The Princess Passes Part 25

"There'd be no danger for me. There might be death for you."

"Well, then, you can save my life if you like, by not going. If you don't go, I won't."

"Of all the brutal tyrants who have tyrannised over mankind----"

"I heard you say once that you would like to have been a professional tyrant. Why shouldn't I qualify for the part?"

"You are cruel to put me in such a position."

"You are cruel to make me do it, for your own selfish amus.e.m.e.nt."

"By Jove! You talk like an exacting woman!"

The blood rushed to his face so hotly that it forced water into the brilliant eyes of wild-chicory blue.

"If I were a woman I don't think I would be an exacting one. I should only want people I--liked, to do things because they cared about me, otherwise favours would be of no value. We're pals, as you say, great pals, but if you don't care enough----"

"Oh, hang it all, Kid, I'll give the thing up," I broke in, crossly.

"I'll potter about with you and the Contessa in Chamounix, and take some nice, pretty, proper walks. But all the same, you're a little brute."

"Do you hate me?"

"Not precisely. But if I stop down here, Satan will certainly find mischief for my idle hands to do. I shall try to take your Contessa away from you, perhaps."

"Oh, will you? Then I shall try to keep her; and we shall see which is the better man."

He rose from the table with a little swagger, ruffling it gaily in his triumph over me; and so young, so small he seemed, to be boasting of his manhood and his prowess in the warfare of love, that I burst out laughing.

"Come on," I said, "let's go and have a look round Chamounix, since there's no better sport to be had."

So we strolled out of the _vaste parc avec chamois_ into the streets of the gay and charming little town, lying like a bright crystal at the foot of Mont Blanc. Round each of several big telescopes under striped canvas umbrellas, was collected a crowd. We could guess at what they were looking. "Shall we stop and see that piteous dark packet lying lonely on the snow?" I asked, pausing. But the Boy hurried on. "No, no," he said, "I should feel as if I had been spying on the dead through a keyhole. I want to buy something at the shops."

"And I want to see the statue of Horace de Saussure, the first man who ever got to the top of Mont Blanc," said I, with reproachful meaning in my tone.

The shops were almost as attractive as those of Lucerne, and gave an air of modernity and civilisation to the little place, which would have been out of the picture, had it not contrived to suggest the piquancy of contrast. The Boy spent a hundred francs for a silver chamois poised upon the apex of a perilous peak of uncut amethysts, mounted on ebony, and I was witty at the expense of his purchase, likening it to the white elephant of Instantaneous Breakfasts et Cie., which I had long ago cast behind me.

"You will be throwing your chamois away in a day or two," I prophesied, "or sending it back to our landlord to add to his collection of animals."

"You will see that I shan't throw it away," the Boy returned, and insisted upon carrying the parcel in his hand, instead of having it sent from the shop to the hotel. When we had learned something of the town we sauntered homeward; and seated in the _vaste parc_ with a novel and a red silk parasol, we found Gaeta. "Where have you been so early?" she asked.

"To find a burnt-offering for your shrine," said the Boy; and tearing off the white wrappings, he gave her the silver chamois.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

CHAPTER XIX

The Little Rift within the Lute

"There comes a mist, and a weeping rain, And nothing is ever the same again; Alas!"

--GEORGE MACDONALD.

We devoted three days to some exquisite excursions, which more than half consoled me for sacrificing Mont Blanc to make a tyrant's holiday, and then decided to push on to Aix-les-Bains, stopping on the way for a glimpse of Annecy.

The Contessa had planned to go from Chamounix to Aix by rail with her friends, but she had either fallen in love with our mode of travelling or pretended it. A hint to the Boy, and f.a.n.n.y-anny was placed at her disposal for a ride from Chamounix to Annecy, a lady's saddle being easily picked up in a town of shops which miss no opportunities. As for the Baron and Baronessa, it was plain to see the drift of their minds. So angry were they at the change of programme, that it would have been a satisfaction to quarrel with Gaeta, and leave her in a huff. But their devotion to Paolo, which was almost pathetic, forbade them this form of self-indulgence. They curbed their annoyance with the bit of common-sense, though it galled their mouths, and consented to drive to Annecy in a carriage provided by Gaeta for their accommodation. They even constrained themselves to be civil to the Boy and me, though their heavy politeness had the electrical quality of a lull before a storm. How that storm would break I could not foresee, but that it would presently burst above our heads I was sure.

There was no longer a question that Boy was hot favourite in the race for Gaeta's smiles. There might have been betting on me for "place,"

but it would have been foolish to put money on my chances as winner.

The young wretch scarcely gave me a chance for a word with the Contessa, for if I walked on the left he walked on the right of her as she rode, his little brown hand on the new saddle, which had taken the place of the old one sent on to Annecy by _grande vitesse_. I would have surrendered, being too lazy for a struggle, had I not been somewhat piqued by the Boy's behaviour. He had affected not to care for Gaeta at first, and had even feigned annoyance at the temporary addition to our party, while in reality he could have had little genuine wish for my society, or he would not now betray such eagerness in the game he was playing. The vague sense of wrong I suffered gave me a wish for reprisal of some sort, and the only one convenient at the moment was to prevent the offender from having a clear course. I found a certain mean pleasure in stirring the Boy to jealousy by reviving, when I could, some half-dead ember of Gaeta's former interest in me, and his face showed sometimes that my a.s.siduity displeased him.

This was encouragement to persevere, and I praised the Contessa to him when we happened to be alone together. "You have a short memory it seems," said he. "You told me not so long ago that you'd been in love with a girl who jilted you. Have you forgotten her already?"

I winced under this thrust, but hoped that the Boy did not see it.

His stab reminded me that I had found very little time lately to regret Miss Blantock, now Lady Jerveyson; and Molly Winston's words recurred to me: "If I could only prove to you that you aren't and never have been in love with Helen." I had retorted that to accomplish this would be difficult, and she had confidently replied that she would engage to do it, if I would "take her prescription." I had taken her prescription, and--indisputably the wound had become callous, though I was not prepared to admit that it had healed. However, if I had ceased actively to mourn the grocer's triumph, it was not Gaeta who had wrought the magic change. What had caused it I was myself at a loss to understand, but I did not wish to argue the matter with the Boy. He was welcome to think what he chose.

"Hearts are caught in the rebound sometimes, if for once a proverb can be right," said I evasively; though a few weeks ago, when Molly had been constantly alluding to her friend Mercedes, I had told myself that no one could achieve such a feat with mine.

To this suggestion the Boy made no response, save to tighten his lips, resolving, I supposed, that if hearts were flying about like shuttlec.o.c.ks, his battledore should be ready to catch the Contessa's.

Our road from Chamounix to Annecy led us past gorges and over high precipices and among n.o.ble mountains, but my mind was no longer in a condition to receive or retain strong impressions of natural beauty. I was irritable and "out of myself," vainly wishing back the days when the Boy and I, undisturbed by feminine society, had travelled tranquilly, side by side, giving each other thought for thought.

"Nothing can be as it has been; Better, so call it, only not the same,"

Browning said; and so, I feared, it would be after this with me.

We were all to stay at Annecy for a night and a day, the Contessa having announced that she and her friends would stop too; then Gaeta and the others were to go on to Aix-les-Bains by rail, and the Boy and I were to follow on foot, attended by our satellites. Later, we were to spend a few days at the Contessa's villa and get upon our way again, journeying south. But it did not seem to me that my little Pal and I would ever be as we had been before, even though we walked from Aix-les-Bains all the way down to the Riviera shoulder to shoulder. I had the will to be the same, but he was different now; and though we left Gaeta in the flesh at her villa, entertaining guests, Gaeta in the spirit would still flit between us as we went. The Boy would be thinking of her; I should know that he was thinking of her, and--there would be an end of our confidences.

The way, though kaleidoscopic with changing beauties, seemed long to Annecy. By the time that we arrived, after two days' going, the Contessa had eyes or dimples or laughter for no one but the Boy.

Sometimes he was seized with sudden moods of rebellion against his new slavery, and was almost rude to her, saying things which she would not have forgiven readily from another, but the child-woman appeared to find a keen delight in forgiving him. Seeing the preference bestowed upon the young American, Paolo's brother and sister were inclined to make common cause with me.

In the garden of the old-fashioned hotel at Annecy where we all took up our headquarters, they came and encamped beside me, at a table near which I sat alone, smoking, after our first dinner in the place. A moment later Gaeta pa.s.sed with the Boy, pacing slowly under the interlacing branches of the trees.

"I believe that youth to be a fortune-hunter!" exclaimed the thin, dark Baron.

"You're wrong there," said I, "he's very rich."

"At all events, it is ridiculous, this flirtation," exclaimed the plump Baronessa. "He is a mere child. Gaeta is making a fool of herself. You are her friend. You should see this and put a stop to the affair in some way."

"As to that, many women marry men younger than themselves," I replied, willing to tease the lady, though I could have laughed aloud at the bare idea of marriage for the Boy. "Still," I went on more consolingly, "I hardly think it will come to anything serious between them."

"Ah, if you say that, you little know Gaeta," protested Gaeta's friend. "She is infatuated--infatuated with this youth of seventeen or eighteen, whom she insists, to justify her foolishness, is a year older than he can possibly be. Something must be done, and soon, or she is capable of proposing to him, if he pretend to hang back."

"Something will be done, my dear; do not be unnecessarily excited,"

said the Baron. "I fear we have not the full sympathy of Lord Lane."

"If you mean, will I do anything to keep the two apart, I confess you haven't," I answered. "The Contessa di Ravello is her own mistress, and I should say if she wanted the moon, it would be bad for anyone who tried to keep her from getting it."