Emerging from the lift into the hall, he passed through the low-built lounge, where a number of summer muslin-dressed idlers were chatting and laughing, and strode out upon the boards placed upon the golden sea-sands outside the hotel.
Trouville is unique. Other watering-places have a drive along the sea-front, but the gay little bathing “trou” has no sea-front. The hotels abut upon the actual sands, just as Arcachon abuts upon its shallow oyster-beds.
Ansell had not gone half-a-dozen yards along the plage before he met a young Englishman whose acquaintance he had made in a night café on the previous evening—a young cavalry officer, who greeted him merrily, believing him to be the well-known American financier. Even the men who are “British officers and gentlemen” in these days are prone to bow the knee to American dollars, the golden key which unlocks the door of the most exclusive English society. Only the old-fashioned squire of the country village, the old-fashioned English hunting gentleman, will despise the men who aspire to society because they can buy society’s smiles.
He walked with the young fellow as far as the casino. Ansell did not even know his name, and as he had already summed him up as living on his pay, with a load of debts behind, he did not trouble even to inquire. Only wealthy “mugs” interested him.
Entering the casino, they had a drink together, then smoked and chatted.
Ansell was half inclined to tell a tale and borrow a “fiver,” but so clever was he that he feared lest the young fellow might speak of it in Trouville. Therefore he stood at the bar laughing merrily, as was his wont, and keeping a watchful eye upon any man who entered. He could fascinate other men by cheery good humour, his disregard for worry, his amusing optimism, and his brightness of conversation.
His training as a crook had surely been in a good school, yet there were times when, before his vision, arose the face of the true, honest girl whom he had married, and whom he had so cruelly treated. Sometimes, just as at that hour when he stood at the bar of the great gilded casino, laughing gaily, he would reflect upon his married life, and wonder where Jean was and how she fared.
The young Englishman, Baldwin by name, was spending the season at Trouville with his mother, who rented a pretty villa in the vicinity, and he, being on leave, was idling amid the mad gaiety of Paris-by-the-Sea.
He was much taken by the manners and airy talk of the rich American, whom he found much less vulgar than many he had met in London society. He made no ostentatious show, though it was whispered throughout Trouville that he was one of the wealthiest men in Wall Street. What would young Baldwin have thought if he had seen those three precious louis?