"Miss Flossie, may we see the death chamber?"
"If it would interest M. Hautefeuille," said Florence Marsh, who had not ceased to regret her thoughtless remark. "My uncle had an only daughter," she continued, "who was named Marion, after my poor aunt. You know that Mr. Marsh, who lost his wife when he was very young, named his town after her, Marionville. My cousin died four years ago. My uncle was almost insane with grief. He wished nothing to be altered in the room she occupied on the yacht. He put her statue in it, and she has always around her the flowers she loved in life. Wait, look, but do not go in."
She opened the door, and the young men saw, by the light of two blue-shaded lamps, a room all draped in faded pink. It was filled with a profusion of small objects such as might be possessed by a spoiled child of a railroad magnate—a toilet case of silver and gold, jewels in glass boxes, portraits in carved frames—and in the centre, on a real bed of inlaid wood, lay the statue of the dead girl, white, with closed eyelids, the lips slightly parted, among sheaves of carnations and of orchids. The silence of this strange shrine, the mystery, the delicate perfume of the flowers, the unlooked-for poetry of this posthumous idolatry, in the boat of a yachtsman and a man of business, would, in any other circumstances, have appealed to the romanticism innate in Pierre Hautefeuille's heart. But during all this visit he had had but one thought,—to escape from Miss Marsh and Corancez, to be alone in order to reflect upon the evidence, so painfully unexpected, that his deepest secret had been discovered. So it was a relief to depart from the boat, and still a torture to have the company of his friend a few minutes longer.
"Did you notice," said Corancez, "how much the dead girl resembles Madame de Chésy? No? Well, when you meet her some time with Marsh, be sure to observe her. The canal by the Great Lakes, his railroad, the buildings of Marionville, his mines, his boat—he forgets them all. He thinks of his dead daughter. If little Madame de Chésy should ask him for the Kohinoor, he would set out to find it, for the mere sake of this resemblance. Isn't it singular, such a sentimental trait in a rogue of his stamp? His character ought to please you. If you are interested in him, you will be able to study him at your leisure on the 13th, 14th, and 15th. And let me thank you again for what you are going to do for me. If you have anything to communicate to me, my address is Genoa, poste restante. And now I must return to look after the packing. Will you let me take you part of the way? I see the old coachman whom I told to come here at eleven."
Corancez hailed an empty cab which was passing, drawn by two small Corsican ponies, who saluted the young man with a wink, his "Good day, Monsieur Marius" revealing the familiarity of long conversations between these two Provençaux. Pascal Espérandien, otherwise known as the Old Man, was an alert little personage and very crafty, the pride of whose life was to make his two rats trot faster than the Russian horses of the grand dukes residing at Cannes. He harnessed them, trimmed them, ornamented them so fantastically that they drew from all Miss Marsh's compatriots, from Antibes to Napoule, the same exclamations of "How lovely, how enchanting, how fascinating!" that they would have uttered before a Raphael or a Worth dress, a polo match or a noted gymnast. Doubtless the wily old man, with his shrewd smile, possessed diplomatic talents which might make him useful in a secret intrigue, for the prudent Corancez never took any other carriage, especially when he had, as on this morning, a rendezvous with the Marquise Andryana. He was to see her for five minutes in the garden of a hotel where she had a call to make. Her carriage was to stand before one of the doors, the Old Man's equipage before another. So nothing could have been more agreeable than Pierre's response to this clandestine fiancé.
"Thanks, but I prefer to walk."
"Then good-by," said Corancez, getting into the cab. And, parodying a celebrated verse, "To meet soon again, Seigneur, where you know, with whom you know, for what you know?"
The cab turned the corner of the Rue d'Antibes, and departed with furious speed. Hautefeuille was at last alone. He could filially face the idea which had been formulating itself in his thoughts with terrible precision ever since Miss Florence Marsh had spoken these simple words, "Your flirt, Madame de Carlsberg."
"They all three know that I love her—the Marquise, Corancez, and Miss Marsh. The look I caught from one of them last night, the remark and the smile of the other, and what the third one said, and her blush at having thought aloud—these are not dreams. They know I love her—But then, Corancez, last night, when he led me to the gambling-table, must have divined my thoughts. Such dissimulation!—is it possible? But why not? He acknowledged it himself awhile ago. To have concealed his sentiments for Madame Bonnacorsi, he must know how to keep a secret. He kept his and I have not kept mine. Who knows but they all three saw me buy the cigarette case? But no. They could not have had the cruelty to speak of it and to let it be spoken of before me. Marius is not malicious, neither is the Marquise, nor Miss Marsh. They know—that is all—they know. But how did they find out?"
Yes, how? With a lover of his susceptibility such a question would of necessity result in one of those self-examinations in which the scruples of conscience develop all their feverish illusions. On the way back to California and at the table where his luncheon was served to him apart, and afterward on a solitary walk to the picturesque village of Mougins, his life during these last few weeks came back to him, day by day, hour by hour, with a displacement of perspective which presented all the simple incidents of his naïve idyl as irreparable faults, crowned by that last fault, the purchase of the gold box in a public place and in full view of such people.