The Gods Arrive by Edith Wharton

Author:Edith Wharton [Wharton, Edith]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-963-522-259-9
Publisher: Booklassic
Published: 1932-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

DUCA DI SPARTIVENTO

With

ROSENZWEIG AND BLEMP

Members New York Stock Exchange

New York and Paris

Chapter 7

When Vance came down the next morning none of Mrs. Glaisher's other guests were visible. Even Alders, no doubt engrossed in secretarial business, did not show himself; but the night before, when Vance had questioned him about Chris Churley, he had said instantly: "Ah, you know Chris? So much the better. I was going to ask if you wouldn't give him an interview—for an article in the 'Windmill', you know."

Vance laughed. "Yes, I do know; and I gave him the interview a good many weeks ago."

Alders wrinkled his brows deprecatingly. "Ah—there it is! No results, I suppose? A genius—certainly a touch of genius, eh? But can't be pinned down. He begged me to get him a chance to see Gratz Blemer, and though Blemer's shy of publicity at present (or she is, rather) I did persuade them that 'The Rush Hour' ought to be written about in the 'Windmill', and Chris spent an afternoon on the yacht—enjoying it immensely, by the way; but as for the article, nothing came of it. Blemer keeps on asking me when he's to see the copy; and what can I answer, when I can't even get hold of Churley?"

"Ah—you can't get hold of him?"

"Vanished—like an absconding cashier. Some fellow saw him playing in the baccarat room at Monte Carlo; but I've looked in two or three times without finding him. And of course I don't know his address. I daresay, though, he'll bob up when he hears you're here."

Vance had good reasons for not thinking so; but there seemed nothing to do but to prosecute his search at Monte Carlo, since it was there that Chris had last been seen. A confidential enquiry at the police-station might possibly give some result; but in a big city like Nice the boy would be harder to trace.

Vance was still dizzy with the translation from Oubli-sur-Mer to the Villa Mirifique. Floss Delaney, unreal as the setting in which he had found her, seemed the crowning improbability of the adventure. But the villa, at any rate, was substantial. The morning sun, robbing it of its magic, merely turned it into an expensive-looking house from which splendour and poetry had fled. As he paced the terrace above the over-ornamented gardens Vance asked himself if he should have the same disillusionment when he saw Miss Delaney again. On the very spot where he now paused to light his cigarette he had stood beside her the night before while the moon turned her bare arms to amber. He had promised to meet her, with the rest of the party, that evening at Monte Carlo; they were to dine, he didn't remember where, with the fat pale man he had taken for the Duke of Spartivento, and who turned out to be somebody infinitely more important, an oil or railway king, Alders explained.

Vance had had only a short exchange of words with Alders when the party broke up, for the secretary had to hurry away to arrange for the morrow.

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