BOOK II
It came vividly to Selden on the Casino steps that Monte Carlo
had, more than any other place he knew, the gift of accommodating
itself to each man's humour. His own, at the moment, lent it a
festive readiness of welcome that might well, in a disenchanted
eye, have turned to paint and facility. So frank an appeal for
participation-so outspoken a recognition of the holiday vein in
human nature--struck refreshingly on a mind jaded by prolonged
hard work in surroundings made for the discipline of the senses.
As he surveyed the white square set in an exotic coquetry of
architecture, the studied tropicality of the gardens, the groups
loitering in the foreground against mauve mountains which
suggested a sublime stage-setting forgotten in a hurried shifting
of scenes--as he took in the whole outspread effect of light and
leisure, he felt a movement of revulsion from the last few months
of his life.
The New York winter had presented an interminable perspective of
snow-burdened days, reaching toward a spring of raw sunshine and
furious air, when the ugliness of things rasped the eye as the
gritty wind ground into the skin. Selden, immersed in his work,
had told himself that external conditions did not matter to a man
in his state, and that cold and ugliness were a good tonic for
relaxed sensibilities. When an urgent case summoned him abroad to
confer with a client in Paris, he broke reluctantly with the
routine of the office; and it was only now that, having
despatched his business, and slipped away for a week in the
south, he began to feel the renewed zest of spectatorship that is
the solace of those who take an objective interest in life.
The multiplicity of its appeals--the perpetual surprise of its
contrasts and resemblances! All these tricks and turns of the
show were upon him with a spring as he descended the Casino steps
and paused on the pavement at its doors. He had not been abroad
for seven years--and what changes the renewed contact produced!
If the central depths were untouched, hardly a pin-point of
surface remained the same. And this was the very place to
bring out the completeness of the renewal. The sublimities, the
perpetuities, might have left him as he was: but this tent
pitched for a day's revelry spread a roof of oblivion between
himself and his fixed sky.
It was mid-April, and one felt that the revelry had reached its
climax and that the desultory groups in the square and gardens
would soon dissolve and re-form in other scenes. Meanwhile the
last moments of the performance seemed to gain an added
brightness from the hovering threat of the curtain. The quality
of the air, the exuberance of the flowers, the blue intensity of
sea and sky, produced the effect of a closing TABLEAU, when all
the lights are turned on at once. This impression was presently
heightened by the way in which a consciously conspicuous group of
people advanced to the middle front, and stood before Selden with
the air of the chief performers gathered together by the
exigencies of the final effect. Their appearance confirmed the
impression that the show had been staged regardless of expense,
and emphasized its resemblance to one of those "costume-plays" in
which the protagonists walk through the passions without
displacing a drapery. The ladies stood in unrelated attitudes
calculated to isolate their effects, and the men hung about them
as irrelevantly as stage heroes whose tailors are named in the
programme. It was Selden himself who unwittingly fused the group
by arresting the attention of one of its members.
"Why, Mr. Selden!" Mrs. Fisher exclaimed in surprise; and with a
gesture toward Mrs. Jack Stepney and Mrs. Wellington Bry, she
added plaintively: "We're starving to death because we can't
decide where to lunch."
Welcomed into their group, and made the confidant of their
difficulty, Selden learned with amusement that there were several
places where one might miss something by not lunching, or forfeit
something by lunching; so that eating actually became a minor
consideration on the very spot consecrated to its rites.
"Of course one gets the best things at the TERRASSE--but that
looks as if one hadn't any other reason for being there: the
Americans who don't know any one always rush for the best food.
And the Duchess of Beltshire has taken up Becassin's lately,"
Mrs. Bry earnestly summed up.
Mrs. Bry, to Mrs. Fisher's despair, had not progressed beyond the
point of weighing her social alternatives in public. She could
not acquire the air of doing things because she wanted to, and
making her choice the final seal of their fitness.
Mr. Bry, a short pale man, with a business face and leisure
clothes, met the dilemma hilariously.
"I guess the Duchess goes where it's cheapest, unless she can get
her meal paid for. If you offered to blow her off at the TERRASSE
she'd turn up fast enough."
But Mrs. Jack Stepney interposed. "The Grand Dukes go to that
little place at the Condamine. Lord Hubert says it's the only
restaurant in Europe where they can cook peas."
Lord Hubert Dacey, a slender shabby-looking man, with a charming
worn smile, and the air of having spent his best years in
piloting the wealthy to the right restaurant, assented with
gentle emphasis: "It's quite that."
"PEAS?" said Mr. Bry contemptuously. "Can they cook terrapin? It
just shows," he continued, "what these European markets are, when
a fellow can make a reputation cooking peas!"
Jack Stepney intervened with authority. "I don't know that I
quite agree with Dacey: there's a little hole in Paris, off the
Quai Voltaire--but in any case, I can't advise the Condamine
GARGOTE; at least not with ladies."
Stepney, since his marriage, had thickened and grown prudish, as
the Van Osburgh husbands were apt to do; but his wife, to his
surprise and discomfiture, had developed an earth-shaking
fastness of gait which left him trailing breathlessly in her
wake.
"That's where we'll go then!" she declared, with a heavy toss of
her plumage. "I'm so tired of the TERRASSE: it's as dull as one
of mother's dinners. And Lord Hubert has promised to tell us who
all the awful people are at the other place--hasn't he, Carry?
Now, Jack, don't look so solemn!"
"Well," said Mrs. Bry, "all I want to know is who their
dress-makers are."
"No doubt Dacey can tell you that too," remarked Stepney, with an
ironic intention which the other received with the light murmur,
"I can at least FIND OUT, my dear fellow"; and Mrs. Bry
having declared that she couldn't walk another step, the party
hailed two or three of the light phaetons which hover attentively
on the confines of the gardens, and rattled off in procession
toward the Condamine.
Their destination was one of the little restaurants overhanging
the boulevard which dips steeply down from Monte Carlo to the low
intermediate quarter along the quay. From the window in which
they presently found themselves installed, they overlooked the
intense blue curve of the harbour, set between the verdure of
twin promontories: to the right, the cliff of Monaco, topped by
the mediaeval silhouette of its church and castle, to the left
the terraces and pinnacles of the gambling-house. Between the
two, the waters of the bay were furrowed by a light coming and
going of pleasure-craft, through which, just at the culminating
moment of luncheon, the majestic advance of a great steam-yacht
drew the company's attention from the peas.
"By Jove, I believe that's the Dorsets back!" Stepney exclaimed;
and Lord Hubert, dropping his single eye-glass, corroborated:
"It's the Sabrina--yes."
"So soon? They were to spend a month in Sicily," Mrs. Fisher
observed.
"I guess they feel as if they had: there's only one up-to-date
hotel in the whole place," said Mr. Bry disparagingly.
"It was Ned Silverton's idea--but poor Dorset and Lily Bart must
have been horribly bored." Mrs. Fisher added in an undertone to
Selden: "I do hope there hasn't been a row."
"It's most awfully jolly having Miss Bart back," said Lord
Hubert, in his mild deliberate voice; and Mrs. Bry added
ingenuously: "I daresay the Duchess will dine with us, now that
Lily's here."
"The Duchess admires her immensely: I'm sure she'd be charmed to
have it arranged," Lord Hubert agreed, with the professional
promptness of the man accustomed to draw his profit from
facilitating social contacts: Selden was struck by the
businesslike change in his manner.
"Lily has been a tremendous success here," Mrs. Fisher continued,
still addressing herself confidentially to Selden. "She looks ten
years younger--I never saw her so handsome. Lady Skiddaw took her
everywhere in Cannes, and the Crown Princess of Macedonia
had her to stop for a week at Cimiez. People say that was one
reason why Bertha whisked the yacht off to Sicily: the Crown
Princess didn't take much notice of her, and she couldn't bear to
look on at Lily's triumph."
Selden made no reply. He was vaguely aware that Miss Bart was
cruising in the Mediterranean with the Dorsets, but it had not
occurred to him that there was any chance of running across her
on the Riviera, where the season was virtually at an end. As he
leaned back, silently contemplating his filigree cup of Turkish
coffee, he was trying to put some order in his thoughts, to tell
himself how the news of her nearness was really affecting him. He
had a personal detachment enabling him, even in moments of
emotional high-pressure, to get a fairly clear view of his
feelings, and he was sincerely surprised by the disturbance which
the sight of the Sabrina had produced in him. He had reason to
think that his three months of engrossing professional work,
following on the sharp shock of his disillusionment, had cleared
his mind of its sentimental vapours. The feeling he had nourished
and given prominence to was one of thankfulness for his escape:
he was like a traveller so grateful for rescue from a dangerous
accident that at first he is hardly conscious of his bruises. Now
he suddenly felt the latent ache, and realized that after all he
had not come off unhurt.
An hour later, at Mrs. Fisher's side in the Casino gardens, he
was trying to find fresh reasons for forgetting the injury
received in the contemplation of the peril avoided. The party had
dispersed with the loitering indecision characteristic of social
movements at Monte Carlo, where the whole place, and the long
gilded hours of the day, seem to offer an infinity of ways of
being idle. Lord Hubert Dacey had finally gone off in quest of
the Duchess of Beltshire, charged by Mrs. Bry with the delicate
negotiation of securing that lady's presence at dinner, the
Stepneys had left for Nice in their motor-car, and Mr. Bry had
departed to take his place in the pigeon shooting match which was
at the moment engaging his high est faculties.
Mrs. Bry, who had a tendency to grow red and stertorous after
luncheon, had been judiciously prevailed upon by Carry
Fisher to withdraw to her hotel for an hour's repose; and Selden
and his companion were thus left to a stroll propitious to
confidences. The stroll soon resolved itself into a tranquil
session on a bench overhung with laurel and Banksian roses, from
which they caught a dazzle of blue sea between marble balusters,
and the fiery shafts of cactus-blossoms shooting meteor-like from
the rock. The soft shade of their niche, and the adjacent glitter
of the air, were conducive to an easy lounging mood, and to the
smoking of many cigarettes; and Selden, yielding to these
influences, suffered Mrs. Fisher to unfold to him the history of
her recent experiences. She had come abroad with the Welly Brys
at the moment when fashion flees the inclemency of the New York
spring. The Brys, intoxicated by their first success, already
thirsted for new kingdoms, and Mrs. Fisher, viewing the Riviera
as an easy introduction to London society, had guided their
course thither. She had affiliations of her own in every capital,
and a facility for picking them up again after long absences; and
the carefully disseminated rumour of the Brys' wealth had at once
gathered about them a group of cosmopolitan pleasure-seekers.
"But things are not going as well as I expected," Mrs. Fisher
frankly admitted. "It's all very well to say that every body with
money can get into society; but it would be truer to say that
NEARLY everybody can. And the London market is so glutted with
new Americans that, to succeed there now, they must be either
very clever or awfully queer. The Brys are neither. HE would get
on well enough if she'd let him alone; they like his slang and
his brag and his blunders. But Louisa spoils it all by trying to
repress him and put herself forward. If she'd be natural
herself--fat and vulgar and bouncing--it would be all right; but
as soon as she meets anybody smart she tries to be slender and
queenly. She tried it with the Duchess of Beltshire and Lady
Skiddaw, and they fled. I've done my best to make her see her
mistake--I've said to her again and again:'Just let yourself go,
Louisa'; but she keeps up the humbug even with me--I believe she
keeps on being queenly in her own room, with the door shut.
"The worst of it is," Mrs. Fisher went on, "that she thinks it's
all MY fault. When the Dorsets turned up here six weeks ago, and
everybody began to make a fuss about Lily Bart, I could
see Louisa thought that if she'd had Lily in tow instead of me
she would have been hob-nobbing with all the royalties by this
time. She doesn't realize that it's Lily's beauty that does it:
Lord Hubert tells me Lily is thought even handsomer than when he
knew her at Aix ten years ago. It seems she was tremendously
admired there. An Italian Prince, rich and the real thing, wanted
to marry her; but just at the critical moment a good-looking
step-son turned up, and Lily was silly enough to flirt with him
while her marriage-settlements with the step-father were being
drawn up. Some people said the young man did it on purpose. You
can fancy the scandal: there was an awful row between the men,
and people began to look at Lily so queerly that Mrs. Peniston
had to pack up and finish her cure elsewhere. Not that SHE ever
understood: to this day she thinks that Aix didn't suit her, and
mentions her having been sent there as proof of the incompetence
of French doctors. That's Lily all over, you know: she works like
a slave preparing the ground and sowing her seed; but the day she
ought to be reaping the harvest she over-sleeps herself or goes
off on a picnic."
Mrs. Fisher paused and looked reflectively at the deep shimmer of
sea between the cactus-flowers. "Sometimes," she added, "I think
it's just flightiness--and sometimes I think it's because, at
heart, she despises the things she's trying for. And it's the
difficulty of deciding that makes her such an interesting study."
She glanced tentatively at Selden's motion less profile, and
resumed with a slight sigh: "Well, all I can say is, I wish she'd
give ME some of her discarded opportunities. I wish we could
change places now, for instance. She could make a very good thing
out of the Brys if she managed them properly, and I should know
just how to look after George Dorset while Bertha is reading
Verlaine with Neddy Silverton."
She met Selden's sound of protest with a sharp derisive glance.
"Well, what's the use of mincing matters? We all know that's what
Bertha brought her abroad for. When Bertha wants to have a good
time she has to provide occupation for George. At first I thought
Lily was going to play her cards well THIS time, but there are
rumours that Bertha is jealous of her success here and at Cannes,
and I shouldn't be surprised if there were a break any
day. Lily's only safeguard is that Bertha needs her badly--oh,
very badly. The Silverton affair is in the acute stage: it's
necessary that George's attention should be pretty continuously
distracted. And I'm bound to say Lily DOES distract it: I believe
he'd marry her tomorrow if he found out there was anything wrong
with Bertha. But you know him--he's as blind as he's jealous; and
of course Lily's present business is to keep him blind. A clever
woman might know just the right moment to tear off the bandage:
but Lily isn't clever in that way, and when George does open his
eyes she'll probably contrive not to be in his line of vision."
Selden tossed away his cigarette. "By Jove--it's time for my
train," he exclaimed, with a glance at his watch; adding, in
reply to Mrs. Fisher's surprised comment--"Why, I thought of
course you were at Monte!"--a murmured word to the effect that he
was making Nice his head-quarters.
"The worst of it is, she snubs the Brys now," he heard
irrelevantly flung after him.
Ten minutes later, in the high-perched bedroom of an hotel
overlooking the Casino, he was tossing his effects into a couple
of gaping portmanteaux, while the porter waited outside to
transport them to the cab at the door. It took but a brief plunge
down the steep white road to the station to land him safely in
the afternoon express for Nice; and not till he was installed in
the corner of an empty carriage, did he exclaim to himself, with
a reaction of self-contempt: "What the deuce am I running away
from?"
The pertinence of the question checked Selden's fugitive impulse
before the train had started. It was ridiculous to be flying like
an emotional coward from an infatuation his reason had conquered.
He had instructed his bankers to forward some important business
letters to Nice, and at Nice he would quietly await them. He was
already annoyed with him self for having left Monte Carlo, where
he had intended to pass the week which remained to him before
sailing; but it would now be difficult to return on his steps
without an appearance of inconsistency from which his pride
recoiled. In his inmost heart he was not sorry to put himself
beyond the probability of meeting Miss Bart. Completely as he had
detached himself from her, he could not yet regard her
merely as a social instance; and viewed in a more personal way
she was not likely to be a reassuring object of study. Chance
encounters, or even the repeated mention of her name, would send
his thoughts back into grooves from which he had resolutely
detached them; whereas, if she could be entirely excluded from
his life, the pressure of new and varied impressions, with which
no thought of her was connected, would soon complete the work of
separation. Mrs. Fisher's conversation had, indeed, operated to
that end; but the treatment was too painful to be voluntarily
chosen while milder remedies were untried; and Selden thought he
could trust himself to return gradually to a reasonable view of
Miss Bart, if only he did not see her.
Having reached the station early, he had arrived at this point in
his reflections before the increasing throng on the platform
warned him that he could not hope to preserve his privacy; the
next moment there was a hand on the door, and he turned to
confront the very face he was fleeing.
