The guests of Hercules

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

The table nearest Mary was not engaged, for it was too early in the evening for a crowd in the Paris restaurant. Vanno signified to a waiter his desire for this table, and was taken to it. He sat down facing Mary, and pretended to study the menu. He hardly knew what he ordered. A waiter was bringing the girl a small bottle of champagne, in an ice-pail. The man cut the wires, and extracted the cork neatly, but with a slight popping sound. Mary started a little, and glancing up at the waiter smiled at him gayly, with a dimple in each cheek. Her big hat was placed jauntily on one side, and the deep blue velvet brim, with the gauzy gold of the soft crown, was extremely striking on the silver-gold waves of her hair. In her wonderful dress, which showed a good deal of white neck, she looked so fashionably sophisticated that Vanno feared the start she gave at the popping of the cork might be affected. He gazed across at her with mingled disapproval and admiration which gave singular intensity to his deep-set, romantic eyes as Mary met them.

She was in a mood to be delighted with everything that happened, and it seemed a charming happening that the handsome young man from Marseilles should have chanced to come to this hotel. It did not occur to her that his coming might not be an accident, and she was pleased to see him again.

Her bringing up, in all that concerned her treatment of men, had been neglected; rather, it had not been given at all. As a schoolgirl she had never met any men except a few mild youths when visiting Lady MacMillan, and then she had never seen them alone. She had thought herself a child, and had behaved as a child, in those days. Then had come her years as a postulant and as a novice. Men had ceased to exist as influences in her life. It had not been necessary to teach her what to do when in their society, for it had seemed improbable that she ever would be. When, at the last moment, she had decided that after all she "had not the vocation," there had been little or no time to prepare her for the world. And she had come out of the convent with no social wisdom except the wisdom of kindness and courtesy to all fellow-beings.

Man was decidedly a fellow-being, and Mary, to whom he was interesting because entirely new, was inclined to be very kind to him, especially when he had the handsome, almost tragic dark face of a Romeo or a young Dante, and eyes like wells of ink into which diamonds had fallen.

She was feeling childishly pleased with herself in her new dress, for she loved beautiful things, and knew next to nothing of suitability, provided the colours were right. By day, one had blouses and skirts, and high-necked frocks. At night, if one were in the world, one wore low gowns. She had learned this from Peter and other girls at school, and also from Lady MacMillan. When there were entertainments at the convent for the pupils, as there were several times each year, the girls put on their prettiest clothes. They had low-necked gowns for the dances, at which their partners were, of course, invariably girls, and they said that, when they "came out," they would have their dresses cut lower and made more fashionably. Of this, the sisters quite approved for their girls, whom they trusted never to do, never to wear, anything immodest. At Lady MacMillan's, Mary had worn simple evening dress, before she resolved to become a nun; and in London even Aunt Sara and Elinor, with their thin necks, had considered it necessary to display more than their collarbones each night at dinner.

Mary, having little money in her schoolgirl days, had never owned anything very pretty, and now she thought it right and pleasant to make up for lost time. The "Madame" of the shop in the Galerie Charles Trois had earnestly recommended this gown and this hat for dinner and the Casino; therefore Mary was sure that her costume must be as suitable as it was beautiful, and that she was quite "in the picture," in this magnificent room. She admired the lovely, perfumed ladies with wonderful complexions and clothes, at neighbouring tables, and was thankful that she looked not too unlike them. She hoped that she might become acquainted with at least one or two of the prettiest before long, because it must be pleasant to make friends in hotels with other people who were alone like one's self. Peter also had admired the lovely ladies with wonderful complexions and clothes who chose to live in the best hotels at Monte Carlo; but she admired them in a different way, with a kind of fearful fascination. And she had never talked of them to Mary. One did not talk to Sister Rose of such things.

Mary was glad that the Dante young man (she began to call him thus, for his profile really was like the poet's, and after all too stern for Romeo) could see her in this dress and hat, after having a sight of her first in the tweed, which she had now grown to detest. It really did seem as if he remembered, for he looked at her with a straight look, almost as if he were asking a grave, important question. She was afraid that he must be unhappy, for certainly his eyes were tragic, if they were not reproachful; and of course they couldn't be reproachful, as he didn't know her, and had nothing to be reproachful about.

The waiter who served her was a charming person, with delightful manners, almost like those of the Frenchman who had been kind to her on the way to Paris. He recommended things on the menu, which turned out to be exquisite. They were the most expensive, also, but Mary did not know that. It seemed quite odd that one should have to pay for food at all, for always it had appeared to come as a matter of course, like the air one breathed. When he advised her sympathetically to try a little champagne, refreshed with ice, she would have been grieved to hurt his feelings by refusing, even if she had not rather wanted to know what champagne was like. People in books drank it when they wished to be merry and enjoy themselves, and it made their eyes bright and their cheeks red. Mary had had the chance of reading very few novels, but she recalled this bit of useful knowledge concerning champagne.

She tasted it, and found it nice, deliciously cold and sparkling. No wonder it made the eyes bright! But after all, she could not drink much, though it seemed a shame to waste anything so good. "You can have the rest," she said to the waiter, when she had finished her first glass. He was surprised, for most ladies, he noticed, could finish two or three glasses, or even more.

Again the man with the profile of a young Dante was looking at her with the grave, anxious look that puzzled her. She met his eyes for the third or fourth time, and was so sorry for his apparent unhappiness where every one else seemed merry, that she half smiled, very sweetly and gently, as one would smile at a gloomy child.