Part 11 (2/2)
He lifted his cap slightly, going on, and we entered the courtyard to find a cheerful party of nine or ten men and women seated about a couple of tables. Like the person we had just encountered, they all exhibited a picturesque elaboration of the costume permitted by their mode of travel; making effective groupings in their ample draperies of buff and green and white, with glimpses of a flushed and pretty face or two among the loosened veilings. Upon the tables were pots of tea, plates of sandwiches, Madame Brossard's three best silver dishes heaped with fruit, and some bottles of dry champagne from the cellars of Rheims. The partakers were making very merry, having with them (as is inevitable in all such parties, it seems) a fat young man inclined to humour, who was now upon his feet for the proposal of some prankish toast. He interrupted himself long enough to glance our way as we crossed the garden; and it struck me that several pairs of brighter eyes followed my young companion with interest. He was well worth it, perhaps all the more because he was so genuinely unconscious of it; and he ran up the gallery steps and disappeared into his own rooms without sending even a glance from the corner of his eye in return.
I went almost as quickly to my pavilion, and, without lighting my lamp, set about my preparations for dinner.
The party outside, breaking up presently, could be heard moving toward the archway with increased noise and laughter, inspired by some exquisite antic on the part of the fat young man, when a girl's voice (a very attractive voice) called, ”Oh, Cressie, aren't you coming?” and a man's replied, from near my veranda: ”Only stopping to light a cigar.”
A flutter of skirts and a patter of feet betokened that the girl came running back to join the smoker. ”Cressie,” I heard her say in an eager, lowered tone, ”who WAS he?”
”Who was who?”
”That DEVASTATING creature in white flannels!”
The man chuckled. ”Matinee sort of devastator--what? Monte Cristo hair, n.o.ble profile--”
”You'd better tell me,” she interrupted earnestly--”if you don't want me to ask the WAITER.”
”But I don't know him.”
”I saw you speak to him.”
”I thought it was a man I met three years ago out in San Francisco, but I was mistaken. There was a slight resemblance. This fellow might have been a rather decent younger brother of the man I knew. HE was the--”
My strong impression was that if the speaker had not been interrupted at this point he would have said something very unfavourable to the character of the man he had met in San Francisco; but there came a series of blasts from the automobile horns and loud calls from others of the party, who were evidently waiting for these two.
”Coming!” shouted the man.
”Wait!” said his companion hurriedly, ”Who was the other man, the older one with the painting things and SUCH a coat?”
”Never saw him before in my life.”
I caught a last word from the girl as the pair moved away.
”I'll come back here with a BAND to-morrow night, and serenade the beautiful one.
”Perhaps he'd drop me his card out of the window!”
The horns sounded again; there was a final chorus of laughter, suddenly ceasing to be heard as the cars swept away, and Les Trois Pigeons was left to its accustomed quiet.
”Monsieur is served,” said Amedee, looking in at my door, five minutes later.
”You have pa.s.sed a great hour just now, Amedee.”
”It was like the old days, truly!”
”They are off for Trouville, I suppose.”
”No, monsieur, they are on their way to visit the chateau, and stopped here only because the run from Paris had made the tires too hot.”
”To visit Quesnay, you mean?”
<script>