Raife and Gilda found themselves wandering alone in a grove of trees,
those dark-hued olives with leaf and branch in silhouette against a
cerulean sky. This was the first occasion when opportunity had served
for the display of a pent-up passion. With a fierceness that belongs to
the madness of a love that has been controlled, almost discomforted, by
circumstances Raife caught Gilda in his arms! Love may be blind, but
love is alert. Crumpling leaves and a footstep brought Raife to his
more complete sense. Turning, he saw the uncanny form of the Apache
person, the forbidding creature who had spoken to him outside the cafe,
on the night when Gilda had sent the little Italian girl to fetch him to
her. With a gesture of impatience, that expressed thwarted opportunity,
he said: "Who is that fellow, Gilda? Why is he here? How did he get
here?"
Gilda trembled, and held her head between her hands. "I don't know,"
she stammered. "Don't ask me. I don't know!"
Brief is the life of golden opportunity, and Raife's happiness had been
broken by this phantom person of the forbidding aspect. A Saxon can
love, but a Saxon can sulk. All that was Saxon in Sir Raife Remington
induced him to sulk at this moment. They returned to where the tables
were laid with that tempting display of napery and polished silver which
is so well understood by the continental caterers. Lady Remington and
Doctor Malsano were conversing agreeably. Gilda was evidently
distressed, and Raife remained sulky. As they met again, the doctor was
saying: "Your son was telling me, Lady Remington, that the Baroness von
Sassniltz is a friend of yours. She is staying, I understand, at the
same hotel with us?"
"Oh, yes, Doctor Malsano, I know the baroness. She visits us at
Aldborough Park, my son's place, you know, near Tunbridge Wells."
"How very interesting. I have often felt I would like to meet the
baroness. They tell me she is a very brilliant lady." This was said
with much unction.
The day that had opened so brightly, and with so much pleasure to Raife,
was no longer pleasing to him. He was haunted by that Apache-looking
fellow, whose hateful appearance in the olive grove had robbed him of
the gratification that he felt should have been his. The course of true
love is rarely smooth. It is often very rough. The weird happenings,
since Raife and Gilda had met and talked, the brief love way into their
souls on the front at Southport, had crowded their lives with mixed joy
and sorrow. In these charming al-fresco surroundings, where the
daintiness of human service blended with nature's choicest gifts, there
should have been peace and quietude of spirit. It was not to be. The
haunting thought of his father's dying words recurred again and again.
"The trap--. She--that woman."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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