II.
The winter-garden of the Hôtel de la Grande Place, referred to in all the hotel’s advertisements, was merely the inner court of the hotel, roofed in by glass at the height of the first storey. Cane flourished there, in the shape of lounge-chairs, but no other plant. One of the lounge-chairs was occupied when, just as the carillon in the belfry at the other end of the Place began to play Gounod’s “Nazareth,” indicating the hour of five o’clock, the three ladies entered the winter-garden. Apparently the toilettes of two of them had been adjusted and embellished as for a somewhat ceremonious occasion.
“Lo!” cried Kitty Sartorius, when she perceived the occupant of the chair, “the millionaire! Mr. Thorold, how charming of you to reappear like this! I invite you to tea.”
Cecil Thorold rose with appropriate eagerness.
“Delighted!” he said, smiling, and then explained that he had arrived from Ostend about two hours before and had taken rooms in the hotel.
“You knew we were staying here?” Eve asked as he shook hands with her.
“No,” he replied; “but I am very glad to find you again.”
“Are you?” She spoke languidly, but her colour heightened and those eyes of hers sparkled.
“Madame Lawrence,” Kitty chirruped, “let me present Mr. Cecil Thorold. He is appallingly rich, but we mustn’t let that frighten us.”
From a mouth less adorable than the mouth of Miss Sartorius such an introduction might have been judged lacking in the elements of good form, but for more than two years now Kitty had known that whatever she did or said was perfectly correct because she did or said it. The new acquaintances laughed amiably, and a certain intimacy was at once established.
“Shall I order tea, dear?” Eve suggested.
“No, dear,” said Kitty quietly. “We will wait for the Count.”
“The Count?” demanded Cecil Thorold.
“The Comte d’Avrec,” Kitty explained. “He is staying here.”
“A French nobleman, doubtless?”
“Yes,” said Kitty; and she added, “you will like him. He is an archæologist, and a musician—oh, and lots of things!”
“If I am one minute late, I entreat pardon,” said a fine tenor voice at the door.
It was the Count. After he had been introduced to Madame Lawrence, and Cecil Thorold had been introduced to him, tea was served.
Now, the Comte d’Avrec was everything that a French count ought to be. As dark as Cecil Thorold, and even handsomer, he was a little older and a little taller than the millionaire, and a short, pointed, black beard, exquisitely trimmed, gave him an appearance of staid reliability which Cecil lacked. His bow was a vertebrate poem, his smile a consolation for all misfortunes, and he managed his hat, stick, gloves, and cup with the dazzling assurance of a conjurer. To observe him at afternoon tea was to be convinced that he had been specially created to shine gloriously in drawing-rooms, winter-gardens, and tables d’hôte. He was one of those men who always do the right thing at the right moment, who are capable of speaking an indefinite number of languages with absolute purity of accent (he spoke English much better than Madame Lawrence), and who can and do discourse with verve and accuracy on all sciences, arts, sports, and religions. In short, he was a phœnix of a count; and this was certainly the opinion of Miss Kitty Sartorius and of Miss Eve Fincastle, both of whom reckoned that what they did not know about men might be ignored. Kitty and the Count, it soon became evident, were mutually attracted; their souls were approaching each other with a velocity which increased inversely as the square of the lessening distance between them. And Eve was watching this approximation with undisguised interest and relish.
Nothing of the least importance occurred, save the Count’s marvellous exhibition of how to behave at afternoon tea, until the refection was nearly over; and then, during a brief pause in the talk, Cecil, who was sitting to the left of Madame Lawrence, looked sharply round at the right shoulder of his tweed coat; he repeated the gesture a second and yet a third time.
“What is the matter with the man?” asked Eve Fincastle. Both she and Kitty were extremely bright, animated, and even excited.
“Nothing. I thought I saw something on my shoulder, that’s all,” said Cecil. “Ah! It’s only a bit of thread.” And he picked off the thread with his left hand and held it before Madame Lawrence. “See! It’s a piece of thin black silk, knotted. At first I took it for an insect—you know how queer things look out of the corner of your eye. Pardon!” He had dropped the fragment on to Madame Lawrence’s black silk dress. “Now it’s lost.”
“If you will excuse me, kind friends,” said Madame Lawrence, “I will go.” She spoke hurriedly, and as though in mental distress.
“Poor thing!” Kitty Sartorius exclaimed when the widow had gone. “She’s still dreadfully upset”; and Kitty and Eve proceeded jointly to relate the story of the diamond bracelet, upon which hitherto they had kept silence (though with difficulty), out of regard for Madame Lawrence’s feelings.
Cecil made almost no comment.
The Count, with the sympathetic excitability of his race, walked up and down the winter-garden, asseverating earnestly that such clumsiness amounted to a crime; then he grew calm and confessed that he shared the optimism of the police as to the recovery of the bracelet; lastly he complimented Kitty on her equable demeanour under this affliction.
“Do you know, Count,” said Cecil Thorold, later, after they had all four ascended to the drawing-room overlooking the Grande Place, “I was quite surprised when I saw at tea that you had to be introduced to Madame Lawrence.”
“Why so, my dear Mr. Thorold?” the Count inquired suavely.
“I thought I had seen you together in Ostend a few days ago.”
The Count shook his wonderful head.
“Perhaps you have a brother——?” Cecil paused.
“No,” said the Count. “But it is a favourite theory of mine that everyone has his double somewhere in the world.” Previously the Count had been discussing Planchette—he was a great authority on the supernatural, the sub-conscious, and the subliminal. He now deviated gracefully to the discussion of the theory of doubles.
“I suppose you aren’t going out for a walk, dear, before dinner?” said Eve to Kitty.
“No, dear,” said Kitty, positively.
“I think I shall,” said Eve.
And her glance at Cecil Thorold intimated in the plainest possible manner that she wished not only to have a companion for a stroll, but to leave Kitty and the Count in dual solitude.
“I shouldn’t, if I were you, Miss Fincastle,” Cecil remarked, with calm and studied blindness. “It’s risky here in the evenings—with these canals exhaling miasma and mosquitoes and bracelets and all sorts of things.”
“I will take the risk, thank you,” said Eve, in an icy tone, and she haughtily departed; she would not cower before Cecil’s millions. As for Cecil, he joined in the discussion of the theory of doubles.