The Guests Of Hercules. C. N. Williamson

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СКАЧАТЬ was beautiful here, and this was the best season. Florence could be very cold, people said, and so could Rome. But on the Riviera, in December, roses and a thousand flowers were in bloom.

      To dash out of the train unexpectedly, as a surprise to herself, would be a great adventure. To come another time, according to a plan, would not be an adventure at all.

      Never in her whole past life had she had an adventure. What fun to land at Monte Carlo with only hand-luggage! The rest would go on to Florence, but somehow she could retrieve it sooner or later, and meanwhile how amusing to spend a little part of her legacy in fitting herself out with new things, clothes which would give her a place in the picture! And she needn't stay long. What were a few days more or less?

      There was only a minute to make up her mind. The train was slowing into the station, a large attractive station, adorned with posters of dream-places painted in rich dream-colours, like those of stained glass. On the platform, to the left of the station building, stood a boy twelve or fourteen years old, dressed in livery. He had a bullet head, with hair so black as to seem more like a thick, shining coat of varnish than hair. His eyes were very large and expressed a burning energy, as if he were nerving himself to a great feat, and the moment of action had arrived. Mary watched him, in a sudden flash of curious interest, as if she must at all costs see what he was going to do, and then make her decision. This was a ridiculous idea, but she could not take her eyes off the child, as the train slowly approached him on its way into the station. He drew in a great breath, which empurpled the brown of his face, and then emitted a single word, "As-cen-s-e-u-r!" in a singing roar, into which he threw his whole soul, as a young tiger does. As the train passed the boy, Mary, gazing out of the corridor window, looked straight down the deep round tunnel that was his open mouth, and caught his strained eye. He suddenly looked self-conscious, and broke into a foolish yet pleasant smile. Mary smiled too, like a child, showing her dimples. Then she knew that she would get out at Monte Carlo no matter what happened.

      At this instant, as the train stopped with a slight jerk, the attendant in his neat brown uniform whisked past Mary into her compartment, to snatch Miss Wardropp's bag and earn his fee. By this time the passengers who were alighting at Monte Carlo had pressed down the corridor in a procession, treading on each others' heels.

      "If I should get out here, could I use my ticket afterward on to Florence?" Mary hastily inquired in French. But whatever the answer might be, her mind was obstinately set on the adventure she wanted.

      "But yes, certainly, Mademoiselle," replied the man.

      "Then will you take my bag, too, please?"

      The porter's tired eyes dwelt on her for an instant understandingly, sympathetically, even pityingly. Perhaps he had seen other passengers make up their minds at the last minute to stop at Monte Carlo. He said nothing, but seized the bag; and with her heart beating as if this decision had changed the whole face of the world, Mary hurried after the stout brown figure, and joined the end of the procession as it poured from the wagon lit on to the platform.

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      Mary followed the other people who had left the train. Lord and Lady Dauntrey, with their party, were far ahead, and she could not have spoken to them if she had wished, without running to catch them up; but she did not wish to speak. She had taken no dislike to them; on the contrary, she was interested, but she did not feel inclined to ask advice, or attach herself to any one. She enjoyed the idea of a wonderful new independence.

      The sunshine made her feel energetic, and full of courage and enterprise, which had been crushed out of her in London by the chilly manner of her relatives, and the weight of the black fog.

      Passing through the station, after having part of her ticket torn from its book, she reached the front of the building, where a great many hotel omnibuses and a few private motors were in waiting. A station porter was following her now, with the one dressing-bag which remained of her abandoned luggage. "Quel hôtel, Mademoiselle?" he inquired.

      Mary hesitated, her eyes roaming over the omnibuses. One was conspicuous, drawn by four splendid horses, driven by a big man with a shining conical hat, and a wide expanse of scarlet waistcoat.

      No other omnibus looked quite so important. On it, in gold letters, Mary read "Hôtel de Paris." The name sounded vaguely familiar. Where had she lately heard this hotel mentioned! Oh, yes! by Miss Wardropp.

      "Hôtel de Paris, s'il vous plaît," she answered.

      In another moment her bag was in the omnibus, and she was climbing in after it in the wake of other persons, enough to fill the roomy vehicle. As she settled into her corner she saw a man walk slowly by at a distance. He was not looking at her for the moment, and she had no more than a glimpse of a dark, clearly drawn profile; yet she received a curious impression that he had just turned away from looking at her; and she was almost sure it was the man she had noticed at Marseilles. Now her Romeo idea of him struck her as sentimental. She wondered why she had connected such a thought with a man in modern clothes, in a noisy railway station. The morning and its impressions seemed long ago. She felt older and more experienced, almost like a woman of the world, as the big horses trotted up a hill, leaving all the other omnibuses behind. From under the large hat of a large German lady, she peered eagerly, to lose no detail in approaching Monte Carlo.

      High at the right rose a terrace like a hanging garden, attached to a huge white hotel. In front of the building, and also very high, ran a long covered gallery where there appeared to be restaurants and shops. At the left were gardens; and then in a moment more, coming out into an open square, all Monte Carlo seemed made of gardens with extraordinary, ornate white buildings in their midst, sugar-cake buildings made for pleasure and amusement, all glass windows and plaster figures and irrelevant towers, the whole ringed in by a semi-circle of high, gray mountains. It was a fantastic fairyland, this place of palms and bosky lawns, with grass far too green to seem real, and beds of incredibly brilliant flowers.

      One section of the garden ran straight and long, like a gayly patterned carpet, toward a middle background of climbing houses with red roofs; and it began to spread almost from the steps of the cream white building with jewelled and gilded horns, which Mary had seen in Peter's Riviera snapshots: the Casino. As the omnibus swung round a generous half circle, slowly now to avoid loitering groups of people, Mary saw many men and women arriving in motors or on foot, to go up the shallow flight of carpeted marble steps which led into the horned building. She thought again of an immense animal face under these erect, glittering horns; a face with quantities of intelligent, bright glass eyes that watched, and a wide-open, smiling mouth into which the figures walked confidently. It looked a kind, friendly animal basking in the gardens, and the big clock above its forehead, round which pigeons wheeled, added to its air of comfortable good nature. Mary was suddenly smitten with a keen curiosity to see exactly what all these people would see who allowed themselves to be swallowed by the mouth which smiled in receiving them. Most of the women were smartly dressed and had gold or embroidered bags in their hands, like those she had seen at Nice station. They went in looking straight ahead, and men ran up the steps quickly. Surely this was more than a mere building. There was something alive and vital and mysteriously attractive about it, though it was not beautiful at all architecturally, only rich looking and extraordinary, with its bronze youths sitting on the cornice and plaster figures starting out of the walls, laughing and beckoning. It had a personality which subtly contrived to dominate and make everything else in the little fairyland of flowers subservient to it, almost as if the emotions and passions of thousands and tens of thousands of souls from all over the world had saturated the materials of its construction.

      As this fancy СКАЧАТЬ