The Place of Honeymoons

From where he sat Courtlandt could see down the main thoroughfare of the

pretty village. There were other streets, to be sure, but courtesy and

good nature alone permitted this misapplication of title: they were merely

a series of torturous enervating stairways of stone, up and down which

noisy wooden sandals clattered all the day long. Over the entrances to the

shops the proprietors were dropping the white and brown awnings for the

day. Very few people shopped after luncheon. There were pleasanter

pastimes, even for the women, contradictory as this may seem. By eleven

o'clock Courtlandt had finished the reading of his mail, and was now ready

to hunt for the little lady of the Taverne Royale. It was necessary to

find her. The whereabouts of Flora Desimone was of vital importance. If

she had not yet arrived, the presence of her friend presaged her ultimate

arrival. The duke was a negligible quantity. It would have surprised

Courtlandt could he have foreseen the drawing together of the ends of the

circle and the relative concernment of the duke in knotting those ends.

The labors of Hercules had never entailed the subjugation of two

temperamental women.

He rose and proceeded on his quest. Before the photographer's shop he saw

a dachel wrathfully challenging a cat on the balcony of the adjoining

building. The cat knew, and so did the puppy, that it was all buncombe on

the puppy's part: the usual European war-scare, in which one of the

belligerent parties refused to come down because it wouldn't have been

worth while, there being the usual Powers ready to intervene. Courtlandt

did not bother about the cat; the puppy claimed his attention. He was very

fond of dogs. So he reached down suddenly and put an end to the sharp

challenge. The dachel struggled valiantly, for this breed of dog does not

make friends easily.

"I say, you little Dutchman, what's the row? I'm not going to hurt you.

Funny little codger! To whom do you belong?" He turned the collar around,

read the inscription, and gently put the puppy on the ground.

Nora Harrigan!

His immediate impulse was to walk on, but somehow this impulse refused to

act on his sense of locomotion. He waited, dully wondering what was going

to happen when she came out. He had left her room that night in Paris,

vowing that he would never intrude on her again. With the recollection of

that bullet whizzing past his ear, he had been convinced that the play was

done. True, she had testified that it had been accidental, but never would

he forget the look in her eyes. It was not pleasant to remember. And

still, as the needle is drawn by the magnet, here he was, in Bellaggio. He

cursed his weakness. From Brescia he had made up his mind to go directly

to Berlin. Before he realized how useless it was to battle against these

invisible forces, he was in Milan, booking for Como. At Como he had

remained a week (the dullest week he had ever known); at the Villa d'Este

three days; at Cadenabbia one day. It had all the characteristics of a

tug-of-war, and irresistibly he was drawn over the line. The night before

he had taken the evening boat across the lake. And Herr Rosen had been his

fellow-passenger! The goddess of chance threw whimsical coils around her

victims. To find himself shoulder to shoulder, as it were, with this man

who, perhaps more than all other incentives, had urged him to return again

to civilization; this man who had aroused in his heart a sentiment that

hitherto he had not believed existed,--jealousy.... Ah, voices! He stepped

aside quickly.