Charles Rex | Page 3

quay was one of whimsical discontent. He had come nearly a fortnight ago to be amused, but somehow the old pleasures had lost their relish and he was only bored.
"I'm getting old," he said to himself with a grimace of disgust.
But he was not old. He was barely six-and-thirty. He had had the world at his feet too long, that was all.
There was to be a water-side _f��te_ that night at Valrosa, and the promenade and bandstand were wreathed with flowers and fairy-lights. It was getting late in the season, and it would probably be the last. Saltash surveyed the preparations with very perfunctory interest as he sauntered up to the hotel next to the Casino where he proposed to dine.
A few people he knew were staying there, and he looked forward to a more or less social evening. At least he could count on a welcome and a rubber of bridge if he felt so inclined. Or there was the Casino itself if the gambling mood should take him. But he did not feel much like gambling. He wanted something new. None of the old stale amusements appealed to him tonight. He was feeling very ancient and rather dilapidated.
He went up the steps under the cypress-trees that led from terrace to terrace, pausing at each landing-place to look out over the wonderful sea that was changing every moment with the changing glow of the sunset. Yes, it was certainly a place for dreams. Even old Larpent felt the charm--Larpent who had fallen in love twenty years ago for the first and last time!
An irrepressible chuckle escaped him. Funny old Larpent! The wine of the gods had evidently been too strong a brew for him. It was obvious that he had no desire to repeat the dose.
At his last halting-place he stood longer to drink in the beauty of the evening before entering the hotel. The sea had the pearly tint shot with rose of the inside of an oyster-shell. The sky-line was receding, fading into an immense calm. The shadows were beginning to gather. The sun had dipped out of sight.
The tinkle of a lute rose from one of the hidden gardens below him. He stood and listened with sentimental eyes and quizzically twitching mouth. Everything in this wonder-world was ultra-sweet to-night. And yet--and yet--
Suddenly another sound broke through the stillness, and in a moment he had sprung to alertness. It was a cry--a sharp, wrung cry from the garden close to him, the garden of the hotel, and instantly following it a flood of angry speech in a man's voice and the sound of blows.
"Damnation!" said Saltash, and sprang for a narrow wooden door in the stone wall a few yards higher up.
It opened to his imperious hand, and he found himself in a dark little shrubbery behind an arbour that looked out to the sea. It was in this arbour that the scuffle was taking place, and in a second he had forced his way through the intervening shrubs and was at the entrance.
"Damnation!" he burst forth again furiously. "What are you doing? Leave that boy alone!"
A man in evening-dress was gripping a fair-haired lad, who wore the hotel-livery, by the back of his neck and raining merciless blows upon his uncovered head. He turned, sharply straightening himself, at Saltash's tempestuous entrance, and revealed to the newcomer the deeply-suffused countenance of the hotel-manager.
Their recognition was mutual. He flung the boy into a corner and faced his patron, breathing hard, his black eyes still fiercely gleaming.
"Ah! It is milord!" he said, in jerky English, and bowed punctiliously though he was still shaking with rage. "What can I do for you, milord?"
"What the devil is the matter?" said Saltash, sweeping aside all ceremony. "What are you hammering that unfortunate boy for? Can't you find a man your own size to hammer?"
The Italian flung a fierce glance over his shoulder at his crouching victim. "He is worthless!" he declared. "I give him a trial--bueno, but he is worthless. Milord will pardon me, he is--English. And the English are--no good for work--no good at all."
"Oh, rotten to the core!" agreed Saltash, with a humorous lift of the brows. "But you needn't murder him for that, Antonio. It's his misfortune--not his fault."
"Milord, I have not murdered him," the manager protested with nervous vehemence. "I have only punished him. I have not hurt him. I have done him good."
"Oh!" said Saltash, and looked down at the small, trembling figure in the corner. "It's medicine, is it? But a bit strong for a child of that size. I should try a milder dose next time."
Antonio laughed harshly. "The next time, milord, I shall take him--so--and wring his neck!" His laugh became a snarl as he turned. "Get up now, you--you son of a pig,