They left Tinker sitting still and thoughtful, the prey of a case of conscience. He knew the story of his father's marriage, his separation from his wife by the action of Lady Beauleigh and Sir Everard. He had been trained to detest them, and to believe any revenge on them a mere act of justice. But his dead mother was but a shadowy figure to him, and this girl was very charming, and sweet, and kind, for he had had a long talk with her one evening, and she had shared a box of chocolates with him. Did those chocolates constitute the tie of bread and salt between them which his father had taught him was so binding? He wished to help the girl, therefore he made up his mind that they did. With a sigh of satisfaction he rose, sauntered up to the absorbed lovers, and began to parade up and down before them. His nearness put something of a check on the eloquence of Mr. Arthur Courtnay, and every time Tinker's shadow fell on them he looked up and frowned.
At last he said, "Go away, my lad, and play somewhere else."
"I don't want any cheek from a hairdresser's assistant," said Tinker with blithe readiness.
There is nothing so wounding as the truth, and Courtnay knew that he was weak about the hair; he never could bring himself to keep it properly cropped; it was so glossy. His florid face became quickly florider, and he cried, "You impudent young dog!"
"Do not speak to me until you've been introduced. You're always forcing your acquaintance upon someone, Roland Macassar," said Tinker.
It was again the wounding truth; and Courtnay sprang up and dashed for him. Tinker bolted round a group of shrubs, Courtnay after him. Finding him unpleasantly quick on his feet Tinker bolted into the shrubs. Courtnay plunged after him right into a well-grown specimen of the flowering cactus. It brought him up short. He began to swear, and though he could have sworn with equal fluency and infelicity in French, German, or Italian, in the depth of his genuine emotion he returned to the tongue of his boyhood, and swore in English. When he came out of the shrubs, adorned on one side of his face and both hands with neat little beads of blood, he found that Claire had risen from her seat, and was looking shocked, surprised, and worst of all, disgusted. He did not mend matters much by mixing his apologies with threats of vengeance on Tinker; but his temper, once out of control, was not easily curbed. He made a most unfortunate impression on her; the beads of blood scarcely excited her pity at all.
Meanwhile Tinker had taken advantage of his pursuer's meeting with the cactus to leave the terrace swiftly. He went back to the Hôtel des Princes, and took out Blazer for a walk, and as he walked, his seraph-like face glowed with the pleasantest complacency. Blazer did not like Monte Carlo at all; for him there was no sport and little exercise in it; Tinker liked it very much. He had made many friends in it, and enjoyed many amusements, the chief a pleasant, perpetual war against the heavy, liveried guardians of the gambling rooms. It was his opinion that people came to Monte Carlo to gamble; it was the opinion of the Société des Bains de Mer de Monte Carlo that children ought not to be admitted to the tables. They asserted their opinion; and Tinker asserted his, with the result that his bolt into the Salles de Jeu and his difficult extrication from them by the brawny, but liveried officials was fast becoming one of the events of the day. Sometimes Tinker would make his bolt from the outermost portal; sometimes, with the decorous air of one going to church, he would join the throng filing into the concert room, and bolt from the midst of it. The process of expulsion was always conducted with the greatest courtesy on either side; for his bolt had become an agreeable variety in the monotonous lives of the guardians; they never knew when or in what fashion it would come next.
Now he had another occupation, the shadowing of Mr. Arthur Courtnay. That florid Adonis never grew used to hearing a gentle voice singing softly:
"Get your hair cut! Get your hair cut!"
or,