The Car of Destiny | Page 4

going out with the Princesses, in
the King's motor.
There were other privileged friends as well; but the description of Lady
Monica Vale, though painted with a colourless brush, was
unmistakable.
Casually I inquired the name of the house where Lady Vale-Avon and
her daughter were staying, and having learned it, I made an excuse to
escape from the lady with the nose.
It was half-past ten o'clock, and a night flooded with moonlight. I
strolled out, smoking a cigarette, and in ten minutes stood before the
garden gate of the Villa Esmeralda.
There were lights in three or four of the windows, sparkling among
close-growing trees; and I had not finished my second cigarette, when a
carriage drove round the corner and stopped.
I moved into the background. A groom jumped down, unfastened the
gate, and having opened the brougham door, respectfully aided a
middle-aged lady to descend.
The moonlight showed me a clear, proud profile, and fired the
diamonds in a tiara which crowned a head of waved grey hair.

There were billows of violet satin and lace to keep off the ground; and
as the groom helped the wearer to adjust them under her chinchilla coat,
a girl sprang out of the carriage, her white figure and rippling hair of
daffodil gold in full moonlight.
I stood as a man might stand who sees a vision, hardly breathing. I
made no sound, yet she turned and saw me, sheltered as I was by the
dappled trunk of a tall plane-tree. It was as if I had called, and she had
answered.
I knew she remembered me, and that she did not misunderstand my
presence. There was no anger in her face, only surprise, and a light
which was hidden as she dropped her head, and passed on through the
gate.
I could have sung the song of the stars. She had not forgotten me since
the afternoon. The look in my eyes then, had arrested some thought of
hers, and set me apart in her mind from other men.
It was no stupid conceit which made me feel this, but a kind of exalted
conviction.
When the gate was shut, I took off my hat and looked at the lighted
windows. I could make her care. I said to myself, "We're meant for
each other. And if that's true, though all the mountains in the world
were piled up as barriers between us, I'd cross them."
That was a vow. And through the remaining hours of the night I tried to
plan how it would be best to begin its fulfilment.
Men who have gone through a campaign as close friends, have few
secrets from one another; and I had none from Dick Waring.
Nevertheless, I would now have kept one if it were possible; but it was
not. If I had not told him, he would have guessed, and then he might
have thought that he had the right to chaff me on losing my head.
It is only a happy lover who can bear to be chaffed, however, and a few
words were enough to show my tactful American where to set his feet

on the slippery path.
He too had seen the girl; therefore he could not be surprised at my state
of mind. But he regretted it, and urged that the best I could do was to
go away, before the thought of her had taken too deep a hold upon me.
"You see," he said, "you're in a hopeless position; and it's better to look
facts in the face. If you'd fallen in love with almost any other girl,
except Princess Ena herself, you might have hoped. But as it is, what
have you to look forward to? You oughtn't to have come to Biarritz. In
the circumstances, and with the King here, it was bravado. Friends of
his, enemies of yours, might even say it was bad taste, which is worse.
And then, having come, you proceed to follow the King's motor-car;
you fall head over ears in love with a girl in it, a friend of the
bride-elect, to whom your real name, if she's not heard it already, could
easily be made to seem anathema maranatha. But that's not all. You're
here under a name not your own. If you should by luck or ill-luck get a
chance to meet Lady Monica, you couldn't be introduced to her as
Christopher Trevenna; it would be a false pretence; still less could you
throw your real name in her face; for between the King of Spain as a
friend, and you as an acquaintance, the girl would be in an
uncomfortable position, to say the least. No, my dear fellow, you can't
meet this young lady; and the only thing for your peace