She was pale, but seemed cheerful and resigned. All day she went about making her preparations for departure.
“I’ll take the train for Paris to-morrow,” she announced.
He was unprepared for the suddenness of her going.
“Oh, not to-morrow,” he said; “wait till the day after. We’ll spend to-morrow together, go picnicking.”
She agreed and they took the train next morning to La Turbie. They made a fire among the rocks and ate a cold paté, cheese and fruit, as happy as two children. Hugh went to get some water to make tea. When he returned, he found the girl cowering at the foot of a big rock. She had slipped and fallen, while gathering flowers. The distance was about ten feet. She was all right, she assured him, excepting her foot which hurt her badly. She could not walk, so he had to lift her and carry her to the road. He was greatly distressed. At the village he got a voiture and they returned slowly to Monte Carlo.
He summoned a doctor who said that she had sprained her ankle badly and must rest for a week or two without putting her foot to the ground.
“That’s very awkward,” she told the doctor. “I intended going to Paris to-morrow.”
“Impossible, madame,” he said; Hugh also echoed the word, “Impossible.” She submitted to this decision with a resignation that was almost too cheerful. Hugh was sympathetic gentleness itself. He did the marketing with the joyousness of a boy, and even attempted to cook under her direction. Whenever he found himself free, he hastened to the Casino to gamble; roulette was rapidly becoming an obsession with him.
Propped with pillows in the big wicker arm-chair he had bought her, Margot would sit and watch him. How his teeth gleamed when he laughed. She loved the look of him, tall, slim, with his fair hair brushed smoothly back, his fine sensitive face, his eloquent dark eyes. He made a graceful picture even when swathed in a white apron and frying eggs.
“He is so good, so kind, so patient,” she sighed. “My conscience hurts me. Oh, if he only knew I slipped from that rock on purpose.”