RS. BLACKETT was resting in her sunny, barely furnished bedroom; that is, she was sitting back in a basket chair close to the open window, but though her dark-blue eyes were closed she was not asleep. She had just enjoyed a reasonable share of the copious, well-cooked meal which she had learned to think of as déjeuner, for this young American woman was spending a very happy summer in France—at Enghien.
It was a very hot August afternoon, but Mabel Blackett was in perfect physical condition, and in her cool, white silk-muslin gown and large black tulle hat, she felt only comfortably warm. It was an ideal day for a drive in the Forest of Montmerency—through the shady glades which used to be the principal attraction of Enghien, and Mrs. Blackett was waiting for the arrival of the friend whom she had asked to drive with her.
That friend was a Danish lady, a certain Madame Olsen. The two, both young, both widowed, both possessed of ample means, had met in the Paris hotel where Mabel Blackett had been spending a lonely week, and the two had soon become friends. It was owing to Anna Olsen that Mabel Blackett had stayed on in France instead of going on to Switzerland.
For the first time the pretty young American woman was seeing life, and she found such seeing very pleasant. How fortunate it was that one of the two mistresses of the old-fashioned “Young Ladies' School” at which she had been educated was a Frenchwoman! Thanks to that fact she spoke the language fairly well, and she had been able to make quite a number of friends in delightful Enghien.
Mrs. Blackett had been born, bred, married, and widowed in a small New England country town called Dallington. And not in her wildest dreams, during the placid days when she had been the principal heiress of that quiet—she now called it to herself, that sleepy—little place had she conceived of so amusing, so exhilarating an existence as that which she was now leading! This was perhaps owing in a measure to the fact that there is, if one may so express it, a spice of naughtiness in life as led at Enghien. At home, neither as girl nor during her brief married life as the wife of a man much older than herself, had Mabel Blackett ever been allowed to be naughty.
A highly esteemed guidebook to Paris says of Enghien:
But this, as every one who knows Enghien is very well aware, is only half, nay a quarter or an eighth, of the truth. Enghien is the spendthrift, the gambler—the austere would call her the chartered libertine—of the group of pretty country towns which encircle Paris; for Enghien is in the proud possession of a gambling concession which has gradually turned what was once the quietest of inland watering places into a miniature Monte Carlo.
The vast majority of American visitors to Paris remain quite unaware that there is, within half an hour of the French capital, such a spot as gay Enghien; the minority, those tourists who do make their way to the alluring little place, generally live to regret that they have done so.
But in this, as in so very many other things, Mabel Blackett was the fortunate exception which proves the rule. Enghien had developed in her a most unexpected taste—that of play. She thoroughly enjoyed risking her money—enjoyed both the humble joys provided by that gambling plaything, petits chevaux, and perhaps even more the more dangerous delights of baccarat. But for long generations her forbears had been business people and amassing-money people, and Mrs. Blackett, after the first few days, had never been tempted to play for more than she knew she could afford to lose.
It was a sad pity that in this matter the friend for whom she was now waiting—that is, Anna Olsen—was not as wise and sensible as herself. Mabel Blackett had an affectionate, happy nature, and as she waited for Madame Olsen her thoughts dwelt on her, not unkindly, only a little critically, as our thoughts are apt to dwell on those of our friends of whose conduct we do not particularly approve, especially if it be conduct that we ourselves would never be tempted to emulate.
Anna Olsen lived for play, and play alone. Dark, excitable, ardent, in spite of her Scandinavian blood, she was an absolute contrast to the fair American. That perhaps was one reason why they had become such friends, but sometimes Madame Olsen quite frightened Mabel Blackett by the reckless way in which she risked large sums of money at the gambling tables.