"I am not going to Monte Carlo. I am simply waiting for one of my friends—for Olivier du Prat—whom, I think, you know."
"What! Olivier! Why, he is an old sweetheart of mine, when I was staying with your sister.—Yes, I was crazy about him for at least a fortnight. Bring him along then and invite him to dine with us this evening. You can take the five o'clock train."
"But he is married."
"Well, invite his wife as well," cried the giddy creature, gayly. "Come, Andryana, persuade him. You have more power over him than I have."
Continuing her teasing like a spoilt child, she took Navagero's arm, and turning away, nothing amused her more than to see the expression on the Italian's face when he saw his sister in conversation with some one of whom he was suspicious. She was ignorant of the service she was rendering her friend, who profited by the few instants of her brother's absence to say to Pierre:—
"He also arrives by this train. I only came down to see him. Will you tell him that I am going to meet Florence upon the Jenny to-morrow morning at eleven o'clock? And, above all, don't be annoyed if Alvise is not very polite. He has got the idea that you are paying me attentions.—But here is the train."
The locomotive issued out of the deep cutting that leads into Cannes, and Pierre saw Corancez's happy profile almost immediately. He jumped out before the train stopped, and, embracing Hautefeuille, said loudly, so that his wife could hear:—
"How good of you to come to meet me!" adding in a whisper, "Try to get my brother-in-law away for a minute."
"I cannot," replied Hautefeuille; "I am expecting Olivier du Prat. Did you not see him in the train? Ah! I see him."
He left the Provençal's side without troubling himself further about this new act in the matrimonio segreto which was being played upon the station platform, and ran toward a young man standing upon the step of the train looking at him with a tender, happy smile. Although Olivier du Prat was only the same age as Pierre, he looked several years older, so stern and strongly marked was his bronzed, emaciated face. His features were so irregular and striking that it was impossible to forget them. His black eyes, of a humid, velvety black, the whiteness of his regular teeth, his thick, flowing hair, gave a sort of animal grace to his physiognomy which counterbalanced the bitterness that seemed to be expressed in his mouth, his forehead, and, above all, his hollow cheeks. Without being tall, his arms and shoulders denoted great strength. Hardly had he stepped down from the carriage when he embraced Hautefeuille with a fervor that almost brought the happy tears to his eyes, and the two friends remained looking at each other for a few seconds, both forgetting to offer a helping hand to a young woman who was, in her turn, standing upon the high step awaiting with the most complete impassibility until one of the young men should think about her. Madame Olivier du Prat was a mere child of about twenty years of age, very pretty, very refined, and with a delicacy in her beauty that was almost doll-like and pretty. Her hair was of a golden color that was cold through its very lightness. In her blue eyes there was, at this moment, that indefinable impenetrable expression that can be seen on the faces of most young wives before the friends of their husband's youth. Did she feel sympathy or antipathy, confidence or suspicion, for Olivier's dearest friend, who had been her husband's groomsman at their marriage? Nothing could be gathered from her greeting when the young man came and excused himself for not having welcomed her before and assisted her to the platform. She hardly rested the tips of her fingers upon the hand that Pierre held out to her. But this might only be a natural shyness, as the remark she made when he asked her about the journey might express a natural desire to rest:—