"Velvety, and yet with the clear brilliance of a jewel," Ermengarde commented pensively. "By the way, Miss Somers," as if struck by a sudden thought, "did you ever succeed in selling that lovely necklace of yours?"
"Oh yes. I disposed of it quite satisfactorily," she returned in the half-bored way in which people refer to things long over and done with. "It cost me a pang."
"I wonder what it cost him?" Ermengarde mused, as they were merged in a stream of sun-burnt, sun-hatted people flocking in to luncheon in the cool shadow of the house.
For all his reputed benevolence and ascetic cast of face there was a curious feline quality in Mr. Mosson, Ermengarde observed. He sat at his solitary table in a corner, quietly intent on what was put before him, yet all the time stealthily watching people from under drooped eyelids, with an occasional hungry flash in his eyes when suddenly bent upon some individual, as, for instance, to-day upon Agatha, and slightly crouching in his chair like some great creature of the cat tribe, gathering itself together to spring on its prey.
So he might look at and spring upon her, she reflected with a shiver, if she put herself within reach of that quick, aggressive paw (now peeling oranges with slow and stealthy ferocity, as if they were alive and felt being skinned so closely), and so he might devour her, crunching her audibly, bones and all, as he crunched the crisp zwieback that he slowly munched from time to time to fill in the pauses between courses. Was Agatha being slowly crunched and ground to powder by those cruel jaws? or was she on the tiger-man's side, a tool or decoy to bring his prey within range?
It was embarrassing to the last degree, and yet it was a sort of comfort, to find that Agatha was not only going down into Mentone—"down below," as it was pleasantly termed on the ridge—but was bent on accompanying her in her quest for fresh quarters.
Two people, the woman of mystery truly said, were better than one; they presented a more imposing front to the enemy—that is, the hotel-keeper—and in case of any bluffing or attempt at imposition, offered a double supply of the courage necessary to unmask and combat his stratagems of war.
"But why leave Les Oliviers?" she questioned, as they stepped down the ravine side together. "Surely there could be nothing more charming, or half as healthy, down below?"
To this Mrs. Allonby began with haughty reticence, to the effect that one had excellent reasons not always possible or desirable to explain, and ended, before they reached the town, by confiding to her that she had been turned out of Les Oliviers, the manner of which turning out she related not without humour, the absurd side of the catastrophe having suddenly presented itself to her imagination. The whole episode now showed itself in the light of an excellent joke and capital opportunity of getting a change. Les Oliviers was undoubtedly dull, euphemistically, restful. It had been remarked by foreign visitors that none but English could put up with the dulness of that high-placed, solitary house.
The woman of mystery observed that the onslaught of Madame Bontemps was sudden and apparently unprovoked, and Ermengarde returned that it was absolutely unprovoked; she had not so much as seen either mother or daughter for a couple of days at least, so that an opportunity of provocation had not been forthcoming even.