The guests of Hercules

by C. N. Williamson; A. M. Williamson

He had just come back from the desert now, and an Arab astrologer who was a friend of his had told him that December of this year would be for him a month of good luck and great happenings, the star of his birth being in the ascendant. Almost it began to look as if there might be something in the prophecy; and Prince Vanno, laughing at himself (with the dry sense of humour that came from the Irish-American side of his parentage), was half inclined to be superstitious. Astronomy was his love at present, not astrology, and last year he had discovered a small blue planet which had been named after him and whose sapphire beauty had been much admired. Still, because he had always had a passion for the stars, and went to the east to see them at their brightest, he was tolerant of those who believed in their influence upon earth-dwellers; therefore he was ready to yield with confident ardour to sudden impulses in this the month of his star. Mary Grant's eyes had looked to him like stars, and he had followed them. Already he had had one stroke of luck in the adventure, for he had been bound to Monte Carlo from Marseilles, before he saw her, not to try his fortune at the tables, but to meet his elder brother and sister-in-law who were to finish their honeymoon close by, at Cap Martin, and to stay for an aviation week at Nice, when an invention of his would be tried for the first time. But if Mary had gone on beyond Monte Carlo, he too would have gone on. Having plunged into the adventure, for a pair of eyes, he was prepared to pursue it to the end wherever the end might be, even if he missed the flying week and broke an engagement with the bride and bridegroom. But it was luck that she should be getting out at the place where he had meant to stop for his own reasons.

He supposed, of course, that she was travelling with relatives or friends. Although he had seen her mounting the steps of a wagon lit apparently alone, this did not argue that some one who belonged to her was not inside. And when, from the window of the train whence he leaned at every station, he saw her again at Monte Carlo, she was surrounded by a crowd. One of the ladies shoulder to shoulder with her might be a mother or aunt, one of the men a father or uncle; and it had been the same when he followed, just in time to see her get into the Hôtel de Paris omnibus. Already the vehicle was full. She was the last in. His idea was that, being the youngest of her party, she had waited for them to be placed before taking a seat herself.

He knew of her now, having examined the visitors' book at the Paris, that she was "Miss M. Grant"; that the name was written in a very pretty, rather old-fashioned hand; that after it came "London" in the same writing. He was sure the name must be hers, because it was last on the page before he wrote his own; and she had gone in last, after everybody else, leaving the people she was with to do their name-signing before her. Also, the other women on the page were all "Madame" or "Frau" or "Mrs." He was rather surprised, somehow, to learn that she was English. In spite of her unusually fair hair he had fancied that she would turn out to be French, her type was so spirituelle, yet so suggestive of "temperament."

If he had not been following a pair of eyes, Prince Vanno would have gone to a quiet hotel in the Condamine, to be near the aviation ground, for, being utterly unsnobbish, like all Italians of great families, he rather disliked "smart" crowds, rich food, and gorgeous decorations. But the only way not to lose the stars he followed was to keep near them. He would not for a great deal have questioned the hotel people about "Miss M. Grant," otherwise he might have learned for how long a time her room was engaged, and, incidentally, that she was alone. But as it was, he had to find out things for himself, and to do this must be in the same hotel.

It was only seven o'clock when he came down from his little room at the top of the house, not nearly as expensive as Mary's, and stopped at the foot of the marble stairs, which he liked better than the lift, to look round the big hall. There was no great crowd, for most people who had come in from the Casino were dressing for dinner, and Prince Vanno saw at a glance that Miss M. Grant was not there. He went on slowly through the Louis Seize tea-room, to the gorgeous restaurant with its domed and gilded ceiling, its immense wall paintings, and glass front.

At one of these window tables—a very small one—sat a lovely creature, alone. A good many heads were turning to look at her, so probably she had not long ago arrived. For an instant Vanno's eyes were fixed upon the glittering figure, and the bowed face shadowed by an eccentric hat, without recognizing it. But it was only for an instant. Then, with a shock of surprise which was almost horror, he realized that this lovely, low-necked bird of Paradise creature was the same gentle girl he had followed.

"Dio!" he said to himself, and bit his lip. He felt the blood rush up to his face, as if some one had given him an insulting blow, which he could not avenge because his hands were tied.

There were two or three other young and beautiful women alone, dressed with equal extravagance, their gowns as low, their hats as big; only she, his Juliet, was more beautiful than any. That was the difference between them. But was it the only difference? The young man, whose eyes still reflected the golden light of vast desert spaces, asked himself the question with a sick sinking of the heart. He had followed an angel, and found her—what? Because about those two or three others there was no question at all. And why was she here alone, dressed like them, if—but he would not finish the sentence in his mind. He resolved to study the girl, and give her the full benefit of the doubt, so long as there was a ray of hope.

Vanno had not gone so far as to fall in love at first sight; yet coming back from the desert with his heart open to beauty and romance, he had been willing to let himself go to the brink, or over it, if it were worth while, else he would not have followed Juliet's eyes. But he wished to have nothing to do with the white angel if she were a fallen angel. Such a one would be easy to know, to walk with and talk with, whereas he might have found it difficult to make the acquaintance of a conventionally brought up girl. Some men might have been glad to find the heroine of a romantic adventure dining alone at a fashionable hotel at Monte Carlo, in a sheath-like, low-cut dress and a hat of to-morrow's fashion. But Prince Vanno Della Robbia was sick at heart, and dazed as by a blow.

His father, Duca di Rienzi, had a strain of stern asceticism in his nature, and even the impulsive, warm-hearted American mother could not wholly redeem from gloom the cold palace in Rome and the dark fourteenth century castle at Monte Della Robbia. Each of these natures had given something to Vanno, and the differences were so strongly marked that his elder brother had said, "to know Vanno was like knowing two men of entirely opposite characters, each struggling for mastery over the other." But even in his asceticism he was ardent. Whatever he did, he did with passion and fervour, which he could laugh at as if from a distance sometimes, but could not change. And his ideas of the right life for women were not unlike the ideas of eastern men. Women should be guarded, kept apart from all that was evil or even unpleasant. So the lovely American mother had been guarded, somewhat against her will, by the Duke, and she had died while she was still young. She had never talked to Vanno of women's life and girls' life in her own country, for she had gone to the unseen land while he was still a boy. If she had stayed, perhaps he would not have had to go to the desert for comfort, when he at twenty loved a woman of twenty-eight, who flirted with him until he was half mad, and then married an American millionaire.