The Beloved Traitor Part 10

"Gracious, Nanette!" complained Myrna sweetly. "What a question! How can you possibly expect me to know?"

Nanette arranged the tray perfunctorily.

"There was a man who left a message with that imbecile proprietor for mademoiselle early this morning," she observed. "Mademoiselle has engaged a boatman?"

"A boatman? Certainly not!" declared Myrna Bliss. "Not without seeing the boat--and I have seen no boat!"

"But mademoiselle engages a cottage without seeing the cottage,"

murmured Nanette slyly.

"That will do, Nanette!" said Myrna severely. "There was but one cottage; there are dozens of boats. It is quite a different matter.

What did the man say?"

"That he was obliged to go out for the four o'clock fishing this morning," said Nanette, pouting a little at the rebuke; "but that he would go to mademoiselle at the cottage early in the forenoon."

A row of little white teeth crunched into a piece of crisp toast.

"Very well, Nanette." Myrna's brows pursed up thoughtfully. "You may get out that new marquisette from Fallard's; and, I think"--she glanced out of the window--"my sunbonnet. And, Nanette"--suddenly impatient--"hurry, please--since father is waiting."

Myrna's impatience bore fruit. In ten minutes she was ready, and, running down the stairs, went out to the street, where her father and the cure, deep in conversation--on art undoubtedly, since her father was doing most of the talking!--were pacing slowly up and down, as they waited for her.

Her sunbonnet was swinging in her hand, the big grey eyes were shining, the glow of superb health was in her cheeks.

"Good morning, Father Anton!" she called out gaily. "What a shame to have kept you waiting!"

The old priest turned toward her with unaffected pleasure, as he held out his hand.

"Good morning to you, mademoiselle"--he was smiling with eyes as well as lips. "What a radiant little girl! It makes one full of life and young again; you are, let me see, you are--a tonic!"

She laughed as she turned to her father.

"'Morning, Dad! Sleep well?"

Henry Bliss removed his cigar to survey his daughter with whimsical reproach; then he patted her cheek affectionately.

"Fierce, wasn't it?" he chuckled. "Those beds are the worst ever! I was telling the cure here about them."

"It is too bad," said Father Anton solicitously. "It is regrettable.

I am so very sorry. But"--earnestly--"you must not think too hardly of the Fregeaus. Since no guests sleep here, I am sure they can have no idea that--"

"No; of course not!" agreed Henry Bliss heartily, and laughed. "The hard feelings are all in the beds--and we'll let them stay there. Now, then, Myrna, are you ready to inspect this new domain of yours? And shall we walk, or take the car? Father Anton says it is not far."

"We will walk then," decided Myrna.

It was the walk she had taken yesterday, at least it was the same as far as the little bridge; and for that distance she walked beside her father and the cure, chatting merrily, but there she loitered a little behind them. Half impishly, half with a genuine impulse that she rather welcomed than avoided, she told herself that it was quite unfair to pa.s.s the little spot so indifferently. Was it not here that this most bizarre of adventures had begun? She had stood here by the railing, and he had stood there across on the other side, and--the red leaped suddenly flaming into her cheeks. She had never looked at a man like that before--no man had ever looked at her like that before! And it had been spontaneous, instant, like a flash of fire that had lighted up a dark and unknown pathway, which, in the momentary blaze of light, was full of strange wonder; and which, because it was an unknown way, and because the glimpse had shown so much in so brief an instant that the brain fused all into confusion and nothing was concrete, resulted, not in illuminating the way, but, the flash of light gone again, in transforming the pathway only into a bewildering maze.

She laughed a little after a while, shaking her head. Such an absurd fancy! But what an entrancing, alluring little fancy! Decidedly, it would be a new sensation to be lost in a maze like that--for a time.

She would tire of it soon enough--the thrill probably would not even last as long as she would want it to. No thrill ever did! She bit her lip suddenly in pretty vexation. It was stupid of the man to go off fishing! Had he done it to pique her? The idea! He certainly could not have the temerity to imagine that it lay within his power to pique her. The sunbonnet swung to and fro abstractedly from its ribbon strings. Wasn't it strange that he had--piqued her!

She went on after her father and the cure. They were quite a way ahead now, and she hastened to catch up with them. As she drew near, she caught her father's words.

"... Peyre on the _Histoire Generale des Beaux-Arts_, Monsieur le Cure, I recommend it to you heartily. It is a most comprehensive little volume, embracing in a condensed form the story of the arts from the time of the Egyptians down to the present day, and--"

Myrna, in spite of herself, laughed outright, at which both men turned their heads. Her father, incorrigible, was at it again; and, once started, there was no stopping him. Poor Father Anton! For the rest of the way he would listen to art!

"Did I not tell you to beware, Father Anton?" she cried out in comical despair--and waved them to go on again.

She had no desire to listen to art, its relation to nature, its relation to science, its relation to civilisation, nor, above all, to a dissertation on the modern school. She had heard it all before; and, if it had not pa.s.sed as quickly through one ear as it had come into the other, her head, she was quite sure, would have driven her to distraction. Besides, it was much more important to think about something else--no, not what she had been thinking about a moment ago; but, for instance, to be practical, about this menage whose wheels, without knowing whether they were oiled or not, she had impulsively set in motion. Would the cottage be at all habitable? Would this Marie-Louise be at all suitable? Would Marie-Louise and Nanette get along together? Nanette was insanely jealous of Jules--nothing but the fact that Jules was with them would have induced Nanette, to whom Paris was the beginning and the end of all things, to have come on such a trip. Yes, there was a very great deal to think about--now that it occurred to her! Myrna fell into a brown study, quite oblivious to her surroundings.

When she joined her father and the cure again, they had stopped at the edge of the little wood on the headland, and a cottage, almost as prettily vine-covered as Father Anton's, lay before them.

"Well, Myrna," her father called, with a smile, "I must say your plunge in the dark looks propitious so far."

"No, no! Not a plunge in the dark!" protested Father Anton quickly, his eyes full of expectant pleasure on Myrna. "That is not fair, Monsieur Bliss! It was on my recommendation, was it not, mademoiselle?

And now--eh?--what does mademoiselle think of it?"

It was like the imaginative conception of some painter. The cottage, green with climbing vines, spotlessly white where the vines were spa.r.s.e, nestled in the trees--in front, as far as the eye could reach, the glorious, deep, unfathomable blue of the Mediterranean; nearer, the splash of surf, like myriad fountains, on the headland's rugged point; while a tiny fringe of beach, just peeping from under the edge of the cliff at the far side of the cottage, glistened as though full of diamonds in the sunlight.

"Father Anton--you are a dear!" Myrna cried impetuously.

Her eyes roved delightedly here and there. There was a little trellis with flowers over the back door--that little outhouse would do splendidly as a garage. And then the front door opened, and her eyes fixed on a girl's figure on the threshold--and somehow the figure was familiar.

"Who is that, Father Anton?" she demanded.

"But it is Marie-Louise--who else?" smiled the priest. "I will call her."

"No," said Myrna; "we will go in."

Of course! How absurd! She recognised the girl now. It was the girl who had pa.s.sed them on the bridge--Myrna's sunbonnet swung a little abstractedly again--with Jean Laparde.

Father Anton bustled forward.

"Marie-Louise," he said, as they reached the door, "this is the lady and gentleman who are to take the house, and--"

"Oh, but I think we have seen each other before," interposed Myrna graciously. "Was it not you, Marie-Louise, who pa.s.sed us on the bridge yesterday afternoon?"

Marie-Louise's dark eyes, deep, fearless, met the grey ones--and dropped modestly.

"Yes, mademoiselle," she said.

"Certainly!" said Henry Bliss pleasantly. "I remember you too, and--ah!" With a sudden step, quite forgetting the amenities due his daughter, he brushed by her into the room, and stooped over the clay figure of the beacon. He picked it up, looked at it in a sort of startled incredulity, as though he could not believe his eyes; then, setting it down, went to the window, threw up the shade for better light, and returned to the clay figure. And then, after a moment, he began to mutter excitedly. "Yes--undoubtedly--of the flower of the French school--Demaurais, Lestrange, Pitot--eh?--which?

And--yes--here--within a day or so--it is quite fresh!" He rushed back to the doorway to Father Anton. "Who has been in the village recently?"--his words were coming with a rush, he had the priest by the shoulders and was unconsciously shaking him. "Was it a man with long black hair over his coat collar and a beak nose? Was it a little short man who always jerks his head as he talks? Or was it a big fellow, very fat, and, yes, if it were Pitot he would probably be drunk?

Quick! Which one was it?"

Father Anton, jaw dropped, dumb with amazement, could only shake his head. This American! Had he gone suddenly mad?

"Good heavens, dad, what is the matter?" Myrna cried out.

He paid no attention to her.