"Do you know," said the woman who had not yet spoken, "you speak English remarkably well? There is an accent I do not quite understand."

O'Mally shivered for a moment. Was she going to spring Dago on him? "I am Italian," he said easily. "I was born, however, in County Clare. My father and mother were immigrants to Ireland." His face was as solemn as an owl's.

"That explains it."

O'Mally took a new lease of life. "Now let me show you the Hadrian mosaic, from the Villa Hadrian in Tivoli, out of Rome." He swept back the sand. "Is it not magnificent?"

"Looks like a linoleum pattern," was the comment of one of the men.

"You are not far from right," said O'Mally. "It was from this very mosaic that the American linoleums were originally designed."

"Indeed!" said the woman with the glasses.

"Yes, Signora."

"Ma," whispered the girl, "ask him for one of those buttons."

The stage-whisper was overheard by O'Mally. "These buttons," he explained, "cost a lira each; but if the signorina really wishes one—" And thus another lira swelled the profits of the day. O'Mally wondered if he ought not to keep this one lira since it was off his own coat and not Pietro's.

On the balcony of the villa appeared two women. The woman with the glasses at once discovered them.

"Who is that handsome woman?" she demanded.

O'Mally paled slightly. "That," touching his cap respectfully, "is her Highness, La Principessy d' Monty Bianchy, the owner of the Villa Ariadne." Ha! He had them here.

The tourists stared at the balcony. A real live princess! They no longer regretted the two lire fifty. This was something worth while.

"We did not know that the princess lived here."

"It is but a temporary visit. She is here incognito. You must not repeat what I have told you," was O'Mally's added warning.

On the balcony the two women were talking quietly.

"What in the world is that man O'Mally up to now?" said La Signorina curiously.

"Can't you see?" replied Kitty. "He is acting as guide in Pietro's place."

"Merciful heavens!" La Signorina retired, stifling her laughter.

At the gates O'Mally received his pourboire of twenty centesimi, saw his charge outside, closed and locked the gates, and returned to Pietro, who was in a greatly agitated state of mind.

"Quando!" he cried.

O'Mally handed him the exact amount, minus the lira for the button.

"Santa Maria! All thees? How? No more I take dem; you!"

O'Mally sat down on the bench and laughed. It was as good a part as he had ever had.

* * * * *

Early evening. La Signorina leaned over the terrace wall, her hand idly trailing over the soft cool roses. Afar down the valley shimmered the lights of Florence. There were no outlines; no towers, no domes, no roofs were visible; nothing but the dim haze upon which the lights serenely floated. It might have been a harbor in the peace of night. To the south, crowning the hills with a faint halo, the moon, yet hidden, was rising across the heavens. Stretched out on either hand, white and shadowy, lay the great road. She was dreaming. Presently upon the silence came the echo of galloping horses. She listened. The sound came from the north. It died away, only to return again sharply, and this time without echo. Two horsemen came cantering toward the Villa Ariadne. They drew down to a walk, and she watched them carelessly. It was not long before they passed under her. She heard their voices.

"Jack, this has been the trip of my life. Verona, Padua, Bologna, and now Florence! This is life; nothing like it."

"I am glad, Dan. It has been enjoyable. I only hope our luggage will be at the hotel for us. Twelve days in riding-breeches are quite enough for a single stretch."

La Signorina's hand closed convulsively over a rose, and crushed it. The vine, as she did so, gave forth a rustling sound. The men turned and glanced up. They saw a woman dimly. That was all.

"A last canter to Fiesole!"

"Off she goes!"

The two went clattering down the road.

La Signorina released the imprisoned rose, and, unmindful of the prick of the thorn, walked slowly back to the villa. It was fatality that this man should again cross her path.



CHAPTER XX

KITTY DROPS A BANDBOX

"What's the matter, Jack? Whenever you smoke, your cigar goes out; you read a newspaper by staring over the top of it; you bump into people on the streets, when there is plenty of room for you to pass; you leave your watch under the pillow and have to hike back for it; you forget, you are absent-minded. Now, what's the matter?"

"I don't know, Dan," said Hillard, relighting his cigar.

"Or you won't tell."

"Perhaps that's more like it."

"It's that woman, though you will not acknowledge it. By George, I'd like to meet her face to face; I'd give her a piece of my mind."

"Or a piece of your heart!"

"Bah!" cried Merrihew, flipping his cigar-ash to the walk below, careless whether it struck any of the leisurely-going pedestrians or not.

"You have not seen her face, Dan; I have."

"Oh, she may be a queen and all that; but she has an evil influence over all the people she meets. Here's Kitty, following her round, and the Lord knows in what kind of trouble. She has hooked you, and presently you'll be leaving me to get back home the best way I can."

"It is quite possible, my boy." And Hillard did not smile.

"Come, Jack, have you really got it? If you have, why, we'll pack up and leave by the next steamer. I don't care to wander about Italy with a sick man on my hands."

"Don't be hard on me, Dan," pleaded Hillard, smiling now. "Think of all the Kitty Killigrews you've poured into my uncomplaining ears!"

"I got over it each time." But Merrihew felt a warmth in his cheeks.

"Happy man! And, once you see the face of this adventuress, as you call her, Kitty Killigrew will pass with all the other lasses."

"I?" indignantly. "Rot! She won't hold a candle to Kitty."

"No, not a candle, but the most powerful light known to the human eye—perfect beauty." Hillard sighed unconsciously.

"There you go again!" laughed Merrihew. "You tack that sigh to everything you say; and that's what I've been complaining about."

Hillard was human; he might be deeply in love, but this had not destroyed his healthy sense of humor. So he laughed at himself.

Then they mused silently for a while. On either side, from their window-balcony, the lights of Lungarno spread out in a brilliant half-circle, repeating themselves, after the fashion of women, in the mirror of the Arno. On the hill across the river the statue of David was visible above the Piazza Michelangelo.

"You never told me what she was like," said Merrihew finally.

"Haven't I? Perhaps you never asked. We went through the Pitti Palace to-day. I couldn't drag you from Raphael's Madonna of the Chair. She is as beautiful as that."

"Imagination is a wonderful thing," was Merrihew's solitary comment.

"Mine has not been unduly worked in this instance," Hillard declared with emphasis. "Beauty in women has always been to me something in the abstract, but it is so no longer. There is one thing which I wish to impress upon you, Dan. She is not an adventuress. She has made no effort to trap me. On the contrary, she has done all she could to keep out of my way."

"It's a curious business; the dinner, the mask, the veil, the mystery. I tell you frankly, Jack, something's wrong, and we shall both live to find it out."

"But what? Heaven on earth, what? Haven't I tried to figure it out till my brain aches? I haven't gone forward a single inch. On the steps of the Formosa I told her that I loved her. There, you have it! I was in doubt till I looked at her face, and then I knew that I had met the one woman, and that there was a barrier between us that was not self-imposed. Not even friendship, Dan; not even an ordinary thing like that. I have spoken to this woman on only two occasions, and only once have I seen her face. I am not a disciple of the theory of love at first sight. I never shall be. An educated, rational man must have something besides physical beauty; there must be wit, intellect, accomplishments. Usually we recognize the beauty first, and then the other attributes, one by one, as the acquaintance ripens. With me the things have been switched round. The accomplishments came first; I became fascinated by a voice and a mind. But when I saw her face.... Oh, well! Mrs. Sandford warned me against her; the woman herself has warned me; the primal instinct of self-preservation has warned me; yet, here I am! I had not intended to bother you, Dan."

"It doesn't bother me, it worries me. If I have hurt you with any of my careless jests, forgive me." Merrihew now realized that his friend was in a bad way. Still, there was a hidden gladness in his heart that Hillard, always railing at his (Merrihew's) affairs, was in the same boat now, and rudderless at that.

"You haven't hurt me, Dan. As a matter of fact, your gibes have been a tonic. They have made me face the fact that I was on the highroad to imbecility."

"What shall you do?"

"Nothing. When we have seen Florence we'll drop down to Perugia and Rome, then up to the Italian lakes; after that, home, if you say. The bass season will be on then, and we've had some good sport on Lake Ontario."

"Bass!" Merrihew went through the pleasant foolery of casting a line, of drawing the bait, of lifting the hook, and of reeling in. "Four pounds, Jack. He fit hard, as old Joe used to say. Remember?"

And so naturally they fell to recounting the splendid catches of the gamiest fish in water. When the interest in this waned, Hillard looked at his watch.

"Only nine," he said. "Let's go over to Gambrinus' and hear the music."

"And drink a boot of beer. Better than moping here."

The Hotel Italie was but a few blocks from the Piazza Vittorio Emanuele. They found the Halle crowded, noisy and interesting. The music was good, as it always is in Italy, and the beer had the true German flavor, Muenchener. Handsome uniforms brightened the scene; and there was flirting and laughter, in which Merrihew found opportunity to join.

"If Kitty should see you!"

"Well, what if she did? When I'm married to her it will be mutually understood that so long as I do not speak to them I may look at pretty women."

"You seem very sure of marrying her."

"It's only a matter of time. The man who hangs on wins finally." Merrihew had lost none of his confidence.

"I see; they marry you to get rid of you," said Hillard. "Yes, the man who hangs on finally wins, in love or war or fortune. But I haven't anything to hang on to."

"Who knows?" said Merrihew, wagging his head.

From the Halle they went down-stairs to the billiard-room. The pockets in the table bothered Merrihew; he did not care particularly for the English game; and the American table was occupied by a quartet of young Americans who were drinking champagne like Pittsburg millionaires. The ventilation was so bad that the two friends were forced to give up the game. Under the arcade they found a small table. It was cool and delightful here, and there was a second boot of Munich beer.

Officers passed to and fro, in pairs or with women. Presently two officers, one in the resplendent uniform of a colonel, went past. Merrihew touched Hillard with his foot excitedly. Hillard nodded, but his pulse was tuned to a quicker stroke.

"I hope he doesn't see us," he said, tipping his panama over his eyes.

Merrihew curled the ends of his juvenile mustache and scowled fiercely.

"This is his post evidently," he said. "What a smacking uniform! He must have had a long furlough, to be wandering over Europe and America. If I get a chance I'm going to ask a waiter who he is."

"So long as he doesn't observe us," said Hillard, "I have no interest in his affairs." Had he none? he wondered. "A lady? Grace of Mary, that is droll!" The muscles in his jaws hardened.

"But you twisted his cuffs for him that night in Monte Carlo. Monte Carlo!" reminiscently. "Eighteen hundred dollars, my boy, and a good fourteen still in my inside pocket. Wasn't I lucky? But I'll never forgive Kitty for running away from us. That's got to be explained fully some day."

"He is coming this way again, Dan," Hillard observed quietly.

"Ah!"

They waited. Hillard changed his mind; he pushed back his hat and held up his chin. If the man with the scar saw him and spoke he would reply. The colonel, glancing at the pair casually, halted. At first he was not certain, but as he met the steady eyes of Hillard he no longer doubted. It was true. He turned and spoke to his brother officer. Merrihew's throat grew full, but not from fear. The man with the scar stepped over to the table and leaned with his hands upon it. There was a savage humor in his dark eyes.

"Did I not tell you that we should meet again?" he said to Hillard. "This is a pleasant moment." He stood back again.

"Are you speaking to me?" asked Hillard, not the least perturbed. He had not stirred in his chair, though every muscle in his body was alert and ready at a moment's call.

"Certainly I am speaking to you. You understand Italian sufficiently well. This is the fellow," speaking to his companion, at the same time drawing off his gloves, "this is the fellow I spoke to you about."

"I object to the word fellow," said Hillard, smiling grimly. "Besides, I do not know you."

"Ah, discreet!" sneered the man with the scar.

"Be careful, Enrico," warned the brother officer. "There are many about, and a scene is not wise. Ask the American to take a walk. You could arrange with more ease."

"Thank you," said Hillard, "but I am perfectly comfortable where I am. If this gentleman has anything to say, he must say it here and now."

"Colonel!" cried the subaltern, as his senior smoothed the gloves and placed them carefully in his left hand, closing his fingers over them.

"Oh, I am calm. But I have been dreaming of this moment. Now!" The colonel readdressed Hillard. "You meddled with an affair that night in which you had no concern," he began truculently.

"Are you quite sure?"

Merrihew eyed Hillard nervously. He did not understand the words, worse luck, but the tone conveyed volumes. It was crisp and angry. Hillard possessed a temper which was backed by considerable strength, and only on rare occasions did this temper slip from his control. Thoroughly angry, Hillard was not a happy man to antagonize.

"Yes, I am sure. And yet, as I think it over, as I recollect the woman," went on the colonel, with a smile which was evil and insinuating.... "Well, I shall not question you. The main thing is, you annoyed me. In Monte Carlo I was practically alone. Here the scene is different; it is Florence. Doubtless you will understand." He struck out with the gloves.

But they never touched Hillard's face. His hand, expectant of this very movement, caught the assailant's wrist, and, with a quick jerk, brought him half-way across the table. He bore down on the wrist so fiercely that the Italian cried faintly. Hillard, with his face but a span from the other's, spoke tensely, but in an undertone.

"Listen carefully to what I have to say, signore. I understand perfectly, but I shall fight no duel. It is an obsolete fashion, and proves nothing but mechanical skill. I do not know what kind of blackguard you are, but blackguard I know you to be. If you ever address me again I promise on the word of a gentleman to give you a whipping which will have a more lasting effect upon your future actions than a dozen sermons. If that will not serve, I shall appeal to the police."

"Poltroon!"

"As often as you please!" Hillard flung him off roughly.

A small but interested crowd had gathered by now, and Merrihew saw visions of Italian jails. Through the crowd the ever-present carabinieri shouldered their way.

"It is nothing," said the colonel, motioning them to stand back, which they did with a sign of respect. This sign gave Hillard some food for thought. His antagonist was evidently a personage of some importance.

"Figure of an American pig!"

Hillard laughed. "I might have broken your wrist, but did not. You are not grateful."

The carabinieri moved forward again.

"The affair is over," said Hillard amiably. "This officer has mistaken me for some one he knows."

The scar was livid on the Italian's cheek. He stood undecided for a space. His companion laid a restraining hand on his arm. He nodded, and the two made off. What might in former days have been a tragedy was nothing more than a farce. But it spoiled the night for Merrihew, and he was for going back to the hotel. Hillard agreed.

"At first I wanted you to give him a good stiff punch," said Merrihew, "but I am glad you didn't."

"We should have slept in the lockup over night if I had. The carabinieri would not have understood my excuses. If our friend is left-handed, he'll be inconvenienced for a day or two. I put some force into that grip. You see, Dan, the Italian still fights his duels. Dueling is not extinct in the army here. An officer who refuses to accept a challenge for a good or bad cause is practically hounded out of the service. It would have been a fine joke if I had been fool enough to accept his challenge. He would have put daylight through me at the first stroke."

"I don't know about that," replied Merrihew loyally. "You are the crack fencer in New York."

"But New York isn't Florence, my boy. I'll show you some fencing to-morrow. If my old fencing master, Foresti Paoli, is yet in Florence, I'll have him arrange some matches. New York affairs will look tame to you then."

"But what has he to do with your vanishing lady?"

"I should like to know."

"I wish I had thought to ask a waiter who the duffer is. Did you notice how respectful the carabinieri were?"

"It set me thinking. Oh, I've a premonition that we haven't seen the last of this distinguished gentleman. Perhaps we'll find out who he is sooner than we care to."

"When the time comes," said Merrihew with a laugh, "be sure you soak it to him, and an extra one for me."

Early on the morrow they rode out to the Cascine, formerly a dairy-farm, but now a splendid park. The bridle-paths are the finest in the world, not excepting those in the Bois de Bologne in Paris. They are not so long, perhaps, but they are infinitely more beautiful. Take, for instance, the long path under a tunnel of enormous trees, a bridle-path where ten men may ride abreast with room to spare, and nearly half a mile in length; there is nothing like it.

"I tell you what it is, Jack; Italy may put a tax on salt and sea-water, but always gives something in return; she puts up a picture-gallery or a museum, or a park like this. What do we get back in America? Niente!"

For two hours they romped through the park, running races, hurdling, and playing rough pranks upon each other, such as only expert riders dare attempt. They were both hardened by the long ride down to Florence, a pair of animals as healthy as their mounts. They had determined not to sell the horses till the last moment. A riding-master in the Via Lorenzo ii Magnifico agreed to board them against the time of sale.

In the three days in Florence they had been through the galleries and the museums; and Merrihew, to his great delight, began to find that he could tell a Botticelli from a Lippi at first glance. He was beginning to understand why people raved over this style or that. There was something so gentle, so peaceful in a Botticelli that he really preferred it to some of the famed colorists, always excepting Veronese, to whom he had given his first admiration.

For luncheon this day Hillard took him to Paoli's in the Via dei Tavolini—the way of the little tables. Here Merrihew saw a tavern such as he had often conjured up while reading his Dumas; sausages and hams and bacons and garlic and cheeses and dried vegetables hanging from the ceiling, abrupt passages, rough tables and common chairs and strange dishes; oil, oil, oil, even on the top of his coffee-cup, and magnums of red and white Chianti. Hillard informed him that this was the most famous Bohemian place in the city, the rendezvous of artists, sculptors, writers, physicians, and civil authorities. The military seldom patronized it, because it was not showy enough. Merrihew enjoyed the scene, with its jabber-jabber and its clatter-clatter. And he was still hungry when he left, but he would not admit it to Hillard, who adapted himself to the over-abundance of oil with all the zest of an expatriated Tuscan.

At three o'clock they went to the fencing academy of Foresti Paoli, near the post-office. Foresti was a fine example of the military Italian of former days. He was past sixty, but was as agile as any of his celebrated pupils. As Hillard had written him the night before, he was expected. He had been a pupil of Foresti's, and the veteran was glad to see him. Merrihew saw some interesting bouts, and at length Foresti prevailed upon Hillard to don the mask against an old pupil, a physician who had formerly been amateur champion of Italy. Hillard, having been in the saddle and the open air for two weeks, was in prime condition; and he gave the ex-champion a pretty handful. But constant practice told in the end, and Hillard was beaten. It was fine sport to Merrihew; the quick pad-pad of the feet on the mat, the short triumphant cries as the foil bent almost double, and the flash of the whites of their eyes behind the mask. Merrihew knew that he should love Florence all the rest of his days.

They were entering the Via Tornabuoni, toward the Havana cigar-store, when a young woman came out of the little millinery shop a few doors from the tobacconist's. Immediately Hillard stepped to one side of her and Merrihew to the other.

"You can not run away this time, Kitty Killigrew!" cried Merrihew joyously.

Kitty closed her eyes for a second, and the neat little bandbox slipped to the sidewalk.



CHAPTER XXI

AN INVITATION TO A BALL

In the Villa Ariadne the wonderful fountain by Donatello was encircled by a deep basin in which many generations of goldfish swam about. Only the old gardener knew the secret of how these fish lived through the chill Florentine winters. Yet, every spring, about the time when the tourists began to prowl round, the little goldfish were to be seen again, ready for bread-crumbs and bugs of suicidal tendencies. Forming a kind of triangle about the basin were three ancient marble benches, such as the amiable old Roman senators were wont to lounge upon during the heat of the afternoon, or such as Catullus reclined upon while reading his latest lyric to his latest affinity. At any rate, they were very old, earth-stained and time-stained and full of unutterable history, and with the eternal cold touch of stone which never wholly warms even under warmest sun. The kind of bench which Alma-Tadema usually fills with diaphanous maidens.

At this particular time a maiden, not at all diaphanous, but mentally and physically material, sat on one of these benches, her arms thrown out on either side of the crumbling back, her chin lowered, and her eyes thoughtfully directed toward the little circle of disturbed water where the goldfish were urging for the next crumb. Now, as Phoebus was somewhere near four in the afternoon, he was growing ruddy with effort in the final spurt for the western horizon. So the marbles and the fountain and the water and the maiden all melted into a harmonious golden tone.

Merrihew was not so poetical as to permit this picture to go on indefinitely; so he stole up from behind with all the care of a practised hunter till he stood directly behind the maiden. She still dreamed. Then he put his hands over her eyes. She struggled for a brief moment, then desisted.

"It is no puzzle at all," she declared. "I can smell horse, horse, and again horse. Mr. Merrihew—"

"Yes, I know all about it. I should have fetched along a sachet-powder. I never remember anything but one thing, Kitty, and that's you." He came round and sat down beside her. "There's no doubt that I reek of the animal. But the real question is," bluntly, "how much longer are you going to keep me dangling on the string? I've been coming up here for ten days, now, every afternoon."

"Ten days," Kitty murmured. She was more than pretty to-day, and there was malice aforethought in all the little ribbons and trinkets and furbelows. She had dressed expressly for this moment, but Merrihew was not going to be told so. "Ten days," she repeated; and mentally she recounted the pleasant little journeys into the hills and the cherry-pickings.

"And dangling, dangling. I've been hanging in mid-air for nearly a year now. When are you going to put me out of my misery?" His tone was chiding and moody.

"But am I to be blamed if, after having refused twice to marry you, you still persist?" Kitty assumed a judicial air.

"All you have to do," sadly, "is to tell me to clear out."

"That's just it," cried Kitty wrathfully. "If I tell you to go it will be for good; and I don't want you to go that way. I like you; you are cheerful and amusing, and I find pleasure in your company. But every day in the year, breakfast and dinner!" She appealed to the god in the fountain. What unreasonable beings men were!

"But you haven't refused me this time."

"Because I wish to make it as easy as possible for you." Which of the two meanings she offered him was lost upon Merrihew; he saw but one, nor the covert glance, roguish and mischievous withal. "Come, let us be sensible for ten minutes."

Merrihew laid his watch on the bench beside him. Kitty dimpled.

"Don't you love it in Florence?" she asked.

"Oh, yes," scraping the gravel with his crop. "Hillard says I'm finishing my bally education at a canter. I can tell a saint from a gentleman in a night-gown, a halo from a barrel-hoop, and I can drink Chianti without making a face."

Kitty laughed rollickingly. For beneath her furbelows and ribbons and trinkets she was inordinately happy and light of heart. Her letter had come; she was only waiting for the day of sailing; and she was to take back with her the memory of the rarest adventure which ever befell a person, always excepting those of the peripatetic sailor from Bagdad.

"I want to go home," said Merrihew, when her laughter died away in a soft mutter.

"What! leave this beautiful world for the sordid one yonder?"

"Sordid it may be, but it's home. I can speak to and understand every man I meet on the streets there; there are the theaters and the club and the hunting and fishing and all that. Here it's nothing but pictures and concierges and lying cabbies. If I could collect all my friends and plant 'em over here, why, I could stand it. But I'm lonesome. Did you ever try to spread frozen butter on hot biscuits? Well, that's the way I feel."

This metaphor brought tears of merriment to Kitty's eyes. She would have laughed at anything this day.

"Daniel, you are hopeless."

"I admit it."

"How beautiful the cypresses are in the sunshine!" she exclaimed, standing.

He reached out and caught her hand, gently pulling her down to the bench.

"The ten minutes are up," he said.

"Oh, I said let us be sensible for ten minutes," she demurred.

"I've been telling you the truth; that's sensible enough. Kitty, will you marry me?"

"Could you take care of me?"

"I have these two hands. I'll work."

"That would be terrible! Oh, if you were only rich!"

"You don't mean that, Kitty."

"No," relenting, "I don't. But you bother me."

"All right. This will be the last time. Will you marry me? I will do all a man can to make you happy. I love you with all my heart. I know. You're afraid; you've an idea that I am fickle. But not this time, Kitty, not this time. Will you?"

"I can not give up the stage." She knew very well that she could, but she had an idea.

"I don't ask even that. I'll travel with you and make myself useful."

"You would soon tire of that." But Kitty eyed him with a kindly look. He was good to look at. Kitty was like the timid bather; she knew that she was going to take the plunge, but she must put one foot into the water, withdraw it, shudder, and try it again.

"Tire?" said Merrihew. "If I did I shouldn't let you know it. I'm a homeless beggar, anyhow; I've always been living in boarding-houses and clubs and hotels; it won't matter so long as you are with me."

Kitty threw a crust to the goldfish and watched them swirl about it greedily. Merrihew had no eyes but for her. Impulsively he held out his hand. Kitty looked at it with thought; this would be the final plunge. Then, without further hesitance, indifferent to the future or the past, conscious only of the vast happiness of the present, Kitty laid her hand in his. He would have drawn her into his arms had not they both seen O'Mally pushing through the box-hedge, followed by some belated tourists. Merrihew swore softly and Kitty laughed.

On the terrace the tea-table dazzled the eye with its spotless linen, its blue Canton, and its bundle of pink roses. Hillard extended his cup for a second filling, vaguely wondering where Merrihew was. They had threshed continental politics, engineering, art and the relative crafts, precious stones, astronomy and the applied sciences, music, horses, and geology, with long pauses in between. Both knew instinctively that this learned discourse was but a makeshift, a circuitous route past danger-points. "Have you ever heard of telling fortunes in tea-grounds?" he asked.

"Yes. It is a pleasant fallacy, and nothing ever comes true." And La Signorina vaguely wondered where Kitty was. She needed Kitty at this moment, she who had never needed anybody.

The tramp of feet beyond the wall diverted them for a space. A troop of marksmen from the range were returning cityward. They were dirty and tired, yet none seemed discontented with his lot. They passed in a haze of dust.

The man and woman resumed their chairs, and Hillard bent his head over the cup and stared at the circling tea-grounds in the bottom. The movement gave her the opportunity she desired: to look freely and without let at his shapely head. Day after day, serene and cloudless Florentine days, this same scene or its like had been enacted. It took all her verbal skill to play this game safely; a hundred times she saw something in his eyes that warned her and armed her. When he passed that evening on horseback she knew that these things were to be. She had two battles where he had only one; for she had herself to war against. Each night after he had gone she fought with innocent desire; argument after argument she offered in defense. But these were all useless; she must send him away. And yet, when he came, as she knew he would, she offered him tea! And in rebellion she asked, Why not? What harm, what evil? Was it absolutely necessary that she should let all pleasure pass, thrust it aside? The suffering she had known, would not that be sufficient penance for this little sin? But on his side, was this being fair to him? This man loved her, and she knew it. Up to this time he had met her but twice, and yet he loved her, incredible as it seemed. And though he never spoke of this love with his lips, he was always speaking it with his eyes; and she was always looking into his eyes.

She never looked into her own heart; wisely she never gave rein to self-analysis; she dared not. And so she drifted on, as in some sunny dream of remote end.

How inexplicable were the currents and cross-currents of life! She had met a thousand men, handsomer, more brilliant; they had not awakened more than normal interest. And yet this man, quiet, humorous, ordinarily good-looking, aroused in her heart discord and penetrated the barriers to the guarded sentiment. Why? Always this query. Perhaps, after all, it was simply the initial romance which made the impression so lasting. Ah, well; to-morrow or the next day the end would come; so it did not matter.

There was one bit of light in this labyrinth: Worth had spoken; that disagreeable incident was closed. And this present dream, upon what reef would it carry her? She shrugged. This action brought Hillard back to earth, for he, too, had been dreaming. He raised his head.

"Why did you do that?" he asked.

"Do what?"

"Shrug."

"Did I shrug? I did so unconsciously. Perhaps I was thinking of O'Mally and his flock of tourists."

"Doesn't it annoy you?"

"Not in the least. It has been a fine comedy. I believe he is the most accomplished prevaricator I ever met. He remembers the lie of yesterday and keeps adding to it. I don't see how he manages to do it. He is better than Pietro. Pietro used to bring them into the house." She gathered up a handful of the roses and pressed them against her face, breathing deeply.

Hillard trembled. She was so beautiful; the glow of the roses on her cheeks and throat, the sun in her hair, and the shadows in her eyes. To smother the rush of words which were gathering at his lips, he raised his cup and drank. Ten days! It was something. But the battle was wearing; the ceaseless struggle not to speak from his full heart was weakening him. Yet he knew that to speak was to banish the dream, himself to be banished with it.

"If I were a poet, which I am not—" He paused irresolutely.

"You would extemporize on the beauty of the perspective," she supplemented. "How the Duomo shines! And the towers, and the Arno—"

"I was thinking of your hair," he interrupted. "I have never seen anything quite like it. It isn't a wig, is it?" jestingly.

"No, it is my own," with an answering smile.

"Ah, that night! It is true, as you said; it is impossible to forget the charm of it."

She had recourse to the roses again. Dangerous ground.

"You have not told me the real reason why you sang under my window that night."

"Have I not? Well, then, there can be no harm in telling you that. I had just signed the contract to sing with the American Comic Opera Company in Europe. I saw the world at my feet, for it would be false modesty to deny that I have a voice. More disillusions! The world is not at my feet," lightly.

"But I am," he replied quietly.

She passed this declaration. "I might have more successfully applied to the grand opera in New York; but my ambition was to sing here first."

"But in comic opera?"

"Another blunder, common of its kind to me. Have I not told you that I am always making missteps such as have no retracing?"

"Will you answer a single question?"

She stroked the roses.

"Will you?"

"I can make no promise. Rather ask the question. If I see the wisdom of answering it, I shall do so."

"Is there another man?" He did not look at her but rather at her fingers embedded in the roses. Silence, which grew and lengthened.

"What do you mean?" she asked evenly, when she realized that the silence was becoming too long.

"In Venice you told me that there was a barrier. I ask now if this barrier be a man."

"Yes."

A wrinkle of pain passed over his heart. "If you love him—"

"Love him? No, no!... I had hoped you would not speak like this; I relied upon your honor."

"Is it dishonorable for me to love you?"

"No, but it is for me—to permit you to say so!"

He could hear the birds twittering in the boughs of the oak. A lizard paused on the damp stone near-by. A bee hovered over the roses, twirled a leaf impatiently, and buzzed its flight over the old wall. He was conscious of recognizing these sounds and these objects, but with the consciousness of a man suddenly put down in an unknown country, in an unknown age, far away from all familiar things.

"I deplore the misfortune which crossed your path and mine again," she went on relentlessly, as much to herself as to him. "But I am something of a fatalist. We can not avoid what is to be."

He was pale, but not paler than she.

"I offer you nothing, Mr. Hillard, nothing; no promise, no hope, nothing. A few days longer, and we shall separate finally."

She was about to rise and ask him to excuse her and retire, when Merrihew and Kitty came into view. There was nothing now to do but wait. She sought ease from the tenseness of the moment in sorting the roses. Hillard stirred the cold dregs in his tea-cup. Cold dregs, indeed! The light of the world was gone out.

Merrihew's face was as broad and shining as the harvest moon. He came swinging down the path, Kitty's arm locked in his. And Kitty's face was rosy. Upon reaching the table Merrihew imitated the bow of an old-time courtier.

"It is all over," he said, swallowing. "Kitty has promised to marry me as soon as we land in America. I'm a lucky beggar!"

"Yes, you are," said Hillard. "Congratulations to both of you."

La Signorina took hold of Kitty's hands. This was a much-needed diversion.

"Is it true, Kitty?"

"Yes, ma'am," Kitty answered, with a stage courtesy. "I have promised to marry him, for there seemed no other way of getting rid of him."

Hillard forced a smile. "It's a shame to change such a pretty name as yours, Miss Killigrew."

"I realize that," replied Kitty with affected sadness.

"Go to!" laughed the happy groom-elect. "Merrihew and Killigrew; there's not enough difference to matter. And this very night I shall cable to America."

"Cable to America?" echoed a tri-chorus.

"Yes; to have a parson in the custom-shed when we land. I know Kitty, and I am not going to take any chances."

This caused real laughter. La Signorina relighted the tea-lamp, and presently they were all talking together, jesting and offering suggestions. No matter how great the ache in the heart may be, there is always some temporary surcease. Hillard was a man.

They laughed quietly as they saw O'Mally gravely conducting his charge to the gates. He returned with Smith. Both were solemn-visaged.

"Well, noble concierge?" inquired La Signorina. "Why, you look as if you were the bearer of ill-tidings."

"Perhaps I am," said O'Mally. He tossed his cap on the stones and sat down with Smith on the iron bench. "No, no tea, thank you. What I need is a glass, a whole glass, of good Irish whisky. This thing has been on my mind since noon, but I concluded to wait rather than spoil the whole day. I should have known nothing about it if it hadn't been for old Pietro."

"What has happened?" asked Merrihew.

"Enough," said O'Mally laconically. He directed his next words to La Signorina. "You are sure of this friend of yours, the princess?"

"Certainly," answered La Signorina, her astonishment increasing.

"She gave you the right authority?"

"Absolutely," more and more astonished.

"Agreed that we could remain here as long as we pleased?"

"Yes, yes!" impatiently.

"Well, before I swing the thunder, let me tell you something," said O'Mally. "I was in Florence a few days ago. I made some inquiries."

"About my friend the princess?"

"Yes. It was impertinent, I know. I interviewed four or five hotel concierges. Only one of them ever heard of the name; and then it was an old prince, not a woman. This concierge directed me to another, but as he spoke only Italian, we could not make things fit. But when I mentioned the princess' name, he shrugged and laughed, as if something highly amusing had hit him."

"Go on, Mr. O'Mally; go on. This is interesting. Your doubt is not at all complimentary to me. The police have recognized my authority."

"And that's what feazes me. But the main thing is this: your princess has played us all rather a shabby trick. In the letter you read to us in Venice she said that she had never visited this villa."

"Only in her youth," replied La Signorina, her brows drawing together in a frown. "But I know her so well; she is not in the habit of making misstatements. To the point at once. What has happened to bring about all this pother?"

"It is simply this: our little jig is up," responded O'Mally. "Read these and see for yourself." He gave to her a broad white envelope and a clipping from La Nazione of the day before.



She seized the clipping eagerly, but the eagerness died from her face quickly, leaving it pale and stony. The clipping fluttered unheeded from her fingers to the ground. Her gaze passed from one face to another, all the while a horror growing in her eyes. Slowly she picked up the envelope and drew out the card. Her eyes filled, but with tears of rage and despair.

"Tell me, what is it?" cried Hillard, troubled, for his keen lover's eyes saw these changes.

In answer she gave him the card. He read it. It was rather a knock. Now, why should the Principessa di Monte Bianca take it into her head to give a ball in the Villa Ariadne, Wednesday week, when she had loaned the villa indefinitely to her friend, La Signorina?



CHAPTER XXII

TANGLES

Hillard passed the card to Merrihew, who presented it to Kitty. Smith had already seen it. He waved it aside moodily. La Signorina's eyes roved, as in an effort to find some way out. Afar she discovered Worth, his chin in his collar, his hands behind his back, his shoulders studiously inclined, slowly pacing the graveled path which skirted the conservatory. From time to time he kicked a pebble, followed it and kicked it again, without purpose. Whether he saw them or not she could not tell. Presently he turned the corner and was gone from sight. During the past few days he had lived by himself; and for all that she did not like him, she was sorry for him.

"It's a pretty kettle of fish," said O'Mally, rather pleased secretly in having created so dramatic a moment. "She might have been kind enough, however, to notify us in advance of her intentions. I am still broke," disheartened; "and the Lord knows what I'll do if I'm shunted back into the hands of the tender hotel managers and porters. There is nothing for us to do but to clear out, bag and baggage. It's a blamed hard world. I wish I had kept some of old Pietro's tips." He spoke with full dejection. Up to this time he had been playing the most enjoyable part in all his career, plenty to eat and to drink and no worry. And here the affair was ended with the suddenness of a thunder-clap.

"I'm even worse off than you are, Tom," said Smith. "You've got a diamond. The sooner we light out the better. In a day or two the princess will be piling in upon us with her trunks and lackeys and poodles."

"Poodles!" La Signorina was white with anger.

"Why, yes," said Smith innocently. "Nearly all Italian ladies carry one or more of those woozy-eyed pups. Good-by to your sparkler, Tom, this trip, if we ever expect to see the lights of old Broadway again."

O'Mally sighed deeply. The blow had finally fallen.

Then La Signorina rose to her feet. She took the card from Kitty's fingers, tore it into many pieces and flung them over the wall.

"We have been betrayed!" she cried, a storm in her eyes.

"Betrayed?"

O'Mally looked at Smith; Hillard stared at Merrihew; Kitty regarded La Signorina with wonder.

"Betrayed? In what manner?" asked Hillard.

"Her Highness has had no hand in this. I know. Some one with malice has done this petty thing." To La Signorina everything had gone wrong to-day. "I shall telegraph her Highness at once. I say that we have been made the victims of some practical joke."

"Joke or not, we can't stay here now," Smith declared. "All the high muckamucks in and roundabout Florence will be getting out their jewels and gowns. If we send a denial to the paper, and we really have no authority to do that, there'll be a whole raft of 'em who will not see it. And since nobody knows how many invitations have been sent out or to whom they have been sent—oh, what's the use of all this arguing? The thing's done. No matter how we figure it, we're all railroaded. Third-class to Naples and twelve days in the steerage. Whew!"

"I guess Hillard and I can help you," said Merrihew. "We'll see that you get home all right."

"To be sure," assented Hillard. Poor devils!

"We'll make good, once we strike Broadway," replied O'Mally gratefully.

La Signorina, her arms folded, her lips compressed into a thin line of scarlet, the anger in her eyes unabated, began to walk back and forth, and there was something tigerish in the light step and the quick turn. The others, knowing her to be a woman of fertile invention, patiently and in silence waited for her to speak.

But the silence was broken unexpectedly by O'Mally. He gripped Smith by the arm and pointed toward the path leading to the gates.

"Look!" he whispered.

All turned, and what they saw in nowise relieved the tenseness of the situation. Two carabinieri and an inspector of seals, dusty but stern of countenance, came up the path. O'Mally, recollecting the vast prison at Naples, saw all sorts of dungeons, ankle-deep in sea-water, and iron bars, shackles and balls. Every one stood up and waited for this new development to unfold itself. La Signorina alone seemed indifferent to this official cortege. The inspector signed to the carabinieri, who stopped. He came on. Without touching his cap—a bad sign—he laid upon the tea-table a card and a newspaper, familiar now to them all.

"Signora," he said politely but coldly to the whilom prima donna, "will you do me the honor to explain this? We have some doubts as to the authority upon which this invitation was issued." He spoke fluent English, for the benefit of all concerned.

Hillard waited for her answer, dreading he knew not what.

She spoke evenly, almost insolently. "The invitation is perfectly regular."

Everybody experienced a chill.

This time the inspector bowed. "Then her Highness will occupy her villa?"

"She is already in possession. I am the Principessa di Monte Bianca," calmly.

Had an earthquake shattered the surrounding hills, and gulfs opened at their feet, it could not have spread terror more quickly among the transient guests at the Villa Ariadne than this declaration. They were appalled; they stood like images, without the power to take their eyes off this woman. This transcendental folly simply paralyzed them. They knew that she was not the princess; and here, calmly and negligently, she was jeoparding their liberty as well as her own. Mad, mad! For imposture of this caliber was a crime, punishable by long imprisonment; and Italy always contrived to rake in a dozen or so accomplices. They were all lost indeed, unless they could escape and leave La Signorina alone to bear the brunt of her folly.

The keen-eyed inspector took mental note of these variant expressions.

"Your Highness," he said, his cap setting the dust on the stones flying, "a thousand pardons for this disagreeable intrusion. It was not officially known that your Highness was here."

"It is nothing," replied the pseudo princess. "Only I desired to remain incognito for the present."

"And the seals?" purred the official.

"We shall go through that formality the morning after the ball. At present I do not wish to be disturbed with the turning of the villa upside down, as would be the case were the seals removed."

"That will require the permission of the crown, your Highness."

"Then you will set about at once to secure this permission."

The air with which she delivered this command was noble enough for any one. The inspector was overcome. "But as your Highness has never before occupied the villa, some definite assurance—"

"You will telegraph to Cranford and Baring, in the Corso Umberto Primo, Rome. They will supply you with the necessary details and information."

The inspector inscribed the address in his notebook, bowed, backed away and bowed again. The crunch of the gravel under his feet was as a sinister thunder, and it was the only sound. He spoke to the carabinieri. They saluted, and the trio marched toward the gates.

There remained a tableau, picturesque but tense. Then Kitty began to cry softly.

"Are you mad?" cried Hillard, his voice harsh and dry.

La Signorina laughed recklessly. "If you call this madness."

"Smith, my boy," said O'Mally, moistening his lips, "you and I this night will pack up our little suit-cases and—movimento, moto, viaggio, or whatever the Dago word is for move on. I'm out of the game; the stakes are too high. I pass, signorina."

"How could you do it?" sobbed Kitty.

Merrihew patted her hand and scowled.

"What an ado!" said La Signorina, shrugging. "So you all desert me?"

"Desert you?" O'Mally resumed his seat and carefully loosened the topmost buttons of his coat. "Of course we shall desert you. We are sane individuals, at any rate. I have no desire to see the inside of an Italian jail, not knowing how to get out. What under the sun possessed you? What excuse have you to offer for pushing us all into the lion's mouth? You could have easily denied all knowledge of the invitation, referred them to your princess, wherever she may be, and we could have cleared out in the morning, poor but honest. And now you've gone and done it!"

Hillard leaned against a cypress, staring at the stones.

"In Venice," said she, her voice gentle, "you accepted the chance readily enough. What has changed you?"

O'Mally flushed. What she said was true. "I was a fool in Venice," frankly.

"And you, Mr. Smith?" continued La Signorina, as with a lash.

But it was ineffectual. "I was a fool, too," admitted Smith. "In Venice it sounded like a good joke, but it looks different now." He sat down beside O'Mally.

"So much for gallantry! And you, Kitty?"

"I made a promise, and I'll keep it. But I think you are cruel and wicked."

"No nonsense, Kitty," interposed Merrihew. "I've some rights now. You will have this villa to-night."

"I refuse," replied Kitty simply.

Hillard slipped into the pause.

"Did you issue those invitations yourself?" he asked this strange, incomprehensible woman.

"Do you believe that?" La Signorina demanded, with narrowing eyes.

"I don't know what to believe. But I repeat the question."

"On my word of honor, I know no more about this mystery than you do." And there was truth in her voice and eyes.

"But are you not over-sure of your princess? Being a woman, may she not have changed her plans?"

"Not without consulting me. I am not only sure," she added with a positiveness which brooked no further question, "but to-morrow I shall prove to you that her Highness has not changed her plans. I shall send her a telegram at once, and you shall see the reply. But you, Mr. Hillard, will you, too, desert me?"

"Oh, as for that, I am mad likewise," he said, with a smile on his lips but none in his eyes. "I'll see the farce to the end, even if that end is jail."

"If!" cried O'Mally. "You speak as though you had some doubt regarding that possibility!"

"So I have." Hillard went to the table, selected a rose, and drew it through the lapel of his coat.

"I say, Jack!" Merrihew interposed, greatly perturbed.

"And you will stay also, Dan."

"Are you really in earnest?" dubiously. Why hadn't this impossible woman sung under somebody else's window?

"Earnest as I possibly can be. Listen a moment. La Signorina is not a person recklessly to endanger us. She has, apparently, put her head into the lion's mouth. But perhaps this lion is particularly well trained. I am sure that she knows many things of which we are all ignorant. Trust her to carry out this imposture which now seems so wild. Besides, to tell the truth, I do not wish it said that I was outdone by Miss Killigrew in courage and the spirit of adventure."

"Oh, give me no credit for that," broke in Kitty.

La Signorina, however, rewarded Hillard with a look which set his pulses humming. Into what folly would he not have gone at a sign from this lovely being? In his mind there was not the shadow of a doubt: this comedy would ultimately end at some magistrate's desk. So be it.

Merrihew cast about helplessly, but none held out a hand. He must decide for himself.

"Do you mean it, Kitty?"

"Yes."

O'Mally's face wore several new wrinkles; and both he and Smith were looking at the green mold on the flag-stones as interestedly as if China was but on the other side. Kitty saw nothing, not even the hills she was staring at.

"Since you have made up your mind, Jack," said Merrihew doggedly, "why, there's nothing for me to do but fall in. But it's kings against two-spots."

"Mental reservation?" said the temptress. "Mr. Hillard has none."

"I am not quite certain I have none," replied Hillard, renewing his interest in the rose.

A moment later, when he looked up, her glance plunged into his, but found nothing. Hillard could fence with the eyes as well as with the foils.

"Well," she said, finding that Hillard's mental reservations were not to be voiced, "here are three who will not desert me."

"That's all very well," rejoined O'Mally; "but it is different with those two. Mr. Hillard's a millionaire, or near it, and he could buy his way through all the jails in Italy. Smith here, Worth and Miss Killigrew and myself, we have nothing. More than that, we're jotted down in the police books, even to the mole on the side of my nose. There's no way out for us. We are accomplices."

"You will leave in the morning, then?" asked La Signorina contemptuously.

"I hope to."

"Want of courage?"

"No. Against physical danger I am willing to offer myself at any time to your Highness," with a touch of bitter irony. "But to walk straight into jail, with my eyes open, that's a horse of a different color."

"I like you none the less for your frankness, Mr. O'Mally. And I apologize for doubting your courage. But if to-morrow I should produce a telegram from her Highness that would do away with all your doubts?"

"I'll answer that when I see the telegram." O'Mally made an unsuccessful attempt to roll a cigarette. This honeyed blarney, to his susceptible Irish blood, was far more dangerous than any taunts; but he remembered in time the fable of the fox and the crow. "We have all been together now for many weeks. Yet, who you are none of us knows."

"I am the princess," laughing.

"Oh, yes; of course; I forgot. But I mean your real name."

"My real name? Have you ever before asked me what it is?"

"Perhaps we have been a little afraid of you," put in Smith.

The shadow of a smile lay upon her lips and vanished. "My name is Sonia Hilda Grosvenor." And her voice was music.

"Pardon me," said O'Mally drolly, "but were any of your ancestors—er—troubled with insanity?"

This query provoked a laughter which gave them all a sense of relief.

"My father had one attack of insanity, since you ask." La Signorina's face sobered. She stepped over to the wall, rested upon it, and searched the deepening eastern horizon. Yes, her father had been insane, and all her present wretchedness was due to this insanity of a rational mind. For a moment she forgot those about her, and her thought journeyed swiftly back to the old happy days. "Yes, there is a species of insanity in my veins." She turned to them again. "But it is the insanity of a sane person, the insanity of impulse and folly, of wilfulness and lack of foresight. As Mr. O'Mally said, I have gone and done it. What possessed me to say that I am the princess is as inexplicable to me as to you, though you may not believe it. But for me there is no withdrawing now; flight would do us no good. We, or I, I should say, have created a suspicion, and if we ran away we should be pursued from one end of Italy to the other, till this suspicion was dissipated. We should become suspects, and in Italy a suspect is liable to immediate arrest. I am sorry that I have tangled you up in this. I release you all from any promise," proudly.

"If you talk like that—" began O'Mally.

"Sh!" Smith elbowed him sharply in the small ribs.

"It's all right, Smith. No one can force me into a scrape of this sort; but when she speaks like that! Signorina, or I should say, Miss Grosvenor, you have the most beautiful voice in the world. Some day, and we are all out of jail, I expect to hear you in the balcony scene with some famous tenore robusto as Romeo. You will be getting three thousand a week. You needn't bother about the telegram; but I'll have to have a new suit," touching the frayed cuffs of his coat. "Now, if we go to jail, how'll we get out?"

"Trust me!" La Signorina had recovered her gaiety.

"Well," said Smith, "suppose we go and break the news to Worth?"

* * * * *

Hillard refused to canter, so the two walked their horses all the way into Florence. Merrihew spoke but seldom and Hillard not at all. By now the sun had gone down, and deep purple clouds swarmed across the blue face of heaven, forecasting a storm.... It was not dishonorable for him to love this woman, but it was not honorable for her to listen. Sonia Hilda Grosvenor; that solved no corner of the puzzle.

"To-morrow," said Merrihew, "I'm going to look up the jail and engage rooms ahead. It might be crowded."

Hillard raised his face and let a few drops of cooling rain patter on his cheeks. "I love her, I love her!" he murmured.



CHAPTER XXIII

THE DENOUEMENT

The morning sun poured over the hills, throwing huge shadows in the gorge below. The stream, swollen by the heavy rains of the past night, foamed and snarled along its ragged bed. The air was fresh and cool, and the stately cypresses took on a deeper shade of green. Lizards scampered over the damp stones about the porter's lodge or sought the patches of golden sunshine, and insects busied themselves with the daily harvest. O'Mally sniffed. As the wind veered intermittently there came to him the perfume of the locust trees, now in full bloom, the flowers of which resembled miniature cascades hanging in mid-air. Pietro rocked, his legs crossed, his face blurred in the drifting tobacco smoke.

"No more tourists, Pietro."

"No." Pietro sighed, a ruminating light in his faded eyes.

"Did you ever see La Signorina before? Do you know anything about her?"

"Never! No!" answered Pietro, with the perfect candor of an accomplished liar.

"Have you ever seen her Highness?"

"When she so," indicating a height about two feet from the ground.

"You said that you had never seen her."

"Meestake."

"How old would she be?"

Pietro wrinkled his brow, "Oh, quaranta, cinquanta; fifty-forty. Who knows?"

"Fifty! How old are you?" suspiciously.

"Settanta; seventy."

"Well, you look it. But why hasn't the princess ever been here, when it's so beautiful?"

"Woman."

"What woman?"

"La Principessa. Many villas, much money."

O'Mally kicked at one of the lizards. "I thought she might be young."

"No. But La Signorina-bah! they ar-r-r-rest her. Patienza!"

"You think so?"

"Wait."

"But her friend the princess will come to her assistance."

Pietro laughed scornfully, which showed that he had some doubts.

"But you won't betray her?"

"Never!" puffing quickly.

"It's a bad business," admitted O'Mally. This old rascal of a gardener was as hard to pump as a frozen well.

Pietro agreed that it was a bad business. "Eenspector, he come to-day, domani—to-morrow. He come nex' day; watch, watch!" Pietro elevated his shoulders slowly and dropped them sharply. "All ar-r-r-rest!"

"You think so?"

"Si."

"But you wouldn't betray her for money, Pietro?"

"No!" energetically.

Pietro might be loyal; still, O'Mally had some shadow of doubt.

"La Signorina is very beautiful," irrelevantly. "Ah!" with a gesture toward the heavens. "And if she isn't a princess, she ought to be one," slyly.

"Zitto! She come!" Pietro got up with alacrity, pocketing his pipe, careful that the bowl was right side up.

She was as daintily fresh in her pink frock as a spring tulip; a frock, thought O'Mally, that would have passed successfully in any ball-room. She was as beautiful as the moon, and to this bit of Persian O'Mally added, conscious of a deep intake of breath, the stars and the farther worlds and the roses close at hand. Her eyes were shining, but her color was thin. O'Mally, for all his buffoonery, was a keen one to read a face. She was highly strung. Where would they all land finally?

"I have been looking for you, Mr. O'Mally," she said.

"At your Highness' command!"

Pietro, hearing this title, looked from one to the other suspiciously.

"I have just received a telegram from her Highness."

An expression of relief flitted over Pietro's withered countenance.

"It wasn't necessary," said O'Mally gallantly.

"But I wish you to read it. I know that you will cease to dream of dungeons and shackles." There was a bit of a laugh in her voice. It was reassuring.

"All right." O'Mally accepted the yellow sheet which the government folds and pastes economically. There were fifty words or more. "I can make out a word or two," he said; "it's in Italian. Will you read it for me?"

"I forgot," apologetically.

Briefly, La Principessa di Monte Bianca gave Sonia Hilda Grosvenor full authority to act as her proxy in giving the ball; that in case of any difficulty with the civil authorities to wire her at once and she would come. As for the invitation, she knew absolutely nothing about it.

This last statement rather staggered the erstwhile concierge. If the princess hadn't issued the invitation, who the deuce had? "This leaves me confused, but it improves the scenery a whole lot. But who, then, has done this thing?"

"To solve that we must look nearer home."

"Have you any idea who did it?" he inquired anxiously.

"No."

"Have you another invitation?"

"I tore up the only one."

"That's too bad. A stationer's imprint might have helped us."

"I was angry and did not think. To-morrow a dozen temporary servants will be added to the household. We shall be very busy."

"Before and after," said O'Mally dryly. He wondered what she on her part had telegraphed the real princess. It was all very mystifying.

"Listen!" she said.

"Horses," declared O'Mally.

"Two," said Pietro, with a hand to his ear.

La Signorina's color deepened.

"Our friends," laughed O'Mally; "come up to see if we are still out of jail."

The dreamy, pleasurable days at the Villa Ariadne were no more. The spirit of suspicion, of unrest, of doubt now stalked abroad, peering from veiled eyes, hovering on lips. And there was a coming and going of menials, a to-and-froing of extra gardeners and carpenters, and the sound of many hammers. The ball-room and the dining-room were opened and aired, the beautiful floors polished, and the dust and cobwebs of twenty years were vanquished.

In Florence there was a deal of excitement over the coming affair, for the Villa Ariadne had once been the scene of many a splendid entertainment. Men chatted about it in their cafes and the women chattered about it in their boudoirs. And there was here and there a mysterious smile, a knowing look, a shrug. There had always been a mystery regarding the Principessa di Monte Bianca; many doubted her actual existence. But the prince was known all over Europe as a handsome spendthrift. And the fact that at this precise moment he was quartered with the eighth corps in Florence added largely to the zest of speculation. Oh, the nobility and the military, which are one and the same thing, would be present at the ball; they were altogether too inquisitive to decline.

Daily the inspector of seals made his solemn round, poking into the forbidden chambers, into the lofts, into the cellars. He scrutinized every chest and closet with all the provocative slowness of a physiologist viewing under the microscope the corpuscles of some unhappy frog. The information he had received from Rome had evidently quieted his larger doubts; but these people, from the princess down to the impossible concierge, were a new species to him, well worth watching. An American princess; this accounted for much. He had even looked up the two Americans who rode up from Florence every day; but he found that they were outside the pale of his suspicions; one of them was a millionaire, known to the Italian ambassador in the United States; so he dismissed them as negligible quantities. He had some pretty conflicts with Pietro; but Pietro was also a Tuscan, which explains why the inspector never obtained any usable information from this quarter.

Hillard and Merrihew eyed these noisy preparations broodingly. To the one it was a damper to his rosal romance; to the other it was the beginning of the end: this woman, so brilliant, so charming, so lovely and human, could never be his. Well, indeed, he understood now why Mrs. Sandford had warned him; he understood now what the great mistake was. Had fate sent her under his window only for this? Bitterness charged his heart and often passed his lips. And this other man, who, what, and where was he all this time?

He was always at her heels now, saving her a care here, doing a service there, but speaking no more of his love. She understood and was grateful. Once she plucked a young rose and gave it to him, and he was sure that her hand touched his with pity, though she would not meet his eyes. And so Merrihew found but little difficulty in picking up the thread of his romance.

As for O'Mally, he spent most of his leisure studying time-tables.

At four o'clock on the afternoon of the day before the ball, now that the noise had subsided and the servants were in their quarters, La Signorina went into the gardens alone. An hour earlier she had seen Hillard mount and ride away, the last time but once. There seemed to bear down upon her that oppression which one experiences in a nightmare, of being able to fly so high, to run madly and yet to move slowly, always pursued by terror. Strive as she would, she could not throw off this sense. After all, it was a nightmare, from the day she landed in New York up to this very moment. But how to wake? Verily, she was mad. Would any sane person do what she had done and was yet about to do? She might have lived quietly and peacefully till the end of her days. But no! And all her vows were like dried reeds in a tempest, broken and beaten. Even now there was a single avenue of escape, but she knew that she could not profit by it and leave these unfortunate derelicts to shift for themselves. It was not fair that they should be made to suffer for her mad caprices. She must play it out boldly to the final line, come evil or not.... Love! She laughed brokenly and struck her hands in suppressed fury. A fitting climax, this! All the world was mad and she was the maddest in it.

Some one was coming along the path. She wheeled impatiently. She wanted to be alone. And of all men Worth was not the one she cared to see. But the sight of his pale face and set jaws stayed the words she was inclined to speak. She waited restlessly.

"I realize that my presence may be distasteful to you," he began, not without some minor agitation. It was the first time in days that he had stood so near to her or had spoken while alone with her. "But I have something to say to you upon which your future welfare largely depends."

"I believed that we had settled that."

"I am not making any declaration of love, madame," he said.

"I am listening." This prelude did not strike her favorably.

"There has been a tremendous wonder, as I understand, about this ball."

"In what way?" guardedly.

"In regard to the strange manner in which the invitations were issued."

"Have you found out who did it?" she demanded.

"Yes." The light in his eyes was feverish despite the pallor of his face.

"Who was it?" fiercely. Oh, but she would have revenge for this miserable jest!

"I issued those invitations—with a definite purpose."

"You?" Her eyes grew wide and her lips parted.

"I!" a set defiance in his tone.

"It is you who have done this thing?"

"Yes. I am the guilty man. I did the work well, considering the difficulties. The list was the main obstacle, but I overcame that. I represented myself as secretary to her Highness, which, when all is said, was the very thing agreed upon in Venice. I am the guilty man;" but he spoke like a man who was enjoying a triumph.

"And you have the effrontery to confess your crime to me?" her fury blazing forth.

"Call it what you please, the fact remains."

"What purpose had you in mind when you did this cowardly thing? And I had trusted you and treated you as an equal! And so it was you who perpetrated this forgery, this miserable jest?"

"Forgery, yes; jest, no." Her anger did not alarm him; he had gone too far to be alarmed at anything.

"Why did you do it?"

"I did it as a man who has but a single throw left. One chance in a thousand; I took that chance and won."

"I do not understand you at all." She was tired.

"As I said, I had a definite purpose. An imposture like this is a prison offense. I asked you to marry me. I do so again."

"You are hiding a threat!" The mental chaos cleared and left her thought keen and cold.

"I shall hide it no longer. Marry me, or I shall disclose the imposture to the police."

"Oh!" She shot him a glance, insolent and piercing. Then she laughed, but neither hysterically nor mirthfully. It was the laughter of one in deadly anger. "I had believed you to be a man of some reason, Mr. Worth. Do you suppose, even had I entertained some sentiment toward you, that it would survive a circumstance like this?"

"I am waiting for your answer."

"You shall have it. Why, this is scarcely on the level with cheap melodrama. Threats? How short-sighted you have been! Did you dream that any woman could be won in this absurd fashion? You thought nothing of your companions, either, or the trouble you were bringing about their heads."

"Yes or no?" His voice was not so full of assurance as it had been.

"No!"

"Take care!" advancing.

"I am perfectly capable of taking care. And heed what I have to say to you, Mr. Worth. You will leave this villa at once; and if you do not go quietly, I shall order the servants to put you forth. That is my answer."

"You speak as though you were the princess," he snarled.

"Till Thursday morning I am!" La Signorina replied proudly.

"I shall inform the police."

"Do so. Now, as there is nothing more to be said, be gone!"

He saw that he had thrown and lost; and a man who loses his last throw is generally desperate. Regardless of consequences, he seized her roughly in his arms. She struck him across the eyes with full strength, and she was no weakling. He gasped in pain and released her.

"If I were a man," she said quietly, but with lightning in her eyes, "you should die for that!" She left him.

Worth, a hundred varied emotions rocking him, stared after her till she was no longer in sight. There were tears in his eyes and a ringing in his head. Fool! To play this kind of game against that kind of woman! Fool, fool! He had written the end himself. It was all over. He went to his room, got together his things, found a cart, and drove secretly into Florence.

On the night of the ball there was a brilliant moon. Rosy Chinese lanterns stretched from tree to tree. The little god in the fountain gleamed with silver on one side and there was a glow as of life on the other. From the long casement windows, opened to the mild air of the night, came the murmur of music. The orchestra was playing Strauss, the dreamy waltzes from The Queen's Lace Handkerchief. Bright uniforms and handsome gowns flashed by the opened windows. Sometimes a vagrant puff of air would find its way in, and suddenly the ball-room dimmed and the dancers moved like phantoms. The flames of the candles would struggle and, with many a flicker, right themselves, and the radiant colors and jewels would renew their luster.

O'Mally, half hidden behind a tree, wondered if he had not fallen asleep over some tale by Scheherazade and was not dreaming this. But here was old Pietro standing close by. It was all real. At odd whiles he had a vision of Kitty in her simple white dress, of Merrihew's flushed face, of Hillard's frowning pallor, of La Signorina wholly in black, a rare necklace round her white throat, a star of emeralds in her hair, her face calm and serene. Where would they all be on the morrow?

"Pietro, she is more than beautiful!" sighed O'Mally.

"But wait," said Pietro. He alone among the men knew the cause of Worth's disappearance. "Trouble."

Leaning against the door which gave entrance to the ball-room from the hall were two officers, negligently interested in the moving picture. "What do you make of it?" asked one.

"Body of Bacchus, you have me there!"

"Shall we go?"

"No, no! The prince himself will be here at eleven. He was, singularly enough, not invited; and knowing the story as I do, I am curious to witness the scene. The women are already picking her to pieces. To give a ball in this hurried manner, without ladies in attendance! These Americans! But she is beautiful," with evident reluctance.

Hillard, peering gloomily over their shoulders, overheard. The prince! Oh, this must not be. There could be only one prince in a matter of this kind. He pushed by the Italians without apology for his rudeness, edged around the ball-room till he reached La Signorina's side. He must save her at all hazards.

"A word," he whispered in German.

"What is it?" she asked in the same tongue.

"The prince himself will be here at eleven."

"What prince?"

"Di Monte Bianca. Come, there is no time to lose. I have been holding my carriage ready ever since I came. Come."

"Thank you, but it is too late." She smiled, but it was a tired and lonely little smile. "Wait near me, but fear nothing." She had long since armed her nerves against this moment.

"But—"

"Enough! Leave everything to me."

"In God's name, who and what are you that you show no alarm when such danger threatens?"

"I have told you to wait," she answered.

He stepped back, beaten, discouraged. He would wait, and woe to any who touched her!

At precisely eleven the music ceased for intermission. There was a lull. Two carabinieri pushed their way into the ball-room. Tableau.

"Which among you is called the Principessa di Monte Bianca?" was asked authoritatively.

"I am she," said La Signorina, stepping forth.

The carabinieri crossed quickly to her side.

"What do you wish?" she asked distinctly.

"You are under arrest for imposture. You are not the Principessa di Monte Bianca; you are known as La Signorina, a singer."

Hillard, wild with despair, made as though to intervene.

"Remain where you are!" he was warned.

As the carabinieri were about to lay hands upon La Signorina, a loud voice from the hall stopped them.

"One moment!" An officer in riding breeches and dusty boots entered and approached the dramatic group. Hillard and Merrihew recognized him instantly. It was the man with the scar. "What is the trouble?"

"This woman," explained one of the carabinieri, saluting respectfully, "is posing as your wife, Highness. We are here to arrest her."

"Do not touch her!" said the prince. "She has the most perfect right in the world to do what she has done. She is the Principessa di Monte Bianca, my wife!"



CHAPTER XXIV

MEASURE FOR MEASURE

Silence invested the Villa Ariadne; yet warm and mellow light illumined many a window or marked short pathways on the blackness of the lawn. Of the hundred lanterns hanging in the gardens, not a dozen still burned, and these offered rather a melancholy reminder of joy and laughter departed. The moon was high in the heavens now, and the shadows cast by the gloomy cypresses put the little god in the fountain in complete darkness. A single marble bench stood out with that vividness which only marble and moonshine can produce. All the carriages, save one, were gone. A solitary saddle-horse rattled his bit, pawed restively, and tossed his head worriedly from side to side, as if prescience had touched him with foretelling.

On the other side of the wall, lurking in the dark niches, was a tall, lean, grey-haired old man who watched and listened and waited. Whenever he ventured into the moonlight the expression on his face was exultant but sinister. He was watching and listening and waiting for the horse. At the first sound of the animal's prancing hoofs on the stones by the porter's lodge, the old man was prepared to steal to the self-appointed place somewhat down the road. What befell there would be wholly in the hands of God. Seven years! It was a long time. He had not hunted for this man; he was breaking no promise; their paths had recrossed; it was destiny. So he waited.

Within the ball-room the candles were sinking in their brass sconces and little waxen stalactites formed about the rims. The leaving of the guests had been hurried and noisy and without any particular formality or directness. In truth, it resembled a disorderly retreat more than anything else. The denouement was evidently sufficient; they had no desire to witness the anti-climax, however interesting and instructive it might be. Carabinieri and tableaux and conjugal reunion; it was too much to be crowded all into one night. Good-by! During this flight his Highness the Principi di Monte Bianca, Enrico by name, had taken the part of an amused spectator; but now that the last of the unwelcome guests was gone, he assumed the role premeditated. He strode up and down the floor, his spurs tinkling and his saber rattling harshly. He stopped before this painting or that, scrutinized the corners to ascertain what artist had signed it; he paused an interval before the marble faun, which he recognized as a genuine antique. These things really interested him, for he had never been inside the Villa Ariadne till this night. And there was an excellent reason. Occasionally he glanced at the group on the opposite side of the room. He laughed silently. They were as lively as so many sticks of wood. Oh, he would enjoy himself to-night; he would extract every drop of pleasure from this rare and unexpected moment. Had she been mad, he wondered, to give him out of hand this longed-for opportunity? A month longer and this scene would have been impossible. At last he came to a stand in front of La Signorma, who was white and weary. The two had not yet exchanged a word.

"So," he said, "after five years I find you, my beautiful wife!" With one hand hipping his saber and the other curling his mustaches, he smiled at her. "What a devil of a time you have given me! Across oceans and continents! A hundred times I have passed you without knowing it till too late. And here, at the very moment when I believed it was all over, you fling yourself into the loving arms of your adoring husband! I do not understand."

"Be brief," she replied, the chill of snows in her voice. Her hate for this man had no empty corners. "I have played foolishly into your hands. Say what you will and be gone."

"What a welcome!"

"Be quick!"

There was danger in her voice now, and he recognized the tense quality of it. "I shall telegraph to the attorneys in Rome to partition the estates, my heart!" mocking her. "The king will not add to his private purse the riches of Colonel Grosvenor and the Principi di Monte Bianca, your father and mine, old fools! To tell the truth, I am badly in need of money, and, head of Bacchus! your appearance here is life to me, my dear Sonia. Life! I am a rich man. But," with a sudden scowl, dropping the mask of banter, "I do not understand these companions of yours." He eyed the group coldly. "What position in my household does this gentleman occupy?" indicating Hillard and smiling evilly.

"Give no heed," said La Signorina, as Hillard took a step forward.

"So it is all true, then?" he asked despairingly. "You are his wife?"

"Yes. Forgive me, but did I not warn you many times? In the eyes of the Italian civil law I am this man's wife, but in the eyes of God and the Church, never, never!"

"What do you mean?"

"In a few days I shall write you; in this letter I promise to explain everything. And you will forgive me, I know."

"Forgive you? For what? There is nothing to forgive on my side; the gift is on yours. For I have been a meddler, an unhappy one."

"Will you and Mr. Merrihew go now? I do not wish you two to witness this scene."

"Leave you alone with this wretch? No!" said Hillard.

"Well?" cried the prince impatiently. He was not inclined toward these confidences between the American and his wife. "I have asked a question and nobody replies. I inquire again, what position does he hold?"

"This villa is mine," she answered, the sharpness of her tone giving hint to the volcano burning in her heart. "However the estates may be partitioned, this will be mine. I command you to leave it at once, for your presence here is as unwelcome to me as that of all creeping things. I find that I do not hate you; I loathe you."

The prince laughed. That she loathed or hated him touched him not in the quick. Love or hate from this woman who knew him for what he was, a soulless scoundrel, was nothing. She was simply a sack of gold. But this was his hour of triumph, and he proposed to make the most of it.

"I could have let the carabinieri take you to prison," he said urbanely. "A night in a damp cell would have chastened your spirit. But I preferred to settle this affair as quickly as possible. But this friend of yours, he annoys me."

"Is it possible?" returned Hillard. "Your Highness has but to say the word and I will undertake the pleasure of relieving you of this man's presence."

"Be still," she said. "Will you go?" to the prince.

"Presently. First, I wish to add that your dear friend is both thick-skulled and cowardly. I offered to slap his face a few nights ago, but he discreetly declined."

Hillard laughed shortly. He desired to get closer to this gentlemanly prince.

"For my sake!" whispered La Signorina.

"I am calm," replied Hillard, gently releasing his arm from her grasp. He approached the prince smiling, but there was murder and despair in his heart. "Had I known you that night, one of us would not be here now."

"It is not too late," suggested the prince. "Come, are you in love with my wife?"

"Yes."

The bluntness of this assertion rather staggered the prince. "You admit it, then?" his throat swelling with rage.

"There is no reason why I should deny it."

"She is your—"

But the word died with a cough. Hillard, a wild joy in his heart, caught the prince by the throat and jammed him back against the rose-satin panel, under a dripping candelabrum. The prince made a violent effort to draw his sword, but Hillard seized his sword-arm and pinned it to the panel above his head. The prince was an athlete, but the man holding him was at this moment made of iron. The struggling man threw out a leg after the manner of French boxers, but his opponent met it with a knee. Again and again the prince made desperate attempts to free himself. He was soon falling in a bad way; he gasped, his lips grew blue and the whites of his eyes bloodshot. This man was killing him! And so he was; for Hillard, realizing that he had lost everything in the world worth living for, was mad for killing.



For a time the others were incapable of action. Merrihew, Kitty, O'Mally and Smith were in the dark as to what had passed verbally; they could only surmise. But here was something they all understood. La Signorina was first to recover. She sprang toward the combatants and grasped Hillard's hand, the one buried in the prince's throat, and pulled. She was not strong enough.

"Merrihew, O'Mally, quick! He is killing him!" she cried wildly.

The two, Merrihew and O'Mally, finally succeeded in separating the men, and none too soon. The prince staggered to a chair and sank heavily into it. A moment more and he had been a dead man. But he was not grateful to any one.

La Signorina turned upon Hillard. "And you would have done this thing before my very eyes!"

"I was mad," he panted, shamed. "I love you better than anything else in God's world, and this man means that I shall lose you."

"And you would have come to me across his blood?" wrathfully.

"I was not thinking of that. The only thought I had was to kill him. God knows I'm sorry enough." And he was.

"Ah, what a night!" She swayed and pressed her hand over her eyes. "No, do not touch me," she said. "I am not the kind of woman who faints."

The prince lurched toward Hillard, but fortunately Merrihew heard the slithering sound of the saber as it left its scabbard. Kitty screamed and O'Mally shouted. Merrihew, with a desperate lunge, stopped the blow. He received a rough cut over the knuckles, but he was not aware of this till the excitement was past. He flung the saber at O'Mally's feet.

"You speak English," said Merrihew, in an ugly temper, half regretting that he had interfered with Hillard. "You may send your orderly to the Hotel Italie to-morrow morning, and your saber will be given to him. You will not carry it back to Florence to-night. Now, it is time to excuse yourself. We can get along without you nicely."

The prince tore at his mustaches. He would have put them all to the sword gladly. Meddlers! To return to Florence without his saber was dishonor. He cursed them all roundly, after the manner of certain husbands, and turned to La Signorina.

"I am in the way here," he said, controlling his passion with difficulty. "But listen attentively to what I say: you shall remain my wife so long as both of us live. I had intended arranging your freedom, once the estate and moneys were divided, but not now. You shall read my wife till the end of the book; for unless I meet you half-way, the marriage contract can not be broken. In the old days it was your conscience. The still small voice seems no longer to trouble you," turning suggestively to Hillard. "You are stopping at the Hotel Italie?"

"I am. You will find me there," returned Hillard, with good understanding.

"Good! Your Highness, to-morrow night I shall have the extreme pleasure of running your lover through the throat." He picked up his cap, which lay on one of the chairs, put it on cavalierly, and took his princely presence out of their immediate vicinity.

"It will do my soul good to stand before that scoundrel," said Hillard, stretching out his hands and closing them with crushing force. "He has felt the power of my hand to-night. I will kill him."

La Signorina laid a hand on his arm. "No, Mr. Hillard, you will fight no duel."

"And why not? I do not see how it can be avoided."

"You have told me that you love me. As it stands I may sometimes see you, but if you kill him, never."

"He is far more likely to kill me," said Hillard morosely. "And perhaps it would be a kind service."

"Shame!" she cried. "Have you no courage? Can you not accept the inevitable manfully? Think of me. I can fight no duels; I must live on and on, tied legally to this man. And it is you who will add misery to my unhappiness? You will not fight him," with the assurance of one who has offered a complete argument.

"Very well. To be called a coward by a man like that is nothing. I shall not fight him."

"Thank you." And she gave him her hand impulsively.

"I love you," he murmured as he bent to kiss the hand; "and it is not dishonorable for you to hear me say so."

"I forbid you to say that!" But the longing of the world was in her eyes as she looked down at his head. She released her hand. "My friends, to-morrow our little play comes to an end. This is no longer Eden. We must go."

"This is what comes of American girls marrying these blamed foreigners," growled the tender-hearted O'Mally. "Why did you do it?"

"I am almost Italian, Mr. O'Mally. I had no choice in the matter; the affair was prearranged by our parents, after the continental fashion."

"I'm sorry I spoke like that," O'Mally said contritely.

"No apologies, if you please. It is only just that you should know something of the case, considering the manner in which I imposed upon you all."

"I'll punch Worth's head when I run across him." O'Mally clenched his fists.

"That would change nothing. He was a part of destiny; he has served his little turn and has gone. Were we not a happy family together for weeks?" La Signorina smiled wanly. "To-morrow I am going to write Mr. Hillard; I am going to tell him the story. From your point of view you may write me down a silly fool, but one's angle of vision is not immutable."

"You're the finest woman in the world," declared O'Mally; "and whatever you have done has been right, I know."

Then Kitty ran up to La Signorina and embraced her; and the eyes of both of them swam in tears.

"You will be happy, at any rate, Kitty."

"Poor girl!" cried Kitty. Princesses were mortal like other people. "How I love you! Come back with us to America."

"I must live out the puzzle over here."

When Hillard and La Signorina were at length alone, he asked: "When shall I see you again?"

"Who knows? Some day, perhaps, when time has softened the sharp edges of this moment, the second bitterest I have ever known. To-morrow I shall write, or very soon. Now, give me your promise that you will no more seek me till I send for you."