High Noon | Page 4

nor more full of sparkling fire than her opalescent eyes.
Unseen by the preoccupied Paul, she leaned across the cloth, scarcely whiter than her pale face, and gazed at him with wonder--was it more than that? With a slight movement of her tapering hand she dismissed the liveried servant stationed behind her, and stayed on, with food and wine untouched. And Paul knew it not.
So near to us can lie the hidden path of our strange destinies until the appointed hour.
CHAPTER III
The next morning Paul breakfasted on the terrace. The gay greetings of old friends, the pleasant babble in the breakfast room ill suited his reflective mood.
And as he sat alone under the fragrant pergola enjoying his cigarette and dividing his attention between his coffee and the Paris Edition of the Herald, a pale, dark-haired lady passed by as she sought the terrace for an early stroll. Paul's eyes were on his paper at that moment--and if the lady's well-bred glance lingered on him for a brief instant as he turned the pages of the daily, he was all unconscious of her presence.
Perhaps the lady may have seen something about the strong, wholesome, well-groomed Englishman that pleased her, perhaps she was simply glad to be alive upon that glorious morning, with the bracing breeze blowing fresh from the lake, and the sun sending his welcome rays down upon the mountainside. At all events, her lips parted in the merest shadow of a smile as she walked along the gravelled path with the veriest air of a princess.
Alas! the smile and the dainty picture which the dark-haired lady made as she moved down the flower bordered path in the sunshine, her morning gown clinging gracefully about her slender figure, were alike lost on the engrossed Paul. With his eyes glued to the criticism of a sharpened writer on the last measure before Parliament, he read on, all oblivious to his surroundings. Even here, at his beloved Lucerne, the man of affairs could not escape the thrall of the life into which he had thrown the whole effort of his fine mind.
Sir Paul had not quite finished the breezy article when, with an all pervading blast of a sweet-toned, but unnecessarily loud Gabriel horn, a big green touring car came dashing up to the gate of the little hotel, and with a final roar and sputter, and agonized shriek of rudely applied brakes, came to a sudden stop. From it there emerged, like a monster crab crawling from a mossy shell, a huge form in a bright green coat--a heavy man with a fat, colourless face and puffy eyes, and Paul, glancing up at the ostentatious approach, recognized in him a nouveau riche whom a political friend had insisted on introducing in London a few days before.
Schwartzberger, his name was (Paul had a peculiar trick of remembering names)--the fellow was said to have made a fortune in old rags--no, it was tinned meats--in Chicago. It was his proud boast that he started in the business as a butcher's errand boy but a few years ago, and now, no supper bill at the Moulin Rouge, no evening's play at Monte Carlo, had ever made a material depletion in the supply of gold that always jingled in the pockets of his loud clothes. His was the fastest car and the gayest coloured on all the Continent, and he was alike the hero and the easy dupe of every servant.
As the stout American came waddling uncertainly up the walk, with a certain elephantine effort at jauntiness, he nearly collided with the foreign lady who had crossed his path to reach the further limits of the terrace. Not having a cautioning horn attached to his anatomy to warn heedless trespassers from his way, the large person was forced to give ground, but had some difficulty in veering from his course sufficiently to avoid an accident. However, the grande dame slipped past him quickly and disappeared amid the shrubbery--but not before her extraordinary beauty had dazzled the pork-packer's beady eyes.
He turned and stared at her.
"Gee! What a peach!" he murmured aloud, in words which came wheezing from between thick lips. "I wonder if that's the Countess's lady friend she spoke of."
Then, catching sight of Verdayne, and knowing him at once for the swell English guy he had met at the Savoy, he panted up and slapped Paul's shrinking back with his fat, white hand.
"Hullo, Verdayne! Just the man I'm looking for! I didn't know you were in this part of the world. Hurry up with your breakfast and join me and my friend, the Countess de Boistelle, in a spin around the lake. Perhaps you know her already. No? That's easy arranged--she's a particular friend of mine, and she's got a chum of her's staying here too, I