Little did I think that evening, of which you will hear, that what happened there was to have its hold on Julianna Colfax, who had not then been thought of as coming into the terrible clutches of that which has followed us like a skulk o’ night.
The café was long, and longer yet with its gilt mirrors on the white walls and its row of empty gilded chairs, and I found a table in the corner. Perhaps a man and woman or two was there, either too late or too early for the gayeties that went on. I have forgotten. I only know that the sound of lapping water came in through the lattice beside my table and a breeze, too, that cooled my bare neck and would not cool my head, which was full of thoughts of my days in the old garden in the Isle of Wight and my mother’s song and the colored crayon of my father, looking very stern, and hanging over the green old china vases on the mantel.
I believe the first thing that made me look up was a crash of glass, of crockery, the exclamation of the waiters, and running feet.
“So here is where they boast of excitement?” roared a thick voice. “And yet a man must make it himself.”
The waiters had surrounded him, whoever he was, and I could not see him then.
“Bah!” he cried, beginning to laugh like a stevedore. “I’m an American. Monte Carlo and all that! I’ll pay, you frog-catchers! Take that! Ask the proprietor if that will cover the damage!”
A great explosion of squeaky French followed, a word or two of Italian. The waiters parted and this American stepped out. I had expected to see him taller, but his power was in the weight of his shoulders, the easy swing of his drunken progress down the aisle. The devil-may-care was in him—in his handsome, laughing, wild eyes—the look of a child mad with the promise of a world of pleasures.
“Pay?” he roared again. “I pay as I go! Live? I live as I like! Out of the way, dishes! You are here to-day; on the ashheap to-morrow! So with all of us.”
With that he pulled off another tablecloth, sending the glassware rolling into splinters.
“Come! Collect!” he said, holding a fistful of notes in the air. “How much? How much? Quickly! I see mirrors down beyond! You lie, you mirrors! I’m walking straight! You lie!”