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FROM JACK WINSTON TO LORD LANE

Grand Hotel, Toulon,

December 19.

My good Montie,

It is getting on towards eleven o'clock at night, and as Payne has treated us to a smashup and I have walked some miles carrying I don't know how many pounds of luggage, you might think that I would be more inclined for bed than letter-writing. But, on the contrary, I have no desire for sleep. A change has come o'er my spirit. I am happy. I have dined alone with my Goddess. I almost took your advice and the opportunity to make a clean breast of things, but not quite. Presently I will tell you why, and ask if you don't think I was right in the circumstances.

The said circumstances I owe indirectly to Payne-also a lump on the back of my head; but that is a detail. I am in too blissful a frame of mind to-night to dwell on it or any other detail belonging to the accident, though maybe I'll give you the history of the affair in a future letter. Suffice it to say, before getting on to pleasanter things, that the car reposes in a lonesome meadow below a steep embankment about a dozen miles away, where it is perfectly safe till I can get back to its succour early to-morrow; Aunt Mary and Jimmy Sherlock are enjoying each other's society at a country inn rather nearer; Miss Randolph and I are here. She came on because she had to have a sprained wrist treated by a competent doctor; I came to buy new parts for the car; naturally we joined forces. The others were to have a carriage sent back to them from Toulon, but Aunt Mary funked the long drive on account of a furious storm. Miss Randolph could get no private sitting-room, and as, with a disabled wrist, she didn't care to face the ordeal of a salle à manger alone, she suggested that I should attend her at dinner. Not as a servant, mind, but "for this occasion only" as an equal.

For an instant I was doubtful, for her sake; but to have put a thought of impropriety into her sweet mind would have been coarse. Besides, the request from mistress to man was equivalent to a royal command. I hope, however, that had there been any fear of unfortunate consequences to her, I should have been strong enough to resist temptation.

I told her that, if she thought it best to condescend to my companionship, I should be highly honoured. And I added that I had with me a decent suit of black. We then parted; I went to find a doctor for Miss Randolph, and to see about a carriage to go back for the others to the village of Le Beausset. It also occurred to me that it would be nice to have a few flowers with which to deck the table for the happiest dinner of my life. The shops were not yet all closed, and at one not far from the hotel I selected some exquisite La France roses and a dozen sprays of forced white lilac, which I had once heard Miss Randolph say was among her favourite flowers. When I came to pay the bill, however-three francs a spray for the lilac, and a franc for each of the twelve roses-there were only a few coppers in my pocket. I remembered then that I had spent my last franc in Marseilles, without attaching any importance to the matter, as I'd wired for remittances to arrive at Cannes, and my "screw" due to-night would see me through till then. Now the situation was a bit awkward. I wanted to take the flowers with me and give them to the head waiter to place on the table where Miss Randolph and I would dine. I could not have them sent over and ask the hotel people to settle, because then they would appear on her bill to-morrow morning, as now she would certainly not pay my wages this evening. I couldn't bear to give up the bouquet; besides, I would need more ready money to-night. I had visions of ordering first-rate wine, and letting the Goddess suppose it was vin compris with the table d'hôte dinner. I therefore confessed my pennilessness to the shopman, and asked if I should be likely to find a mont-de-piété still open. He replied that the pawnshops did their busiest trade in the evening about this time, told me where I could find the best, and agreed to keep the flowers until my return.

The one thing of value I had with me was my monogrammed gold repeater, which my father gave me when I went up to Oxford, and I didn't much like parting with it, especially as I can't get it back to-morrow, but will have to send back the ticket for it from Cannes, when I'm in funds. However, I had no choice, so I put my poor turnip up the spout, and got a tenner for it. With this in French money I retraced my steps to the florist's, and bore off my fragrant spoils in triumph to the hotel. Hardly had I given the flowers to the head waiter, ordered an extra dish or two on the menu and a bottle of Mumm to be iced, when a pencilled note from Miss Randolph was handed to me. It contained a wire from Aunt Mary, saying that she and Jimmy would not leave their present quarters, on account of the storm. I sent word to have the carriage stopped, and luckily for the driver the message was just in time. Then it struck me that in the circumstances I had better put up at another hotel for the night. I made all arrangements, had my bag taken over to a little commercial sort of house near by, and left myself just twenty minutes to bathe and change. Gladstone could do it in five, I've been told. But it was all I could manage in fifteen, for I had decided to do myself well, not to shame my dinner-companion.

Thanks to my little trick of going to a different hotel from the party when we are stopping anywhere longer than one night, I can always indulge in civilised garb of an evening therefore in the dressing-case, which is my little all on the car, I carry something decent. Our mutual tailor, Montie, is not to be despised; and when I'd got into my pumps and all my things, I don't think there was much amiss.

I arrived at our rendezvous-the hall of the hotel-just one minute before the appointed time; and five minutes later I saw Her coming downstairs.

I have sometimes caught a glimpse of her in the evenings, dressed for dinner at good hotels, and her frocks are like herself, always the most perfect. To-night she had no luggage except a bag I had carried, nevertheless she had somehow achieved a costume in which she was a vision. Perhaps if I were a woman I should have seen that she had on her day-skirt, with an evening bodice, but being merely a man over his ears in love, I can only tell you that the effect was dazzling. In admiration of her I forgot my own transformation until I saw her pretty eyebrows go up with surprise.

I felt my heart thump behind my rather jolly white waistcoat. On the second step from the bottom she stopped and exclaimed, "Why, Brown, how nice you look! You're exactly like a-" There she stopped, getting deliciously pink, as if she'd been a naughty child pinched by a "grown-up" in the midst of a malapropos remark. I could fill up the blank for myself, and was highly complimented by her opinion that I was "exactly like a gentleman." I explained that the clothes were Mr. Winston's, and had been donned with a highly laudable motive. It was evident that she approved both cause and effect; and we went in to dinner together.

I can't describe to you, my boy, the pure delight of that moment; the pride I felt in her beauty, the new and intoxicating sense of possession born of the tête-à-tête But if you could have seen the lovely shadow her eyelashes made on her cheeks as she sat there opposite to me at our daintily appointed little table, you might partly understand.

Fortunately there was a small bunch of flowers on each table, so that ours was not conspicuous, save in superiority. She admired it, took out a spray of lilac and tucked it into the neck of her dress, the stem lying close against her white satin skin. Then, as she ate the hors d'œuvres, she sat silent and apparently thoughtful. It was not until we had begun with the soup that she spoke again.

"I do hope you won't think me rude or inquisitive, Brown," was her curiosity-provoking preface. "I don't mean to be either. But, you know, you interest me a good deal. In America we haven't precisely a middle class. It's all top and bottom with us, just like a tart with the inside forgotten. There, one wouldn't-wouldn't be apt to meet anyone quite like you. I-oh, I don't know how to put it. I'm afraid I began to say something that I can't finish. But-let me see, what shall I say? Isn't it a pity that with your intelligence and-and manners, and all you've learned, you can't get a position which would-would give you-er-better opportunities?"

At the moment I thought that no position could give me a better opportunity than I had; in fact, as I began to tell you in the first few lines of this letter, I was inclined to believe it sent by Providence as an unexpected way out of my difficulties. Here we were together in no danger of being disturbed by outsiders (one doesn't count a waiter); here was she in a benignant mood, interested in me, and inclined to kindness. In another second I would have blurted out the whole truth, when a voice seemed to say inside of me, "No, she is alone in this hotel to-night with you. She is, in a way, at your mercy. You will be doing an unchivalrous thing if, when she is practically deserted by her people and thrown upon your protection, you proclaim yourself a lover in place of a servant." That voice was right. Even you can't say it wasn't.

I swallowed my confession with a spoonful of soup, and nearly choked over the combination.

"The fact is," I said desperately yet cautiously, "since you are kind enough to take an interest, that I-er-am not exactly what I seem to-day. My parents were gentlefolk, in a humble way." (I didn't go beyond the truth there, did I? And as for the "humble way," why, everything goes by comparison, from a king down to a mere viscount.) "They gave me an education" (they did, bless them!), "but owing to-er-strong pressure of circumstances" (the effect of Her beauty, seen in a Paris garage) "I decided to make use of my mechanical knowledge in the way I am doing at present."

"I suppose," commented my Goddess, with the sweetest sympathy, "that you had lost your money."

"Well," I said, thinking of my late penniless condition and my watch at the pawnshop, "I have a great deal less money now than I was brought up to expect."

"That is very sad," she sighed.

"And yet," I remarked, "it has its compensations. I consider my place with you a very good one."

"It can't be better than many others you have had," said she.

"In some ways it is much the best I have ever enjoyed," I responded.

"At all events, it isn't half as good as you deserve," the Angel cried warmly. "I should like to see you in one far more desirable."

"Thank you," said I meekly "So should I, of course, though I should wish it still to be in your service."

"If that could be," she murmured, with a slight blush and a flattering air of regret. "I don't quite see how it could. But if you wouldn't mind going to America, perhaps my father might help you to something really worth while."

"Nothing could be better for me than to have his help in obtaining what I want," said I boldly, knowing she wouldn't suspect the double meaning. "You are very good. I can't thank you enough."

"Wait till I have done something to be thanked for," said she. "I will write to my father. But even if anything comes of it, it can't be for some time. Meanwhile, I suppose you will be taking Mr. Winston's car back to England, when we part at Cannes."

"Part at Cannes!" The words were a knell "You aren't thinking, then, of going further for a trip into Italy?" I ventured.

"No, I haven't thought of it," she said.

"It does seem a pity, with Italy next door, so to speak," said I. "Unless, of course, you're tired of motoring and would like to settle down and have some gaiety."

"I'm not tired of motoring," she exclaimed, "and I'm not pining for gaiety. I think this sort of free, open-air life, with big horizons round one, spoils one for dancing and dressing and flir-and all that. I should love just to have a glimpse of the Riviera, and then go on. But I hadn't thought of it, and I'm not sure if it could be managed. I'd have to reflect upon the idea a little, and cable my father to see if he were willing. Not that there'd be much trouble about that. He trusts me, and almost always lets me do what I like. But supposing-just supposing I changed my plans-would Mr. Winston be willing to let me keep his car longer?"

"As much longer as you choose," said I eagerly. "He doesn't want it in England till next summer. I'm certain of that."

"Well, then, I must think it over," she answered. "Oh, it would be glorious! Yet-I don't know. Anyway, we must take Lady Brighthelmston, Mr. Winston's mother, a drive on her son's car when we get to Cannes. She is staying there."

"Oh, is she?" I said aloud. And inwardly I prayed that I might see the lady in question in private before that invitation was given. But perhaps she will have flitted. I wonder?

Well, I have given you the principal points of our conversation enough to show you why I am happy to-night. But if you could have seen me cutting up the Goddess's filet mignon! I could have shed tears of joy on it.

Now I must be off to my own hotel, and to-morrow I shall be up with the dawn in search of a mechanic and new parts for the car.

Good-bye, old man. Wish me luck.

Yours ever,

Jack Winston.

MOLLY RANDOLPH TO HER FATHER

Hotel Angst, Bordighera,

December 25.

Merry Christmas, my dear Santa Klaus, merry Christmas! This morning I sent you a long cable, expressing my sentiments. It does seem strange to think that by this time you have it. A thousand thousand thanks for your letter and the enclosure at Cannes. You are the dearest Dad!

Our first Christmas apart! and may it be the last. Christmas isn't Christmas without you and a stocking to hang up, and I'm awfully homesick. Still, if one can't be spirited away home on a magic carpet, this is the sweetest place to spend Christmas in you can imagine.

Speaking of magic carpets recalls the Arabian Nights, and gives me a simile. For a whole week I've been realising what Aladdin must have felt when the Genie took him into the wonderful Cave of Jewels. Oh, the Riviera! But you know it, dear. You spent your honeymoon with the beautiful little mother whom I never knew in the Riviera and in Italy. That is one reason why I want to see Italy-why I sent that question to you by cable the other day. Your one journey abroad, dear, dear old Dad! I can guess now why you have never been keen to come again, though you have always pretended you preferred Wall Street to all Europe. Now I am seeing these fairy-like places I know how you have wished to keep the memory unspoiled; for they would never, never be the same if you saw them for the second time, even with me, though you do love me dearly, don't you? It's first times that are so thrilling; and I'm having my first times now, though they're different from yours. I don't suppose I shall ever have such a love in my life as you had, or if I do, it will be sad and broken. Either the man I could care for would be divided from me by an impassable barrier, or something else horrid will happen. I feel that. I shall never write like this again, but I can't help it to-night. There! I won't go on about your past and my future any more; but just about the "winged present." And, oh, its wings are of rainbows!

Elderly people I've talked to at hotels during the last few days tell me the "Riviera is being ruined." You would say so too perhaps; but it seems heaven to me, from Hyères to Bordighera-as far as we've gone. Just here I must stop and thank you for your answer to my cable and saying "Italy by all means." If it hadn't been for that, we shouldn't be here.

I thought that we couldn't see anything more beautiful than on the other side of Marseilles; but the Riviera is a thing apart. I'm gratefully glad to have come into such an enchanted land of sunshine and flowers on an automobile instead of a stuffy train. There's nothing in the world to equal travelling on a motor-car. You can go fast or slow; you can stop where you like and as long as you like; with a little luggage on your car you're as independent as a bird; and like a bird you float through the open air, with no thought for time-tables. When will the poet come who will sing the song of the motor-car? Maeterlinck has sung it in prose, but the song was too short.

Of course, after that horrid affair the other side of Toulon I couldn't let Jimmy drive any more. He realised that I distrusted him and rather sulkily resigned the wheel, blaming the car for the accident and declaring that it could not have happened to his Panhard, which, of course, is silly. So Brown took the helm again, and Jimmy sat in the tonneau with Aunt Mary, where they whispered and chuckled a good deal together, appearing to have a real live mystery up their sleeves, which I suppose had something to do with the promised surprise at Cannes.

It was quite late in the day before the steering-gear was mended and we could take the road again, and then we all thought it a pity to run through the dark to Cannes, so we decided to stay a second night in Toulon, at the same hotel where I had dinner with Brown; he, poor fellow, being this time banished to some invisible lower region, or another hotel, for Aunt Mary and Jimmy would have had fits if I had proposed that he should make a fourth at our table. I thought the people of the hotel and the head waiter looked curiously at me; for one night they saw me dine with a gentleman who the next night drives to the door as my chauffeur (I assure you, Dad, it's no stretch of language to speak of Brown as a "gentleman," and you really must get him a gentleman's berth, even if it's way off in Klondyke).

Early next morning we started for what proved to be the most beautiful drive we have yet had, as warm as summer, and sparkling with sunshine. We bowled along at a gentle pace through a fairyland of flowers and rivers, with billowy blue mountains rising into the sky, and showing here and there a distant ethereal peak of snow. Very soon we passed through Hyères, which Brown called the gate of the Riviera, and I should have liked to turn aside for a peep at Costebelle, which Brown thinks one of the loveliest places of all. But Aunt Mary and Jimmy both opposed me, saying that we ought to get on as soon as possible to Cannes-"to Cannes" was their constant cry.

Beyond Hyères the road became more and more superb. We were travelling now along the mountains of the Moors, gliding through groves of oak and woods of shimmering grey-green olives, with glimpses of the glittering sea on our right hand. Presently the way dipped to the verge of the sea as far as Fréjus, from which place it rose again to wind up and up into the heart of the Esterels. Though we mounted many hundreds of feet, the road was so well engineered that gradients were not very trying. Our agreeable Napier, at any rate, made nothing of them, but simply flew up at twelve or fourteen miles an hour. And the descent on the other side! My heart comes into my mouth when I think of it. "It's quite safe," said Brown; but it looked the most breakneck thing in the world, and my very toes seemed to curl up, not with fear, but with a kind of awful joy. I think when a bird takes its great swoops through the air it must feel like we felt that day. The car bounded down the long lengths of looped road, slowed up a little at the turns (where we all had to throw our bodies sideways, like sailors hanging over the gunwale of a racing yacht), bounded forward again so that the wind rushed by our ears like a hurricane, slowed up once more, and so by a series of these magnificent bird-like swoops reached the level ground. It was a fine piece of driving on Brown's part, needing nerve, judgment, and a perfect knowledge of the capabilities of his car. I had scarcely recovered from the tingling joy of this wild mountain descent when we were in Cannes, driving up an avenue to our hotel.

It was a charming house, and I fell in love with Cannes at first sight; but would you believe it? Jimmy's wonderful surprise never came off at all! – and he wouldn't even tell me what it was. Aunt Mary wanted to; but he got quite red, and said, "No, Miss Kedison, it may make me a great deal of trouble if you say anything-at present. The whole position is changed." I think mysteries are silly.

By the way, you remember my telling you about the nice Lady Brighthelmston I met in Paris, on her way to the Riviera-the mother of the Honourable John who owns our Napier? She was going to stay at this very hotel, and I thought it would be rather nice to see her again. I meant to ask, when we arrived at the hotel, if she were there; but to my surprise Aunt Mary remembered to do it before I did, and she and Jimmy both seemed eager to find out. We had hardly got into the big, beautiful hall, when they began to ply the manager with questions, and Jimmy looked quite crestfallen when he was told that she had just gone on to Rome. He is rather fond of what he calls "swells," but I hadn't fancied from what he said before that he knew Lady Brighthelmston very well, or cared particularly about meeting her.

"Most annoying!" he exclaimed crossly, glaring at the manager as if it were his fault. "And has the Honourable John Winston, her son, been here also?"

"No," said the manager. "Lady Brighthelmston was with friends, an old gentleman and his daughter. But I understood that her ladyship's son was expected and that she was disappointed he did not arrive before she and her party went away. Lady Brighthelmston left a letter for Mr. Winston," and he pointed to a letter in the rack close by the office addressed in a large handwriting to the Honourable John Winston.

I was quite frightened when I heard that the owner of my car was expected to arrive in Cannes, for Brown was so certain that he was in England; yet here he might walk in at any moment to say that he'd changed his mind and wanted back his Napier. Just as I was thinking of going on to Italy in it, too! Why, the very thought that maybe I should have to lose the car made me long to keep it all the more.

I was gazing reproachfully at the letter and wondering if we hadn't better hurry away from Cannes before the H. J. turned up, when I saw Aunt Mary lay her hand on Jimmy's arm in a warning kind of way, as if she wanted to keep him from saying something he had begun to say. At that moment I found that Brown was at my elbow, though whether Aunt Mary's warning to Jimmy had anything to do with him or not I don't know. I don't see why it should, but she did look rather funny. Brown had come in to bring me my dear little gold-netted purse with my monogram in rubies and diamonds that you gave me just before I started. I'd dropped it off my lap when I got out of the car, so you see I'm as bad about that as ever. I thanked Brown, and then drawing him aside a little, I told him about Mr. Winston and what I was afraid of. He was as sure as ever that his old master wouldn't turn up to spoil sport, though I pointed out the letter; and it's a funny thing that the Hon. J.'s ex-chauffeur should be kept more in touch with his movements than his own mother. However, that's not my business.

That afternoon Aunt Mary, Jimmy, and I had a lovely walk in Cannes by the sea. We had tea at a fascinating confectioner's called Rumpelmayer, and a long time afterwards dined at a perfect dream of a little restaurant built out into the sea-the Restaurant de la Réserve, something like the one in Marseilles. I wonder if they were here in your day, Dad? There are pens in the water built up with walls, and lobsters and other creatures are swimming unsuspectingly about in them. You select your own fish, and in a few minutes the poor thing, so happy a little while ago, is on the table exquisitely cooked with its own appropriate sauce. It seems sad. Still, one does give them honourable burial, and they couldn't expect to live for ever. I let Jimmy choose mine, though, and while he and Aunt Mary discussed the langouste I leaned on the railing looking out over the bay. You will remember that scene-all the twinkling lights of the town, and the tumbled mass of the Esterel mountains, sombre and strange, across the sea.

At dinner I began to hint to Aunt Mary about going on to Italy, but I was rather sorry I'd said anything, for Jimmy caught me up like a flash, and exclaimed that if we did make up our minds to such a trip, he would like to keep us company on his Panhard, which he should no doubt find waiting for him at Nice. Aunt Mary asked if we should be likely to meet Lord Lane, as she had heard Jimmy talk so often of his friend Montie that she quite longed to know him. She loves a lord, poor Aunt Mary, and her face fell several inches when Jimmy answered that Montie was a very retiring chap, shy with ladies, and might make a point of keeping out of the way. When we got home to the hotel I had such a start. The Honourable John's letter was gone out of the rack. I made sure that all would now be over between the Napier and me, unless I could get so far away with it that he'd sooner hire another than follow up his; and anyway, if we disappeared he wouldn't know where to find us. I suppose that was very bad and sly of me, wasn't it? I sent word to Brown that we'd start at nine o'clock next morning; and wasn't it a joke on me, after we'd been on the road for a while I told him what had happened, and it turned out that he'd taken the letter to re-address to his master?

Just before we started Jimmy said he'd had a wire from Lord Lane that his car was waiting for him at the garage in the Boulevard Gambetta at Nice, and we went there after our splendid drive from Cannes, as Brown knew about the place, and thought it would be convenient to leave our Napier there.

We sent our luggage by cab to our hotel, lunched at a delightful restaurant, and in the afternoon, said Jimmy gaily, "I'll race you to Monte and back with my Panhard." I knew in a minute what he meant, but Aunt Mary thought he was talking about his everlasting Lord Lane, and was so disappointed to find it was only Monte Carlo. His Montie, he explained, was seedy and confined to bed but he hoped we wouldn't mention this before Brown, as Lord Lane didn't want his friend Jack Winston to hear that he had come to the Riviera without letting him know.

So after lunch we started away from glittering, flowery blue and white and golden Nice by the most glorious coast road for Monte Carlo. But you know it well, dear Dad. I suppose there can be nothing more beautiful on earth. And Monte Carlo is beautiful; but somehow its beauty doesn't seem real and wholesome and natural, does it? It's like a magnificently handsome woman who is radiant at night, and doesn't look suitable to morning light, because then you see that her hair and eyelashes are dyed and her complexion cleverly made up. If Monte Carlo could be concentrated and condensed into the form of a real woman, I think she would be the kind who uses lots of scent and doesn't often take a bath.

We wandered about among the shops and saw the most lovely things, but somehow I didn't "feel to want" any of them, as my nurse used to say. I couldn't help associating all the smart hats and dresses and jewels in the windows with the terrible hawk faces painted to look like doves, which kept passing us in the streets or the Casino gardens, instead of thinking whether the things would be pretty on me.

Jimmy knows "Monte" very well, and was inclined to swagger about his knowledge. There's one thing which I am compelled to admit that he can do-order a dinner. He took us to a restaurant, led aside the head waiter, talked with him for a few minutes, and announcing that dinner would be ready when we wanted it, pioneered us across to "the rooms." I'd seen so many pictures of the Casino that it didn't come upon me as a surprise. The first thing that struck me was the overpowering deadness of the air, which felt as if generations of people had breathed all the oxygen out of it, and the ominous, muffled silence, broken only by the sharp chink! chink! of the croupiers' rakes as they pulled in the money.

Jimmy insisted on staking a louis for me and another for Aunt Mary, who was enraptured when, she won thirteen louis, and would have given up dinner to go on playing if she hadn't lost her winnings and more besides.

When we sat down to our table at the restaurant she was quite depressed, but everything was so bright and gay that she soon cheered up. Our tablecloth was strewn all over with roses and huge bluey-purple violets, and the dinner was pluperfect. There was a great coming and going of overdressed women and rather loud young men, which amused me, but I think it would soon pall. I can't imagine any feeling of rest or peace at Monte Carlo, not even in the gardens. To stop long in the place would be like always breathing perfume or eating spice.

We had finished dinner, and Jimmy was paying the bill (I couldn't help seeing that it was of enormous length), when the scraping of chairs behind us advertised that a new party had arrived at the table back of ours. A noisy, loud-talking party it was-all men, by the voices, and one of those voices sounded remotely familiar. The owner of it seemed to be telling an amusing story, which had been interrupted by entering the restaurant and taking seats. "Well, she simply jumped at it like a trout at a mayfly," the man was saying, as I sat wondering where I'd heard the voice before. "I couldn't help feeling a bit of a beast to impose on Yankee innocence. But all's fair in love and motor-cars. This was the most confounded thing ever designed; a kind of ironmonger's shop on wheels. And the girl was deuced pretty-"

The word "motor-car" brought it all back, and in a flash I crossed Europe from the restaurant in Monte Carlo to the village hotel at Cobham. I looked round and into the face of Mr. Cecil-Lanstown.