CHAPTER XIII.
“TO SEE IS TO LOVE!”
The post-chaises which conveyed Count Mont d’Oro and Thomas Glynne reached Marseilles two days sooner than did the slow-moving vehicle in which Jack De Vinne was a passenger. The Count and his companion were again fortunate in finding a vessel just ready to sail for Ajaccio, while Jack was detained two days after his arrival before he could find a vessel bound for the desired port. For these reasons, the Count and Thomas Glynne reached Corsica some five days sooner than did Jack.
Before their arrival the Count had decided that he would not take his companion to the hotel in Ajaccio. He was so well known in the town that he knew the presence of his foreign-looking companion would be sure to cause comment. Again, what one person in Ajaccio knew, soon everybody knew, and he did not care to have the news of his arrival reach his mother until he was able to present himself in person.
He was acquainted with a Corsican named Savoni, who lived upon a side street quite a distance from the centre of the town. Savoni was a widower with one daughter. His wife had been the victim of a vendetta, and the daughter had come near meeting the same fate as her mother. She had received a severe blow upon the head from which she had never fully recovered. She was able, however, to attend to her household duties and had the reputation of being one of the best cooks in Corsica. Count Mont d’Oro’s life in Paris had made him a bon vivant, and he knew by experience that, although the beds in the hotel at Ajaccio were clean and comfortable, the fare was not of a high order of excellence. It was, therefore, to Savoni’s house that he took Thomas Glynne and made arrangements for him to remain there until he should send for him to come to Mont d’Oro Castle.
The second day after his arrival in Corsica, the Count suddenly made his appearance at the home of his mother, to her great astonishment and to the dismay of Bertha Renville. The mother uttered no word of welcome. Her first inquiry was: “What brought you down here without an invitation?”
“I came as most travellers do,” was the reply, “by post-chaise from Paris to Marseilles, by sailing vessel from Marseilles to Ajaccio, and, to show that I am still an able-bodied young man, I came from that town on foot. I am, naturally, somewhat tired and deucedly hungry, and so, if you have no objection, my good mother, I will go down and get a lunch.”
Suiting the action to the word, he bowed to the ladies, who had not yet recovered from their astonishment, and withdrew. For several minutes after the Count’s departure, the ladies said nothing. Then the Countess spoke:
“He won’t tell me what he came for, so I shall have to find it out myself. Have you formed any opinion?” she asked, turning to Bertha.
“Why, certainly not,” said the young girl. “But from what you have told me, I should naturally say that he came to see his mother.”
“As you know that is not the case,” and there was a bitter smile upon the face of the Countess, “it must be that he came to see somebody else.”