“Oh, yes, I talked to her right enough. She did look well. Simply lovely. White cloth frock, you know. She’s all alone at Monte, stayin’ at the Anglais.”
“Did she say how long she’d be there?”
“No. I didn’t ask her. She was winnin’ the night I saw her. I never saw such devil’s luck—never. I lost over a thousand on the week, so I thought it time to pay my hotel bill—what?”
The three of us made the tour of Tattersall’s together, admiring, criticising, fault-finding. Among Thorold’s horses was the mare I had ridden on that last day I had been at Houghton. What a long time ago that seemed! I felt tempted to make a bid for her next day, she had carried me so well.
Then I thought again of my well-beloved. What an extraordinary girl she was! Ah! how I loved her. Why had she not told me that she meant to go to the Riviera? Why—
An idea flashed in upon me. I was getting bored with the mad hurry of London. This would be a good excuse for running out to the Côte d’Azur. Indeed, my chief reason for remaining in town had been that I believed Vera to be there still, either in hiding for some reason of her own, or, what I had thought far more likely, forced against her will by that blackguard Paulton to remain in concealment and keep me in ignorance of her whereabouts.
Instead of that she was “on her own”—how I hate that slang phrase—at Monte Carlo ‘winnin’ a fortune,’ as Lord Logan had put it.
“A strange world, my masters!” Never were truer words spoken. The longer I live the more I realise its strangeness. When I arrived at Monte Carlo by the day rapide from Paris, rain was pelting down in torrents, and a fierce storm was raging. Wind shrieked along the streets. Out at sea, lightning flashed in the bay, while the thunder rattled like artillery fire. I was glad to find myself in the warm, brilliantly-lit Hotel de Paris, and when, after dinner, I strolled into the fumoir, it was so crowded that I had difficulty in finding any place to sit.
Among the group of men close to whom I presently found myself, conversation had turned upon the pigeon-shooting at Monte. From their remarks I gathered that an important event had been decided that day, the Prix de—I forget what, but the prize appeared to be a much coveted cup, with a considerable sum in added money. This had been won, it seemed, by a Belgian Count, who had killed twenty-seven pigeons without a miss.
“Mais c’est épatant—vraiment épatant!” declared an excitable little Frenchman, as he pulled forward his chair. He went on to explain, with great volubility and much gesticulation, the difficulties that some of the shots had presented. This Frenchman, I gathered further, had backed the Belgian Count every time from his first shot to the last, and had in consequence won a lot of money.