“Yes,” said the Countess graciously, “that will do quite well. It is very good of you to take my niece to the Rooms. I am sure that you, Monsieur, will be quite as effective a guardian as I should be myself! There are often very queer people in the gambling-rooms.”
“There are indeed,” said M. Popeau gravely, and there was no twinkle in his eye. Frenchmen of his type are, as Captain Stuart had truly said, extremely particular in this matter of a young girl’s surroundings and reputation.
The big car was waiting for Count Beppo, and he put his parents into it with great care and affection. “Now, I will drive you home,” he exclaimed. Turning, he held out his hand to Lily. “I wish you and I could meet later in the afternoon, after I have come back from Eze,” he said hesitatingly. “About what time will you be leaving the Casino?”
But M. Popeau intervened. “I don’t think we can make any plan of that sort,” he said; “we should only miss one another. I will take great care of Miss Fairfield, and bring her up to La Solitude in good time.”
CHAPTER XV
The moment Lily found herself alone with M. Popeau, forming part of the crowd of walkers who were all on their way to the Casino, she exclaimed, a little nervously, “Wasn’t it an extraordinary coincidence that Beppo Polda should have exactly the same gold snuff-box as that which poor Mr. Ponting bought from an old woman gambler?”
“Extraordinary indeed,” answered the Frenchman drily. “I wish you’d ask him the exact date of his purchase of it, Mademoiselle.”
“I will,” said Lily. Then something prompted her to add, “I hope you like Beppo Polda? I can’t quite make him out, yet he seems so very much nicer than I expected him to be.”
M. Popeau evaded her question. “I agree with you,” he said; “he is very much nicer than one would expect the son of either his father or his mother to be. Also, Mademoiselle, he is extremely, quite exceptionally, handsome.”
He looked down at her thoughtfully. “No man can ever tell,” he said; “not even the extremely foolish man who prides himself on his knowledge of the feminine heart, how far good looks influence—or don’t influence—a woman when she is considering a member of my sex!”