I say that we followed a dangerous path up the hillside; but anon this opened out somewhat, and having crossed a modern bridge of iron above a considerable chasm, the forbidding walls of which the torches showed me very plainly—having passed thereby, we found ourselves upon a plateau, the third of a mile across, perhaps, and having for its background the great peak of the mountain itself. How the land went upon the seaward side I could not make out in the darkness; but no sooner had we passed the gates than I observed the lights of a house shining very pleasantly across the park; and from the cries the men raised, the hastening paces of the horses, and the ensuing hubbub, I knew that we had reached our destination, and that this was the home of General Fordibras.
Five minutes later, the barking of hounds, the sudden flash of light from an open door, and a figure in the shadows gave us welcome to the Villa San Jorge. I dismounted from my horse and found myself face to face, not with Hubert Fordibras, but with his daughter Joan.
She was prettily dressed in a young girl’s gown of white, but one that evidently had been built in Paris. I observed that she wore no jewellery, and that her manner was as natural and simple as I might have hoped it to be. A little shyly, she told me that her father had been called to the neighbouring island of St. Michaels, and might not return for three days.
“And isn’t it just awful?” she said, the American phrase coming prettily enough from her young lips. “Isn’t it awful to think that I shall have to entertain you all that long while?”
I answered her that if my visit were an embarrassment, I could return to the yacht immediately—that I had come to see her father, and that my time was my own. To all of which she replied with one of those expressive and girlish gestures which had first attracted me toward her—just an imperceptible shrug of the shoulders and a pretty pout of protest.
“Why, if you would like to go back, Dr. Fabos——”
“Don’t say so. I am only thinking of your troubles.”
“Then, you do want to stay?”
“Frankly, I want to stay.”
“Then come right in. And pity our poor cook, who expected you an hour ago.”
“Really, you should not——”
“What! starve a man who has come all the way from Europe to see us?”
“Well, I’ll confess to a mountain appetite, then. You can tell the General how obedient you found me.”
“You shall tell him for yourself. Oh, don’t think you are going away from him in a hurry. People never do who come to the Villa San Jorge. They stop weeks and months. It’s just like heaven, you know—if you know what heaven is like. We have given you ‘Bluebeard’s room,’ because of the cupboard in it—but you may look inside if you like. Let General Washington show you the way up this minute.”
“And my servant? I hope he won’t give any trouble. He’s a Jap, and he lives on rice puddings. If he is in your way, don’t hesitate to say so.”
“How could he be in the way? Besides, my father quite expected him.”
“He said so?”
“Yes, and an Irish gentleman—what was his name? The one who made love to Miss Aston at Dieppe. She’s upstairs now, reading about the Kings of Ireland. The Irish gentleman told her of the book. Why, Dr. Fabos, as if you didn’t know! Of course, he made love to her.”
“In an Irish way, I hope. Perhaps we’ll have him ashore to-morrow—though I fear he will be a disappointment. His lovemaking consists largely of quotations from his stories in Pretty Bits. I have heard him so often. There are at least two hundred women in the world who are the only women he has ever loved. Put not your faith in Timothy—at least, beg of Miss Aston to remember that he comes of a chivalrous but susceptible race.”
“How dare I intrude upon her dream of happiness? She has already furnished the drawing-room—in imagination, you know.”
“Then let her dream that Timothy has upset the lamp, and that the house is on fire.”
We laughed together at the absurdity of it, and then I followed a huge mulatto, whom she called General Washington, upstairs to a room they had prepared for me. The house, as much as I could see of it, appeared to be a bungalow of considerable size, but a bungalow which splayed out at its rear into a more substantial building carrying an upper storey and many bedrooms there. My own room was furnished in excellent taste, but without display. The American fashion of a bathroom adjoining the bedroom had been followed, and not a bathroom alone, but a delightful little sitting-room completed a luxurious suite. Particularly did I admire the dainty painting of the walls (little paper being used at Santa Maria by reason of the damp), the old English chintz curtains, and the provision of books both in the sitting and bedroom. Very welcome also were the many portable electric lamps cunningly placed by the bedside and upon dainty Louis XV. tables; while the fire reminded me of an English country house and of the comfort looked for there.
In such a pretty bedroom I made a hasty change, and hearing musical bells below announcing that supper was ready, I returned to the hall where Joan Fordibras awaited me. The dining-room of the Villa San Jorge had the modern characteristics which distinguished the upper chambers. There were well-known pictures here, and old Sheffield plate upon the buffet. The chairs were American, and a little out of harmony with some fine Spanish mahogany and a heavy Persian carpet over the parquet. This jarring note, however, did not detract from the general air of comfort pervading the apartment, nor from its appearance of being the daily living room of a homely family. Indeed, had one chosen to name the straight-backed Miss Aston for its mistress and Joan Fordibras for the daughter of the house, then the delusion was complete and to be welcomed. None the less could I tell myself that it might harbour at that very moment some of the greatest villains that Europe had known, and that the morrow might report my own conversation to them. Never for one instant could I put this thought from me. It went with me from the hall to the table. It embarrassed me while I discussed New York and Paris and Vienna with the “learned woman” basely called the chaperone; it touched the shoulder of my mind when Joan Fordibras’s eyes—those Eastern languorous eyes—were turned upon me, and her child’s voice whispered some nonsense in my ears. A house of criminals and the greatest receiver in the story of crime for one of its masters! So I believed then. So, to-day, I know that the truth stood.
Our talk at the table was altogether of frivolous things. Not by so much as a look did Mistress Joan recall to me the conversation, intimate and outspoken, which had passed between us at Dieppe. I might have been the veriest dreamer to remember it all—the half-expressed plea for pity on her part, the doubt upon mine. How could one believe it of this little coquette, prattling of the theatres of Paris, the shops of Vienna, or the famous Sherry’s of New York. Had we been a supper party at the Savoy, the occasion could not have been celebrated with greater levity. Of the people’s history, I learned absolutely nothing at all that I did not know already. They had a house on the banks of the Hudson River, an apartment in Paris; in London they always stayed at hotels. General Fordibras was devoted to his yacht. Miss Aston adored Jane Austen, and considered the Imperial Theatre to be the Mecca of all good American ladies. Nonsense, I say, and chiefly immaterial nonsense. But two facts came to me which I cared to make a note of. The first of them dealt with Joan Fordibras’s departure from Dieppe and her arrival at Santa Maria.
“My, I was cross,” she exclaimed à propos, “just to think that one might have gone on to Aix!”
“Then you left Dieppe in a hurry?” I commented.
She replied quite unsuspectingly:
“They shot us into