If Sinners Entice Thee

“Why are you so thoughtful?” her companion asked presently in French, having noticed her wonderful grey eyes fixed upon the calm sunlit sea.

“It is woman’s privilege to think,” she replied, laughing as she turned to him with her clear eyes expressive of the soul that lay behind. “I was reflecting upon the difference between our life two years ago and what it is to-day.”

“Yes, slightly better, isn’t it? Well, it is luck – always luck,” he answered. “Your father is going over to Monte Carlo to-morrow, and I hope that Fortune may be kind also to him. He has waited long enough for a change of luck.”

Liane regarded him steadily for an instant, then said reproachfully, —

“It is you who have persuaded him. Why have you done this, when you know full well that half an hour at roulette will bring back upon him the mania for play, the fatal recklessness that must be his ruin and mine? This is surely not the action of a friend.”

“Ah! forgive me,” he exclaimed, quickly. “I had no idea that my suggestion to drive you both over there to-morrow would displease you.

“I’ll make an excuse to him, and we will not go,” he added, deferentially.

She was not a little surprised that he should thus alter his plans in conformity to her wish, nevertheless his decision satisfied her. She knew that her father had but little money, and certainly he had none to risk. Little did she dream that the cost of her rich, perfectly-fitting dresses, which had been so admired of late upon the Promenade and in the Casino, had been defrayed by her whilom friend, and that every sou her father was spending came also from his pocket. She was in ignorance of the strange, inviolable secret which existed between the two men; that secret, the price of which was her own self.

Too much of life had she seen to be dazzled by the gay, brilliant set of which she had found herself a centre, nevertheless, time after time she reflected, when alone, that she was neglecting George sadly; she had an instinctive fear that her letters to him were devoid of any warmth of affection, yet somehow she could not prevent it. Being thrown so much into Zertho’s society he frequently asked her advice, and she thus unconsciously became interested in the success of his fêtes.

She and her father spent the day at the Villa, as usual, and after dinner drove down to the Place Massena to witness one of the great annual events of Nice, the arrival of King Carnival Long before they drove down, the town was already agog, for Carnival is in the blood of the Southerners. The illuminations were unanimously voted worthy of Nice. From their stands on the balcony of the Casino they could see that from end to end the broad Avenue de la Gare was ablaze with red and white lights, festoons of small lamps being connected at intervals with large red stars of hanging lamps. The Place Massena was lighted up with gas-jets in white, blue, and green globes, forming arabesques; the Casino was encircled with lines of gas-jets, and the façade of the immense tribune opposite a brilliant blaze of colour.

Liane stood up and surveyed the scene. The immense square was thronged, the crowd being kept back by infantry. After some waiting the sounds of noisy music, the blasts of many horns, and the dancing lights of hundreds of torches at last heralded the approach of the Monarch of Mirth. Mounted gendarmes opened the way; then came the trumpeters of the 6th Chasseurs, followed by the heralds of Nice in costumes embroidered with the arms of the town. The colours of the Carnival were red and rose, and the shops around were gay with dominoes of those hues.

Madame Carnival was the first gigantic figure to appear amid the glare of the great braziers of crimson fire. Seated on what might be termed a gilt throne, and wearing a white frilled cap, a silk shawl, and clean apron, she looked altogether very smart, gracefully wielding a fan, and occasionally winking her enormous eyes. In front of the car was her six-months-old baby, held by two giant hands, while in the rear, in a big basket, was the remainder of her family, a turbulent crowd of youngsters in fancy garb. Following another regiment of musicians and torch-bearers came the lord and master, King Carnival, represented as a peasant in his best white hat with tricolour rosette, astride a turkey-cock, which ever and anon moved its head and spread its tail.

Among the other cars which followed was one representing a café-concert; a chimpanzee which moved its head and swallowed smaller monkeys; a car of animated fans; and “a charmer and her fools” represented by a beauty who sat upon a throne, and by pulling a string set dancing her crowd of foppish admirers. The groupes à pied, too, were amusing and numerous, one entitled “Dragging the Devil by the Tail,” representing Satan with a tail of enormous length, at which all who were hard up were pulling vigorously. There were polkas of Hammers, Bakers, Felt hats, and walking alarum clocks, as well as a varying and amusing panorama of single maskers. Among these latter were represented a wine-dealer, who had closed his shop in order “to baptise his wines;” Cupid bandaging a lover’s eyes; Love stopping a fair cyclist and asking whether he had been forgotten; “Hurrah!” who had shouted so much that his mouth had become an enormous size, and a drunkard stopping at a fountain believing the drinking-cup to be a telephone transmitter!

Fully two hours the procession occupied in passing and re-passing, and of the gay party who had met the Prince at his invitation, Liane was perhaps the most vivacious. With a sable cape about her shoulders she sat next him, with her father on her left, laughing and criticising the groups, the spirit of Carnival having already entered her Southern blood, as it had that of the merry, light-hearted Niçois themselves.

At last she drove home with her father and the Prince, while the monarch of cap and bells was placed in the handsome pavilion erected for him, there to preside over the corsos, vegliones, and the battles of flowers and confetti which for twelve days, until his immolation on Mardi-Gras, would render Nice a town gone mad with frolic.

The Promenade was bright as day beneath the full moon, the feathery palms waved lazily in the breeze, and the dark waves broke with musical monotony upon the pebbly beach. They had alighted at the gate of the pension where the Captain had taken up his quarters, when the Prince suggested to Liane that they should go for a stroll, as it was still early. To this she assented, and the Captain went indoors and sat alone, silent and wondering, while they crossed the deserted esplanade together and walked in the moonlight by the shore.

“So you have enjoyed yourself to-night, ma petite?” Zertho said, after they had been chatting some time.

“Immensely,” she answered. “Carnival is not fresh to me, but it is always amusing. Every Niçois enjoys it so thoroughly. I love these gay, happy, contented people who are still Italian although French. They are so different from the English.”

“You hated them once, I remember,” he observed, with a smile, pausing to light a cigarette.

“Ah! that was in the evil days. One’s enjoyment is always gauged by one’s pocket.”

“Then according to that theory I ought to have a larger measure of this world’s pleasures than the majority of people – eh?”

“You have.”

“Ah, no, Liane,” he sighed, becoming suddenly grave. “True, I have wealth, a house in Brussels, an estate in Luxembourg, a yacht in yonder port, and a villa here upon this promenade, yet there is one thing I lack to render my happiness complete.”

“What’s that?” she asked, rather surprised at the unusual tone of sadness in his voice. Her smiling lips suddenly quivered with a momentary dread – a dread of something she could not quite define.

He had paused at one of the seats at the end of the plage, and with a alight courteous wave of the hand invited her to sit. Slowly she did as she was bid, and awaited his reply.

“I have not yet found any woman to sufficiently care for me,” he answered at last, in a quiet impressive tone.

“You will surely have no difficulty,” she said with a strange ring in her voice. She had not suspected that he possessed a grain of sentiment, for long ago she had noticed that he was entirely unimpressionable where the charms of women were concerned.

His manner suddenly changed. He sank into the seat beside her, saying, —

“There is something, Liane, I want to say to you I’ve said it so often to myself that I feel as if you must know it.” She sat quite still. He had grasped her small hand in his, and she let him keep it, questioning his face with a bewildered gaze. “You must know – you must have guessed – ”

She turned pale, but outwardly quelled the panic that sent the blood to her heart. “I must tell you the truth now – I love you.”

With a sudden movement she freed her hand and drew away from him.

“Me!” she gasped. Whatever potential complicity had lurked in her heart, his words brought her only immeasurable dismay.

He bent towards her again. “Yes, you!”

She felt his hot breath upon her cheek, and put up her hand with imploring gesture. He looked at her with almost frenzied admiration, as if it were only with fierce resolve that he restrained himself from seizing her in his arms and closing her mouth with burning kisses. His whole frame quivered in the fury of repressed excitement, insomuch that she shrank from him with involuntary terror.

“Can’t you tell me what it is that makes me repugnant to you?” he asked quickly.

“You are not repugnant at all,” she faltered hoarsely. “You are not repugnant, only – I am indifferent.”

“You mean that you don’t care about me one way or the other.”

She shut her lips tight. Hers was not a nature so passionate as that of most Southerns, but a loving one; feeling with her was not a single simple emotion, but a complicated one of many impulses – of self-diffidences, of deep, strange aspirations that she herself could scarcely understand – a woman’s pride, the delight of companionship and sympathy and of the guidance of a stronger will; a longing for better things. All these things were there. But beside them were thoughts of the man she had vowed she loved, the man who was ruined and who could not for years hope to make her his wife. She looked at the glittering moonlit sea, with the light steadily burning in the far distance at Antibes, but no answer escaped her lips. The silence of night was complete save for the rhythmic swish of the waves at their feet.

At last, after a long pause, her words came again, shudderingly, “Oh, what have you done?”

“By Heaven!” he said, with a vague smile, “I don’t know. I hope no harm.”

“Oh, don’t laugh!” she cried, laughing hysterically herself. “Unless you want me to think you the greatest wretch in the world.”

“I?” he responded. “What do you mean?”

“You know you are fooling me,” she answered reproachfully. “You cannot put your hand on your heart and swear that you actually love me.”

A quick look of displeasure crossed his face, but his back was towards the moon and she did not notice it.

“Yes – yes, I can – I will,” he answered. “You must have known it, Liane. I’ve been abrupt, I know, and I’ve startled you, but if you love me you must attribute that to my loving you so long before I have spoken.”

Her troubled breast heaved and fell beneath her rich fur. She gazed at him with parted lips.

“It is a question from me to you,” he went on, “the question of my life.”

“No, don’t think so,” she protested, “please, don’t ask it.”

“Then don’t answer it, Liane. Wait – let me wait. Ask yourself – ”

“I know my own mind already,” she said slowly, with earnestness; then perceiving, as suddenly as she had all the rest, how considered her assertion might appear, she went on, still with the quietness of clear-seeing and truth-telling: “things come clear in an instant. This does, that I could not have thought of. I am already betrothed to another; that is why I cannot accept.”