The Man and the Moment Part 8

He did not know this gentleman personally, and the fact would not have arrested his attention at all only that he chanced to be interested in English politics. He wondered vaguely if he would be an agreeable acquisition to the place, and then turned to more thrilling things.

Presently a slender young woman came down the path through the woods and leisurely entered the gate. Mr. Cloudwater watched her, and a kindly smile lit his face. He thought how pretty she was, and how glad he was that she had joined Moravia and himself again this summer. The months when she went off by herself to her house in Brittany always seemed very long. He saw her coming from far enough to be able to take in every detail about her. Extreme slenderness and extreme grace were her distinctive marks. The face was childish and rounded in outline, but when you looked into the violet eyes there was some shadow of a story hidden there. She was about twenty-two years old, and was certainly not at Carlsbad for any reasons of cure, for her glowing complexion told a tale of radiant health.

Her white clothes were absolutely perfect in their simplicity, and so was her air of unconcern and indifference. "The enigma" her friends often called her. She seemed so frank and simple, and no one ever got beyond the wall of what she was really thinking--what did she do with her life? It seemed ridiculous that any one so rich and attractive and young should care to pa.s.s long periods of time at a wild spot near Finisterre, in an old chateau perched upon the rocks, completely alone but for an elderly female companion.

There was, of course, some hidden tragedy about her husband--who was a raging lunatic or an inebriate shut up somewhere--perhaps there! They had had to part at once--he had gone mad on the wedding journey, some believed, but others said this was not at all the case, and that she had married an Indian chief and then parted from him immediately in America--finding out the horror of being wedded to a savage. No one knew anything for a fact, only that when she did come into the civilized world, it was always with the Princess Torniloni and her father, who, if they knew the truth of Mrs. Howard's story, never gave it away. Men swarmed around her, but she appeared completely unconcerned and friendly with them all, and not even the most envious of the other Americans who were trying to climb into Princess Torniloni's exclusive society had ever been able to make up any scandals about her.

"I have had such an enchanting walk, Clowdy, dear," the slim young woman said as she sat down in a basket-chair near Mr. Cloudwater. "I am so glad we came here, aren't you?--and I am sure it will do Moravia no end of good. She pa.s.sed me as I was coming from the Aberg on her way to Hans Heiling, so she will not be in yet. Let us have tea."

The Arab called the waiter, who brought it to them. One or two other little groups were having some, too, but Mr. Cloudwater's party were singularly ungregarious, and avoided making acquaintances in hotels. He and Mrs. Howard chatted alone together over theirs for about half an hour. Presently there was the noise of a motor arriving. It whirled into the gate and stopped where they usually do, a little at one side. It was very dusty and travel-stained, and beside the chauffeur there got out a tall, fair Englishman. The personnel of the hotel came forward to meet him with empress.e.m.e.nt, and as he pa.s.sed where Mr. Cloudwater and Mrs. Howard were sitting, they heard him say:

"My servant brought the luggage by train this morning, so I suppose the rooms are ready."

"They are a wonderful race," Mr. Cloudwater remarked, "aren't they, Sabine. I never can understand why you should so persistently avoid them--they really have much more in common with ourselves than Latins."

"That is why perhaps--one likes contrasts--and French and Russians, or Germans, are far more intelligent. Every one to his taste!" and Mrs.

Howard smiled.

The Englishman came out again in a few minutes, and sitting down lazily, as though he were alone upon the balcony terrace, he ordered some tea.

Not the remotest sc.r.a.p of interest in his surroundings or companions lit up his face. He might have been forty or forty-two, perhaps, but being so fair he looked a good deal younger, and had a peculiar distinction of his own.

"That is what I object to about them," Mrs. Howard remarked presently, "their abominable arrogance. Look at that man. It is just as though there was no one else on this balcony but himself--no one else exists for him!"

"Why, Sabine, you are severe! He looks to me to be a pretty considerably nice man--and he is only reading the paper as I have been doing myself," Mr. Cloudwater rejoined. "Perhaps he is the English n.o.bleman who I read was expected to-day--Lord Fordyce, the paper said--and wasn't that the name of rather a prominent English politician who had to go into the Upper House last year when his father died--and it was considered he would be a loss to the Commons?"

"I really don't know. I don't take the slightest interest in them or their politics. Ah! here is Moravia----" and both rose to meet a very charming lady who drove up in a victoria and got out.

She had all the perfection of detail which characterizes the very best-dressed American woman--and she had every attraction except, perhaps, a voice--but even that she knew how to modulate and disguise, so that it was no wonder that the Princess Torniloni pa.s.sed for one of the most beautiful women in Rome or Paris, or Cairo or New York, whenever she graced any of the cities with her presence. She was a widow, too, and very rich. The Prince, her husband, had been dead for nearly two years, and she was wearing grays and whites and mauves.

He had been a brute, too, but unlike her friend, Mrs. Howard's husband, he had had the good taste to be killed riding in a steeplechase, and so all went well, and the pretty Princess was free to wander the world over with her indulgent father.

"It is just too lovely for words up in those woods, papa," she said, "and I have had my tea in a dear little chalet restaurant. You did not wait for me, I hope?"

They a.s.sured her they had not done so, and she sat down in a comfortable chair. Her arrival caused a flutter among the other occupants of the terrace, and even the Englishman glanced up. This group had at last made some impression it would seem upon the retina of his eye, for he looked deliberately at them and realized that the two women were quite worthy of his scrutiny.

"But I hate Americans," he said to himself. "They are such actresses, you never know where you are with them--these two, though, appear some of the best."

Presently they went into the hotel, pa.s.sing him very closely--and for a second his eyes met the violet ones of Sabine Howard, and he was conscious that he felt distinctly interested, much to his disgust.

But, after all, he was here for a cure and a rest, and he had always believed in women as recreations.

His solitary table was near theirs in the restaurant, and later he wrote to his friend, Michael Arranstoun, loitering at Ostende:

The hotel is quite decent--and after your long sojourn in the wilds, you will have an overdose of polo and expensive ladies and baccarat. You had much better join me here at the end of the week.

There are two pretty women who would be quite your affair. They have the next table, and neither of them can be taking the cure.

But Mr. Arranstoun, when he received this missive, had other things to do. He had been out of England, and indeed Europe, for nearly five years--having, in the summer of 1907, joined a friend to explore the innermost borders of China and Tibet, and there the pa.s.sion for this kind of thing had overtaken him, and his own home knew him no more.

Now, however, he had announced that he had returned for good, and intended to spend the rest of his days at Arranstoun as a model landlord.

He started this by playing polo at Ostende, where he had run across Henry Fordyce. They had cordially grasped each other's hands, their estrangement forgotten when face to face; and the only mention there had been of the circ.u.mstances which had caused their parting were in a few sentences.

"By Jove, Henry, it is five whole years since you thundered morals at me and shook the dust of Arranstoun from your feet!"

"You did behave abominably, Michael--but I am awfully glad to see you--and the scene at Ebbsworth, when Violet Hatfield read the notice in the Scotsman of your marriage, made me feel you had been almost justified in taking any course you could to make yourself safe. But how about your wife? Have you ever seen her again?"

"No. My lawyer tells me I can divorce her now for desertion. I should have to make some pretence of asking her to return to me, he says, which of course she would refuse to do--and then both can be free, but, for my part, I am not hankering after freedom much--I do very well as I am--and I always cherish a rather tender recollection of her."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "His solitary table was near theirs in the restaurant"]

Henry laughed.

"I have often pictured that wedding," he said, "and the little bride going off with her certificate and your name all alone. No family turned up awkwardly at the last moment to mar things; she left safely after the ceremony, eh?"

Michael looked away suddenly, and then answered with overdone unconcern:

"Yes--soon after the ceremony."

"I do wonder you had no curiosity to investigate her character further!"

"I had--but she did not appreciate my interest--and--after she had gone--I was rather in a bad temper, and I reasoned myself into believing she was probably right--also just then I wanted to join Latimer Berkeley's expedition to China. I remember, his letter about it came by the next morning's post--so I went--but do you know, Henry, I believe that little girl made some lasting impression upon me. I believe, if she had stayed, I should have been frantically in love with her--but she went, so there it is!"

"Why don't you try to find her?" Henry asked.

"Perhaps I mean to some day. I have thought of doing so often, but first China, and then one thing and another have stopped me--besides, she may have fancied some other fellow by this time--the whole thing was one of those colossal mistakes. If we could only have met ordinarily--and not married in a hurry and then parted--like that."

"Has it never struck you she was rather young to be left to drift by herself?"

"Yes, often--" Then Michael grew a little constrained. "I believe I behaved like the most impossible brute, Henry--in marrying her at all as you said--but I would like to make it up to her some day--and I suppose if, by chance, she has taken a fancy to someone else by this time and wants to be free of me, I ought to divorce her--but, by Heaven, I believe I should hate that!"

"You dog in the manger!"

"Yes, I am----"

And so the subject had ended.

And now Henry, third Lord Fordyce, was taking a mild cure at Carlsbad, and had decided that in his leisure moments he would begin to write a book--a project which had long simmered in his brain; but after two days of sitting by the American party at each meal, a very strong desire to converse with them--especially the one with the strange violet eyes--overcame him; and with deliberate intention he sc.r.a.ped acquaintance with Mr. Cloudwater in the exercise room of the Kaiserbad, who, with polite ceremony, presented him that evening to his daughter and her friend.

Sabine had been particularly silent and irritating, Moravia thought, and as they went up to bed she scolded her about it.

"He is a perfect darling, Sabine," she declared, "and will do splendidly to take walks with us and make the fourth. He is so lazy and English and phlegmatic--I'd like to make him crazy with love--but he looked at you, you little witch, not at me at all."

"You are welcome to him, Morri--I don't care for Englishmen. Good-night, pet," and Mrs. Howard kissed her friend, and going in to her room, she shut the door.

CHAPTER VI