Now, she is to be in Chamounix, and
she intends to invite us both, it seems, to visit her in
Aix-les-Bains, where she has taken a villa."
The Boy looked at me suddenly, with a slight start. "She is going to
Chamounix?"
"So she says."
"And--she will invite you to visit her at her villa in Aix-les-Bains."
"You, too. You said yesterday you wanted to go to Aix, as you had
never been; and we planned an expedition by the mule-path up Mont
Revard."
"I know. But--but would you visit the Contessa?"
"We might amuse ourselves. She would be well chaperoned, no doubt by
the Baronessa. There's a brother of the Baron's in the background.
Probably he'll turn up at Aix. Certainly he will if his relatives
have any control over his actions. He's no other, it turns out, than
Paolo di Nivoli, the young Italian whose airship invention has been
made a fuss about lately. It would be rather a joke to try and cut him
out with the Contessa--if one could."
"Oh--cut him out." The Boy seemed thoughtful. "Though you aren't in
love with her?"
"Yes."
"I see."
"Will you go if I do--that is, if she really asks us?"
I expected him to flash out a refusal, but he brooded under a deep
shadow of eyelashes for a while, looking half cross, half mischievous,
and finally said: "I'll think it over."
[Illustration]
CHAPTER XVI
A Man from the Dark
"Desperate, proud, fond, sick, .
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