shown.
Time after time, a storm of confetti swept about Liane and her escort, as together they passed along the colonnade, pelting and being pelted by every masker they met, until the dust came into her face through the grille, and the hood and trimming of her domino was full of grey pellets.
“You are tired and hot,” Zertho exclaimed at last. “This dust makes one thirsty. Let us try and get to the Café de la Victoire.”
To accomplish this, they were compelled to cross the broad place through the very thickest of the fray. Nevertheless, undaunted, with scoops ever in the sacks slung at their sides, they pressed forward, half-choked by the cross-fire of confetti through which they were passing. Liane’s conical felt hat was dinted and almost white, and her domino sadly soiled and tumbled, still with cheeks aglow by the exciting conflict, she went on, taking her own part valiantly. The wire masks did not completely disguise their wearers. Numbers of men and women she met she recognised, and where the recognition was mutual, the battle raged long and furiously, accompanied by screams of uproarious laughter.
At last they managed to reach the opposite side of the Place. The tables in the colonnade before the popular café were crowded with maskers who were endeavouring to get rid of the dust from their throats, notwithstanding the showers of pellets which continually swept upon them. The sun was sinking in a blaze of gold behind Antibes, the clock over the Casino marked a quarter to five; in fifteen minutes the cannon of the château would boom forth the signal for hostilities to cease, the musicians and puppets would mount upon the cars and move away, the maskers would remove their wire protectors, and order would reign once more.
Zertho and Liane had secured a table upon the pavement near the door, the interior of the café being suffocatingly crowded, and sipping their wine, were laughing over the desperate tussle of the afternoon, now and then retaliating when any passer-by directly assailed them. Suddenly a woman, looking tall in a domino of dark rose and wearing a half-mask of black velvet which completely disguised her features, flung, in passing, a large handful of confetti which struck Liane full upon the mask.
In an instant she raised her scoop, and with a gleeful laugh, sent a heavy shower into her unknown opponent’s face. Like many other women, her assailant had apparently become separated from her escort in the fierce fighting, and the fact that she preferred a velvet mask to one of wire showed her to be not a little courageous. But Liane’s well-directed confetti must have struck her sharply upon the chin, which remained uncovered, for it caused her to wince.
She halted, and standing in full view of the pair as if surveying them deliberately, next second directed another scoopful at them. Both Zertho and Liane, divining her intention, raised their hands to cover their masks, and as they did so the hail of pellets descended, many of them falling into their glasses.
“There,” cried Liane, laughing gaily. “It’s really too bad, she’s spoilt our wine.”
In a moment, however, Zertho, who had been preparing for this second onslaught, flung scoopful after scoopful at the intrepid woman, and several of those sitting at the tables around at once joined in repelling the fair masker’s attack. Yet, nothing daunted, although smothered in confetti from a dozen different hands, she continued the conflict with the pair she had at first attacked, until Liane, in her eagerness to annihilate this woman who had so suddenly opened such a persistent and vigorous fire upon them, turned suddenly with her tin scoop filled to overflowing. With a loud laugh she flung it, but by accident the scoop itself slipped from her fingers, and struck the masker sharply upon the shoulder.
In an instant Liane, with a cry of regret, rose from her seat and rushed out into the roadway to apologise, but the unknown woman with a stiff bow, her dark eyes flashing angrily through the holes in her mask, turned away and walked quickly along the Rue Massena. Liane stooped, snatched up her scoop, and returned to where Zertho sat heartily laughing, those sitting around joining in a chorus of hilarity at the incident.
“She got a bigger dose than she bargained for,” he exclaimed.
“I am sorry,” she said. “It was quite an accident. But did you see her eyes? She glared as if she could kill me.”
“Yes,” he replied. “She looked half mad. However, she’ll never be able to recognise you again.”
Liane was silent. The light of joy and happiness had suddenly died out of her fair countenance. She seemed to possess some vague recollection of a similar pair of dark, flashing eyes. A face—a strange ghost of the past—came for an instant before her eyes; a thought flashed through her mind and held her appalled. She shuddered, pale as death behind her mask of gauze. Next instant, however, she laughed aloud at her fear. No, she assured herself, it could not be. It was only some faint resemblance, rendered the more vivid because it had come before her amid that reckless gaiety.
Then she smiled at Zertho again happily as before, and they ordered fresh wine, and waited until the cannon thundered from the heights above and the streets grew orderly, ere they started to walk home along the Promenade.
They had, however, been too far off the woman to overhear the strange ominous words she uttered when, with an evil glint in her eyes, she turned from them abruptly with a fierce imprecation upon her lips, her cheeks beneath the velvet mask blanched with suppressed anger.
“No, I am not mistaken,” she had muttered in French, with a dry laugh between her set teeth. “When I met you dancing in the Place de la Préfecture I thought I recognised you, Liane Brooker. I followed, and threw at you in order to obtain a good view of your pretty face in which innocence is so well portrayed. Strange that we should meet again purely by accident; strange, too, that you should cover me with dust and fling your scoop into my face as though in defiance. Little do you dream how near I am to you, or of the ghastly nature of the revelation which I shall ere long disclose. Then the smiles which enchant your admirers will turn to tears, your merry laughter to blank despair, and your well-feigned innocence and purity to ignominy and shame.”
Chapter Eleven.
Monte Carlo.
Carnival’s reign was ended. Pierrot, clown and columbine, hand in hand, had watched the flames consume him, and had danced around the dying embers. His palace had been torn down, the decorations in his honour had disappeared, the colours red and rose were no longer exhibited in the shop windows, for Nice had assumed her normal aspect of aristocratic dignity.
One afternoon a week afterwards, Liane reluctantly accompanied her father and Zertho to Monte Carlo.
When at luncheon the visit had been suggested by the Prince, she at once announced her intention of staying at home. Truth to tell, those great gaming-rooms with their wildly excited throngs possessed for her too many painful memories. At length, however, after much persuasion, she was induced to dress and accompany them.
She chose a white costume, with a large white hat relieved by violets, and a narrow belt of violet satin to match—a plain, fresh-looking gown which suited her beauty admirably, and within an hour they had ascended the steps of the great white Casino with its handsome façade, and entered the long bureau to exchange their visiting-cards for one of the pink cards of admission. The clerk at the counter, whose duty it is to examine the dress of the visitors and their cards, at once recognising the party, shook hands heartily with Brooker and the Prince, expressing pleasure at seeing them again.
“Yes, we’ve returned, you see,” the Captain answered jocularly. “Always back to Monte Carlo, you know.”
“Well, I wish messieurs all good fortune,” laughed the stout, round-faced man, “and also mademoiselle, of course,” he added, bowing, his face beaming with good humour, as instead of writing out formal admission cards he handed them three of the special white tickets issued by the Administration of the Cercle to its well-known habitués.
A gay cosmopolitan crowd in Paris-made gowns and well-cut suits, with bulky purses in their hands, struggled behind, eager to obtain tickets, therefore they at once deposited their sticks and sunshade, and passing across the great atrium, thronged with well-dressed people, approached the long polished doors guarded by attendants in bright livery of blue and gold. Here again one of the men wished the Captain “Good day,” the door opened, and they found themselves once more, after many months, inside the lofty well-remembered rooms where so many fortunes had been lost and won.
Down the vista from the entrance could be seen room after room, resplendent in gilt decorations, polished floors, ceiling of ornamental glass, and many beautiful paintings by Feyen, Perrin, and Jundt; each room filled with eager, anxious gamblers crowding around the oblong roulette-tables. The continual hum of voices, the jingle of coin, the rustle of notes, the click of the roulette-ball, and the monotonous cries of the croupiers combined to produce a veritable Babel of noise, while the heat on that bright sunny March afternoon seemed overpowering.
But those sitting around the tables, or standing behind, cared nothing for the world outside, too absorbed were they in the chance of the red or the black. The sun was excluded by blinds closely drawn, and the long windows were all curtained in black or blue muslin, with handsome patterns worked thereon, so that those walking upon the terrace by the blue sunlit sea could obtain no glimpse of what was going on within. The place was close, and there was about it that faint odour which it ever retains, the combined smell of perspiration and perfume.
From the moment Liane placed foot upon the polished floor she regretted that she had come. With that well-remembered scene before her a thousand bitter memories instantly surged through her brain. She hated herself. Around her as they approached the first table in the Moorish room were the same types of people that she knew, alas! too well; the flora of the Riviera, the world in which she had for years been compelled to live. Among those sitting around were men, weary and haggard-eyed, with those three deep lines across the brow which habitual gamblers so quickly develop, and heavy-eyed women who had concealed their paleness beneath their rouge. Of this class of frenzied humanity, she reflected, she herself was. There had been a time not long ago when she, too, had sat at the table prompting her father, sometimes flinging on coin or notes for him, dragging in his winnings with the little ebony rake, or keeping an account in her tiny memorandum book of the various numbers as they turned up, so as to assist him in his speculations.
Unlike these déclassé women, she hated play. The life was to her detestable. She had, it was true, moved in their world, but, thanks to her father’s care, she had retained her goodness and purity, and had never been of it. Well she knew the terrible tension each spin of that little ivory roulette-ball caused among that eager crowd, an anxiety which furrowed the brows, which caused the hands to tremble, and sapped all youth and gaiety and life. She, although young and fair, had witnessed life there in its every aspect. She had herself experienced the terrible frenzy of excitement; she had felt the desperation of abject despair. She had seen dozens, nay hundreds, come there rich and respected, to depart broken and ruined; she had witnessed more than one woman grow so desperate over her losses that she had fainted at the table, and once beside her at that very table there had sat a man, young, good-looking, and well-dressed, who lost and lost, and continued to lose throughout the long, hot day, until with a low imprecation he at length threw down his last hundred-franc note on the “impair.” He lost, then rose unsteadily from the table, while half-a-dozen others struggled to obtain his place. An hour later she had risen and gone into the garden to obtain air, but scarcely had she walked a dozen yards when two attendants passed her by, carrying her fellow-gambler’s lifeless form. He had shot himself.
This tragic incident, by no means uncommon, though so frequently hushed up, had so unnerved her that for many weeks her father could not induce her to enter the Casino, but gradually, because with a gambler’s belief in talismans, he declared that when she accompanied him Fortune was always on his side, she again went with him, to spend long, anxious, breathless hours in the crowded place, where bright, happy girls staked their five-franc pieces, just for the purpose of saying they had done so, and rubbed shoulders with the most notorious of the demi-monde; and where honest men, professional gamesters, blackmailers and souteneurs all placed themselves on equal footing before the green-covered shrine of their fickle goddess.
Monte Carlo resembles nothing. It is at the same time a paradise and a hell, of hope and despair, of golden dreams and of hideous nightmares; a place without laws, either physical or moral. Its surroundings are delightful, nestling below the high bare Tête de Chien and the Mont de la Justice, with the picturesque little town of Monaco perched upon its bold prominent rock to the right, the green slopes of Cap Martin jutting out into the sea on the left, and away far in the distance, yet clearly defined, the purple Alps of Italy, while beyond the white-balustraded terrace is a broad open expanse of clear blue sea. The centre of elegance and corruption, of beauty and deformity, of wealth and vice, of refinement and sin, it is in itself unique.
On every hand, within and without the little place, the view is superb. In the fine square before the Casino the gardens are brilliant with flowers and shady with palms; the cafés overflow with visitors, waltz music sounds by night and day, and from noon till the early hours there is life and movement everywhere. The game fascinates, and the climate acts upon the organism of all who go there. The exquisitely beautiful surroundings of the Casino exert a deleterious influence. They are alluringly pleasant. Life seems so gay, happy and free amid that whirl of voluptuousness, where vice is disguised in a form tout à fait charmante, its banal influence so imperceptible, that the man who ventures into the Principality determined not to risk a single louis upon the tapis-vert in almost every case finds himself overwhelmed by that involuntary indolence which creeps upon all like an infernal intoxication, drawn irresistibly to the tables, and too often to his ruin. The daily life in Monaco presents a surprising picture of morals; a truly extraordinary Paradise of the marvellous and the diabolical, of the sublime and the terrible, of fair dreams and of hideous realities. Et le fruit défendu dont se nourrit la masse a d’autant plus de saveur que le joli petit serpent auquel on doit sa découverte a toutes les allures mignonnes d’un démon tentateur extrèmement séduisant.
To Erle Brooker, whose sole vice was that of gambling, the monotonous invitation of the croupiers, and the jingle of louis as they were tossed carelessly over to the winners, were as the sound of the hounds to the old hunter, or the bugle to the retired soldier. All the old longing for excitement and the hope for a run of luck came again upon him, and although he had vowed he would never again play he soon felt his pulse quicken and his good resolutions fading away. As, accompanied by Zertho and Liane, he moved on from table to table, watching the play and criticising it with the air of one with wide experience, the desire for risking a few louis came irresistibly upon him. He remembered that before leaving Nice he had placed ten one-hundred-franc notes in his pocket. It was a sum small enough, in all conscience, to risk. He recollected the time when, with Zertho standing behind him taking charge of his winnings, he had won a hundred times that amount between mid-day and midnight.
Of all that gay crowd Liane looked the prettiest and smartest. As she cast a rapid glance around the various tables, many of the men and women she recognised as professional fellow-gamblers, each with their little piles of silver, gold and notes. One or two, well-dressed and more prosperous, had, she knew, at one time been down to their very last franc. The two men also singled out old acquaintances, men who passed their days in these crowded rooms, nodded to them and remarked upon the sudden prosperity of some and the unusual seediness of others.
They were standing together closely watching the roulette at one of the centre tables. People were crowding four deep around it, but mostly the stakes were five-franc pieces, the minimum allowed.
“By Jove!” Zertho exclaimed at last, turning to the Captain. “See what a run the red is having!”
“Fourteen times in succession, m’sieur,” observed a man at their elbow, consulting his card.
“It won’t again. Watch,” Brooker answered briefly, closely interested in the game.
Next moment the ball was sent spinning around outside the revolving disc of black and red; the croupier with sphinx-like countenance uttered his monotonous cry, “Rien ne va plus!” and after breathless silence the rattle told that the ivory had fallen. Brooker’s prophecy proved correct. The black had gained.
“Going to risk anything?” inquired Zertho, with a smile.
“No,” interrupted Liane earnestly. “Dad will not. He has already promised me.”
The Captain, his hand trembling in his pocket, turned to his daughter with a smile.
“Surely you won’t deprive him of winning a few louis?” Zertho exclaimed. “Be generous, just this once, dearest.”
Smiling, she turned to her father with a glance of inquiry.
“I have promised,” he observed quietly. “I do not break my pledge to you, unless with your permission.”
Already the people, eager to tempt Fortune, were placing their money on the yellow lines upon the table, and while they spoke Zertho tossed a couple of louis upon the simple chance of the black. The game was made, black won, and he received back his stake with two louis in addition.
The sight of Zertho winning stirred Erle Brooker’s blood. He had watched the run of the table sufficiently to know from experience that the chances were again in favour of the red, and with quick resolve he threw upon the scarlet diamond two notes for one hundred francs apiece.
Liane made a sudden movement to stay his hand, but too late. Then, with lips compressed she looked at him with bitter reproach, but uttered no word. The little ivory ball had already been launched on it way.
“Rien ne va plus!” cried the croupier an instant later, and the ball next second clicked into its socket.
Red won. The croupier tossed over to him two notes of the same value as those he had staked, and he took them up with an amused smile at his companions.
“Really, dad,” cried Liane, pouting prettily, “it is too bad of you to break your promise. I only came with you on one condition, namely, that you wouldn’t play.”
“Well, I’ve won ten louis, so no great harm has been done,” he answered.
“But there is harm,” she protested firmly. “When once you come to the tables you cannot, you know, leave until you’ve won, or lost everything. I thought you had, for my sake, given it up.”
They had drawn aside from the table, and were standing in the middle of the handsome room.
“This is only in fun, Liane,” Zertho assured her. “We are neither of us any longer professionals. Our day is over.”
“It is certainly not kind of you to invite my father to play like this,” she exclaimed, turning upon him resentfully. “I have already told you that I do not wish him to play.”
“I have not invited him,” Zertho declared with a laugh. “If he chooses to follow the run I cannot well prevent it.”
At that moment Brooker, who still kept his keen eyes riveted upon the table, heard the croupier’s voice, hesitated a moment, and taking two rapid steps forward tossed upon the red diamond the four notes he had just picked up.
Whirr-r! click! went the ball again, and the croupier’s announcement a few seconds later told him that he had won four hundred francs.
Liane, annoyed, flushed slightly, compressed her lips and turning from them with a gesture of anger walked straight out from the great gilded salons so hateful to her. As she passed, many turned and remarked how beautiful she was. She knew that the mania which had caused her father’s downfall had returned, that this double success would cause him to plunge still more deeply. Zertho smiled contemptuously at her fears, and neither men went after her to induce her to return.
The Prince, on the contrary, shrugged his shoulders, and laughing said,—
“She’s annoyed. She’ll return in a minute or two, when she knows you’ve won. Now that she’s gone I’m going to risk a little myself.”
At that moment two players rose from their chairs, and the pair so well-known to the croupiers and attendants “marked” their places. The man sitting before the red and black disc which slowly revolved while the players laid down their coin, gave both men a little nod of recognition.
“Messieurs, faites vos jeux,” cried the croupier.
“What’s your fancy? The impair?” Zertho inquired of his companion in the same tone as was his wont long ago.
“Of course,” the other replied, selecting at the same moment three notes from those in his hand, and tossing them over upon the marked square indicated.
Once more sounded the monotonous cry, “Rien ne va plus!” The croupier sat immovable as one joyless, hopeless, and impassionate, a veritable machine raking in and paying out gold and silver and notes without caring one jot whether the bank gained or lost. The ball was an instant later sent on its way, and Brooker watching, saw it suddenly spring about and fall.
Again he won.
With one elbow resting upon the table he gathered up his winnings with that impassive manner which marks the professional gamester as one apart. Whether he gained or lost Erle Brooker never made sign, except sometimes when he lost more heavily than usual he would perhaps smile a trifle bitterly. Already the furrows were showing in his brow, and his deep-set eyes watched keenly the run of the game as time after time he would hesitate, apparently reflecting, until the ball was already in motion, and then toss his notes into the “manque” or “passe,” the first being the numbers 1 to 18, and the latter 19 to 36, or place them upon the lines of the various numbered squares, whichever he deemed wisest for the composite chances of a “sixain,” a “carré,” a “douzaine,” or a “colonne.” Heedless of all around him, heedless of his old partner at his side, the man who had once shared his losses and his winnings, heedless of the pale delicate girl who was wandering about alone somewhere outside, fearing lest he should lose the whole of the little money they now had, he won and won, and still won.
Sometimes he lost. Twice in succession the bank gained six hundred francs of his winnings; still nothing daunted, he continued, and found that the knowledge he had gained of the game proved true, for he won again and again, although sometimes doubling and even trebling his stake.
The crowd of eager ones around the table now began to wait until he selected the place whereon he should put down his stake, and commenced to follow his play narrowly, playing when he played, and refraining when he held back.
Zertho noticed this and whispered: “Your luck’s changed, old chap. Why not try bigger stakes?”
“I know what I’m about,” the other snapped viciously, pulling towards him a dozen notes from the “passe” opposite. “If you won’t play yourself keep count for me, and see that I get fully paid.”
Zertho well knew that his old partner had now become oblivious to everything. His mouth was hard-set, his eyes gleamed with a fierce excitement he strove to suppress, and great beads of perspiration stood upon his heavily-lined brow. A lady standing behind him, a tourist evidently, reached over his head to stake her modest five-franc piece on the red, whereupon he turned, and muttering something uncomplimentary regarding “those women who ought to play for sous,” withered her with a look.
Somebody had handed Zertho one of the cards printed with parallel columns under the letters “N” and “R,” with a pencil wherewith to keep count. He glanced up, and noticing all eyes directed upon them, suddenly reflected that if any person came up who knew him as Prince Zertho d’Auzac it would scarcely be dignified to be discovered counting the gains and acting as clerk to a professional gamester.
But Brooker wanted money badly, and was winning; therefore he could not disturb him. Both men were gamblers at heart, and the one feared to move just as much as the other, lest the spell should be broken and the luck change.
The good fortune attending the Captain’s play seemed to the onlookers little short of marvellous. With apparent unconcern he flung down his notes, sometimes six or ten twisted carelessly together, and each time there came back towards him upon the point of the croupier’s rake his own notes with a similar number of others.
Suddenly, having thrown four notes upon the “manque,” he rested his hot whirling brow upon his hand. The ball clicked into its little numbered partition, the croupier announced that the number 20 had gained, and he knew he had lost. The excited crowd sitting and standing around the table exchanged smiles and glances, and at that moment the croupiers changed.
Again the game was made, and the man upon whom everyone’s eyes were turned threw five hundred francs upon the simple chance of the red. Black again won.
Once more he threw a similar sum upon the red. A third time black won. He had lost fourteen hundred francs in three spins of the wheel!
It seemed that his luck had suddenly departed. It is often remarked by professional gamesters that luck departs from the fortunate when the croupiers are changed.
But the passion was now full upon him. His face was rigid; his mouth tightly closed. He had spoken no word to Zertho, and had seemed hardly to notice how much his companion had been gathering into his hands, or to take the trouble to glance at the revolving roulette. The croupier’s voice was, for him, sufficient.
Now, each time that the tiny ball dropped into its socket he knew that its click cost him four hundred francs. Time after time he lost, and those who, half-an-hour before, had been carefully following his play and winning heavily thereby, began to forsake him and trust in their own discretion. In eighteen games only twice the red turned up, still with the dogged pertinacity of the gamester he pinned his faith to the colour upon which he had had his run of luck, and continued to stake his notes in the expectation that the black must lose.
“You’re getting reckless,” Zertho whispered. “This isn’t like you, old fellow.”
But his companion turned from him with angry gesture, and flung on his money as before.
At that moment red won. The colour had changed. From Zertho’s hand he took the bundle of notes, still formidable, although his losses had been so heavy, and counted them as quickly and accurately as a bank-teller. There were eighty-three, each for one hundred francs.
For an instant he paused. Already the ball was on its way. His keen eyes, gleaming with an unnatural fire, took in the table at a glance; then withdrawing twenty-three of the notes, he screwed up the remainder into a bundle and tossed it upon the scarlet diamond.
“Good heavens!” Zertho gasped. “Are you mad, Brooker?”
But the Captain paid no heed. His blotchy countenance, a trifle paler, was as impassive as before, although he had staked six thousand francs, the maximum allowed upon the simple chance.
“Rien ne va plus!” cried the croupier once more, and those crowding around the table, witnessing the heavy stake, glanced quickly at the reckless gamester, then craned their necks to watch the tiny ball.
Slowly, very slowly, it lost its impetus. The breathless seconds seemed hours. All were on tiptoe of expectation, the least moved being the man sitting with his chin resting upon his hand, his eyes fixed thoughtfully upon the table before him; the man who had spent whole years of his life amid that terrible whirl of frenzied greed and forlorn hope. Even the croupiers, whose dark, impassive faces and white shirt-fronts had haunted so many of the ruined ones, bent to watch the progress of the ball.
Zertho, in his eagerness, rose from his chair to obtain a better view.
Whirr-r. Click! It fell at last, and scarcely had it touched the number when the croupier’s voice clearly and distinctly announced that the red had gained. Then the crowd breathed once more.
Brooker raised his head in the direction of the croupier, and a slight smile played about the corners of his hard-set mouth. A moment later six notes for a thousand francs each were handed to him at the end of the rake, while Zertho drew in the big bundle of small notes his companion had staked. Brooker had re-won all the winnings he had lost.
He toyed with the bundle of sixty notes which Zertho handed to him until the ball was again set spinning, when, as if with sudden resolution, he tossed them once more upon the same spot.
A silent breathlessness followed, while he remained still motionless, his chin sunk upon his breast. It was a reckless game he was playing, and none knew it better than himself. Yet somehow that afternoon a desperate frenzy had seized him, and having won, he played boldly, with the certain knowledge that the bad luck which had hitherto followed him had at last changed.
Again the disc, revolving in the opposite direction, sent the ball hopping about as it struck it. Once more it fell.
The red again won, and he added six additional notes to the six already in his hand.
“Messieurs, faites vos jeux!”
A third time was the game made, a third time he held in his hand in indecision that bundle of notes, and a third time he tossed them upon the scarlet diamond.
In an instant gold and notes were showered upon them from every hand until they formed a formidable pile. The other players crowding around, seeing his returning run of luck, once more followed his game.
A third time was the ball projected around the edge of the disc, followed eagerly in its course by two hundred eyes; a third time the croupier’s voice was raised in warning that no more money was to be placed upon the table, and a third time the ivory dropped with a sudden click upon the red.
A third time came the six thousand francs handed upon the end of the croupier’s rake.
Brooker, taking the bundle of small notes and thrusting them all together in his pocket, rose at once from the table with a smile at those opposite him, the richer by a thousand pounds.
“Marvellous!” cried Zertho, as they moved away together across the polished floor. “What a run you’ve had! Surely Liane can’t be angry now. Let’s go into the gardens; she’s certain to be awaiting us there.”
And together they went to the cloakroom for their hats; then passed out down the broad carpeted steps into the pretty place, where the shadows were lengthening. The Monégasques and visitors were promenading in the gardens; the orchestra before the crowded Café de Paris, with its striped sun-blinds, was playing an overture of Mascagni’s; and the cool, bright, flower-scented air was refreshing after the heat and excitement of the crowded rooms.
“At last!” Brooker exclaimed, as they descended the steps to seek Liane. “At last my luck has changed!”
Chapter Twelve.
Liane’s Secret.
When Liane had left the two men she first obtained her sunshade, then, descending the steps, walked slowly beneath the shadows round to the front of the Casino and out upon the beautiful broad terrace, flanked by palms, aloes and flowers, which faced the sea. There were but few promenaders, for the sun was still warm, and most of the people were inside tempting Fortune.
With her white sunshade above her head she leaned upon the stone balustrade, her clear eyes fixed in deep thought upon the wide expanse of blue sky and bluer sea. On the terrace below, where a pigeon-shooting match was in progress, the crack of a gun was heard at intervals, while pacing the gravelled walk near her was one of the Casino attendants with the curious closely-fitting coat and conspicuous broad striped belt of red and blue. The duty of these men is somewhat unique. They watch the loungers narrowly, and if they appear plunged in despair they eject them from the gardens lest they should commit suicide.
The soft breeze from the sea fanned her face refreshingly after the closeness of those crowded rooms, where the sun’s brightness was excluded, and the light of the glorious day subdued. She was annoyed at Zertho’s action in inciting her father by winning the paltry couple of louis, more than at the Captain for his want of self-control. She stood there thinking, a tall lithe figure in white girdled with violet, refined, exquisite, dainty from the gilt ferrule of her sunshade to the tip of her tiny white kid shoe. She reflected what terrible fascination the tables possessed for her father, and was half inclined to forgive him, knowing how irresistible was the temptation to play amid that accumulation of all the caprices, of all the fantasies, of all the eccentricities, of all the idleness, of all the ambitious and all the indiscretions. But Zertho’s contemptuous smile had added to her vexation and displeasure.
Her father had commenced playing, and she dreaded the consequences, knowing with what dogged persistency he would stake his last louis on the chance of regaining his losses, heedless of the fact that for each coin lost they would be deprived of the comforts of life to that amount. She reproached herself for consenting to accompany them, but as she pondered her anger soon turned to poignant sorrow. She had believed that her father, hard hit as he had been, had relinquished all thought of play. Time after time he had assured her that he had renounced roulette for ever, yet now on the first occasion he had revisited the scene of his old triumphs and defeats, all his good resolutions had crumbled away, and he had tossed his money into the insatiable maw of the bank as recklessly as he had ever done. She sighed as she thought of it, and bitter tears dimmed her vision. By her own influence she could have taken him away; it was, she knew, the fear of Zertho’s derision that caused him to fling those notes so defiantly upon the table.
With that picturesque, well-remembered landscape of rugged mountain heights, olive-clad slopes, and calm sea, memories sad and bitter continued to crowd upon her. This place, among the fairest on earth, was to her the most hateful and loathsome. With it were associated all the evil days which had passed so drearily; all the poverty which had kept her and her dead companion shabby and heavy-hearted; all the months of anxiety and weariness in days when their rooms were poorly furnished and the next meal had been an event of uncertainty. A few months of life at a good hotel, amid congenial society, would always be followed by many months of residence high up in some back street, where the noise was eternal, where the screaming of loud-voiced Frenchwomen sounded above and below, where clothes were hung upon the drab jalousies to air in the sun, and where the smell of garlic came in at the windows. In such a life the quiet English homeliness of Stratfield Mortimer had come as a welcome rest. She had loved their quaint old ivied cottage, and had fondly believed they would remain there always, happy and contented. But, alas! Nelly’s tragic end had changed it all.
Zertho, her reckless but animated companion of the old days, was back again with them, and once more they were upon the very spot that she had vowed so often she would never again revisit.
These reflections brought with them thoughts of Nelly. She recollected how, often and often, they would stroll together along that terrace while Zertho and her father sat hour after hour at the tables, regardless of meal-times, and how sometimes, hungry and having no money, they would go in and obtain from one or other of the men a ten-franc piece with which to get their dinner at the cheap little restaurant they knew of down in La Condamine. It was upon that very gravelled walk, with its inviting seats, high palms, and banks of flowers, that they had one afternoon passed a tall, good-looking young Englishman not much older than themselves. He had smiled at them, and they, always delighted at the chance of an innocent flirtation, had laughed in return. He had then raised his hat, spoken to them, and strolled along at Nellie’s side. His name was Charles Holroyde, and it was he who, a few weeks later, had given Nelly the costly brooch which had been stolen from her throat by her assassin.
She glanced at the seat beside which she was standing. It was the one on which they had sat that sunny afternoon when they chatted merrily, and he had first given the two girls his card. She sighed. Those days were passed, and even Nelly, her companion and confidante, was no more. She was, she reflected gloomily, without a single real friend.
At that moment, however, she felt a light hand upon her shoulder behind her, and a voice exclaimed,—
“Liane! At last!”
She turned quickly with a start, and next instant found herself face to face with George Stratfield.
“You, George!” she gasped, her face blanching.
“Yes, darling,” he answered. “I called at your address at Nice, but they told me you had come over here, so I followed. But what’s the matter?” he asked, in consternation. “You are not well. How white you look! Tell me what is worrying you?”
“Nothing,” she answered, with a forced laugh. “Nothing whatever, I assure you. I—I wasn’t aware that I looked at all pale. Your sudden appearance startled me.”
But George regarded her with suspicion. He knew from the look of intense anxiety upon her fair countenance that she was concealing the truth.
“Is the Captain with you?” he inquired after an awkward pause.
“Yes, he is inside,” she answered. “But why have you come here?”
“To see you, Liane,” he said, earnestly. “I could no longer bear to be parted from you, so one night I resolved to run out and spend a week or so in Nice, and here I am.”
Her face had assumed a strange, perplexed look. He knew nothing of Zertho’s existence, for loving him so well she had hesitated day by day to write and tell him the hideous truth. She saw that he must now know all.
She raised her clear, wonderful eyes to his as she stammered a question, asking if that was his first visit to the Riviera.
“Yes,” he answered, gazing around at the Casino, the mountains, and the sea. “How charming it is here. I don’t wonder that you are so fond of it.”
“I’m not fond of it?” she protested, with a sigh. “I would rather be in England—much rather.”
“Yet you are half-French yourself! Surely this is gayer and much more pleasant than Stratfield Mortimer,” he exclaimed, leaning with his back to the balustrade, glancing at her elegant dress, and noticing how well it suited her.
“The surroundings are perhaps more picturesque,” she replied, turning her gaze sea-ward. “But I was far happier there than here,” She sighed and the little gloved hand holding her sunshade trembled.
“Why?” he inquired surprised.
For an instant she raised her eyes to his, then lowering her gaze, answered,—
“Why do you ask? Did I not then have you?”
“But I am here now,” he said quickly. “I must, however, admit that your welcome was scarcely as cordial as I expected.”
Her lips tightened, and she swallowed the lump rising in her throat.
“I—I cannot kiss you here, in a public place,” she said, with a little gesture of regret.
The strange coldness about her voice caused him dismay. It proved that the apparent apathy of her letters actually arose from indifference. His suspicions were correct. Her love had grown cold.
A heavy look of disappointment crossed his face, as pausing a moment, he glanced at her, and saw that she shivered.
“Come,” he exclaimed. “You have, I believe, stood here too long. The breeze is perhaps chilly. Let us walk.”
“I’m not cold at all,” she assured him, without moving.
“Except towards me,” he observed, gloomily.
“I wasn’t aware that my attitude was one of indifference,” she said, endeavouring to smile.
“There is a change in you, Liane,” the young man declared, gazing seriously into her eyes. “Tell me, darling, what has occurred.”
She held her breath for a moment. She loved him dearer than life, yet she feared to speak the truth lest he should turn from her and renounce her as an enchantress false and unworthy. Her countenance was almost pale as the dress she wore, and her breast rose and fell convulsively.
“Nothing,” she answered at last. “Nothing has occurred.”
“But you are not bright and happy as you used to be,” he declared sympathetically. “Something troubles you. Confide in me, darling.”
She turned her face from him and tears slowly coursed down her cheeks. But she made no response. Together they walked several times the whole length of the terrace, and their conversation drifted to other topics. He told her of his bachelor life in London, his lonely, dreary chambers, of his desperate struggle to secure a foothold in his already overcrowded profession, and of his good fortune in obtaining a little book-reviewing for a weekly paper.
“Now, what distresses you, Liane?” he asked at last, when again they were standing against the parapet gazing over the sea. “Surely I may know?”
“No,” she murmured. “No, George, you cannot.”
“Do you fear to trust me—the man who loves you?” he asked in a reproachful tone, grasping her hand.
“Ah!” she cried with sudden emotion, “do not make my burden heavier to bear, George. Why have you come here to me—now?”
“Why now? Are you not pleased that I should be beside you when you are unhappy?”
“Yes—I mean no,” she sobbed. “Your presence here only adds to my torture.”
“Torture?” he echoed. “What do you mean, Liane?”
“I must tell you now,” she gasped, clutching his arm convulsively, and raising her tearful face to his with an imploring look. “You will not think me false, cruel and heartless—will you? But I cannot marry you.”
“What!” he ejaculated, starting and regarding her in abject dismay. “Why, what is there to prevent it? Surely you cannot say that you no longer love me?”
“Ah! no,” she answered, panting, her gloved hand still clutching his arm. “I do love you, George. I swear I love you at this moment as no other woman ever can.”
“Yet you cannot marry me?”
“It is impossible.”
“Ah! don’t say that, darling,” he protested. “We love each other too well ever to be parted.”
“But we must part,” she answered, in a blank, despairing voice. “You must no longer think of me, except as one who has loved you, as one who will still think often, very often, of you.”
“Impossible!” he cried quickly. “You told me once that you loved me, that you would wait a year or so if necessary, and that you would marry me.”
“I know! I know!” she wailed, covering her face with her hands. “And I told you the truth.”
“Then you have met someone else whom you love better,” he observed, in a tone of poignant sorrow.
She did not reply. Her heart was too full for words. Her breath came in short, quick gasps, and she laid one hand upon the stone balustrade to steady herself.
“Ah, George,” she murmured brokenly, “you do not know the fatality that of late has encompassed me, or you would not reproach me. You would pity me.”
He saw she was trembling. Her eyes were downcast, her chin had fallen upon her breast.
“I cannot sympathise with you, or advise you, if you will not tell me the cause of your distress,” he said in a kindly tone, grasping her hand.
They were in the eastern end of the garden, at a spot but little frequented.
“I know you must hate me for having deceived you like this, but truly I could not avoid it. Many, many times have I striven to write to you and tell you the truth, but my words looked so cold, formal and cruel on paper that I always tore up the letter. While you were in ignorance I knew that you still loved me, but now—”
“Well, I am still in ignorance,” he interrupted.
“And I have lost you!” she cried despairingly.
“Why? I still love you.”
“But I must not—I dare not think of love again!” she whispered hoarsely. “From to-day we must part. You must go away and let us both try and forget all that has passed between us. If I have acted cruelly, forgive me. It was because I have been so weak—because I loved you so well.”
“No,” he answered firmly, “I shall not leave you, dearest. I love you still as fondly as in the old days when we strolled together around Stratfield; therefore you shall not send me away like this.”
“But you must go,” she cried. “You must go; I am betrothed.”
“Betrothed?”
The colour died from his face. She hung her head, and her breast rose and fell quickly.
“Ah!” she cried, “do not hate me, George. Do not think that I have been false to you. It is not my fault; I swear it is not. A fate, cruel and terrible has overwhelmed me.”
For a moment he stood rigid as one transfixed.
“What is the man’s name?” he inquired at last, in a hard, strained tone.
She stood silent for several moments, then slowly, without raising her head, answered,—
“Zertho.”
“His surname, I mean,” he demanded.
“Prince Zertho d’Auzac,” she replied, in a low, faltering voice.
He knit his brows. The title was to him sufficient proof that the woman he loved so dearly had forsaken him in order to obtain wealth and position. She would be Princess d’Auzac. It was the way of the world.
“And why have you kept the truth from me?” he demanded, in a harsh tone full of reproach.
“Because I feared you—because—because I loved you, George,” she sobbed.
“Love!” he echoed. “Surely you cannot love me if you can prefer another?”
“Ah! no,” she cried in protestation. “I knew you would misjudge me; you whom I loved so dearly and still love.”
“Then why marry this man, whoever he is?” he interrupted fiercely. He saw her words were uttered with an intense earnestness. There still burned in her eyes the unmistakable light of fond passion. “Because I must.”
“You must? I don’t understand.”
Her cold lips moved, but no sound came from them. In vain she tried to suppress the fierce tumult of feelings that raged within her breast. He was endeavouring to wring her secret from her! the secret of Zertho’s influence. No, he should never know. It was terrible, horrible; its very thought appalled her. To save her father from exposure, disgrace, and something worse she was compelled to renounce her love, sacrifice herself, and marry the man she despised and hated.
“I have promised to marry the Prince d’Auzac because I am compelled,” she said briefly, in a low, firm voice.
“What renders it imperative?” he demanded, his face dark and serious.
“My own decision,” she answered, struggling to remain calm.
“You have decided, then, to discard my love,” he said fiercely. “You prefer being the wife of a Prince rather than of a struggling barrister. Well, perhaps, after all your choice is but natural.”
“I do not prefer,” she declared, passionately. “Cannot you see, George, that there are circumstances which compel me to act as I am acting? Heaven knows, I have suffered enough, because you are the only man I can love.”
“Then why not remain mine, darling?” he said, more tenderly, with a slight pressure of her hand as he gazed with intense earnestness into her tear-dimmed eyes. “We love one another, therefore why should both our lives be wrecked?”
“Because it is imperative,” she answered, gloomily.
“But what motive can you have in thus ruining your future, and casting aside all chance of happiness?” he inquired, puzzled.
“It is to secure my future, not to ruin it, that I have promised to marry the Prince,” she answered.
“And for no ulterior motive?”
“Yes,” she faltered. “There is still another reason.”
“What is it? Tell me.”
“No, George,” she answered in a low, hoarse voice. “Do not ask me, for I can never tell you—never.”
“You have a hidden motive which you refuse to explain,” he observed resentfully. “I have placed faith in you; surely you can trust me, Liane!”
“With everything, save that.”
“Why?”
“It is a secret which I cannot disclose.”
“Not even to me?”
“No, not even to you,” she answered, pale to the lips. “I dare not!”
He remained silent in perplexity. A bevy of bright-faced, laughing girls passed them in high spirits, counting as they went by the coin they had won at the tables. Liane turned her face from them to hide her emotion, and stood motionless, leaning still upon the balustrade. The sun was sinking behind the great dark rock whereon was perched Monaco, and the mountains were already purple in the mystic light of evening.
“Why are you so determined that we should separate, darling?” he asked, in a low, pained voice, bending down towards her averted face. “Surely your Prince can never love you as devotedly as I have done!”
“Ah! George,” she cried, with a tender passion in her glance as she again turned to him, “do not tempt me. It is my duty, and I have given a pledge. I have never loved Prince Zertho, and I never shall. Mine will be a marriage of compulsion. In a few short weeks I shall bid farewell to hope and happiness, to life and love, for I shall become Princess d’Auzac and lose you for ever.”
“As Princess you may obtain many of the pleasures of life. Far more than if you were my wife,” he observed, in a hollow tone, as if speaking to himself.
“No, no,” she protested. “The very name is to me synonymous of all that is hateful. Ah! you do not know, George, the terrible thoughts that seem to goad me to madness. Often I find myself reflecting whether death would not be preferable to the life to which I am now condemned. Yet I am held to it immutably, forced against my will to become this man’s wife, in order that the terrible secret, which must never be disclosed, may still remain where it is, locked in the breast of the one man who, by its knowledge, holds me irrevocably in his power.”
“Then you fear this Prince Zertho?” he said slowly, with deep emphasis. She seemed quite unlike the laughing, happy girl he had known at home in their quiet rural village. Her strange attitude of abject dejection and despair held him stupefied.
“Yes,” she answered hoarsely, after a long pause, “I dare not disobey him.”
“From your words it would seem that your crime is of such a terrible nature that you dare not risk exposure. Is that so?” he hazarded in a hard voice, scarcely raised above a whisper.
“My crime!” she cried, all colour instantly dying out of her handsome face, while in her clear, grey eyes was a strange expression as if she were haunted by some fearsome spectre of the past. Her white lips quivered, her hands trembled, “What do you mean?” she gasped. “What do you know of my crime?”
Next instant she started, her lips held tight together as she drew herself up unsteadily with a sudden movement.
She knew that she had involuntarily betrayed herself to the man she loved.