"Yes. Something to please a lady." Was there not the Boy's sister to be catered for in case she should come? In thinking of him I must not forget her. But then, how improbable it was that my poor dinner would be tasted by either!
"And for wine, Monsieur?"
I ordered at random the brand of champagne which had seemed like nectar to the Boy and me that evening in far away Aosta, when the compact of our friendship was first made. But yes, certainly, it was to be had. And it should in an all little moment be on the ice.
The waiter glided away to make that little moment less, and I was left to measure it and its brothers. One after another they passed. What a pity the moment family is such a large one! I stared at the glass door. Other men's friends came in by it, but not mine. I glared at the window close to which I sat. The peculiarly theatrical effect of daylight melting into night, as seen at Monte Carlo and nowhere else, added to the sensation of suspense I felt, as when the curtain is about to rise on the crowning act of an exciting play.
The scene out there in the Place was exactly like a setting for the stage. The great white Casino, with the constant va et vient to and from the open doorway; the bubbly domes of the fantastically Moorish café across the way; the velvet grass, unnaturally green in the electric light; the flower beds in the garden a mosaic floor of coloured jewels; the air blue as a gauze veil, with diamonds shining through its meshes; and over all a serene arch of hyacinth sky, pulsing with smouldering ashes-of-rose just above the purple line of mountain-tops.
A carriage drove quickly past the window, and stopped, far on at the main door of the hotel. More people for dinner; but not the Boy. I indistinctly saw a tall man and two ladies in long evening cloaks step out; then I turned my eyes elsewhere.
Over on the brightly lighted balcony of the Café de Paris opposite, the "out-of-season" musicians were playing "Sole Mio," and the yearning strains of that simple, hackneyed Italian love song stirred my veins oddly.
The glass door down at the other end of the room opened, and the movement there caught my eyes. A girl came in, alone, and stood still as if looking for someone—her slender white figure, in its long flowing cloak, clearly outlined against a darker background. She was alone, and there was nobody to introduce us, no one to tell me who she was, but the beautiful face as so marvellously like one I knew, that I jumped up instantly. The Boy's sister! She must have come, with friends, and be looking for him. Then, he was here, or would be!
I have a vague remembrance of treading on several trains as I went to meet her, intending to introduce myself, as her brother had not arrived. The restaurant seemed suddenly to have become a mile long, and she was at the other end of it. So was I, at last, holding out my hand to the white girl with a large black hat, and diamond pins winking in the curly chestnut hair which they held in place.
She was so astonishingly like him! Now that I had come closer, the resemblance was incredible. The hair; the soft oval of the little face; the eyes—the great, star-eyes!