On the seaward terrace of the vast, pale, floriated Casino, so impressive in its glittering vulgarity, like the bride-cake of a stockbroker’s wedding, we strolled about among a multifarious crowd, immersed in ourselves.  We shared a contempt for the architecture, the glaring flower-beds, and the false distinction of the crowd, and an enthusiasm for the sunshine and the hills and the sea, and whatever else had escaped the hands of the Casino administration.  We talked lightly and freely.  Care seemed to be leaving us; we had no preoccupations save those which were connected with our passion.  Then I saw, standing in an attitude of attention, the famous body-servant of Lord Francis Alcar, and I knew that Lord Francis could not be far away.  We spoke to the valet; he pointed out his master, seated at the front of the terrace, and told us, in a discreet, pained, respectful voice, that our venerable friend had been mysteriously unwell at Monte Carlo, and was now taking the air for the first time in ten days.  I determined that we should go boldly and speak to him.

‘Lord Francis,’ I said gently, after we had stood some seconds by his chair, unremarked.

He was staring fixedly at the distance of the sea.  He looked amazingly older than when I had last talked with him.  His figure was shrunken, and his face rose thin and white out of a heavy fur overcoat and a large blue muffler.  In his eyes there was such a sadness, such an infinite regret, such a profound weariness as can only be seen in the eyes of the senile.  He was utterly changed.

‘Lord Francis,’ I repeated, ‘don’t you know me?’

He started slightly and looked at me, and a faint gleam appeared in his eyes.  Then he nodded, and took a thin, fragile alabaster hand out of the pocket of his overcoat.  I shook it.  It was like shaking hands with a dead, starved child.  He carefully moved the skin and bone back into his pocket.

‘Are you pretty well?’ I said.

He nodded.  Then the faint gleam faded out of his eyes; his head fell a little, and he resumed his tragic contemplation of the sea.  The fact of my presence had dropped like a pebble into the strange depths of that aged mind, and the waters of the ferocious egotism of senility had closed over it, and it was forgotten.  His rapt and yet meaningless gaze frightened me.  It was as if there was more desolation and disillusion in that gaze than I had previously imagined the whole earth to contain.  Useless for Frank to rouse him for the second time.  Useless to explain ourselves.  What was love to him, or the trivial conventions of a world which he was already quitting?

We walked away.  From the edge of the terrace I could see a number of boats pulling to and fro in the water.

‘It’s the pigeon-shooting,’ Frank explained.  ’Come to the railings and you’ll be able to see.’