As we sat that night smoking outside on the pavement, with the merry, careless populace idling to and fro, he seemed a trifle more pensive than usual, and I inquired the reason.
“Nothing, Ewart,” he declared, with a faint smile; “nothing very particular. Thoughts—only thoughts of——”
“Of what?”
“Of town—of our dear old London that I suppose I shall never see again,” and his mouth hardened. “Do you remember Pall Mall, the Park, the Devonshire—and Vivi?”
I nodded, and pulled at my cheap cigar.
Vivi! Did I remember her? Why, I had often driven the Honourable Victoria Violet Finlay, the girl—for she was only eighteen—who had once flirted with me when I was in her father’s service. Why, I wondered, did he mention her? Could he know the truth? Could he know the galling bitterness of my own heart? I think not. Through the many months I had been the Count’s chauffeur I had held my secret, though my heart was full of bitterness.
Mention of her name recalled, under that white Italian moonlight, a vision of her—the tall, slim, graceful girlish figure, the oval delicate face with clear blue eyes, and the wealth of red-gold hair beneath her motor-cap. She rose before me with that sad, bitter smile of farewell that she had given me when, as she was seated beside me in the car, on our way from Guildford to London, I bent over her small white hand for the last time.
Whew! Why are we men given memories? Half one’s life seems to be made up of vain regrets. Since that day I had, it was true, never ceased to think of her, yet I had lived a lonely, melancholy life, even though it were fraught with such constant excitement.
“You knew Vivi, of course?” I remarked, after a long silence, looking my fellow-exile straight in the face.
“I met her once or twice at the house of my aunt, Lady Ailesworth,” was his reply. “I wonder where she is now? There was some talk of her marrying Baron de Boek, the Belgian banker. Did you hear it?”