When they reached the chaplain’s house Lily held out her hand. “Good-bye—I hope only till to-night!” she exclaimed.
Captain Stuart shook hands with her rather stiffly, and walked away—this time without turning round and coming back as he had done before.
As to Lily’s proposed voluntary work, everything was settled in a very few minutes. She was told that there was a Convalescent Home just outside Monte Carlo, where they would be more than grateful for occasional help.
As she left the chaplain’s house Lily felt that she quite looked forward to this opportunity of doing some real work. It was true that the long, dull hours spent by her at La Solitude got on her nerves. Hence that strange, unnerving experience in the dining-room this morning.
It was to her an extraordinary experience to be living in a house into which there never came a book, or even a newspaper of any kind, excepting the queer little sheet published in Monaco itself! That contained practically no news of interest to an English girl—though the long lists of visitors to the various hotels were studied carefully by both Count and Countess Polda.
At first Lily had supposed by the way the Countess talked, that people would come in and out as they did in England. But, with the exception of the unfortunate George Ponting, and of her own two friends, M. Popeau and Captain Stuart, no strangers had been near La Solitude till last night, and then, as Lily knew quite well, the old Dutchman had only been asked because it was hoped that he would be useful to Beppo.
It was strange how Mr. Vissering’s sinister, disagreeable personality haunted Lily. When she thought of him she hastened her footsteps, nervously afraid lest she might suddenly run into him.
She wondered if the woman who kept the Utrecht Hotel had been on her way to La Solitude with a message from the Dutchman? Perhaps she was bringing a return invitation from old Mr. Vissering to the Count and Countess. If he had included her—and Lily somehow felt quite certain that if he asked them he would ask her too—then she made up her mind to say quite plainly that she would not go.
CHAPTER XX
“And now, my good friends, you two had better take a turn in the sunshine, while I carry off Miss Fairfield to my sitting-room for a little rest and a little chat,”—so quoth the Marchesa Pescobaldi to her husband and to Count Beppo the moment lunch was over.