“She couldn’t be,” Somerset retorted, grimly.
Ross laughed, looked at his watch and announced that it was time for apéritifs. The young man assented, moodily, and they crossed the terrace to the café tables beneath the awning. It was the dying afternoon of a sultry August day, and most of Illerville had deserted tennis courts, tir aux pigeons and other distractions to listen lazily to the band in the Casino shade. The place was crowded; not a table vacant. When the waiter at last brought one from the interior of the café, he dumped it down beside the table occupied by the unspeakable Bernheim and the little Princess Ottilie. Somerset raised his hat as he took his seat. Bernheim responded with elaborate politeness, and Princess Ottilie greeted him with a faint smile. The engaged pair spoke very little to each other. Bernheim lounged back in his chair, smoking a cigar, and looked out to sea with a bored expression. When the girl made a casual remark he nodded rudely without turning his head. Somerset felt an irresistible desire to kick him. His external appearance was of the type that irritated the young Englishman. He was too handsome in a hard, swaggering, black-mustachioed way; he exaggerated to offense the English style of easy dress; he wore a too devil-may-care Panama, a too obtrusive colored shirt and club tie; he wore no waistcoat, and the hems of his new flannel trousers, turned up six inches, disclosed a stretch of tan-colored silk socks, clocked with gold, matching overelegant tan shoes. He went about with a broken-spirited poodle. He was inordinately scented. Somerset glowered at him, and let his drink remain untasted.
Presently Bernheim summoned the waiter, paid him for the tea the girl had been drinking, and pushed back his chair.
“This hole is getting on my nerves,” he said, in French, to his companion. “I am going into the cercle to play écarté. Will you go to your mother, whom I see over there, or will you stay here?”
“I’ll stay here,” said the little Princess Ottilie.
Bernheim nodded and swaggered off. Somerset bent forward.
“I must see you alone to-night—quite alone. I must have you all to myself. How can you manage it?”
Ottilie looked at him anxiously. She was fair and innocent, of a prettiness more English than foreign, and the scare in her blue eyes made them all the more appealing to the young man.
“What is the good? You can’t help me. Don’t you see that it is all arranged?”
“I’ll undertake to disarrange it at a moment’s notice,” said Somerset.