Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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3< * oOPY IGMT 1906. B> C1A3.L.PJiILLiP3 U CO. Ck&jerojine N ~HERE was a young man in Monte Carlo. He had come in a motor car, and he had come a 1' long way, but he hardly knew why he had come. He hardly knew in these days why he did any thing. But, then, one must do something. It would be Christmas soon, and he thought that he would rather get it over on the Riviera than anywhere else, because the blue and gold weather would not remind him of other Christmases which were gone-pure, white, cold Christmases, musical with joy bells and sweet with aromatic pine, the scent of trees born to be Christmas trees. There had been a time when he had fancied it would be a wonder ful thing to see the Riviera. He had thought what it would be like to be a rch man and bring a certain girl here for a moon of honey and roses. She was the most beautiful girl in the world, or he believed her so, which is exactly the same thing, and he had imagined the joy of walk ing with her on just such a terrace as this Casino terrace where he was walking now, alone. She would be in white, with one of those long ermine things that women call stoles, an ermine muff (the big, "granny" kind that swallows girlish arms up to the dimples in their elbows) and a hat which they would have bought together in Paris. They would have bought jewels, too, in the same street where they found the hat, the Rue de la Paix, which she had told him she longed to see. And she would be wearing some of the jewels with the white dress-just a few, not many, of course. A string of pearls (she loved pearls), a swallow brooch (he had heard her say she admired those swallow brooches, and he never forgot anything she said), with per haps a sapphire studded buckle on her white suede belt. Yes, that would be all, except the rings, which would lie hidden under her gloves on the dear little hands whose nails were like enameled rose leaves. When she moved, walking beside him on the terrace, there would be a mysterious silky whisper and rustle, something like that you hear in the woods in the spring, when the leaves are crisp with their pale green youth, and you shut your eyes, listening to the breeze telling them the secrets ~~ - of life. There would be a fragrance about the white dress and the laces and ermine and the silk things that you could not see, a fragrance as mysterious as the rus- . tling, for it would.seem to belong to the girl and not to have come from any bottle or bag of sachet pow der-a sweet, fresh, indefinable fragrance, like- the smell of a tea rose after rain. They would have walked together, they two, and he would have been so proud of her that every time a passerby cast a glance of admi ration at her face he would feel that he could hardly keep in a laugh of joy or a shout: "She is mine ! She is mine !" But he had been poor in the old days, when from far away he had thought of this terrace and the moon of honey and roses and love. It had all been a dream then, as it was now, too sweet ever to come true. He thought of the dream and of the boy who had dreamed it half bitterly, half sadly, on this his first day in the place of the dream. He was rich, as rich as he had seen himself in the impossible picture, and it would have been almost too easy to buy the white dress and the ermine and the pearls, but there was no one for whom he would have been happy to buy them. The most beautiful girl in the world was not in his world now, and none other had had the password to open the door of his heart since she had gone out, locking it be h1ind her. "She would have liked the auto," he said to himself, and then, a 2noment later, "I wonder why I came." It wras a perfect Riviera day. Everybody in Monte Carlo who was not in the Casino was sauntering on the terrace in the sun, for it ~was that hour before luncheon when people like to say "How do you' ;do?i How nice to meet you here !" to their friends. The young man from far away had not, so far as he knew, either enemies or friends at Monte Carlo. He was not conscious of the slight - est desire to say "How do you do ?" to any of the pretty people he met, although there is a superstition that every soul longs for kindred souls at Christmas time. He had not been actively un happy before he left the Hotel de Paris and strolled out on the ter race to have his first sight of Monte I Ii I Carlo by daylight. Always there - ? ~ I was the sore spot in his heart, and __________often it ached almost unbearably at night or when the world hurt him I' with its beauty, which he must see without her, but usually he kept the spot well covered up, and, being hiealthy~ as wxell as young, he had cultirated that kind of contentmnent which Thoreau said was only e-.er.t resigation in diguse He took an interest in_books,j in politics and sport and motor cars and a goon ininmv ir ing, but on the terrace the blue of the sea, the opal lights on the mountains, the gold glint of oranges among green, glittering leaves, the pearly inier of white roses thrown up like a spray against the sky, struck at his heart and made the ache come back more sharply than it had for a long time. If he had been a girl tears would have blinded his eyes; but, being what he was, he merely muttered in anger against himself, "Hang it all, what a wretched ass I am !" and, turning his back on the sea, made his way as fast as he could into the Casino. It was close upon 12 o'clock, and the "rooms" had been open to the public for two hours. The "early gamblers" thronging the atrium to wait till the doors opened had run in and snatched seats for them selves at the first tables or marked places to begin at 11 o'clock if crowded away from the first. Later less ardent enthusiasts had strolled in, and now, though it was not by any means the "high sea son," yet there were rows of players or lookers-on three deep round each table. The young man was from the south, though a south very different from this. He had the warm blood of Virginia in his veins and just so much of the gambler's spirit as cannot be divided! - from a certain recklessness in a man with a temper Me ament. He had seen plenty of life in his own coun ) rtry in the nine years since he was twenty, and he knew all about roulette and trente et quarante, among other things desirable and undesirable. Still, gambling seemed to be made particularly fascinating here, and he wanted to be fascinated, wanted it badly. He was in the mood for the heavy hush of the rooms, for the closeness and the rich perfumes which, mingling together, seem like the smell of money piled on the green tables; he was in a mood for the dimmed light like dull gold-gold sifted into dust by passing through many hands. He had got his ticket of admission to the Casino after arriving yes terday evening, but the rooms had not pleased him then. He had not played and had merely walked through, looking at the people, but now he went to a trente et quarante table, and, reaching over the shoulders of the players-not so many as in the roulette rooms-he put a 500 franc note on couleur. It won. He let the money lie, and it won again. A third time and a fourth he left the notes on, and still luck was with him. He was in for a good run. As it happened, nobody else had been playing higher than plaques, the handsome hundred franc goldpieces coined for the principality of Monaco, and people began to watch the newcomer, as they always do one who plays high and is lucky. * On the fifth deal he had won the maimum. He took off half and was leaving the rest to run when a voice close to his shoulder said: "Oh, do take it all .off! I feel it's going to lose now. To please me." He glanced aside and saw an exceedingly pretty, dark face, which looked vaguely familiar. With a smile he took up all the notes, and only just in time. Oouleur lost; inverse won. "Oh, I'm so glad !" said the owner of the pretty face. She spoke English with a slight but bewitching foreign accent, and her eyes shone at him like brown jewels under the tilted brim of a hat made all of pink and crimson roses. She was rather like a rose, too, a rich, col orful, spicy rose, of the kind which unfolds early. He knew that he had seen her before and wondered where. After all, it was rather nice to be spoken to by some one other than a hotel manager or a waiter-some one who was good to look at and friendly. He lost interest in the game and gained interest in the grl.. "Thank you," said he. "You've brought me luck." "I hope you don't think I speak always to strangers like that," said the girl in the rose hat. But, you see, I recognized you at once. I don't know if you remember me. No, I'm afraid you don't." "Of course I remember you, only I can't think where we" "Why, it was in Paris. You saved my mother's little dog from being run over one day. We were both so grateful. Afterward we saw you once or twice at tea at the Ritz, and you took off your hat, so you must have remembered then. Ah, me, it's a long time ago !" "Not so very," said the young man. "I remember well now." He wished her mother had not been quite such an appalling person, fat and painted. "It was only last October. I'd just come to Paris. It was my first day there when I picked up the little dog. Now, on my first day here you pay me ba"nk for what I did then---as if it needed paying back !-by making me pick up my money. That's quite a oincidence."~ They had moved away from the tables now and were walking very slowly down the room. The young man smiled at the girl as he crushed up the notes and stu.fed them into his pocket. He saw that she was much prettier than he had thought her in Paris, if he had thought of her at all, and her dress of pale pink cloth was charm ing with the rose hat. Somehow he was glad that she was not in white-with an ermine stole.7 "So it is, quite a coincidence, and a pleasant one for me, since I meet a'gain one who was once so kind," she said. "Especially it is good to meet a I friend-if I may call you a friend-when one is N'.J very sad." "Of course you may call me a friend," said he kindly. "I'm sorry to hear you are sad." I "cThat is why I told you the other meeting I seemed a long time ago," explained the girl. "I was happy then. Now I am breaking my heart, and I do not know what to do. Oh, I ought not to talk like this, for, after all, you are a stranger. But you are English or you are American, and men of those countries never misunderstand a woman, even if she is in trouble. We can feel ourselves safe with them." "I'm American," he answered, "and I'm glad you feel like that. wish I could help you in some way." He spoke kindly, but not with bsolute warmnth of sincerity. The girl sawv this and knew that he did not believe in her as she wished him to believe, as she intended to make him believe. She looked up at him with sad and eloauent e " ', c i hi:7is& f. "Ynll ca:'; heip me, tUn o;"she , " 1 "t:ct by kind words and kind thoughts. I think, though, that it me. g m ood to tell :"''i things, if 'ou r3:dly take an irteres t." of ourseU I do." He was speaking the truth now. lIe was hu man, and she was growing prettier, as she grew more pathetic, every momenI't. "And would you advise me a little ? I have nobody else to ask. My mother and I know no one at Monte Carlo. Perhaps you would walk with me on the terrace and let me talk l" "Not on the terrace," he said quickly, for he could not bear to meet the sweet ghost of the past in the white dress and ermine sto'e as he gave advice to the flesh and blood reality of the present in the pink frock and roses. "What about Ciro's? Couldn't we fird your mother somewhere and get her to chaperon us for lunch? I should thiuk it must be very jolly now in the Galerie Charles Trois." "So it would be, but my poor mother is very ill in her bed," said the girl. "Would she-er---do you think, as I'm an American and we're almost old friends, mind letting you have lunch just with me alone? Of course if she would mind you must say no. But I must confess I'm --- hungry as a wolf, and it would be somewhere to sit and talk together quietly, you know." "You are hungry ?" echoed the girl. "Ah, I would wager some thing that you don't really know what hunger is. But I know now." ' "What do you mean $" " } io"I mean it is well my mother is ill and doesn't wish to eat, for there would be nothing for her if she did." "Good l4eavens! And you $" "I have had nothing to eat since yesterday morning, and then only a biscuit with a glass of water." "My poor girl! We won't say anything more about chaperons, Come along with me to Ciro's this instant to lunch and tell me every thing." He was completely won over now and looked very handsome with a slight flush on his brown face and his dark eyes bright with excite ment. The girl lowered her long lashes, perhaps to hide tears. When she did this and drooped the corners of her mouth she was very. engaging, and the young man tingled all over-with pity. That poor, pretty creature starving in her charming pink dress and hat of ' roses! How strange life was! It was something to be thankful for that he had met her. A little while ago he had walked through the Gakrie Charles Trois, thinking how delightful the tables looked at Ciro's and making jE up his mind to return there for lunch. But afterward on the terrace he had been so miserable that he would probably have forgotten all about his plan if it had not been for the girl. Now he chose a small table in a corner of the balcony close to the glass screen. A month later he might have had to engage jt long be forehand, but today, though the place was well filled with\pretty women and their attendant men, there was not a crowd, and hehouildf listen to his companion's low voiced confidences without fear of being ' overherd. - B~ ordered a lunch which he thought the girl would ~ * like, with wine to revive the faculties that he knew ~ >-.. must be failing. Then, when she had eaten a little, / daintily in spite of her hunger, he encouraged her to talk. "Mother and I are all alone in the world," ay said. "We are Belgian and live in Brusels, but wehave drfted ab(g a good deal, just amusing ourselves. Somehow we never happened to come here until a month ago. Then my mother said one day in Paris: Let us go to Monte Carlo. I dreamed last night that I won 20,000 francs there.' My mother is rather superstitious. We came, and she did win at first. 'She was delighted and believed in her dream so much that when she began to lose she went up and up, doubling each time. They call the game she made 'playing the martingale.' "She lost all the money we had with us and telegraphed home for - more. Soon she had sold out every one of our securities., Then she won and went half mad with joy and excitement, but the joy didn't last long. She lost all again-literally our all. We were penniless. There was nothing left to pay, the hotel bill. I went out and found a Mont de Piete, just beyond the limits of the principality. They aren't allowed inside. I pawned all our jewelry, and, as we had a great many valuable things, I got several thousand francs. I thought the money would last us until I could find something to do; but, without telling me what she meant to do, mother took it all to the Casino-and-it followed the rest. f "She was so horrified at what she had done, - when it was too late, that she wished to kill herself. It was a terrible time for me, but I was so sorry so sorry for her." t As the girl said this she looked full into the young man's eyes wt ber great, appealing ones. He thought that she must have a wond fully sweet nature to have forgiven that horrible fat old woman afte being subjected to so much undeserved suffering. It was a thoua ites he a to himself, that a really grood sort of girl should