Early the next morning she and Kitty departed for Monte Carlo in quest of fortune. Fortune was there, waiting, but in a guise wholly unexpected.
CHAPTER XII
A BOX OF CIGARS
On the way up to Rome Hillard and his pupil had a second-class compartment all to themselves. The train was a fast one; for the day of slow travel has passed in Italy and the cry of speed is heard over the land. The train stopped often and rolled about a good deal; but the cushions were soft, and there was real comfort in being able to stretch out full length. Hillard, having made this trip many times, took the forward seat and fell into a doze.
Merrihew was like a city boy taking his first trip into the country. He hung out of the window, and smoked and smoked. Whenever the train swept round a curve he could look into the rear carriages; and the heads sticking out of the thirds reminded him of chicken-crates. Never had he seen such green gardens, such orange and lemon groves, such forests of olives. Save that it was barren rock, not a space as broad as a man's hand was left uncultivated; and not a farm which was not in good repair. One saw no broken fences, no slovenly out-houses, no glaring advertisements afield: nobody was asked impertinently if Soandso's soap had been used that morning, nor did the bambini cry for soothing-syrups. Everything was of stone (for wood is precious in Italy), generally whitewashed, and presenting the smiling countenance of comfort and cleanliness. The Italian in the city is seldom clean; there, it is so easy to lie in the gutters under the sun. Reared and bred in laziness for centuries, dirt has no terrors, but water has. With his brother in the country it is different. Labor makes him self-respecting. Merrihew had seen so many dirty Sicilians and Neapolitans working on American railways that he had come to the conclusion that Italy was the most poverty-stricken country in the world. He was now forming new opinions at the rate of one every hour.
How pretty were the peasants in the fields with their bright bits of color, a scarlet shawl, a skirt of faded blue, a yellow kerchief round the head! And the great white oxen at the plows! Sometimes he saw a strange, phantom-like, walled town hanging to some cliffs far away. It disappeared and reappeared and disappeared again. Never a chimney with the curling black smoke of the factory did he see above any of these clustered cities. When he recalled to mind the pall of soft-coal smoke which hangs over the average American city, he knew that while Italy might be cursed with poverty she had her blessing in fine clear skies. And always, swinging down the great roads, he saw in fancy the ghosts of armies, crusaders, mercenaries, feudal companies, crossbowmen, and knights in mail.
It amused him to see the buxom women flagging the train at crossings. And the little stations, where everybody rushed out to buy a drink of bottled water! Suddenly the station-master struck a bell, the conductor tooted a horn, and the engine's shrill whistle shrieked; and off they flew again. No newsboy to bother one with stale gum, rank cigars, ancient caramels and soiled novels; nothing but solid comfort. And oh! the flashing streams which rushed under bridges or plunged alongside. Merrihew's hand ached to hold a rod and whip the green pools where the fallen olive leaves floated and swam like silver minnows. Half a dozen times he woke Hillard to draw his attention to these streams. But Hillard disillusioned him. Rarely were there any fish, nor were these waters drinkable, passing as they did over immense beds of lime.
There was a change of cars at Rome and a wait of two hours. Hillard led the way to a popular café in the Piazza delle Terme, near the station. Here they lunched substantially. In that hour or so Merrihew saw more varied uniforms than he had seen in all his past life; perambulating parrakeets which glittered, smoked cigarettes or black cigars with straws in them, and drank coffee out of tumblers. He readily imagined that he was surrounded by enough dukes and princes and counts to run a dozen kingdoms, with a few left over for the benefit of the American market. He was making no mistakes now; he could distinguish a general from a hotel concierge without the least difficulty.
And still Americans, everywhere Americans; rich and poor Americans, loud and quiet Americans; Americans who had taste and education, and some who had neither; well-dressed and over-dressed, obtrusive and unobtrusive, parvenu and aristocrat. Once Merrihew saw a fine old gentleman wearing the Honor Legion ribbon in his buttonhole, and his heart grew warm and proud. Here was an order which was not to be purchased like the Order of Leopold and the French Legion of Honor. To win this simple order a man must prove his courage under fire, must be the author of an heroic exploit on the battle-field. And besides, there was this advantage: to servants in Europe a button or a slip of ribbon in the lapel signifies an order, a nobility of one sort or another, and as a consequence they treat the wearer with studied civility.