was an intimate friend of the Count was shown by the instructions he gave her.

“You two walk along the Promenade des Anglais, and I’ll meet you at the other end, by the Hôtel Suisse. I’ll take the car myself on to the garage.”

This meant that I was to walk with her a full three-quarters of an hour along the whole of the beautiful sea-front of Nice. Why? I wondered.

“But, Bindo, can’t you come?”

“I’ll meet you outside the Suisse. It’s better to do that,” was his answer. “Go along; you’ll find Ewart a clever fellow. He’ll tell you how to drive a motor-car.”

She laughed lightly, and then, as Bindo mounted into the car again and turned away, we strolled together on the broad asphalte back towards the town.

The morning was delightful, with bright sunshine and blue sea. The sweet-smelling wallflowers were [Pg 30]already out, and the big palms waved lazily in the soft breeze.

[Pg 30]

I quickly found my companion most charming, and envied the Count his acquaintanceship. Was she marked down as a victim? Or was she an accomplice? I could not grasp the motive for being sent to walk the whole length of the Promenade with her. But the Count and his companions were, they admitted, working a “big thing,” and this was part of it, I supposed.

“This is the first time you have been in Nice, eh?” she asked in her pretty broken English as she stopped a moment to open her sunshade.

“Yes,” I answered; “but the Count is an old habitué, I believe?”

“Oh yes,” she laughed; “he knows everybody. Last year he was on the Fêtes Committee and one of the judges at the Battle of Flowers.”

And so we gossiped on, walking leisurely, and passing many who, like ourselves, were idling in the winter sunshine.

There was an air of refined ingenuousness about her that was particularly attractive. She walked well, holding her skirt tightly about her as only a true Parisienne can, and displaying a pair of extremely neat ankles. She inquired about me—how long had I been in the Count’s service, how I liked him, and such-like; while I, by careful questioning, discovered that her name was Gabrielle Deleuse, and that she came to the Côté d’Azur each season.

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