Confessions of a Young Lady Part 30

She looked radiant. Unlike the average woman, who finds the ordeal of emerging from the sea a trying one, the sea had but enhanced her charms. They were quite a family party. M. de Fontanes even unbent so far as to express a hope that the two Englishmen would dine with them that same evening. They were but in a temporary apartment; he could not promise them much, but they should have something to eat. Mr Davison accepted with effusion. Mr Lintorn, a little to his friend's surprise, after what had pa.s.sed between them, accepted too.

Mr Davison spent the rest of the day in looking forward to his dinner.

It was to be at seven. As a matter of course, he was dressed at six.

Yet, owing to Mr Lintorn, it was half-past seven before they reached the Rue des Anges. Mr Davison was perspiring with rage. Mdlle. de Fontanes received them. Her father was standing, looking black, behind. Mr Lintorn was the first to enter the room.

"I pray your pardon, but Mr Davison has not yet reached an age at which punctuality at dinner is esteemed a virtue."

The thing was gratuitous.

"I a.s.sure you, Mdlle. de Fontanes--" burst out Mr Davison.

The young lady cut him short.

"I forgive you," she said. "It is so nice to be young."

During dinner Mr Davison scarcely spoke a word. His feelings were too strong for speech--at least, at such a gathering. The young lady, observing his silence, commented on it in what seemed almost a spirit of gratuitous malice.

"I am afraid, Mr Davison, we do not please you."

"Mdlle. de Fontanes!"

"Or perhaps you are not so eloquent as Mr Lintorn--ever?"

"No, never."

Mdlle. de Fontanes spoke so hesitatingly, and in such low tones, that only Mr Davison caught the words she uttered next.

"Perhaps--there is a certain manner--which--only comes with age."

"You seem to think that I am nothing but a boy. I will prove to you that at least in some things I am a man."

She looked up at him and smiled. His cheeks were flushed, his eyes were bright. To make up, perhaps, for his lack of conversation, he had been drinking all the time. When they re-entered the _salon_ the card-table was arranged for play. Mr Davison went up to it at once.

"M. de Fontanes, I hope for my revenge."

Mdlle. de Fontanes went to his side and whispered him,--

"I asked you!"

"But I had promised. Besides, I wish to show you that _ecarte_ is one of the things in which you underrate my age."

M. de Fontanes sat down. There was a curious look upon his face.

"Mr Lintorn, you and I are old antagonists. Who was it used to win?"

"Invariably you."

"Ah, then it is your turn now!"

"Perhaps."

They played gallery. In spite of his prediction, fortune, as a rule, was with their host. The stakes were trifling, his losses small, yet it was curious to see the irritation with which Mr Lintorn saw his francs forsake him. He was playing with M. de Fontanes. The old gentleman scored the king. Suddenly Mr Lintorn, throwing his cards on the table, rose to his feet.

"It is enough!" he said.

His opponent looked up in not unnatural surprise.

"How?"

"You have won, and you will win certainly." He turned to the lady.

"Mdlle. de Fontanes, you must excuse me. I have letters to write."

Without another word he left the room. A pause of blank amazement followed his disappearance. M. de Fontanes sat like a figure carved in stone.

"Is Mr Lintorn ill?" his daughter asked.

Mr Davison took upon himself to answer.

"He must be, or else mad. I believe he always is half-mad. But never mind! I'm glad he's gone. Now, M. de Fontanes, you have to reckon with me. For revenge! Your daughter doubts if I can play _ecarte_. I will show her that her doubts are vain."

He drank two gla.s.ses of Maraschino, one after the other, emptying each at a draught. Placing the liqueur case beside him on the table, he sat down again to play. And they played on, and on, and on, hour after hour. Mr Davison continually lost. Fortune never varied; it was against him all the time. As his losses increased, he insisted on increasing the stakes. At last they were playing for really considerable sums.

"Fortune must turn!" he cried. "I never saw such cards in all my life!

And, when it turns, I want to have a chance, you know."

So he persisted in raising the stakes still higher. And he drank! He emptied the flask of Maraschino, and began upon the k.u.mmel, and would have emptied that if his host's daughter had not, probably in a moment of abstraction, removed the case of liqueurs from the table. He was in the highest spirits, and lost as though losing were a pleasure. And mademoiselle leant over his shoulder and whispered in his ear.

But at last her father declared that play must cease.

"You have had bad fortune," he observed.

"Extraordinary!" exclaimed Mr Davison; his utterance was a little thick. "Extraordinary! Never had such bad fortune in my life before.

It isn't fair to judge of a man's form from the play tonight? What do I owe you? A heap, I know."

"A trifle," M. de Fontanes looked through his tablets. "Three thousand seven hundred and fifty francs."

"Three thousand seven hundred and fifty francs! Why, that's a--that's a hundred and fifty pounds! Great snakes!"

The magnitude of the sum almost sobered him. M. de Fontanes smiled.

"You must try again for your revenge."

As before, the lady escorted the guest downstairs, "a.s.sisted" him would, on the present occasion, perhaps, have been the better word.

The touch of her hand at parting increased his sense of intoxication.

The cool air of the early morning did not tend to lessen it. He went staggering over the cobblestones. On the quay he encountered a solitary figure--the figure of a man who was strolling up and down and smoking a cigar. Mr Davison, with a burst of tipsy surprise, perceived that it was Mr Lintorn.

"Lintorn! I thought you were writing your letters."

Mr Lintorn quietly surveyed him.