But the Boy did not, apparently, feel the least magnetic attraction towards Paolo’s throat, or any other vulnerable part of the aeronaut’s person.  Nor did he stamp on the ground, crying upon earth to open and swallow the master of the air.  I, too, kept an unmoved front; but then, being English, that might have been pardoned to my national sang-froid.  There was, however, no such excuse for the mercurial young American, and flat disappointment struck out the spark in Gaeta’s eye.  The second act of her little drama seemed doomed to failure.

“Mille congratulations,” said the Boy cordially, I basely echoing him.  We shook hands with Gaeta; we shook hands with Paolo, and something was said about weddings and wedding-cake.  Then the Baron and Baronessa appeared so opportunely as to give rise to the base suspicion that they had been eavesdropping.  More polite things were mumbled, and we went to luncheon, Gaeta on Paolo’s arm, with a disappointed droop of her pretty shoulders.  We drank to the health and happiness of the newly affianced pair, a habit which seemed to be growing upon me of late, and might lead me down the fatal grade of bachelordom.  The Boy and I were unable to conceal, as we ought to have done out of politeness, the fact that our appetites had sustained the shock of our lady’s engagement, and I saw in her eyes that she could never wholly forgive us, no, not even if we made love to her after marriage.

“Shall you take your wedding trip in a balloon?” asked the Boy demurely; and this was the last straw.  Gaeta did not make the faintest protest when, soon after, it was announced that he and I thought of leaving Aix on the morrow.  I am not sure that she even heard my vague apologies concerning a telegram from friends.

We all went to the opera at one of the Casinos that night.  It was “Rigoletto,” and Gaeta and Paolo sat side by side, looking into each other’s eyes during the love scene in the first act.  But the Boy was adamant, and I did not turn a hair.  He and I were much occupied in wondering at the strange infatuation of the stage hero, but especially the villain—­quite a superior villain—­for the heroine, who looked like an elderly papoose:  therefore we had no time to be jealous of anything that went on under our noses.  The party supped with me, en masse, at my hotel; and afterwards I said good-bye to Gaeta.

She did not know that I had planned my journey with a thought of seeing her at the end, and drowning my sorrows in flirtation; but the Boy knew, and had not forgotten—­the little wretch.  I saw his thought twinkling in his eyes, as I said debonairly that we might all meet on the Riviera.  If I had not sternly removed my gaze, I should probably have burst out laughing, and precipitated a second duel in which I, and not the Boy, would have been a principal.

When I had been in Aix-les-Bains before, I had made the excursion to Mont Revard, as all the world makes it, by the funicular railway; and after half an hour in the little train, I had arrived at the top for lunch and the view, both being enjoyed in a conventional manner.  Now, all was to be changed.  The Boy and I did not regard ourselves as tourists, but as pilgrims.