C. N. Williamson & A. N. Williamson: 30+ Murder Mysteries & Adventure Novels (Illustrated). Charles Norris Williamson
very good English, with only a slight foreign accent: "You are charming to-day, but you do not see your friends. They must remind you of their existence before they can win a bow."
"I have just seen some one who was like a ghost out of the past," returned Joan, with a careless smile for the handsome, dark young man who had stopped to greet her.
"What!" his face lighted up. "You know that young lady you were looking at? That is indeed interesting, and I will tell you why, presently, if you will let me. If you would but introduce me--at all events, to the father. The rest I can do for myself."
"I don't know her," said Joan, "although an important issue of my life was associated with the girl. I can't even give you her name."
"I can do as much as that for you," said the Marchese Villa Fora. "She is a Miss Violet Ffrench, and the old man is her father, General Ffrench. Not only is she one of the greatest beauties, but one of the greatest heiresses in England."
"Ah!" said Joan, "no wonder you are interested."
"No wonder. But what good does that do to me, since I have not the honour of her acquaintance, and since she is to marry that great, bronze statue of a fellow?"
A pang shot through Joan's heart, and she was ashamed because it was a jealous pang. "She is to marry him! How do you know that, since you are not acquainted with her?"
"It is an open secret. I saw the father and daughter in Paris three weeks ago, and fell in love at first sight--ah! you may laugh. You Englishwomen cannot understand us Latins. It is true that I proposed to you, but you would not take me, and my heart was soon after caught in the rebound. It is very simple."
"You thought that you fell in love with me at first sight, too; at least, you said so, and without any introduction except picking up my purse when I dropped it in the Champs Élysées."
"I got an introduction afterwards."
"Yes, a lady who was staying at my hotel."
"At all events, she vouched for me. She has known my family for years, in Madrid."
"She warned me against you, Marchese. She said that you were a fortune-hunter, and that you fancied I was rich. When you had proposed, and I had told you frankly that my fortune was but silver-gilt, warranted to keep its colour for a few years only, you were very much obliged to me for refusing you, as it saved you the trouble of jilting me afterwards. You are still more obliged to me now that you have met a genuine heiress who has all other desirable qualifications as well."
"You are cruel," exclaimed Villa Fora, to whose style of good looks reproaches were becoming. "Cannot a man love twice? What does it matter to the heart whether there has been an interval of weeks or of years? I am madly in love with Miss Ffrench, and as you promised to be my friend if I would 'talk no more nonsense,' I have no hesitation in confessing it to you. I followed her here from Paris, and arrived only this afternoon. She is at the Hotel Victoria; therefore, so am I."
"So am I, but not 'therefore,'" cut in Joan. "And the--the man you say she is to marry?"
"Colonel Sir Justin Wentworth? He is at the Grand. But he has come for her. I know the whole story--I have it from a gossiping old lady who is au courant with every one's affairs if they are worth bothering with; and she does not make mistakes. She has told me that General Ffrench was the guardian of this Sir Justin, that the father--a baronet--was his dearest friend. The match has been an understood thing ever since Wentworth was eighteen and the girl five; for there is quite thirteen years' difference in their ages."
"Then he is about thirty-four or five," said Joan thoughtfully.
"Yes, but in that I am not interested. The awful part for me is that the girl is now of age, and the obstacle of her youth no longer prevents the marriage. Any day the worst may happen. If I could only meet her, I might have a chance to undermine the cold, bronze statue, even though he has a great reputation as a soldier, and is a V.C. But how to manage an introduction? The father has the air of a mediaeval dragon."
Joan's heart said: "The man is not a cold statue," but aloud she remarked: "I see now why you hoped that I knew Miss Ffrench. You wanted me to manage it. Well, perhaps I can, even as it is. I have undertaken more difficult things and succeeded."
"Oh, if you would! But why should I hope it, since you have nothing to gain?"
Joan dropped her eyes and did not answer.
"Yet you will try?" pleaded Villa Fora.
"Yet I will try, on one condition. You must be a connection of the late Comte de Merival."
"Your husband!"
Joan smiled as she nodded.
"I am Spanish; he was, I understand, French. But then that presents no difficulty. There are such things as international marriages."
"Yes. Your mother's sister married an uncle of my husband's, didn't she?"
"Quite so. It is settled," agreed the Marchese gravely.
"Well, then, that is the sharp end of the wedge. I will do my best and cleverest to insert it," said Joan. "As you have just arrived, it will be the easier. We are cousins. It can appear to all those whom it does not concern (meaning the gossips of the hotel) that you have run on to see your cousin. For the rest, you must trust me for a day or two, or perhaps more."
Joan had tea--with her cousin--at Miremont's; and they saw the Ffrenches and Sir Justin Wentworth, also having tea. Violet Ffrench looked at Joan with the same side-glance of half-grudging admiration as before, and Joan looked, now and then, at Violet Ffrench with a charming, frank gaze, which seemed to say: "You are so sweetly pretty that I can't keep my eyes off you, and I like you for being pretty." In reality it said something quite different, but it was effects, not realities, which mattered at the moment.
Thus the campaign had begun, though the enemy was blissfully ignorant of the activity upon the other side.
Joan went back to the hotel rather earlier than she had intended, and going straight to the large, empty dining-room, rang for the head waiter. When he appeared, she asked if it were yet arranged where a new arrival, General Ffrench, was to sit with his daughter. The waiter pointed out a small table or two, near the centre of the room; but before his hand withdrew from the gesture, it was turned palm upward in answer to a slight, silent hint from Joan. Finally, it retired with a louis in its clasp. "I want you to put my table close to theirs," said she. "It shall be done, madame," replied the man; and it was done. Therefore Joan and Violet could scarcely help exchanging more glances from between their red-shaded candles that night at dinner, which Joan ate alone, unaccompanied by the wistful Villa Fora.
The Ffrenches appeared to know nobody in the hotel, and of this she was glad. There was the more chance for her.
After dinner there was conjuring, and Joan contrived to sit next to Miss Ffrench. Villa Fora was on the opposite side of the big drawing-room, where he had reluctantly gone in obedience to his "cousin's" instructions. The conjuring made conversation, and Joan was not surprised to find the heiress open to flattery. When the performance was over, she kept her seat; and by this time, having introduced herself to Miss Ffrench, the introduction was passed on to the father. He, good man, was too well-born to be actually a snob, but he had no objection to titles, even foreign ones, and the Comtesse de Merival was so pretty, so modest, altogether such good form, that he had no objection to her as, at least, an hotel acquaintance for his daughter.
It seemed that General Ffrench had been ordered to Biarritz for his health, and that he hoped to do some golfing; but Miss Ffrench hated golf, and as she had no friends in the place, she expected to be very dull.
At this, Joan reminded her gaily of the friend with whom she and her father had been walking in the afternoon.
"Oh, but he is such an old friend, he doesn't count," exclaimed Violet, blushing a little.
"She isn't a bit in love with him," thought Joan. "What a shame! But--tant mieux. She is vain and romantic; often the two qualities go together in a woman. The ground is all prepared for me."
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