HE wine shop of Jacques Rousillon, situated in the principal street of Cagnes, was dark and cool and cleanly. Madame Rousillon, who stood behind the counter flanked by rows of bottles and sirups, was beautiful. Paul Ludor, who had just strolled across from the railway station, was in no wise disappointed.
“Madame,” he exclaimed, pausing before the counter, hat in hand, “you are even more wonderful here, ches vous, than on the Promenade des Anglais yesterday. I offer you my salutations. You see that I am a man of my word.”
Madame was flattered but confused. That this handsome stranger, altogether Parisian in type and dress, should have remembered their yesterday's brief flirtation and sought her out thus was distinctly pleasing to her vanity. On the other hand, Jacques Rousillon was not very far away, and Jacques was a very jealous husband.
“Monsieur will take something?” she asked, a little timidly.
“A mixed vermuth, if you please, Madame,” he answered. “I gather that there are perhaps distracting circumstances.”
Madame nodded confidentially.
T IS Jacques, my husband, who is around,” she whispered. “One must be careful.”
“My dear lady, do I not understand?” Ludor replied. “I am not without experience. I know these husbands. Still, they are to be eluded, are they not?”
“At times,” Madame admitted, serving her visitor with his drink. “Just now, Jacques is difficult. He is annoyed that I did not stay and serve in the café all yesterday while he went to the fête. He detests my going to Nice. It is absurd.”
“Madame,” Ludor declared, “if you were my wife you would never go to Nice.”
She laughed gaily. “Monsieur, too, is jealous?”
He tried to take her hand across the counter, but with a nervous glance behind her she eluded him.
“Not jealous but a monopolist,” he confessed. “Nice, if you would, or Monte Carlo, or Paris—but with me.”
“Ah, the sound of those places!” she sighed.
“But you should know them all,” he urged. “You have a great gift, Madame. You are beautiful. Here they know nothing. In Monte Carlo or in Paris you would be acclaimed.”
ER eyes—they were indeed soft and dark and lustrous—flashed with imagined joys. She leaned toward him and this time she forgot those shuffling footsteps behind.
“Monsieur flatters,” she murmured.
“Do I not prove my words?” he insisted. “Am I not here? I, but yesterday from Paris where indeed, Madame, I have many friends.”
“Sweethearts, perhaps,” she sighed.
“Give me but the chance, Madame,” he begged, “and I will speak to you of these things.”
She looked out over his shoulder into the hot, dusty little street. A tumble-down victoria was drawn up outside, and upon the driver's seat was a bibulous-looking man with a white hat and a red nose. His vehicle was in the last stage of dilapidation. He himself appeared to be asleep. There was nothing else to look at except the dreary front of the station. Without a doubt she was weary of Cagnes and her life of hard work. There was no one here who spoke to her like this. If, indeed, she were as beautiful as this man seemed to think, why could she not also be happy?
“Monsieur is not serious,” she said. “He is just a traveler. To-day he is here; to-morrow he will have passed and forgotten.”
“Madame,” he confided, “Céleste, you permitted me to say, during those few minutes yesterday—I have tried to forget, but I can not. That is why I am here.”
Again the shuffling behind, and Madame was frightened. “If my husband comes out,” she warned him, “you must be careful. Sit down, and will you not smoke? You have too much the air of being in earnest. It might seem so to him—alas, not to me.”
Ludor obeyed her wishes. He seated himself at a small table close to the counter.
“Monsieur returns to Nice this afternoon?” she inquired.
He shook his head.
“As it happens, no,” he answered. “I have an old friend here whom I desire to visit. Madame de Soyau of the Villa Sabatin. You know where it is?”
She nodded.
“It is two miles away. Up in the hills toward Saint Paul,” she told him. “It is to see his friend, then, that Monsieur has come.”
“Indeed, no,” he replied emphatically. “It is a chance that my friend lives here. Fate, perhaps. Who knows? Nevertheless, believe this; even though I had not been on my way to the Villa Sabatin, to-day would have found me here. If to-night could only find me at your feet?”