Presently the long-nose, as if at the crocodile's request, produced a small white square from the recesses of his sumptuous dress; the crocodile handed him a similar square in return; they bowed and separated. M. Isidore led Mlle. Bontemps away on his arm towards a blue glimpse of sea at the end of a side-street, and the Cyrano, removing his plumed cap, and with it his great nose, that had become very shaky in the course of the fray, disclosed to Ermengarde's astonished gaze the features of the young Englishman of Monte Carlo.
It was but a moment before the nose was hastily replaced, and its owner turned back into the main street, where he stood talking to a Pierrot, immediately in front of the stand, behind a soldier keeping the road.
"Thought you'd have known better than that," the Pierrot grumbled. "It wasn't playing the game."
"I could have sworn it was the Countess," the Cyrano was heard to say dejectedly. "And after yesterday—well, I didn't feel bound to play the game with her. Besides, she wouldn't have cared."
"Let us go," said Ermengarde, suddenly sick of the fooling, and worried by the band's mad tune repeated over and over again; but, looking round for Agatha, she found her place empty, and Mr. Welbourne, who had returned to his seat, unable to give any account of her.
Many thoughts were in Ermengarde's heart, while in response to the thin man's timely suggestion of tea at Rumpelmayer's, they slipped out of the press to the comparative quiet of the promenade by the sea, that glowed like a peacock's velvety throat on the horizon, with the near shallows of turquoise, and broke with a deep soft boom in snowy surf on the rocks.
She was glad of the fresh sea-breath and the beauty of the bay's broad sweep between the purple headland of Bordighera and the craggy bluffs above Monte Carlo. And when they turned into the Gardens under the tall eucalyptus, the appearance of the woman of mystery coming down an avenue of palms was a great relief. But a flush on Agatha's cheek and a vision of the Spaniard rapidly disappearing under palms in the opposite direction, filled her with misgiving again. What could all this atmosphere of intrigue and mystification portend? Certainly nothing praiseworthy.
"It was so hot and dusty on the stand," Agatha said, to explain her sudden disappearance, upon which Dorris alone had commented.
That evening, when they had gone to their rooms for the night, Ermengarde knocked at Agatha's door and handed her the little box containing the chain. "I think this must be yours, Miss Somers," she said. "Your friend the Spaniard threw it, and it caught round my neck by mistake."
"My friend?" she asked, confused. "Oh, you mean the Spaniard who stopped by the stand to ask the way to the sea?"