CHAPTER II
SYMPATHY IN SORROW
“Give me,” observed Sir Roger Deane, “Cannes, a fine day, a good set to look at, a beehive chair, a good cigar, a cocktail on one side and a nice girl on the other, and there I am! I don’t want anything else.”
General Bellairs pulled his white mustache and examined Sir Roger’s figure and surroundings with a smile.
“Then only Lady Deane is wanting to your complete happiness,” said he.
“Maud is certainly a nice girl, but when she deserts me”
“Where is she?”
“I don’t know.”
“I do,” interposed a young man, who wore an eye—glass and was in charge of a large jug. “She’s gone to Monte.”
“I might have known,” said Sir Roger. “Being missed here always means you’ve gone to Monte—like not being at church means you’ve gone to Brighton.”
“Surely she doesn’t play?” asked the General.
“Not she! She’s going to put it in a book. She writes books you know. She put me in the last—made me a dashed fool, too, by Jove!”
“That was unkind,” said the General, “from your wife.”
“Oh, Lord love you, she didn’t mean it. I was the hero. That’s how I came to be such an ass. The dear girl meant everything that was kind. Who’s taken her to Monte?”
“Charlie Ellerton,” said the young man with the eye-glass.
“There! I told you she was a kind girl. She’s trying to pull old Charlie up a peg or two. He’s had the deuce of a facer, you know.”
“I thought he seemed less cheerful than usual.”
“Oh, rather. He met a girl somewhere or other—I always forget places—Miss—Miss—hang it, I can’t remember names—and got awfully smitten, and everything went pleasantly and she took to him like anything—, and at last old Charlie spoke up like a man, and” Sir Roger paused dramatically.
“Well?” asked the General.
“She was engaged to another fellow. Rough, wasn’t it? She told old Charlie she liked him infernally, but promises were promises, don’t you know, and she’d thank him to take his hook. And he had to take it, by Gad! Rough, don’t you know? So Maud’s been cheering him up. The devil!”
“What’s the matter now?” inquired the General.
“Why, I’ve just remembered that I promised to say nothing about it. I say, don’t you repeat it, General, nor you either, Laing.”
The General laughed.
“Well,” said Sir Roger, “he oughtn’t to have been such a fool as to tell me. He knows I never remember to keep things dark. It’s not my fault.”
A girl came out of the hotel and strolled up to where the group was. She was dark, slight, and rather below middle height; her complexion at this moment was a trifle sallow and her eyes listless, but it seemed rather as though she had dressed her face into a tragic cast, the set of the features being naturally mirthful. She acknowledged the men’s salutations and sat down with a sigh.
“Not on to-day?” asked Sir Roger, waving his cigar toward the lawn-tennis courts.
“No,” said Miss Bellairs.
“Are you seedy, Dolly?” inquired the General.
“No,” said Miss Bellairs.
Mr. Laing fixed his eye-glass and surveyed the young lady.
“Are you taking any?” said he, indicating the jug.
“I don’t see any fun in vulgarity,” observed Miss Bellairs.
The General smiled. Sir Roger’s lips assumed the shape for a whistle.
“That’s a nasty one for me,” said Laing.
“Ah, here you are, Roger,” exclaimed a fresh clear voice from behind the chairs. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere. We’ve seen everything—Mr. Ellerton was most kind—and I do so want to tell you my impressions.”
The new-comer was Lady Deane, a tall young woman, plainly dressed in a serviceable cloth walking-gown. By her side stood Charlie Ellerton in a flannel suit of pronounced striping; he wore a little yellow mustache, had blue eyes and curly hair, and his face was tanned a wholesome ruddy-brown. He looked very melancholy.
“Letters from Hell,” murmured Sir Roger.
“But I was so distressed,” continued his wife. “Mr. Ellerton would gamble, and he lost ever so much money.”
“A fellow must amuse himself,” remarked Charlie gloomily, and with apparent unconsciousness he took a glass from Laing and drained it.
“Gambling and drink—what does that mean?” asked Sir Roger.
“Shut up, Deane,” said Charlie.
Miss Bellairs rose suddenly and walked away. Her movement expressed impatience with her surroundings. After a moment Charlie Ellerton slowly sauntered after her. She sat down on a garden-seat some way off. Charlie placed himself at the opposite end. A long pause ensued.
“I’m afraid I’m precious poor company,” said Charlie.
“I didn’t want you to be company at all,” answered Miss Bellairs, and she sloped her parasol until it obstructed his view of her face.
“I’m awfully sorry, but I can’t stand the sort of rot Deane and Laing are talking.”
“Can’t you? Neither can I.”
“They never seem to be serious about anything, you know,” and Charlie sighed deeply, and for three minutes there was silence.
“Do you know Scotland at all?” asked Charlie at last.
“Only a little.”
“There last year?”
“No, I was in Switzerland.”
“Oh.”
“Do you know Interlaken?”
“No.”
“Oh.”
“May I have a cigarette?”
“Of course, if you like.”
Charlie lit his cigarette and smoked silently for a minute or two.
“I call this a beastly place,” said he.
“Yes, horrid,” she answered, and the force of sympathy made her move the parasol and turn her face towards her companion. “But I thought,” she continued, “you came here every spring?”
“Oh, I don’t mind the place so much. It’s the people.”
“Yes, isn’t it? I know what you mean.”
“You can’t make a joke of everything, can you?”
“Indeed no,” sighed Dora.
Charlie looked at his cigarette, and, his eyes carefully fixed on it, said in a timid tone:
“What’s the point, for instance, of talking as if love was all bosh?”
Dora’s parasol swept down again swiftly, but Charlie was still looking at the cigarette and he did not notice its descent, nor could he see that Miss Bellairs’s cheek was no longer sallow.
“It’s such cheap rot,” he continued, “and when a fellow’s—I say, Miss Bellairs, I’m not boring you?”
The parasol wavered and finally moved.
“No,” said Miss Bellairs.
“I don’t know whether you—no, I mustn’t say that; but I know what it is to be in love, Miss Bellairs; but what’s the good of talking about it? Everybody laughs.”
Miss Bellairs put down her parasol.
“I shouldn’t laugh,” she said softly. “It’s horrid to laugh at people when they’re in trouble,” and her eyes were very sympathetic.
“You are kind. I don’t mind talking about it to you. You know I’m not the sort of fellow who falls in love with every girl he meets; so of course it’s worse when I do.”
“Was it just lately?” murmured Dora.
“Last summer.”
“Ah! And—and didn’t she?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Yes, hang it, I believe she did. She was perfectly straight, Miss Bellairs. I don’t say a word against her. She-I think she didn’t know her own feelings until—until I spoke, you know—and then”
“Do go on, if—if it doesn’t”
“Why, then, the poor girl cried and said it couldn’t be because she—she was engaged to another fellow; and she sent me away.”
Miss Bellairs was listening attentively.
“And,” continued Charlie, “she wrote and said it must be good-by and—and”
“And you think she?”
“She told me so,” whispered Charlie. “She said she couldn’t part without telling me. Oh, I say, Miss Bellairs, isn’t it all damnable? I beg your pardon.”
Dora was tracing little figures on the gravel with her parasol.
“Now what would you do?” cried Charlie. “She loves me, I know she does, and she’s going to marry this other fellow because she promised him first. I don’t suppose she knew what love was then.”
“Oh, I’m sure she didn’t,” exclaimed Dora earnestly.
“You can’t blame her, you know. And it’s absurd to—to—to—not to—well, to marry a fellow you don’t care for when you care for another fellow, you know!”
“Yes.”
“Of course you can hardly imagine yourself in that position, but suppose a man liked you and—and was placed like that, you know, what should you feel you ought to do?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” exclaimed Dora, clasping her hands. “Oh, do tell me what you think! I’d give the world to know!”
Charlie’s surprised glance warned her of her betrayal. “You mustn’t ask me.” she exclaimed hastily.
“I won’t ask a word. I—I’m awfully sorry, Miss Bellairs.”
“Nobody knows,” she murmured.
“Nobody shall through me.”
“You’re not very—? I’m very ashamed.”
“Why? And because of me! After what I’ve told you!”
Charlie rose suddenly.
“I’m not going to stand it,” he announced.
Dora looked up eagerly.
“What? You’re going to?”
“I’m going to have a shot at it. Am I to stand by and see her? I’m hanged if I do. Could that be right?”
“I should like to know what one’s duty is?”
“This talk with you has made me quite clear. We’ve reasoned it out, you see. They’re not to be married for two or three months. A lot can be done in that time.”
“Ah, you’re a man!”
“I shall write first. If that doesn’t do, I shall go to her.”
Dora shook her head mournfully.
“Now, look here, Miss Bellairs you don’t mind me advising you?”
“I ought not to have let you see, but as it is—”
“You do as I do, you stick to it. Confound it, you know, when one’s life’s happiness is at stake”
“Oh, yes, yes!”
“One mustn’t be squeamish, must one?”
And Dora Bellairs, in a very low whisper, answered, “No.”
“I shall write to-night.”
“Oh! To-night?”
“Yes. Now promise me you will too.”
“It’s harder for me than you.”
“Not if he really”
“Oh, indeed, he really does, Mr. Ellerton.”
“Then you’ll write?”
“Perhaps.”
“No. Promise!”
“Well—it must be right. Yes, I will.”
“I feel the better for our talk, Miss Bellairs, don’t you?”
“I do a little.”
“We shall be friends now, you know; even if I bring it off I shan’t be content unless you do too. Won’t you give me your good wishes?”
“Indeed I will.”
“Shake hands on it.”
They shook hands and began to stroll back to the tennis-courts.
“They look a little better,” observed Sir Roger Deane, who had been listening to an eloquent description of the gaming-tables.
Dora and Charlie walked on towards the hotel.
“Hi!” shouted Sir Roger. “Tea’s coming out here.”
“I’ve got a letter to write,” said Charlie.
“Well, Miss Bellairs, you must come. Who’s to pour it out?”
“I must catch the post, Sir Roger,” answered Dora.
They went into the house together. In the hall they parted.
“You’ll let me know what happens, Mr. Ellerton, won’t you? I’m so interested.”
“And you?”
“Oh—well, perhaps,” and the sallow of her cheeks had turned to a fine dusky red as she ran upstairs.
Thus it happened that a second letter for John Ashforth and a second letter for Mary Travers left Cannes that night.
And if it seems a curious coincidence that Dora and Charlie should meet at Cannes, it can only be answered that they were each of them just as likely to be at Cannes as anywhere else. Besides, who knows that these things are all coincidence?