Part 58

On the following morning, as soon as he was dressed, he learned from the Concierge that the Comte de Lussigny had left for Paris by the early train.

"Good," said Aristide.

A little later Mrs. Errington met him in the lounge and accompanied him to the lawn where they had sat the day before.

"I have no words to thank you, Monsieur Pujol," she said with tears in her eyes. "I have heard how you shamed him at the tables. It was brave of you."

"It was nothing." He shrugged his shoulders as if he were in the habit of doing deeds like that every day of his life. "And your exquisite daughter, Madame?"

"Poor Betty! She is prostrate. She says she will never hold up her head again. Her heart is broken."

"It is young and will be mended," said Aristide.

She smiled sadly. "It will be a question of time. But she is grateful to you, Monsieur Pujol. She realizes from what a terrible fate you have saved her." She sighed. There was a brief silence.

"After this," she continued, "a further stay in Aix would be too painful. We have decided to take the Savoy express this evening and get back to our quiet home in Somerset."

"Ah, madame," said Aristide earnestly. "And shall I not have the pleasure of seeing the charming Miss Betty again?"

"You will come and stay with us in September. Let me see? The fifteenth. Why not fix a date? You have my address? No? Will you write it down?" she dictated: "Wrotesly Manor, Burnholme, Somerset. There I'll try to show you how grateful I am."

She extended her hand. He bowed over it and kissed it in his French way and departed a very happy man.

The Erringtons left that evening. Aristide waylaid them as they were entering the hotel omnibus, with a preposterous bouquet of flowers which he presented to Betty, whose pretty face was hidden by a motor-veil. He bowed, laid his hand on his heart and said: "Adieu, mademoiselle."

"No," she said in a low voice, but most graciously, "Au revoir, Monsieur Pujol."

For the next few days Aix seemed to be tame and colourless. In an inexplicable fashion, too, it had become unprofitable. Aristide no longer knew that he was going to win; and he did not win. He lost considerably. So much so that on the morning when he was to draw the cash for the cheque, at the Crédit Lyonnais, he had only fifty pounds and some odd silver left. Aristide looking at the remainder rather ruefully made a great resolution. He would gamble no more. Already he was richer than he had ever been in his life. He would leave Aix. Tiens! why should he not go to his good friends the Bocardons at Nîmes, bringing with him a gold chain for Bocardon and a pair of ear-rings for the adorable Zette? There he would look about him. He would use the thousand pounds as a stepping-stone to legitimate fortune. Then he would visit the Erringtons in England, and if the beautiful Miss Betty smiled on him--why, after all, sacrebleu he was an honest man, without a feather on his conscience.

So, jauntily swinging his cane, he marched into the office of the Crédit Lyonnais, went into the inner room and explained his business.

"Ah, your cheque, monsieur, that we were to collect. I am sorry. It has come back from the London bankers."

"How come back?"

"It has not been honoured. See, monsieur. 'Not known. No account.'" The cashier pointed to the grim words across the cheque.

"Comprends pas," faltered Aristide.

"It means that the person who gave you the cheque has no account at this bank."

Aristide took the cheque and looked at it in a dazed way.

"Then I do not get my twenty-five thousand francs?"

"Evidently not," said the cashier.

Aristide stood for a while stunned. What did it mean? His thousand pounds could not be lost. It was impossible. There was some mistake. It was an evil dream. With a heavy weight on the top of his head, he went out of the Crédit Lyonnais and mechanically crossed the little street separating the Bank from the café on the Place Carnot. There he sat stupidly and wondered. The waiter hovered in front of him. "Monsieur désire?" Aristide waved him away absently. Yes, it was some mistake. Mrs. Errington in her agitation must have used the wrong cheque book. But even rich English people do not carry about with them a circulating library assortment of cheque books. It was incomprehensible--and meanwhile, his thousand pounds....

The little square blazed before him in the August sunshine. Opposite flashed the white mass of the Etablissement des Bains. There was the old Roman Arch of Titus, gray and venerable. There were the trees of the gardens in riotous greenery. There on the right marking the hour of eleven on its black face was the clock of the Comptoir National. It was Aix; familiar Aix; not a land of dreams. And there coming rapidly across from the Comptoir National was the well knit figure of the young man from Atlanta.

"Nom de Dieu," murmured Aristide. "Nom de Dieu de nom de Dieu!"

Eugene Miller, in a fine frenzy, threw himself into a chair beside Aristide.