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There was one crumb of comfort: the incident would be forgotten in a few days. "I may depend upon you to-night, then?" said Merrihew. "I shall be pleased to meet Miss Killigrew," which was a white one. Hillard would have paid court to a laundress rather than offend Merrihew. And promptly at eleven he went up to the card-room and dragged Merrihew away. Merrihew gave up his chair reluctantly.
So to get him away from the scene at once was the best possible thing he could do. Merrihew noticed the little group of men collected at the edge of the road, but he was too deeply absorbed in his own affairs to stop and make inquiries. The principal thing was to reach Florence without delay. He smoked two cigars and offered scarcely a dozen words to Hillard.
It is easy to be sympathetic with persons whose troubles are remote from our own. The train started, and again they had the compartment. "Monte Carlo! Gold, gold, little round pieces of gold!" Merrihew rubbed his hands like the miser in The Chimes of Normandy. "Hard to get and heavy to hold!" quoted Hillard. "I suppose that you have a system already worked out." "Of course.
Merrihew was first to break the silence. "Jack, I am an ass!" penitently. "I admit it," said Hillard, smiling. "Let's hunt up the restaurant; I am hungry and thirsty." And by the time they had found the Ristorante Tornaghi miserable and uninviting they were laughing. "Only, I wish I knew where they were going," was Hillard's regret. "They?" said Merrihew. "Yes.
"When the time comes," said Merrihew with a laugh, "be sure you soak it to him, and an extra one for me." Early on the morrow they rode out to the Cascine, formerly a dairy-farm, but now a splendid park. The bridle-paths are the finest in the world, not excepting those in the Bois de Bologne in Paris. They are not so long, perhaps, but they are infinitely more beautiful.
The brilliant uniform prevailed, and Merrihew surrendered the luggage, marveling. Hillard seemed to know every one over here. "Beautiful weather," said the uniform, as they passed through the gates. "Fine," said Merrihew. From the corner of his eye he inspected the man at his side. Certainly he could be no less than a captain in the navy, with those epaulets and sleeve-bands.
Merrihew knew that he should love Florence all the rest of his days. They were entering the Via Tornabuoni, toward the Havana cigar-store, when a young woman came out of the little millinery shop a few doors from the tobacconist's. Immediately Hillard stepped to one side of her and Merrihew to the other. "You can not run away this time, Kitty Killigrew!" cried Merrihew joyously.
The automobile barked and groaned and came to a stand. "Hello, Sandford!" "Jack Hillard, as I live, and Dan Merrihew! Nell?" turning to one of the three pretty women in the tonneau. "What did I tell you? I felt it in my bones that we would run across some one we knew." "Or over them," his wife laughed.
Merrihew hastened over to the north table. This was, according to report, the table which had no suicide's chair; and Merrihew had his private superstitions like the rest of us. At eleven o'clock the banks closed, so he had but two hours in which to win a fortune. It was not possible for him to lose one; in this the gods were with him.
But not so with Hillard. At last! "To the Campo, Pompeo. Mr. Hillard, will you kindly follow? I would speak to you alone, since there is no escape." Her tone chilled Hillard's ardor somewhat. But to speak to her again, and mayhap see her face! "Doesn't want the police," whispered Merrihew. "I told you so. Look out for yourself."
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