He hailed the solitary open cab which stood in the shadow of the building, now a barrack, where gambling was first started in the Principality fifty years ago.
To Lily’s distress, he did not bargain with the man—he simply threw him the name, “La Solitude,” in rather indifferent French.
The cabman whipped up his little horses, and a moment later they were rattling down the winding road cut in the side of the rock at a breakneck pace.
All too soon—or so it seemed to them both—they had reached the clearing below the Lonely House. Angus Stuart gripped Lily’s hand. “Then from to-day we’re pals—real pals?” he said, and Lily answered very seriously, “Yes.”
To Lily’s relief, the Countess was far too full of Beppo’s coming arrival on the morrow to trouble as to how the girl had spent her time after the funeral of George Ponting: and the rest of the afternoon was devoted to preparing a large front room, which was apparently always kept for Beppo.
There was not very much to be done, but certain pieces of furniture were moved in from the other rooms in order to make it more comfortable for the apparently luxurious young man’s occupation.
When, at last, tired out by the varied emotions of the day, Lily was going off to bed, the Countess said briskly: “We must be off early to-morrow morning to choose your pretty frocks before Beppo’s arrival! I shall be ready to start at nine o’clock. Your Uncle Angelo has ordered a carriage for us.”
Lily felt taken aback, and disappointed, too. She would so infinitely rather have chosen her new clothes herself! But there was nothing to be done, and as events turned out she was wrong to be disappointed, for she could not have done as well as she and Aunt Cosy did together.
CHAPTER XII
Monte Carlo in the morning is very unlike Monte Carlo in the afternoon or evening.