“Oh, you work? I wouldn’t have said so. What sort of contract work do you do?” asked Mrs. Alexander. The pedestal she had used for her two new heroes, seemed shaking dangerously.
Everard laughed. “Some people laugh at what we call work, but they don’t realize that playing is the hardest kind of work. I sometimes think I will chuck the whole game and knuckle down to the real thing—work that is called work. But money is sweet, and if one likes to spend, then the weak little decision to work as others do, dies hard and I go on with the play.”
Mrs. Alexander suddenly realized that she had misunderstood the young man’s first words. Then he called “playing” his work, and with his money he found playing as hard a work as a poor man finds his labor. So she sympathized with his ideals and thought him a remarkable young man.
Before they reached Turin, she had her suspicions that he was a very important young man; for he had given her certain bits of information that told how well-known he and his cousin were, and how they dodged at certain places to travel incognito to avoid publicity.
CHAPTER XI—THE PLOT IN VENICE
That evening, at Turin, while the Fabian party were preparing to go out and see the city by night, the two young men excused themselves and were not seen again until the next day when the party were to start for Milan. Then they appeared as happy and ready to drive on as they were to join the tourists the day before at the foot of the Alps.
“I thought you had planned to remain in Turin?” said Mr. Fabian.
“We had, but upon getting in touch with Chalmys, we find he is now at his place near Venice, and we must meet him there. The rest of our crowd are there, too. So we will drive with you as far as you travel our road,” explained Traviston.
“Do you know Count Chalmys?” asked everyone in chorus.