Chapter 9

The calm-faced man with black pads over the left eye and ear joined Madame d'Ambre, with a lazy yet determined air, and a glance of interest at Mary. Seeing the brown youth who had been at her table, the elder man nodded to him. This gave Mary's late neighbour an excuse which he had wanted. He stopped, and held out his hand. "How are you, Captain Hannaford?" he asked.

"Hullo, Carleton!" returned the other. "Here for the Nice flying week?"

"Yes," said Carleton, who, beside Hannaford the Englishman, showed by contrast his American origin. His chin was all that Peter had said an American's chin ought to be, and he had keen, brilliant blue eyes. Hannaford, though taller than he, was stouter as well as older, and therefore appeared less tall. He was of a more stolid type, and it seemed incredible that such an adventure as that sketched by Madame d'Ambre could approach such a man. Yet for once, gossip and truth were one. The thing had happened. Hannaford had lately retired from the army, after being stationed for two years in Egypt. For months he had lingered aimlessly in Monte Carlo. Life seemed over for him. But time remained, and must be killed, unless he preferred to kill himself. He had met Dick Carleton in Egypt last year, where the youngest American aeronaut was making experiments with a new monoplane in a convenient tract of desert. At that time Captain Hannaford had not worn the little black silk pads. He was grateful to the American for not seeming to look at them now.

"I'm here for the flying, with a hydro-aeroplane I'm rather proud of," Carleton went on, "but I'm not staying at Monte. I'm visiting Jim Schuyler, at his place between here and Cabbé-Roquebrune. Lovely place it is. No wonder he never bothers with the Casino, except for concerts and opera. Have you met him?"

"No. But I know him by name, of course. The names of these American millionaires are all-pervading, like microbes. Why does he pitch his tent on the threshold of Monte, if not for the Casino?"

"He says lots of people live about here who never play: and there are other attractions. He has all the gambling he wants in Wall Street: comes here for beauty and music. He gets plenty of both; doesn't go in for society any more than for roulette, but seems to enjoy himself, the two or three months he does the hermit act in his gorgeous garden. He's at the opera to-night. Motored me over. We'll meet, and go back together to Stellamare. Meanwhile----"

"Meanwhile, I rather guess, as you'd say, that you'd like to meet my charming--er--acquaintance, and her friend."

"I _never_ say 'guess,' nor does anybody else, except in books or plays, but I should like to meet the ladies."

"Madame d'Ambre is so busy regretting she didn't get smaller change for her _protégée's_ unforeseen charities that she's forgotten us. I was watching the fun at your table, toward the last."

At the sound of her name, the Frenchwoman turned. Four thousand francs was gone forever, but there was as little use in wailing over money wasted as in crying for spilt milk, so she smiled her pathetic, turned-down smile at Captain Hannaford, and looked wistfully at Dick Carleton. Then quickly, lest further irrevocable things should happen, she laid her hand on Mary's arm. It was a gloved hand, and the glove had been mended many times. Soon, it must be thrown away; but perhaps that need not matter now. There might be a path leading to new gloves and other things. She introduced Captain Hannaford to Mademoiselle Grant, and he in turn introduced "Mr. Richard Carleton, the well-known airman," to them both. Madeleine could speak a little English, but with difficulty, and preferred French. Still, it would have been unwise to tell secrets in English when she was near.

Seeing that she had no intention of passing on the introduction, Clotilde et Cie. retired gracefully, each of the four a thousand francs richer and a thousand times happier than she had been five minutes before.

"What about supper?" said Hannaford. "Gambling always makes me hungry. I'm in luck to-night. Won't you three be my guests at Ciro's?"

"You are always in luck nowadays," sighed Madame d'Ambre. A shadow seemed to pass over the stolid face of the man, but she did not see it. "Naturally we accept the kind invitation, is it not so, dear Mademoiselle?"

"I must be at Ciro's anyhow, about midnight," said Carleton, "for Schuyler asked me to meet him there for a Welsh rabbit after the opera. But I'll be delighted to go over and sit with you till he comes." He had the pleasant drawl of a Southerner.

"Oh, you're very, very kind," stammered Mary. "But I"--she hesitated, and glanced appealingly at Madame d'Ambre--"I think it's rather late, and I shall have to go home."

"Home?" echoed Hannaford, questioningly.

"My hotel," she explained.

As Madame d'Ambre drew her friend aside for a murmur of advice, the two men looked at each other, Carleton puzzled, Hannaford with raised eyebrows. "I think they're both charming," the American remarked in a low voice. "That little Madame d'Ambre isn't nearly as pretty as Miss Grant, but she's fetching, and looks a bit down on her luck, as if she'd had trouble."

"Perhaps she has," said Hannaford.

"But, dear Mademoiselle," Madeleine was pleading at a little distance, "why won't you go to supper? Do! It would be so pleasant. I have so little happiness; and this would at least give me an hour of distraction."

"You can go without me," said Mary. "Captain Hannaford is your friend, isn't he?"

"Ah, I see! The sight of the poor afflicted man disgusts you. If you refuse, he will know why. It will be ungracious--cruel."

"Don't say that," Mary implored, much distressed. "I wouldn't hurt his feelings for the world. It's true I _can't_ bear to look at him, though he hasn't a bad face. But it isn't only that. I could try to get over it. The other reason is, I never met him or Mr. Carleton before, and--and I don't know anything about society, or what is done; but I have a sort of feeling----"

"Mais mon Dieu!" murmured Madame d'Ambre. "Quelle petite sotte! No matter. It is a pretty pose, and suits you well. I am the last to find fault with it. Yet listen. These gentlemen are distinguished. Captain Hannaford is an English officer who has been of a courage incredible. He can wear many medals if he chooses. Now he is very sad, despite his luck in the Casino. He needs cheering. And this young Monsieur Carleton, the American, I have read of him in the papers. He is widely known as a man who flies, and these airmen are of a nobility of character! I am your chaperon. What more do you ask? I am the widow of a naval officer. Do you not owe me something for the good turn I have done you to-night?"

"Yes, indeed, I owe you a great deal," Mary admitted.

It was quite certain that what Madame d'Ambre considered as owing to her would be paid.

Prince Vanno saw the four leaving the Casino together, Mary and Carleton walking behind the other two. He had met both the Englishman and the American in Egypt once or twice, and had not thought of them since. Now he would forget neither. The story about Hannaford and his retirement from the army, Vanno knew. He had heard nothing of Carleton except what was to his credit, but somehow this fact made it no less unpleasant for Vanno that the aeronaut should be talking with Mary. He did not believe they had met before to-night.

The Galerie Charles Trois was brilliantly lighted, and supper was beginning behind immense glass windows at Ciro's and the glittering white and gold restaurant of the Metropole. At Ciro's there had been a dinner in honour of two celebrated airmen, and the decorations remained. There were suspended monoplanes and biplanes made of flowers, and when the great Ciro himself saw Carleton, he came forward, inviting the young man to take a window-table.

Carleton explained that he was only a guest; but this made no difference. Except the King of Sweden's table, and that of the Grand Duke Cyril, Mr. Carleton and his friends must have the best.

"My dear friend," said Hannaford, as they sat down, letting his eyes dwell on Madame d'Ambre's costume, "it's lucky for us that we are with a celebrity, or the fatted calf would not have been prepared for us. No use disguising the truth: you and I are a little the worse for wear. Only with you, the damage is temporary. Put you into a new frock and hat, and you'll revive like a flower in fresh water. Nothing can revive me. You see, I look facts in the face."

"Could one not make facts pleasant to see, if one must look them in the face?" Mary ventured, gently.

"I'm sure you will make them so for Madame," said Hannaford.

"It is only those who are very happy, or very miserable, who can joke forever, as you do," said Madame d'Ambre. "I can understand you now, or I could, at my worst. But for the moment I have new life. I try to forget the future."

As they ate a delicious and well-chosen supper she revived, delicately, and regarded her misfortunes from a distance. "To think, if I had not met you all, and if I had kept my resolve," she said, "by now I should have found out the great secret."

As she spoke, a tall, thin man came to the table, and laid his hand on Dick Carleton's shoulder. So doing, he stood looking straight into Madame d'Ambre's face. She started a little, and blushed deeply. Blushes were a great stock-in-trade with Madame d'Ambre. They proved that, unlike Clotilde et Cie., she did not paint her face: that she was altogether a different order of being. But this blush was less successful than usual. It was a flush of annoyance, and showed that she was vexed.

The man was more American in type than Carleton, though indefinably so. If a critic had been asked how he would know this person to be a New Yorker, even if met wrapped in bearskins at the North Pole, he might have been at a loss to explain. Nevertheless, the dark face with its twinkling, heavily black-lashed blue eyes, its short, wavy black hair turning gray at the temples, its prominent nose and chin, lips and jaws slightly aggressive in their firmness, was the distilled essence of New York. So were the strong, lean figure, and the nervous, virile hands.

"Hello, Jim!" exclaimed Carleton, turning quickly at the touch on his shoulder. "I've only played with a dish or two. I was waiting for you, really." He got up, and rather shyly introduced the party to his host of the celebrated Stellamare.

"I have the pleasure of knowing this lady slightly, already," said Schuyler, still fixing Madeleine with his straight, disconcerting gaze.

"Madame d'Ambre?"

"I don't think we knew each other's name. I had the honour of doing a small--a very small--service for Madame, such a service as any man may be allowed to do for a lady at Monte Carlo."

If he laid an emphasis on the last two words, it was hardly strong enough to be noticed, unless by the person most concerned.

"Do sit down with us, and eat the Welsh rabbit Carleton has been talking about," said Hannaford. "This is my show. I shall be delighted, and I'm sure I speak for the ladies."

Madame d'Ambre murmured something, and Mary smiled a more than ordinarily friendly smile; for she knew that this was the distant cousin of whom she had heard from Peter, the "Jim" who, in Molly Maxwell's eyes, was an heroic figure. Peter never tired of telling anecdotes of Jim's wonderful feats of finance, his coolness and daring in times of black panic or perilous uncertainty in Wall Street, his scholarly attainments, of which he never spoke; his passion for music and gardens, and other contradictory traits such as no one would have expected in a keen business man. Sometimes Mary had fancied that Peter was a little inclined to fall in love with Jim Schuyler, perhaps because he was one of the few men she knew who did not grovel at her feet. Now Mary looked at the man with intense interest, and could imagine a girl like Molly Maxwell making him her hero, in spite of the difference between their ages. Molly was not twenty-one. He must be thirty-eight or forty, and would have looked hard if it had not been for the blue eyes which might soften dangerously under certain influences.

Mary's first impulse on hearing his name was to cry out, "Why, your cousin Molly Maxwell is my best friend!" But something imperatively stopped her. Deep down under the excitement and pleasure of this adventure into which fate had plunged her, murmured a little voice, saying, "You ought not to have come to this place alone, when they all trusted you to go straight to Florence." And if she were doing wrong and meant to keep on doing wrong, she must not associate herself with Saint Ursula-of-the-Lake, in the minds of people here. It would not be fair to the convent and Reverend Mother, not even fair to Aunt Sara and Elinor, who believed her to be journeying obediently toward Florence. Thinking thus, she determined to say nothing of her own life to those she might meet at Monte Carlo. Soon she would go away, and no real harm would have been done to any one. As for this supper, if she had lingering doubts that it was not quite "the thing" to have accepted, the name of Jim Schuyler chased them away like clouds before the sun. It was like being with an old friend to have Peter's cousin there; and Dick Carleton was staying with him. Mr. Carleton and Captain Hannaford were friends, and Mr. Schuyler evidently knew Madame d'Ambre, so everything had turned out delightfully. Also it was exciting to see how people who came in looked at her and whispered. She could not help knowing that they said, "There's the girl who won so much in the Casino that everybody rushed to her table and applauded."

It was wonderful, intoxicating, to be the heroine of such a place, to have experienced players envy her. She longed for to-morrow morning, so that she might go back to the same table at the Casino, and play on zero and twenty-four again. "I think I shall always make that my game, and go to the same table," she said to herself, with the unconscious egotism and vanity of a child.

"What was that I caught as I arrived, about 'finding out the great secret?'" Schuyler asked, when he sat down at a place made for him on Madame d'Ambre's right hand. Again he fixed his eyes on her, this time with polite interest. "I thought the words sounded familiar. I remember your saying something of the sort, I'm sure, the evening of our first meeting."

"I do not recall it, Monsieur," replied Madeleine.

"It was on the Casino terrace," he went on, reflectively. "I was walking there between the first and second acts of an opera, about a fortnight ago. We met, and you seemed depressed, Madame. It was then I was able to do you that small service."

"I did not think of it as a service," she said, bitterly.

"Ah, now the occasion has come back to you. What, not a service when a lady has a little bottle of poison stuck into her belt, and a man drinks it himself rather than she should keep her threat and swallow it!"

"It was not a threat. I would have drunk the poison and ended everything," she insisted.

"If I hadn't been so selfish and greedy as to take it out of your hand and sample it. Strange it did me no harm. I had a presentiment it wouldn't, somehow. But of course my system may be poison-proof. By the way, isn't that the same pretty little bottle I see now, tucked into your belt! And were you thinking of trying its effect again to-night, if these friends hadn't come in time to cheer you up, and so put off the evil day?"

"You are very cruel to make sport of my tragedy, Monsieur!" Madame d'Ambre exclaimed, her soft wistfulness flashing into anger. "These sympathetic ones have saved me from myself by their generosity. They have made me happy. Why do you go out of your way to remind me of misery?"

Schuyler's blue eyes twinkled cynically, yet not unkindly. "I quite understand that you can be saved from yourself only by sufficient generosity, Madame," he said. "The question is, what is sufficient? Too much sometimes goes to the head. Far be it from me to upset your cup of happiness. But drink wisely, Madame, in little sips, not in great gulps. It's better for the health--of all concerned. And the contents of your bottle will no doubt be just as efficacious another time."

"I know what you mean," she flung at him, viperishly. "You have heard of Mademoiselle's luck to-night. You think I mean to take advantage of her. I would not----"

"Of course not, Madame. You, the widow of a naval officer! Have I accused you of anything?" Schuyler cut her short, with sudden gayety of manner. "I've heard of Mademoiselle's luck. She was pointed out to me by a man I know, as I came in, just before joining you. But as I'm aware that you're a good business woman, my idea is that the advantage you'll take won't amount to more than 5 per cent. More would be usury, and give Mademoiselle an unfavourable idea of Monte Carlo manners."

He spoke with deliberation, allotting each word its full value; and before Madame d'Ambre could leash her rage, he turned to Mary. "Talking of Monte Carlo manners," he took up the theme again, "you mustn't judge hastily. There isn't _one_ Monte Carlo. There are many. I don't suppose you ever saw a cocktail of any sort, much less one called the 'rainbow?' It's in several different coloured layers of liquid, each distinct from the other, as far as taste and appearance are concerned, though they blend together as you drink. It wouldn't do to sip the top layer, and say what the decoction was like, before you absorbed the whole--with discrimination. Well, that cocktail's something like Monte Carlo. Only you begin the cocktail at the top. In the Monte Carlo rainbow you sometimes begin at the bottom."

He looked steadily at Mary as he finished his simile. Then he lifted the silver cover of a dish which had just arrived, and gave his whole attention to a noble Welsh rabbit, an odd dainty for a Riviera supper--but Ciro prided himself on gratifying any whim of any customer, at five minutes' notice.

Captain Hannaford had listened in silence, with a light of malicious amusement in his eyes, which travelled from Madeleine to Mary, from Mary to Madeleine, and occasionally to Dick Carleton.

Mary, despite her blank ignorance of the world and its ways, was far from stupid or slow of understanding. She realized that Schuyler's harangue to Madame d'Ambre was all, or almost all, for her: and she caught his meaning in the last sentence of the rainbow allegory. He wanted her to know that she had "begun at the bottom," and must beware. She was half vexed, half grateful; vexed for Madeleine, and grateful for herself, because, being Peter's hero, he must be a good man, who would not be cruel to a woman for sheer love of cruelty. But her shamed pity for Madeleine was stronger than her gratitude; and instead of giving less out of her winnings than she had planned to give, she impulsively decided to give more; this, not because she believed in or liked Madeleine d'Ambre, but because she winced under a sister woman's humiliation. The ugly flash in the eyes that had been wistful, shocked her. She saw that they were cat-coloured eyes, and Jim Schuyler scored as he meant to score, in her resolve to pay Madame d'Ambre well, then gently to slip out of her friendship.

"When we finish supper, she can go with me to my hotel, and we'll divide the money into three parts," Mary said to herself. "I'll give her two, and keep one. Even one will be like a little fortune; and whatever happens I'll keep enough to get away with; but I _must_ play again to-morrow. It's too wonderful to stop yet."

But she was reckoning without Jim Schuyler.

When he saw the eyes of Madeleine hint that it was time to go, he said quickly, "Well, Mademoiselle, have you counted your winnings, and do you know exactly what they amount to?"

"No," said Mary, "not yet. I thought Madame d'Ambre and I might do that afterward."

"Can't we save you the trouble?" he asked. "Why not spread your store here on the table, and let us all work out the calculation? Everybody knows you broke the bank, so there's no imprudence or ostentation in displaying your wealth."

Without a word, Mary accepted the suggestion, since not to do so would have seemed ungrateful.

"She's given away a lot already," said Carleton. "I saw her distributing _mille_ notes to lovely but unfortunate gamblers, as if she were dealing out biscuits."

"Oh, I gave away only four," Mary excused herself. "They were nothing."

Everybody laughed except Madeleine.

The fat stacks of French banknotes were extracted with some effort from the hand-bag into which they had been stuffed. Captain Hannaford and Schuyler counted while the others watched, Carleton with amused interest, Mary with comparative indifference, because the actual money meant less to her than the thrill of winning it, and Madame d'Ambre on the verge of tears. She considered that she was being robbed of her rights, for she knew that this merciless man with the hard jaw and pleasant blue eyes intended to keep her hands off the money.

"One hundred and nine thousand francs!" Schuyler announced at last. "I congratulate you, Mademoiselle. And I wish you'd let me advise you."

"If I did, what would you say?" Mary smiled.

"I should say: 'Go home to-morrow.'"

"But I've just come away from home. I don't want to go back."

"Well, then, go to some other place, a place without a Casino."

"I suppose that's good advice," said Mary. "But--I can't take it yet."

"I'm sorry," returned Peter's cousin.

The whole conversation had been in French from the first, as Madame d'Ambre knew little English; and Mary's accent was so perfect that to an American or English ear it passed as Parisian. Neither Hannaford, Schuyler, nor Carleton supposed that she had just arrived from England, though her name--if they had caught it correctly--was English or Scotch. "Mademoiselle" they called her, and wondering who and what she was, vaguely associated her with France, probably Paris.

"How long shall you stay?" asked Carleton, in the pause that followed.

"I don't know," Mary said. "A few days, perhaps."

"Will you come down to the Condamine and see my hydro-aeroplane to-morrow? I'm keeping her there, and practising a bit in the harbour, before taking her to Nice."

"Oh, I should love to! I've never seen any sort of aeroplane, not even a picture of one."

"That's clever and original of you, anyhow. Where have you been, to avoid them? What time to-morrow? Is ten o'clock too early?"

Mary blushed. "Would afternoon suit you? I feel as if I should have luck again, if I played in the morning."

"Afternoon, of course," Carleton assented politely, though he was disappointed; for in giving the invitation he had been following his friend's lead in trying to save the moth from the candle. "Shall we say three o'clock? I'll call for you."

"We'll both call, with my car," said Schuyler. "But what about that 5 per cent. which I suppose you want to give your roulette teacher?" he went on, with apparent carelessness.

"I want to give her more," Mary confessed, with that soft obstinacy which people found difficult to combat.

But Schuyler had weapons for padded barricades. He turned to Madeleine. "I'm certain that Madame will refuse to accept more," he said.

She faced him defiantly. Then her eyes fell. She dared not make him an active enemy. Though he never gambled, he was a man of influence at the Casino, for he was a friend of those highest in authority, and had power "on the Rock," also, for the Prince and he were on visiting terms, Madeleine d'Ambre had learned these details since the evening on the terrace when he had tested her "poison."

"Yes, I--should refuse to accept," she echoed, morosely.

"Virtue is its own reward; and there may be others," Schuyler said as he deducted a sum equal to 5 per cent. from Mary's winnings and pushed it across the table.