Such a bird was Paolo, and such—but perhaps it would be more gallant not to carry the simile further, since even poetry could scarcely license it.
It is enough to say, in proof of the proverb, that when the Boy and I arrived at the villa in time for déjeuner, to which I had been invited over night, we found Paolo with Gaetà, under the red umbrella, unencumbered by any irrelevant Barons or Baronesses.
Gaetà was looking pale and a little frightened. Her dimples were in abeyance, as if waiting to learn whether something had happened to twinkle about, or something which would more likely extinguish them forever. But the aëronaut might have invented an air-ship to take the place of ordinary Channel traffic, so great with pride was he. He appeared to have grown several inches in height, and to have increased considerably in chest measurement, as he sprang from his chair to welcome us, as if we had been long-lost brothers.
"Congratulate me," said he. "The Contessa has just consented to be my wife."
Gaetà clutched the arm of her rustic seat with a tiny hand upon which a new ring glittered, like a new star in the firmament. Her warm dark eyes, eager, expectant, deliciously fearful, were on the Boy. If the discarded favourite of yesterday had leaped to the throat of the accepted lover of to-day (her "Whirlwind"), she would have screamed a silvery little scream and implored him for her sake to accept the inevitable calmly; she would have given him a reproachful flash of the eyes, to say, "Why didn't you take me, instead of letting him carry me away? What could I do, when you left me alone, at his mercy—I so frail, he so big and strong?" Her glance would then have telegraphed to Paolo, "You have won me and my love; you can afford to spare a defeated rival who is desperate"; and perhaps she might even have thrown me a crumb for auld flirtation's sake.
But the Boy did not, apparently, feel the least magnetic attraction towards Paolo's throat, or any other vulnerable part of the aëronaut's person. Nor did he stamp on the ground, crying upon earth to open and swallow the master of the air. I, too, kept an unmoved front; but then, being English, that might have been pardoned to my national sang-froid. There was, however, no such excuse for the mercurial young American, and flat disappointment struck out the spark in Gaetà's eye. The second act of her little drama seemed doomed to failure.
"Mille congratulations," said the Boy cordially, I basely echoing him. We shook hands with Gaetà; we shook hands with Paolo, and something was said about weddings and wedding-cake. Then the Baron and Baronessa appeared so opportunely as to give rise to the base suspicion that they had been eavesdropping. More polite things were mumbled, and we went to luncheon, Gaetà on Paolo's arm, with a disappointed droop of her pretty shoulders. We drank to the health and happiness of the newly affianced pair, a habit which seemed to be growing upon me of late, and might lead me down the fatal grade of bachelordom. The Boy and I were unable to conceal, as we ought to have done out of politeness, the fact that our appetites had sustained the shock of our lady's engagement, and I saw in her eyes that she could never wholly forgive us, no, not even if we made love to her after marriage.
"Shall you take your wedding trip in a balloon?" asked the Boy demurely; and this was the last straw. Gaetà did not make the faintest protest when, soon after, it was announced that he and I thought of leaving Aix on the morrow. I am not sure that she even heard my vague apologies concerning a telegram from friends.
We all went to the opera at one of the Casinos that night. It was "Rigoletto," and Gaetà and Paolo sat side by side, looking into each other's eyes during the love scene in the first act. But the Boy was adamant, and I did not turn a hair. He and I were much occupied in wondering at the strange infatuation of the stage hero, but especially the villain—quite a superior villain—for the heroine, who looked like an elderly papoose: therefore we had no time to be jealous of anything that went on under our noses. The party supped with me, en masse, at my hotel; and afterwards I said good-bye to Gaetà.
She did not know that I had planned my journey with a thought of seeing her at the end, and drowning my sorrows in flirtation; but the Boy knew, and had not forgotten—the little wretch. I saw his thought twinkling in his eyes, as I said debonairly that we might all meet on the Riviera. If I had not sternly removed my gaze, I should probably have burst out laughing, and precipitated a second duel in which I, and not the Boy, would have been a principal.