CHAPTER III

he next morning Paul breakfasted on the terrace. The gay greetings of old friends, the pleasant babble in the breakfast room ill suited his reflective mood.

And as he sat alone under the fragrant pergola enjoying his cigarette and dividing his attention between his coffee and the Paris Edition of the Herald, a pale, dark-haired lady passed by as she sought the terrace for an early stroll. Paul's eyes were on his paper at that moment—and if the lady's well-bred glance lingered on him for a brief instant as he turned the pages of the daily, he was all unconscious of her presence.[30]

[30]

Perhaps the lady may have seen something about the strong, wholesome, well-groomed Englishman that pleased her, perhaps she was simply glad to be alive upon that glorious morning, with the bracing breeze blowing fresh from the lake, and the sun sending his welcome rays down upon the mountainside. At all events, her lips parted in the merest shadow of a smile as she walked along the gravelled path with the veriest air of a princess.

Alas! the smile and the dainty picture which the dark-haired lady made as she moved down the flower bordered path in the sunshine, her morning gown clinging gracefully about her slender figure, were alike lost on the engrossed Paul. With his eyes glued to the criticism of a sharpened writer on the last measure before Parliament, he read on, all oblivious to[31] his surroundings. Even here, at his beloved Lucerne, the man of affairs could not escape the thrall of the life into which he had thrown the whole effort of his fine mind.

[31]

Sir Paul had not quite finished the breezy article when, with an all pervading blast of a sweet-toned, but unnecessarily loud Gabriel horn, a big green touring car came dashing up to the gate of the little hotel, and with a final roar and sputter, and agonized shriek of rudely applied brakes, came to a sudden stop. From it there emerged, like a monster crab crawling from a mossy shell, a huge form in a bright green coat—a heavy man with a fat, colourless face and puffy eyes, and Paul, glancing up at the ostentatious approach, recognized in him a nouveau riche whom a political friend had insisted on introduc[32]ing in London a few days before.

[32]

Schwartzberger, his name was (Paul had a peculiar trick of remembering names)—the fellow was said to have made a fortune in old rags—no, it was tinned meats—in Chicago. 

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