FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   160   161  
162   163   164   165   166   167   168   169   170   171   172   173   174   175   176   177   178   179   180   181   182   183   184   185   186   >>   >|  
rough the spring and summer in England partly on their wits, partly through impressing landlords and travelling nonentities with their social importance, and partly through their successes at bridge. For they both played bridge extremely well, too well, it had once or twice been said of Lord Dauntrey in South Africa. Lady Dauntrey's "plan" was to get together as many paying guests as possible, enlist their interest in the "system," or, if they could not be persuaded into that, to earn for herself something even better than board-money, by introducing rich girls to men of title. She had not doubted her opportunities for thrusting her female pigeons into society, or of getting hold of young foreign aristocrats, perhaps even Englishmen, who were "out for dollars," as her girls would be out for dukes--or the next best thing after dukes. And she had begun well. The house she had secured was cheap; and she brought with her from England three women who would alone pay more than enough to keep it up. Her husband's friend, Dom Ferdinand de Trevanna, and his faithful follower, the Marquis de Casablanca, had fulfilled a promise to meet them at Monte Carlo on the day after their arrival at the villa. 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.
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   160   161  
162   163   164   165   166   167   168   169   170   171   172   173   174   175   176   177   178   179   180   181   182   183   184   185   186   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
Dauntrey
 

system

 

partly

 

England

 

bridge

 
guests
 
baronetcy
 

people

 
impoverished
 

lieutenant


monkey

 

Everything

 
wanted
 

congenial

 
elderly
 

opened

 
heiresses
 
called
 

failed

 

Austrian


impecunious

 

English

 

arrived

 

prepared

 

gambling

 

coming

 

thought

 

turned

 

longed

 

sunshine


beautiful

 
Jewish
 

preferred

 

syndicate

 

damped

 
interested
 

spirits

 
believed
 

Condamine

 
worked

entered
 

moment

 
satisfactory
 
enlist
 

interest

 

persuaded

 
paying
 

thrusting

 
female
 

pigeons