Christine bade Mr. Russell good-bye, and picked up a telegram from London in which Carter sent her word that any distance within a week's journey of London would serve him perfectly. She travelled up to town and on to Dover resolved to meet Robert's mother with a more unprejudiced mind.
It happened to be a singularly cold September, so that Mrs. Erskine had already returned from her Eze summer cottage to Nice, which presented a more animated appearance than usual, considering the month.
Villa des Fleurs was a beautiful house standing in a handsome palm garden where roses bloomed all the year, and Christine rang the bell of the first floor wondering what sort of experience lay before her.
She was not often nervous, but she hardly noticed who was in the balcony to which the smiling French maid led her, until a white-haired woman, quietly but richly dressed, held out her hand.
Mrs. Erskine told her how pleased she was to see anyone who had known her husband and son in Canada, and asked Christine to stay at the villa for a fortnight.
“Though Nice is still quite deserted,” she added.
Christine suggested that her wardrobe might not be quite up to Nice's standards, but Mrs. Erskine smiled faintly at the idea. She insisted on sending to the station where the luggage had been left, and Marie the maid showed the Canadian, after a delicious tea, into her room.
“We dine at eight o'clock,” her hostess had told her. “The other people in the villa are friends of mine, and we have all our meals together. There is a Mr. and Mrs. Clark, who have the ground floor, and are splendid tennis players—you may like to practise with them of a morning—and then there is Major Vaughan, who has the floor above this. He is rather an original, but as an old bachelor, as well as an old friend of my husband's, I humour him.”
The room assigned to Christine was very barely furnished. After a bath in a luxurious bathroom, she opened the door next to her own by mistake, and stepped into a really beautiful bedroom, all silver and petunia shades. Closing the door hastily, she raised her eyebrows a little as she stepped on into her own very comfortless nook. Mrs. Erskine might be delighted to see her, but, though she had had ample warning of her coming, she had certainly not been over concerned with her guest's comfort. At dinner, which was of a quality and served with a luxury Christine found a revelation, she met the other inmates of the house. Mr. and Mrs. Clark were a cheery, rather noisy couple, who seemed to consider all life a great joke. Christine decided that the lady had once been on the stage, from her partiality to paint and powder and richly tinted locks, but there was a breezy good nature about her which offset Mrs. Erskine's chilly manner. To Major Vaughan she took an instant aversion. His light eyes stared at her insolently, from the simple hair-dressing to the hem of her equally plain little frock.
“An almost-relation”—he repeated Mrs. Erskine's introduction; “you must adopt us, too, Miss West. We are all one happy family here, you see. Having everything in common.” Christine thought she had never seen a more odious smile. She refused to talk to him, but all through the Clarks' chaff she could hear his biting speeches and neighing laugh. Mrs. Erskine's answers were chiefly monosyllabic, and before she joined the others at bridge under the palms and roses on the terrace she turned a rather weary face to the young woman.