After dinner that evening, she wandered alone into the hotel garden; the endless chatter of the drawing-room irritated and annoyed her—she wanted to be alone.
The night was breathlessly still, the scent of roses and heliotrope hung heavily in the air, fire-flies flashed, and now and then a blue gleam of the summer lightning rent the clear dark. For a moment the silence was intense, then suddenly a frog croaked harshly, the cry of a peacock or a far-off shout from the street broke the stillness and died away. Jocelyn walked up and down one of the paths, and then stood looking into the night with soft eyes. Her lips parted in a caress.... What a marvellous world under those remote and silent stars! If she could but take it into her arms and kiss it! Kiss the sweet flowers, the still air, the whole wonderful night! It seemed more to her than ever before—fuller of meaning and of delight. She stretched out her arms, and then pressed them to her breast with a sudden irresponsible motion of which she was half ashamed....
The light of a lamp streamed from an open window into the darkness, and stretched in a band of gold over the dew-stained grass. Jocelyn turned away; it seemed to her like a hot and intruding touch upon the purity of the night. She drew a long breath of the warm air, feeling utterly and unreasoningly happy—as if nothing could touch her, as if her steps were guided by some soft gleam shining mysteriously from behind the curtain of life. She did not seek to know why she had that strange and sweet sensation; it was enough for her that she felt the throb of the stars, the dumb whisper of the dreaming night. She pressed the backs of her hands against her cheeks—they were glowing as if from kisses....
The hoarse barking of a dog rose from the distant street; with a faint rustling the quiet garden seemed to stir resentfully, as though some strange breath had stolen into it. Jocelyn gave a little shiver, she twisted with her hands the muslin scarf around her neck and shoulders—it was all limp and wet with the dew. With a sudden feeling of discouragement she turned and went back into the house.
That night she lay awake a long while, thinking.
CHAPTER V
Giles rode over the next morning. He found Jocelyn and Mrs. Travis in the garden of the hotel talking with a young Englishman. They came forward to meet him, but he felt at once that in Jocelyn’s greeting there was something foreign to her, something almost repellant. After the first moment she did not look at him; all her attention seemed bestowed upon the speech of the young Englishman, who stood, speckless, descanting upon “systems,” the demerits of which he illustrated languidly with his fingers. He was a weakly, immutable young man, sloping from the crown of his head to the soles of his feet. He began it with his forehead, and continued it all the way down; his voice sloped—it came out of him loudly, and died away; his hands sloped—they began large, and ended small. He never smiled—not from set purpose, but because he had lost the art, and his eyes calculated continually out of the monotony of a colourless face.
“‘Systems’ are all rot,” he was saying, “there are only two fellers in Monte Carlo who make it pay, don’t y’ know, old Blore and Nielsen; an’ they don’t do it by figures, only by bein’ so ’nfernally patient.”
Mrs. Travis, sitting upright in a cane chair with her hands in her lap, listened with attentive disapproval; she had a “system,” and did not wish to be convinced of its inefficiency.
“But I watched Baron Zimmermann myself, and I saw him win five hundred louis the day before yesterday, he plays a ‘system,’ I know,” she said.