"Didn't I tell you they would be here?" she said in careless amazement. "Why, of course, dear Jean left two days before we did. It makes such a nice little party. Do you play bridge?"
Lydia did not play bridge, but was willing to be taught.
She spent the remaining hour of daylight exploring the grounds which led down to the road which fringed the sea.
She could look across at the lights already beginning to twinkle at Monte Carlo, to the white yachts lying off Monaco, and farther along the coast to a little cluster of lights that stood for Beaulieu.
"It is glorious," she said, drawing a long breath.
Mrs. Cole-Mortimer, who had accompanied her in her stroll, purred the purr of the pleased patron whose protégée has been thankful for favours received.
Dinner was a gay meal, for Jean was in her brightest mood. She had a keen sense of fun and her sly little sallies, sometimes aimed at her father, sometimes at Lydia's expense, but more often directed at people in the social world, whose names were household words, kept Lydia in a constant gurgle of laughter.
Mrs. Cole-Mortimer alone was nervous and ill at ease. She had learnt unpleasant news and was not sure whether she should tell the company or keep her secret to herself. In such dilemma, weak people take the most sensational course, and presently she dropped her bombshell.
"Celeste says that the gardener's little boy has malignant smallpox," she almost wailed.
Jean was telling a funny story to the girl who sat by her, and did not pause for so much as a second in her narrative. The effect on Mr. Briggerland was, however, wholly satisfactory to Mrs. Cole-Mortimer. He pushed back his chair and blinked at his "hostess."
"Smallpox?" he said in horror, "here--in Cap Martin? Good God, did you hear that, Jean?"
"Did I hear what?" she asked lazily, "about the gardener's little boy? Oh, yes. There has been quite an epidemic on the Italian Riviera, in fact they closed the frontier last week."
"But--but here!" spluttered Briggerland.
Lydia could only look at him in open-eyed amazement. The big man's terror was pitiably apparent. The copper skin had turned a dirty grey, his lower lip was trembling like a frightened child's.
"Why not here?" said Jean coolly, "there is nothing to be scared about. Have you been vaccinated recently?" she turned to the girl, and Lydia shook her head.
"Not since I was a baby--and then I believe the operation was not a success."