CHAPTER II TELLS SOMETHING ABOUT LOVE

Reader, have you ever lived in an English pension on the Riviera? Have you ever inhabited a small cubicle containing a chair, a deal table, a narrow bed—with mosquito curtains—and a hung-up looking-glass, and partaken of that cheap, ill-cooked food, the stale-egg omelette and the tough biftek, served in the bare salle-à-manger by one of those seedy, unshaven waiters who appear to be specially bred for the cheap Riviera boarding-houses? Have you ever spent an evening with that mixed crowd of ascetic persons who nightly congregate in the fusty salon, play upon a cracked piano, screech old-fashioned sentimentalities, exhibit their faded finery, paste jewels and bony chests, and otherwise make the hours, following dinner absolutely hideous? If not, a week of this life will be found to be highly amusing.

"My dear," Ulrica whispered, as we followed the proprietress, a buxom Frenchwoman in black satin, along the bare, white-washed corridor to our rooms, "hotel or work-house—which?"

There was a comfortless look everywhere, even though the spread of the blue sea and the palm-planted Promenade des Anglais were magnificent parts of the view, and the warm winter sunshine streamed into our tiny rooms—chambers so small that our trunks had to be placed in the corridor.

We changed our frocks and went down to dinner, discovering the salle-à-manger by its smell. What a scene presented itself at that table d'hôte! The long table was crowded by a host of dowdy women, generally wearing caps of soiled lace and faded ribbons, with one or two dismal-looking and elderly men. Of spinsters there were not a few, and of widows many, but one and all possessed the stamp of persons of small means struggling perseveringly to obtain their fill for the ten francs par jour which they paid for their "south rooms."

As new-comers, we were directed to seats at the bottom of the table; and after we had suffered from a watery concoction which the menu described as potage, we proceeded to survey our fellow-guests in that cheap and respectable pension.

That they were severely respectable there could certainly be no doubt. There were a couple of drawling English clergymen, with their wives—typical vicars' wives who patronised their neighbours; two or three sad-faced young girls, accompanied by ascetic relatives; a young Frenchman who eyed Ulrica all the time; one or two hen-pecked husbands of the usual type to be found in such hostelries of the aged; and an old lady who sat in state at the extreme end of the table, and much amused us by her efforts at juvenility. Besides ourselves, she was apparently the only person who had a maid with her; and in order to exhibit that fact, she sent for her smelling-salts during dinner. She was long past sixty, yet dressed in a style becoming a girl of eighteen, in bright colours and lace, her fair wig being dressed in the latest Parisian style, and the wrinkles of her cheeks filled up by various creams and face powders.

"That old crow is an absolute terror!" observed Ulrica to me in an undertone, and out of sheer devilry she at once commenced a conversation with this rejuvenated hag, who, as we learned later, was an exportation from one of the London suburbs.

The conversation, started by Ulrica and continued by myself, proved most amusing to us both. The old woman whose name was Blackett, had just enough to live upon, we afterwards discovered, but came each year to the pension in order to cut a dash as a grande dame. Her fingers were covered with paste jewels, and her finery was all of that cheap and tawdry kind which affects the nerves as well as the eyes.

"Oh, yes!" she said, in a carefully cultivated voice, intended to show good breeding, "if this is your first visit to the Riviera, you'll be quite charmed—everyone is charmed with it. As for myself—" and she sighed,—"I have been here each year for I don't know how long."

"And there is lots to see?"

"Lots. Only you must drive, you know. I myself drive at all hours of the day, and when the moon is up I go for moonlight drives into the mountains."

How romantic, I thought.

"I have my own coachman, you know," she added. "I keep him all the year round."

She had led up to the conversation merely in order to inform us of her generosity.

So throughout the meal, which occupied nearly two hours, by reason of inadequate waiting, we continued to draw her out, humour her egotism, and cause her to make a most ridiculous display of herself, until at last, my sentiment changing, I felt genuinely sorry for her.

"Certainly," I remarked to Ulrica as we left the table, "this is the most extraordinary collection of tabbies I've ever met."

"My dear," she said, "what has been puzzling me all the evening is their place of origin. Some, I regret to say, are actually our own compatriots. But where do they come from?"

"It's a special breed peculiar to pensions on the Riviera," I remarked; and together we ascended to the frowsy drawing-room, where the red plush-covered furniture exuded an odour of mustiness, and the carpet was sadly moth-eaten and thread-bare.

Around the central table a dozen angular women of uncertain age grouped themselves and formed a sewing-party; a retired colonel, who seemed a good fellow, buried himself in the Contemporary; a decrepit old gentleman wearing a skull-cap and a shawl about his shoulders, heaped logs upon the fire and sat with his feet on the fender, although the atmosphere was stifling, while somebody else induced a young lady with a voice like a file to sing a plaintive love-song, accompanied by the untuned piano.

During my previous winters in the South I had stayed at hotels. In my ignorance of the ways of cheap visitors to the Riviera, I believed this congregation to be unique, but Ulrica assured me that it was typical of all English pensions along the Côte d'Azur, from Cannes to Bordighera, and I can now fully endorse her statement.

To describe in detail the many comic scenes enacted is unnecessary. The people were too ludicrous for words. One family in especial endeavoured to entice us to friendliness. Its head was a very tall, muscular, black-haired French-woman, who had married an Englishman. The latter had died fifteen years ago, leaving her with a son and daughter, the former a school boy of sixteen, and the latter a fair-haired and very freckled girl of perhaps twenty. The woman's name was Egerton, and she was of that dashing type who can wear scarlet dresses at dinner, and whose cheeks dazzle one's eyes on account of the rouge upon them. She was loud, coarse, and vulgar. For the benefit of all the others, she spoke daily of the delicacies prepared by her own chef, sneered at the food of the pension, and ordered special messes for her own consumption. Before we had known her an hour she had given us a description of the wonderful interior of her house in Rome, enumerated her servants, and gave us to understand that she was exceedingly well-off, and quite a superior person. The people one meets on the Riviera are really very entertaining.

Ulrica was grimly sarcastic. As we had neither intention nor inclination to associate with this superior relict, we politely snubbed her, taking care that it should not be done in secret.

"I don't think our effort at economy has met with very much success," I remarked to Ulrica, when about a week later I sat over the cup of half-cold coffee, the stale egg, the hunk of bread and the pat of rancid butter, which together formed my breakfast.

"No, a week of it is quite sufficient," she laughed. "We'll leave to-morrow."

"Then you've given notice?"

"Of course. I only came here for a week's amusement. We'll go on to the 'Grand.'"

So on the following day our trunks were called for by the hotel omnibus, and we took up our quarters in that well-known hotel on the Quai St. Jean Baptiste. Ulrica had known the Riviera ever since her girlhood. With her parents she had gone abroad each autumn, had seen most of the sights, and had thus received her education as a smart woman.

We were in the salon of the "Grand" on the night of our arrival, when suddenly someone uttered my name. We both turned quickly, and to our surprise saw two men we knew quite well in London standing before us. One was Reginald Thorne, a dark-haired and more than usually good-looking youth of about twenty-two or so, while the other was Gerald Keppel, a thin, fair-moustached young man, some seven years his senior, son of old Benjamin Keppel, the well-known South African millionaire. Gerald was an old friend, but the former I knew but slightly, having met him once or twice at dances, for in Kensington he was among the chief of the eligibles.

"Why, my dear Miss Rosselli!" he cried enthusiastically as we shook hands. "I'm so awfully glad to meet you! I had no idea you were here. Gerald was here dining with me, and we caught sight of you through the glass doors."

"Then you're staying here?" I asked.

"Yes. Gerald's staying with his guv'nor. He has a villa out at Fabron. Have you been here long?"

"We've been in Nice a week," interposed Ulrica, "and we haven't found a single soul we know until now. I feel sure you'll take pity upon our loneliness, Mr. Thorne, won't you?"

"Of course!" he laughed. "I suppose you go to Monte Carlo?"

"You men think of nothing but roulette and dinners at the 'Paris,'" she responded reproachfully, adding: "But after all, should we be women if we had no soul for gambling? Have you had any luck this season?"

"Can't complain," he smiled. "I've been staying over there for ten days or so. Gerald has had quite a run of good fortune. The other night he won the maximum on the zero-trois three times."

"Congratulations, my dear Gerald!" exclaimed Ulrica approvingly. "You shall both take us over one day and let us try our fortune—if Mr. Thorne is agreeable."

"Delighted, I'm sure," answered the latter, glancing at me; and by the look he gave me I felt convinced that my suspicions, aroused in London about a year before, were not quite groundless. His glance was a convincing proof that he admired me.

The fault of us women is that we so often over-esteem the value of our good looks. To my mind the possession of handsome toilettes is quite as essential to a woman's well-being and man's contentment as are personal attractions. A woman, however beautiful she may be, loses half her charm to men's eyes if she dresses dowdily, or without taste. Nobody ever saw a really beautiful Parisienne. For the most part, the ladies of the French capital are thin-nosed, thin-lipped, scraggy-necked, yellow-faced and absolutely ugly; yet are they not, merely by reason of their chic in dress, the most attractive women in the world? I know that many will dissent from this estimate; but as my mirror tells me that I have a face more than commonly handsome, and as dozens of men have further endorsed the mute evidence of my toilet-glass, I can only confess that all my triumphs and all my harmless flirtations have had their beginnings in the attraction exercised by the dainty creations of my couturière. We hear much complaining among women to the effect that there are not a sufficient number of nice men to go round; but after all, the woman who knows how to dress need have no lack of offers of marriage. American women on the Continent can always be distinguished from the English, and it is certain that to their quiet chic in frills and furbelows their success in the marriage market is due.

Yes, there was no doubt that Reggie Thorne admired me. I had suspected it on the night when we had waltzed together at the Pendyman's, and afterwards gossiped together over ices; but with a woman flirtations of the ball-room are soon forgotten, and, truth to tell, I had forgotten him until our sudden and unexpected meeting.

"What awfully good luck we've met Gerald and Reggie," Ulrica said, when, half-an-hour later, we were seated together in the privacy of our sitting-room. "Gerald, poor boy, was always a bit gone on me in London; and as for Reggie—well, he'll make an excellent cavalier for you. Even if Mother Grundy is dead and buried, it isn't very respectable to be constantly trotting over to Monte Carlo without male escort."

"You mean that they'll be a couple of useful males?"

"Certainly. Their coming is quite providential. Some of Gerald's luck at the tables may be reflected upon us. I should dearly like to make my expenses at roulette."

"So should I."

"There's no reason why we shouldn't," she went on. "I know quite a lot of people who've won enough to pay for the whole winter on the Riviera."

"Reggie has money, hasn't he?"

"Of course. The old man was on the Stock Exchange and died very comfortably off. All of it went to Reggie, except an annuity settled on his mother. Of course, he's spent a good deal since. A man doesn't live in the Albany as he does, drive tandem, and all that sort of thing, on nothing a year."

"They used to say that Gerald Keppel hadn't a shilling beyond what the old man allowed him monthly—a most niggardly allowance, I've heard."

"That's quite possible, my dear Carmela," she answered. "But one's position might be a good deal worse than the only son of a millionaire. Old Benjamin is eccentric. I've met the old buffer several times. He's addicted to my pet abomination in a man—paper collars."

"Then you'll take Gerald as your cavalier, and allot Reggie to me?" I laughed.

"Yes. I'm self-sacrificing, am I not?"

She was in high spirits, for she had long ago fascinated Gerald Keppel, and now intended to make use of him as her escort to that Palace of Delight which somebody has suggested might well be known as the Sign of the Seven Sins.

Ulrica was a typical woman of the up-to-date type—pretty, with soft, wavy, chestnut hair and a pair of brown eyes that had attracted a host of men who had bowed down and worshipped at her shrine; yet beneath her corsets, as I alone knew, there beat a heart from which, alas! all love and sympathy had long ago died out. To her, excitement, change and flirtation were as food and drink; she could not live without them. Neither, indeed, could I, for by living with her ever since my convent-days I had copied her smart ideas and notions, stimulated by attacks of nerves.

A few days later, having lunched with Reggie and Gerald at the hotel, we went over with the usual crowd to Monte Carlo by the two o'clock "yellow" express.

Reader, you probably know the panorama of the Riviera—that stretch of azure sky, azure sea, rugged coast; purple hills clad with olives and pines; rose, heliotrope, and geranium running riot in the gardens of the white villas, with their marble terraces.

When I entered for the first time that wild, turbulent, close-smelling salle de jeu at Monte Carlo, where the croupiers were crying in strident tones, "Messieurs, faites vos jeux!" and uttering in warning voice, "Rien ne va plus!" I gazed around me bewildered. Who were those grabbing crowds of smartly-dressed people grouped around the tables? Were they actually civilised human beings—beings who had loved, suffered and lived, as I had loved, suffered and lived?

How beautiful it was outside in that gay little place, with the Red Hungarian Band playing on the terrace of the Café de Paris, and half the grand monde of Europe lounging about and chattering! How enchanting was the grim Dog's Head as a fitting background in dark purple against the winter sunset, the brown Grimaldi rock rising sheer from the sea to the castellated walls of the Palace; to the right, Villefranche and San Juan dark upon the horizon,—the serrated Esterels dark and mysterious afar; while to the left, Bordighera was sparkling white in the sunshine. And beyond there was Italy—my own fair Italy! Out in that flower-scented, limpid air earth was a paradise; within those stifling gilt saloons, where the light of day was tempered by the thick curtains, and the clink of gold mingled with the dull hum of the avaricious crowd, it was a veritable hell.

Some years ago—ah! now I am looking back; Ulrica is not at fault this time. No, I must not think. I have promised myself not to think during my work upon this narrative, but to try to forget all past unhappiness. To try! Ah! I would that I could calm my soul—steep it in a draught of such thoughtlessness that oblivion would come! But I fear that can never, never be!

It is terrible to think how a woman can suffer, and yet live. What a blessing it is that the world cannot read a woman's heart! Men may look upon our faces, but they cannot read the truth. Even though our hearts may be breaking, we may wear a smile; we can conceal our sorrows so cleverly that none can suspect, for smiles make a part of our physical being; we can hide our grief so completely that none can know the burden upon us. Endurance, resistance, patience, suffering, all these belong to woman's heritage. Even in the few years I have lived, I have had my share of them all.

I stood bewildered, watching the revolving red and black roulette-wheel, and the eager crowd of faces around it.

"Vingt! Rouge, pair et passe!" the croupier cried, and a couple of louis which Ulrica had placed on the last dozen were swept away with the silver, notes and gold, to swell the bank.

I thought of my secret grief. I thought of Ernest Cameron, and pursed my lips. The old Tuscan proverb which the nuns in Firenze had taught me so long ago was very true: "Amore non é senza amaro."

The millionaire's son at my elbow was explaining to me how the game was played, but I was paying no attention. I only remembered the man I had once loved—the man whose slave I was—the man whom I had forgiven, even though he had left me so cruelly. Only three things could make life to me worth living—the sight of his face, the sound of his voice, the touch of his lips.

But such fine fortune could never be. We were parted for ever—for ever!

"Now, play this time!" I heard Reggie exclaim.

"Where?" I inquired mechanically, his voice awakening me to a sense of my surroundings.

"On the line, there—between the numbers 9 and 12."

I took a louis from my purse, and with the rake carelessly pushed it upon the line he had indicated. Then I turned to talk with Gerald.

"Rien ne va plus!" cried the croupier.

A hundred necks were craned to watch the result.

The ball fell with a final click into one of the little spaces upon the wheel.

"Neuf! Rouge, impair et manque!"

"You've won, my dear!" cried Ulrica excitedly, and in a few moments Reggie, who raked up my winnings, gave me quite a handful of gold.

"There now!" he said, "you've made your first coup. Try again."

I crammed the gold into my purse, but it would not hold it all. The three louis upon which the purse would not close I held doubtfully in my hand.

"Play on the treize-dix-huit this time!" urged Reggie, and I obeyed him blindly.

As the number 18 came up, I again received another little handful of gold. I knew that many envious eyes were cast in my direction, and the excitement of winning was an entirely new sensation.

Ulrica fancied the last dozen, and I placed five louis upon it, winning a third time. Having won eight hundred francs in three turns of the wheel, I began to think roulette was not such wearying fun as I had once believed it to be.

I wanted to continue playing, but the others prevented me. They knew too well that the bank at Monte Carlo only lends its money to the players. With Reggie at my side I went out, strolled through those beautiful gardens beside the sea, watched the pigeon-shooting, and afterwards sat on the terrace of the Café de Paris, where to the full I enjoyed a sunset of extraordinary radiance.