Several
other guests were expected--the young widow of a rich stockbroker; two
Jewish heiresses who still called themselves girls; an elderly,
impecunious English earl; an Austrian count who had failed to find a
wife in England, and a naval lieutenant who was heir to an impoverished
baronetcy: a set of people sure to be congenial, because each wanted
something which another could give. Everything ought to have been
satisfactory, even from Dauntrey's point of view, for he had interested
all the men in his system, and what money they could spare would be put
into it; he would play for the "syndicate"; or if the men preferred
gambling themselves, they must give him something for the system which
he was prepared to teach.
When she arrived at Monte Carlo on a beautiful day of sunshine, which
seemed a good omen, Eve Dauntrey believed that at last luck had turned
for her. She thought that the thing she had longed for, year after year,
was coming at last; and she was proud of the plan she had made, proud of
the way in which she had worked it out. But the moment she entered the
villa in the Condamine, her spirits were damped almost as if, by some
monkey-trick, a jug of cold water had been upset on her head as the door
opened to let her in. She felt the same depression fall upon the minds
of the others, as shadows can be seen to move and grow long at sunset.
She knew that the Collises and Dodo Wardropp were going to be
dissatisfied, and that they would talk against the house and their
accommodation in it, behind her back, saying that she had deliberately
deceived them.
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