The beauty, the silence, the repose, fell like a balm upon the baron’s troubled spirit. He exhaled slowly from his lungs the fetid air of the casino, and took a long breath of the perfumed night. Some of his years fell from him—his memory, at least, turned back to another night, long ago, when he had sat, with the only woman he had ever loved beside him, on the terrace at Montreaux, looking out across Lake Leman. Love and the baron—one could smile, now, to find those words together; but there had been a time....
And perhaps Vera, Countess Rémond, also had her momentary vision; but she was younger and so less sentimental than the baron—she, also, had her pressing problems!—and it was she who broke the spell.
“You were saying you needed my help,” she said. “Is it to bewitch this American copper king into giving you his money? In that case, I warn you that I shall try first to get it for myself!”
The baron, who had come back to the present with a start, looked about him to make sure they could not be overheard; but the terrace was deserted save for a few other couples snuggled together on the benches and a blue-coated gardien pacing solemnly up and down.
“No,” he said; “it is not that at all. This king, like all kings, was mortal. You had not heard?”
“I have heard nothing.”
“He has been dead nearly a year.”
“Ah,” said the countess, understanding suddenly; “it is the widow.”
“Yes—a terrifying woman.”
The countess smiled at his tone.