Part 58 (1/2)
Yes, safe from every one but herself. However, Monsieur Soucin could not be expected to read a lady's innermost thoughts. Indeed, it would scarcely have been gallant so to do.
”And now you wish to be rid of us,” said Monte as he rose.
”Monsieur should not be unkind,” sighed Soucin. ”It is a necessity and not a wish.”
”You have done as well as you could,” Monte rea.s.sured him. ”We shall probably rise early and be on our way before the soldiers, so--”
Monte slipped into his hand a gold-piece. It was too much from one point of view, and yet from another it was little enough. Soucin had unwittingly made an arrangement for which Monte could not pay in money.
”And my share?” inquired Marjory.
”One louis d'or,” answered Monte unblus.h.i.+ngly.
She fumbled in her bag and brought it out--the last she had. And Monte, in his reckless joy, handed that over also to Soucin. The man was too bewildered to do more than bow as he might before a prince and princess.
Monte led her up the incline through the heavy-leaved olive trees to her couch against the wall. It had been made up as neatly as in any hotel, with plenty of blankets and a pillow for her head.
”If you wish to retire at once,” he said, ”I'll go back to my side of the wall.”
She hesitated. The wall was man-high and so thick that once he was behind it she would feel terribly alone.
”Or better still,” he suggested, ”you lie down and let me sit and smoke here. I 'll be quiet.”
It was a temptation she would have resisted had she not been so tired physically. As it was, half numbed with fatigue, she removed her hat and lay down between the blankets.
Monte slipped on his sweater with the black ”H” and took a place against the wall at Marjory's feet.
”All comfy?” he asked.
”It's impossible to feel altogether comfortable when you're selfish,”
Marjory declared.
He took a thoughtful puff of his cigarette.
”I think you're right about that,” he answered. ”Only in this case there's no reason in the world for you to feel like that, because I'm comfortable too.”
”Honestly?”
”Cross my heart. I'd rather be here than in the finest bed in Paris.”
”You're so good,” she murmured.
With all her muscles relaxed, and with him there, she felt as if she were floating in the clouds.
”It's strange you've always had that notion, because I 'm not especially good,” he replied. ”Do you want to go to sleep, or may I talk a while longer?”
”Please to talk.”
”Of course,” he ran on meditatively, ”something depends upon what you mean by being good. I used to think it was merely being decent. I've been that. It happened to be easy. But being good, as I see it now, is being good when it isn't easy--and then something more.”