"Let her choose," said the handsome Italian, pointing his moustache and doing such execution upon me with his splendid eyes, that if they'd been Maxim guns I should have fallen riddled with bullets.
"I'll sit by nobody," I managed to answer, this time in French. "Please take your seats. I will have a chair at the other end of the table."
"You see, mademoiselle is too polite to choose between us. She's afraid of a duel," laughed good-looking Number One. "I tell you what we must do. We'll draw lots for her. Three pellets of bread. The biggest wins."
"Beg your pardon, monsieur," remarked Mr. Dane, whom I hadn't seen as he opened the door, "mademoiselle is of my party. She is waiting for me."
His voice was perfectly calm, even polite, but as I whirled round and looked at him, fearing a scene, I saw that his eyes were rather dangerous. He looked like a dog who says, as plainly as a dog can speak, "I'm a good fellow, and I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt. But put that bone down, or I bite."
The Italian dropped the bone (I don't mind the simile) not because he was afraid, I think, but because Mr. John Dane's chin was much squarer and firmer than his; and because such sense of justice as he had told him that the newcomer was within his rights.
"And I beg mademoiselle's pardon," he replied with a bow and a flourish.
"I'm so glad you've come—but I oughtn't to be, and I didn't expect you," I said, when my chauffeur had pulled out a chair for me at the end of the table farthest from the other maids and chauffeurs.
"Why not?" he wanted to know, sitting down by my side.
"Because I suppose it's the best hotel in town, and—"
"Oh, you're thinking of my pocket! I wish I hadn't said what I did last night. Looking back, it sounds caddish. But I generally do blurt out things stupidly. If I didn't, I shouldn't be 'shuvving' now—only that's another story. To tell the whole truth, it wasn't the state of my pocketbook alone that influenced me last night. I had two other reasons. One was a selfish one, and the other, I hope, unselfish."
"I hope the selfish one wasn't fear of being bored?"
"If that's a question, it doesn't deserve an answer. But because you've asked it, I'll tell you both reasons. I'd stopped at La Reserve before, in—in rather different circumstances, and I thought—not only might it make talk about me, but—"
"I understand," I said. "Of course, Lady Turnour isn't as careful a chaperon as she ought to be."
Then we both laughed, and the danger-signals were turned off in his eyes. When he isn't smiling, Mr. Dane sometimes looks almost sullen, quite as if he could be disagreeable if he liked; but that makes the change more striking when he does smile.
"You needn't worry about that pocket of mine," he went on, as we ate our luncheon. "It's as cheap here as anywhere; and when I saw all those motors before the door, I made up my mind that you'd probably need a brother, so I came as soon as I could leave the car."
"So you are my brother, are you?" I echoed.
"Don't you think you might adopt me, once for all, in that relationship? Then, you see, the chaperoning won't matter so much. Of course, it's early days to take me on as a brother, but I think we'd better begin at once."
"Before I know whether you have any faults?" I asked. And just for the minute, the French half of me was a little piqued at his offer. That part of me pouted, and said that it would be much more amusing to travel in such odd circumstances beside a person one could flirt with, than to make a pact of "brother and sister." He might have given me the chance to say first that I'd be a sister to him! But the American half slapped the French half, and said: "What silly nonsense! Don't be an idiot, if you can help it. The man's behaving beautifully. And it will just do you good to have your vanity stepped on, you conceited little minx!"
"Oh, I've plenty of faults, I'll tell you to start with—plenty you may have noticed already, and plenty more you haven't had time to notice yet," said my new relative. "I'm a sulky brute, for one thing, and I've got to be a pessimist lately, for another—a horrid fault, that!—and I have a vile temper—"
"All those faults might be serviceable in a brother," I said. "Though in any one else—"
"In a friend or a lover, they'd be unbearable, of course; I know that," he broke in. "But who'd want me for a friend? And as for a lover, why, I'm struck off the list of eligibles, forever—if I was ever on it."
After that, we ate our luncheon as fast as we could (a very bad habit, which I don't mean to keep up for man or brother), and even though the others had begun long before we did, we finished while they were still cracking nuts and peeling apples, their spirits somewhat subdued by the Englishman's presence.
"The great folk won't have got their money's worth for nearly an hour yet," said Mr. Dane. "Don't you want to go and have a look at the Cathedral? There are some grand things to see there—the triptych called 'Le Buisson Argent,' and some splendid old tapestry in the choir; a whole wall and some marble columns from a Roman temple of Apollo—oh, and you mustn't forget to look for the painting of St. Mitre the Martyr trotting about with his head in his hands. On the way to the Cathedral notice the doorways you'll pass. Aix is celebrated for its doorways."
(Evidently my brother passed through Aix, as well as along the Corniche, under "different circumstances!")
"You mean—I'm to go alone?"
"Yes, I can't leave the car to take you. I'm sorry."
The French half of me was vexed again, but didn't dare let the sensible American half, which knew he was right, see it, for fear of another scolding.
I thanked him in a way as businesslike as his own, and said that I would take his advice; which I did. Although I hate sightseeing by myself, I wouldn't let him think I meant to be always trespassing on his good nature; and afterward I was glad I hadn't yielded to my inclination to be helpless, for the Cathedral and the doorways were all he had promised, and more. It was a scramble to see anything in the few minutes I had, though, and awful to feel that Lady Turnour was hanging over my head like a sword. The thought of how she would look and what she would say if I kept the car waiting was a string tied to my nerves, pulling them all at once, like a jumping-jack's arms and legs, so that I positively ran back to the hotel, more breathless than Cinderella when the hour of midnight began to strike. But there was the magic glass coach, not yet become a pumpkin; there was the chauffeur, not turned into whatever animal a chauffeur does turn into in fairy stories; and there were not Sir Samuel and her ladyship, nor any sign of them.
"Thank goodness, I'm not late!" I panted. "I was afraid I was. That dear verger wouldn't realize that there could be anything of more importance in the world than the statue of Ste. Martha and the Tarasque."
"Nothing is, really," said Mr. Dane, glancing up from some dentist-looking work he was doing in the Aigle's mouth under her lifted bonnet. "But you are a little late—"
"Oh!" I gasped, pink with horror. "You don't mean to say the Turnours have been out, and waiting?"
"I do, but don't be so despairing. I told them I thought I'd better look the car over, and wasn't quite ready. That's always true, you know. A motor's like a pretty woman; never objects to being looked at. So they said 'damn,' and strolled off to buy chocolates."
"It's getting beyond count how many times you've saved me, and this is only our second day out," I exclaimed. "Here they come now, as they always do, when we exchange a word."
I trembled guiltily, but there was no more than a vague general disapproval in Lady Turnour's eyes, the kind of expression which she thinks useful for keeping servants in their place.
I got into mine, on the front seat; the car's bonnet got into its, the chauffeur into his, and at just three o'clock we turned our backs upon good King René.
The morning had drunk up all the sunshine of the day, leaving none for afternoon, which was troubled with a hint of coming mistral. The landscape began