“No.”
“Well, his not comin’ has deranged me. I’ve been playin’ a little game of my own but I ’aven’t got capital enough. This mornin’ I came up against zero three times. A man can’t do anything against that. Now I’m off to get a bite of lunch. Maybe things will come my way this afternoon.”
He shambled off. Before going to his own luncheon Hugh strolled around the gardens. Nurses were watching beautiful, well-behaved children. The round pond mirrored the palms and pink geraniums; the little stream was fringed by ferns and flowers and starred with water-lilies. The green sweep of the sward was like a carpet, set with strange exotic trees, agave and cactus and dwarf oranges. Midway there was a little artificial ford, with gold-fishes glancing in the lazy ripples.
Yet there were jarring notes in this harmony. An old man for instance who sat on a bench reading discarded journals. He wore eye-glasses and had an air of dignity quite at variance with his rags. His boots were altogether disreputable and his coat would have disgraced a decent ash-bin. Yet it was easy to see that he had been a person of education and refinement who had lost a fortune at the tables. Hugh took a seat beside him.
“Well,” said the old fellow, “what do you think of it?”
“It’s beautiful,” said Hugh with fervour.
The other looked at him sarcastically.
“Beautiful, yes ... and it’s to me and the likes of me you owe it; we pay for it; we keep it up. Take a good gaze at me, young chap, and you’ll enjoy it all the more.” He laughed so disagreeably that Hugh rose and left him. But the gardens did not seem as lovely as before.
4.
Hugh’s favourite walk was along the highroad that led to the Tête du Chien. It crossed a dizzy bridge over a deep gorge in which the washerwomen hung their linen to dry. At the mouth of this gorge, framed in the arches of the railway bridge, was a tiny chapel, and behind it, like a slab of lapis lazuli, the harbour. Climbing still higher the road passed the Persian villa and reached the top of the hill. Almost directly below were the red roofs of the Condamine.