Mademoiselle of Monte Carlo | Page 4

has losses, it is true, but oh!--what she wins! I only wish I had ten per cent of it. I should then be rich. Mine is a poor game, madame--waiting for someone to buy my seat instead of standing the whole afternoon. You see, there is only one row of chairs all around. So if a smart woman wants to play, some man always buys her a chair--and that is how I live. Ah! madame, life is a great game here in the Principality."
Meanwhile young Hugh Henfrey, who had travelled from London to the Riviera and identified the mysterious mademoiselle, had passed with his friend, Walter Brock, through the atrium and out into the afternoon sunshine.
As they turned upon the broad gravelled terrace in front of the great white facade of the Casino amid the palms, the giant geraniums and mimosa, the sapphire Mediterranean stretched before them. Below, beyond the railway line which is the one blemish to the picturesque scene, out upon the point in the sea the constant pop-pop showed that the tir-aux-pigeons was in progress; while up and down the terrace, enjoying the quiet silence of the warm winter sunshine with the blue hills of the Italian coast to the left, strolled a gay, irresponsible crowd--the cosmopolitans of the world: politicians, financiers, merchants, princes, authors, and artists--the crowd which puts off its morals as easily as it discards its fur coats and its silk hats, and which lives only for gaiety and without thought of the morrow.
"Let's sit down," suggested Hugh wearily. "I'm sure that she's the same woman--absolutely certain!"
"You are quite confident you have made no mistake--eh?"
"Quite, my dear Walter. I'd know that woman among ten thousand. I only know that her surname is Ferad. Her Christian name I do not know."
"And you suspect that she knows the secret of your father's death?"
"I'm confident that she does," replied the good-looking young Englishman. "But it is a secret she will, I fear, never reveal, unless --unless I compel her."
"And how can you compel her?" asked the elder of the two men, whose dark hair was slightly tinged with grey. "It is difficult to compel a woman to do anything," he added.
"I mean to know the truth!" cried Hugh Henfrey fiercely, a look of determination in his eyes. "That woman knows the true story of my father's death, and I'll make her reveal it. By gad--I will! I mean it!"
"Don't be rash, Hugh," urged the other.
"Rash!" he cried. "It's true that when my father died so suddenly I had an amazing surprise. My father was a very curious man. I always thought him to be on the verge of bankruptcy and that the Manor and the land might be sold up any day. When old Charman, the solicitor, read the will, I found that my father had a quarter of a million lying at the bank, and that he had left it all to me--provided I married Louise!"
"Well, why not marry her?" queried Brock lazily. "You're always so mysterious, my dear Hugh."
"Why!--because I love Dorise Ranscomb. But Louise interests me, and I'm worried on her account because of that infernal fellow Charles Benton. Louise poses as his adopted daughter. Benton is a bachelor of forty-five, and, according to his story, he adopted Louise when she was a child and put her to school. Her parentage is a mystery. After leaving school she at first went to live with a Mrs. Sheldon, a young widow, in an expensive suite in Queen Anne's Mansions, Westminster. After that she has travelled about with friends and has, I believe, been abroad quite a lot. I've nothing against Louise, except--well, except for the strange uncanny influence which that man Benton has over her. I hate the fellow!"
"I see! And as you cannot yet reach Woodthorpe and your father's fortune, except by marrying Louise--which you don't intend to do--what are you going to do now?"
"First, I intend that this woman they call 'Mademoiselle of Monte Carlo,' the lucky woman who is a decoy of the Administration of the Bains de Mer, shall tell me the true circumstance of my father's death. If I know them--then my hand will be strengthened."
"Meanwhile you love Lady Ranscomb's daughter, you say?"
"Yes. I love Dorise with all my heart. She, of course, knows nothing of the conditions of the will."
There was a silence of some moments, interrupted only by the pop-pop of the pigeon-shots below.
Away across the white balustrade of the broad magnificent terrace the calm sapphire sea was deepening as the winter afternoon drew in. An engine whistled--that of the flower train which daily travels express from Cannes to Boulogne faster than the passenger train-deluxe, and bearing mimosa, carnations, and violets from the Cote d'Azur to Covent Garden, and to the florists' shops in England.
"You've never told me