INSIST on knowing what is the matter, Beppo?” The Countess Polda gazed apprehensively at her son. Not even when he had been going through acute money trouble had he looked as moody and miserable as he looked now.
He had just arrived at La Solitude to hear that Lily had gone off to the Convalescent Home for the morning.
“I do not know that very much is the matter,” he answered deliberately, “but perhaps I ought to tell you that I fear you are going to have a big disappointment. As you are such a clever woman, as well as an unscrupulous woman,” he laughed disagreeably, “very often what you desire to happen does happen. But as regards Lily Fairfield you are destined to meet with failure.”
The Countess felt a shock go through her. Instinctively she put her hand on her heart. But she answered him at once, in a calm, good-humoured tone:
“You are such a child, Beppo! And like most young men you are vain and impatient. I never supposed that Lily would fall into your arms at once, as no doubt a great many pretty ladies have done ere now! Believe me, when you are married to her you will be glad that she was not what you want to find her now—eager and ready to be made love to. Perhaps without knowing it you have startled her. English girls are sometimes very prudish, you know.”
The Countess was looking fixedly at her son, and she saw that she had guessed right. They had evidently had some kind of a scene yesterday.
“I allowed you to behave à l'Anglaise,” she went on—“I mean taking those walks and drives together—because I thought I could trust to your good sense. But I fear I was wrong, Beppo.”
“I lose my head when I am with Lily!” he exclaimed. “Her coldness excites me! I do not want to make a mystery about it, mamma. I see you have guessed that I was a fool!”
As he saw a look of keen dismay come over her face, he added lightly: “Nothing very much happened. But yes, it is, true that while we were out yesterday we had something of a quarrel. I told her that if she refused to let me kiss her I would send the car over the edge of the precipice!”
He saw the colour recede from his mother's face. She suddenly looked like an old woman—old, and desperately tired. He felt queerly touched.
“Come, come, mamma, don't be frightened! Years ago, when I was younger, I might have been so mad, but I am an older and a wiser man now.”
“Then you did not kiss her?”
“No, mamma; I could have done so, as, of course, she was at my mercy. But—well,” he shrugged his shoulders, “I never have kissed an unwilling woman.”
“Her conduct is strange,” said the Countess thoughtfully, “for she certainly seems to like you.” The speaker still felt very shaky, but she was trying to pull herself together.
“I wonder if it has ever occurred to you,” said Beppo, “that there is already a man in Lily's life? I taunted her—for, mamma, I quite lost my head—and now, looking back, I remember that she said nothing. She did not deny it—as a modest girl would have done.”
As the Countess remained silent, he went on:
“In one of your letters you said that Lily had solemnly assured you she was not engaged, and that you believed this to be the truth. But, mamma, has it ever occurred to you that the curious, silent young man, that Captain Stuart who is staying down at the Hôtel de Paris, may be in love with her? If he were a Frenchman I would call him out,” added Beppo fiercely. “We would have a duel, and I would kill him!”
“The girl hardly knows him,” she said slowly.
“I cannot help suspecting that I have a rival! Yet till yesterday I would have sworn that she was as pure as the flower from which she takes her name!”
“You can still swear that,” said the Countess firmly.
She made up her mind to remain absolutely silent as to the little she knew about Angus Stuart and his friendship with Lily Fairfield. After all, there was only that letter—that rather short, formal letter, enclosing those notes on the writer's life. Still, she had thought of that letter and of those notes very often, as she had watched the girl during the last few days, much as a big, wily cat watches an unsuspecting mouse. She was fairly sure that Lily had not sent any letter out of the house, apart from the one she had written to her uncle. It was true that the girl went to meet the postman every morning, but in Monaco postmen are not allowed to take letters to the post, and the post-box was some way down the hill. The Countess was certain that Lily had not been down there alone during the last few days.