An elderly lady seated on the bench, who had loomed from behind a parasol towards the middle of these remarks, broke abruptly into speech.
'Who is this young man?'
George looked at her, startled. He had hardly been aware of her presence till now. Rapidly he diagnosed her as a mother—or aunt. She looked more like an aunt. Of course, it must seem odd to her, his charging in like this, a perfect stranger, and beginning to chat with her daughter, or niece, or whatever it was. He began to justify himself.
'I met your—this young lady'—something told him that was not the proper way to put it, but hang it, what else could he say?—'at the casino last night.'
He stopped. The effect of his words on the elderly lady was remarkable. Her face seemed to turn to stone and become all sharp points. She stared at the girl.
'So you were gambling at the casino last night?' she said.
She rose from the seat, a frozen statue of displeasure.
'I shall return to the hotel. When you have arranged your financial transactions with your—friend, I should like to speak to you. You will find me in my room.'
George looked after her dumbly.
The girl spoke, in a curiously strained voice, as if she were speaking to herself.
'I don't care,' she said. 'I'm glad.'
George was concerned.
'I'm afraid your mother is offended, Lady Julia.'
There was a puzzled look in her grey eyes as they met his. Then they lit up. She leaned back in the seat and began to laugh, softly at first, and then with a note that jarred on George. Whatever the humour of the situation—and he had not detected it at present—this mirth, he felt, was unnatural and excessive.
She checked herself at length, and a flush crept over her face.
'I don't know why I did that,' she said, abruptly. 'I'm sorry. There was nothing funny in what you said. But I'm not Lady Julia, and I have no mother. That was Lady Julia who has just gone, and I am nothing more important than her companion.'
'Her companion!'
'I had better say her late companion. It will soon be that. I had strict orders, you see, not to go near the casino without her—and I went.'
'Then—then I've lost you your job—I mean, your position! If it hadn't been for me she wouldn't have known. I—'
'You have done me a great service,' she said. 'You have cut the painter for me when I have been trying for months to muster up the courage to cut it for myself. I don't suppose you know what it is to get into a groove and long to get out of it and not have the pluck. My brother has been writing to me for a long time to join him in Canada. And I hadn't the courage, or the energy, or whatever it is that takes people out of grooves. I knew I was wasting my life, but I was fairly happy—at least, not unhappy; so—well, there it was. I suppose women are like that.'
'And now—?'
'And now you have jerked me out of the groove. I shall go out to Bob by the first boat.'
He scratched the concrete thoughtfully with his stick.
'It's a hard life out there,' he said.
'But it is a life.'
He looked at the strollers on the promenade. They seemed very far away—in another world.
'Look here,' he said, hoarsely, and stopped. 'May I sit down?' he asked, abruptly. 'I've got something to say, and I can't say it when I'm looking at you.'
He sat down, and fastened his gaze on a yacht that swayed at anchor against the cloudless sky.
'Look here,' he said. 'Will you marry me?'
He heard her turn quickly, and felt her eyes upon him. He went on doggedly.
'I know,' he said, 'we only met yesterday. You probably think I'm mad.'
'I don't think you're mad,' she said, quietly. 'I only think you're too quixotic. You're sorry for me and you are letting a kind impulse carry you away, as you did last night at the casino. It's like you.'
For the first time he turned towards her.
'I don't know what you suppose I am,' he said, 'but I'll tell you. I'm a clerk in an insurance office. I get a hundred a year and ten days' holiday. Did you take me for a millionaire? If I am, I'm only a tuppenny one. Somebody left me a thousand pounds a few weeks ago. That's how I come to be here. Now you know all about me. I don't know anything about you except that I shall never love anybody else. Marry me, and we'll go to Canada together. You say I've helped you out of your groove. Well, I've only one chance of getting out of mine, and that's through you. If you won't help me, I don't care if I get out of it or not. Will you pull me out?'
She did not speak. She sat looking out to sea, past the many-coloured crowd.
He watched her face, but her hat shaded her eyes and he could read nothing in it.
And then, suddenly, without quite knowing how it had got there, he found that her hand was in his, and he was clutching it as a drowning man clutches a rope.
He could see her eyes now, and there was a message in them that set his heart racing. A great content filled him. She was so companionable, such a friend. It seemed incredible to him that it was only yesterday that they had met for the first time.
'And now,' she said, 'would you mind telling me your name?'
The little waves murmured as they rolled lazily up the beach. Somewhere behind the trees in the gardens a band had begun to play. The breeze, blowing in from the blue Mediterranean, was charged with salt and happiness. And from a seat on the promenade, a young man swept the crowd with a defiant gaze.
'It isn't true,' it seemed to say. 'I'm not a jelly-fish.'
AHEAD OF SCHEDULE
It was to Wilson, his valet, with whom he frequently chatted in airy fashion before rising of a morning, that Rollo Finch first disclosed his great idea. Wilson was a man of silent habit, and men of silent habit rarely escaped Rollo's confidences.
'Wilson,' he said one morning from the recesses of his bed, as the valet entered with his shaving-water, 'have you ever been in love?'
'Yes, sir,' said the valet, unperturbed.
One would hardly have expected the answer to be in the affirmative. Like most valets and all chauffeurs, Wilson gave the impression of being above the softer emotions.
'What happened?' inquired Rollo.
'It came to nothing, sir,' said Wilson, beginning to strop the razor with no appearance of concern.
'Ah!' said Rollo. 'And I bet I know why. You didn't go the right way to work.'
'No, sir?'
'Not one fellow in a hundred does. I know. I've thought it out. I've been thinking the deuce of a lot about it lately. It's dashed tricky, this making love. Most fellows haven't a notion how to work it. No system. No system, Wilson, old scout.'
'No, sir?'
'Now, I have a system. And I'll tell it you. It may do you a bit of good next time you feel that impulse. You're not dead yet. Now, my system is simply to go to it gradually, by degrees. Work by schedule. See what I mean?'
'Not entirely, sir.'
'Well, I'll give you the details. First thing, you want to find the girl.'
'Just so, sir.'
'Well, when you've found her, what do you do? You just look at her. See what I mean?'
'Not entirely, sir.'
'Look at her, my boy. That's just the start—the foundation. You develop from that. But you keep away. That's the point. I've thought this thing out. Mind you, I don't claim absolutely all the credit for the idea myself. It's by way of being based on Christian Science. Absent treatment, and all that. But most of it's mine. All the fine work.'