At the Villa Rose | Page 3

slipped round the table, and, forcing his
way through the crowd, carried a message to the girl in the black hat.
She looked towards Wethermill and smiled; and the smile made her
face a miracle of tenderness. Then she disappeared, and in a few
moments Ricardo saw a way open in the throng behind the banker, and
she appeared again only a yard or two away, just behind Wethermill.
He turned, and taking her hand into his, shook it chidingly.
"I couldn't let you play against me, Celia," he said, in English; "my
luck's too good tonight. So you shall be my partner instead. I'll put in
the capital and we'll share the winnings."
The girl's face flushed rosily. Her hand still lay clasped in his. She
made no effort to withdraw it.
"I couldn't do that," she exclaimed.
"Why not?" said he. "See!" and loosening her fingers he took from
them the five-louis note and tossed it over to the croupier to be added to
his bank. "Now you can't help yourself. We're partners."
The girl laughed, and the company at the table smiled, half in sympathy,
half with amusement. A chair was brought for her, and she sat down
behind Wethermill, her lips parted, her face joyous with excitement.
But all at once Wethermill's luck deserted him. He renewed his bank
three times, and had lost the greater part of his winnings when he had
dealt the cards through. He took a fourth bank, and rose from that, too,
a loser.
"That's enough, Celia," he said. "Let us go out into the garden; it will
be cooler there,"
"I have taken your good luck away," said the girl remorsefully.
Wethermill put his arm through hers.
"You'll have to take yourself away before you can do that," he

answered, and the couple walked together out of Ricardo's hearing.
Ricardo was left to wonder about Celia. She was just one of those
problems which made Aix-les-Bains so unfailingly attractive to him.
She dwelt in some street of Bohemia; so much was clear. The frankness
of her pleasure, of her excitement, and even of her distress proved it.
She passed from one to the other while you could deal a pack of cards.
She was at no pains to wear a mask. Moreover, she was a young girl of
nineteen or twenty, running about those rooms alone, as unembarrassed
as if she had been at home. There was the free use, too, of Christian
names. Certainly she dwelt in Bohemia. But it seemed to Ricardo that
she could pass in any company and yet not be overpassed. She would
look a little more picturesque than most girls of her age, and she was
certainly a good deal more soignee than many, and she had the
Frenchwoman's knack of putting on her clothes. But those would be all
the differences, leaving out the frankness. Ricardo wondered in what
street of Bohemia she dwelt. He wondered still more when he saw her
again half an hour afterwards at the entrance to the Villa des Fleurs.
She came down the long hall with Harry Wethermill at her side. The
couple were walking slowly, and talking as they walked with so
complete an absorption in each other that they were unaware of their
surroundings. At the bottom of the steps a stout woman of fifty-five
over-jewelled, and over-dressed and raddled with paint, watched their
approach with a smile of good-humoured amusement. When they came
near enough to hear she said in French:
"Well, Celie, are you ready to go home?"
The girl looked up with a start.
"Of course, madame," she said, with a certain submissiveness which
surprised Ricardo. "I hope I have not kept you waiting."
She ran to the cloak-room, and came back again with her cloak.
"Good-bye, Harry," she said, dwelling upon his name and looking out
upon him with soft and smiling eyes.

"I shall see you tomorrow evening," he said, holding her hand. Again
she let it stay within his keeping, but she frowned, and a sudden gravity
settled like a cloud upon her face. She turned to the elder woman with a
sort of appeal.
"No, I do not think we shall be here, tomorrow, shall we, madame?"
she said reluctantly.
"Of course not," said madame briskly. "You have not forgotten what
we have planned? No, we shall not be here tomorrow; but the night
after--yes."
Celia turned back again to Wethermill.
"Yes, we have plans for tomorrow," she said, with a very wistful note
of regret in her voice; and seeing that madame was already at the door,
she bent forward and said timidly, "But the night after I shall want
you."
"I shall thank you for wanting me," Wethermill rejoined; and the girl
tore her hand away and ran