"But perhaps I do not need to tell you that--you may know it already?"
"You are impertinent, Tony."
She pulled the donkey into a trot that left him behind.
The highway was broad and they proceeded in a group, the conversation general and in English, Tony quite naturally having no part in it. But at the corners where the road to the village and the road to the villa separated, Fidilini obligingly turned stubborn again. His mind bent upon rest and supper, he insisted upon going to the village; the harder Constance pulled on the left rein, the more fixed was his determination to turn to the right.
"Help! I'm being run away with again," she called over her shoulder as the donkey's pace quickened into a trot.
Tony, awakening to his duty, started in pursuit, while the others laughingly shouted directions. He did not run as determinedly as he might and they had covered considerable ground before he overtook them. He turned Fidilini's head and they started back--at a walk.
"Signorina," said Tony, "may I ask a question, a little impertinent?"
"No, certainly not."
Silence.
"Ah, Tony?" she asked presently.
"
Si
, signorina?"
"What is it you want to ask?"
"Are you going to marry that Italian lieutenant--or perhaps the captain?"
"That
is
impertinent."
"Are you?"
"You forget yourself, Tony. It is not your place to ask such a question."
"
Si
, signorina; it is my place. If it is true I cannot be your donkey-man any longer."
"No, it is not true, but that is no concern of yours."
"Are you going on another trip Friday--to Monte Maggiore?"
"Yes."
"May I come with you?"
His tone implied more than his words. She hesitated a moment, then shrugged indifferently.
"Just as you please, Tony. If you don't wish to work for us any more I dare say we can find another man."
"It is as you please, signorina. If you wish it, I come, if you do not wish it, I go."
She made no answer. They joined the others and the party proceeded to the villa gates.
Lieutenant di Ferara helped Constance dismount, while Captain Coroloni, with none too good a grace, held the donkey. A careful observer would have fancied that the lieutenant was ahead, and that both he and the captain knew it. Tony untied the bundles, dumped them on the kitchen floor, and waited respectfully, hat in hand, while Mr. Wilder searched his pockets for change. He counted out four lire and added a note. Tony pocketed the lire and returned the note, while Mr. Wilder stared his astonishment.
"Good-bye, Tony," Constance smiled as he turned away.
"Good-bye, signorina." There was a note of finality in his voice.
"Well!" Mr. Wilder ejaculated. "That is the first--" "Italian" he started to say, but he caught the word before it was out "--donkey-driver I ever saw refuse money."
Lieutenant di Ferara raised his shoulders.
"
Machè
! The fellow is too honest; you do well to watch him." There was a world of disgust in his tone.
Constance glanced after the retreating figure and laughed.
"Tony!" she called.
He kept on; she raised her voice.
"Mr. Yamhankeesh."
He paused.
"You call, signorina?"
"Be sure and be here by half past six on Friday morning; we must start early."
"Sank you, signorina. Good-night."
"Good-night, Tony."
CHAPTER VIII
The Hotel du Lac may be approached in two ways. The ordinary, obvious way, which incoming tourists of necessity choose, is by the highroad and the gate. But the romantic way is by water. One sees only the garden then and the garden is the distinguished feature of the place; it was planned long before the hotel was built to adorn a marquis's pleasure house. There are grottos, arbors, fountains, a winding stream; and, stretching the length of the water front, a deep cool grove of interlaced plane trees. At the end of the grove, half a dozen broad stone steps dip down to a tiny harbor which is carpeted on the surface with lily pads. The steps are worn by the lapping waves of fifty years, and are grown over with slippery, slimy water weeds.
The world was just stirring from its afternoon siesta, when the
Farfalla
dropped her yellow sails and floated into the shady little harbor. Giuseppe prodded and pushed along the fern-grown banks until the keel jolted against the water steps. He sprang ashore and steadied the boat while Constance alighted. She slipped on the mossy step--almost went under--and righted herself with a laugh that rang gaily through the grove.
She came up the steps still smiling, shook out her fluffy pink skirts, straightened her rose-trimmed hat, and glanced reconnoiteringly about the grove. One might reasonably expect, attacking the hotel as it were from the flank, to capture unawares any stray guest. But aside from a chaffinch or so and a brown-and-white spotted calf tied to a tree, the grove was empty--blatantly empty. There was a shade of disappointment in Constance's glance. One naturally does not like to waste one's best embroidered gown on a spotted calf.
Then her eye suddenly brightened as it lighted on a vivid splash of yellow under a tree. She crossed over and picked it up--a paper covered French novel; the title was
Bijou
, the author was Gyp. She turned to the first page. Any reasonably careful person might be expected to write his name in the front of a book--particularly a French book--before abandoning it to the mercies of a foreign hotel. But the several fly leaves were immaculately innocent of all sign of ownership.
So intent was she upon this examination, that she did not hear footsteps approaching down the long arbor that led from the house; so intent was the young man upon a frowning scrutiny of the path before him, that he did not see Constance until he had passed from the arbor into the grove. Then simultaneously they raised their heads and looked at each other. For a startled second they stared--rather guiltily--both with the air of having been caught. Constance recovered her poise first; she nodded--a nod which contained not the slightest hint of recognition--and laughed.
"Oh!" she said. "I suppose this is your book? And I am afraid you have caught me red-handed. You must excuse me for looking at it, but usually at this season only German Alpine-climbers stop at the Hotel du Lac, and I was surprised you know to find that German Alpine-climbers did anything so frivolous as reading Gyp."
The man bowed with a gesture which made her free of the book, but he continued his silence. Constance glanced at him again, and this time she allowed a flash of recognition to appear in her face.
"Oh!" she re-exclaimed with a note of interested politeness, "you are the young man who stumbled into Villa Rosa last Monday looking for the garden of the prince?"
He bowed a second time, an answering flash appearing in his face.
[Illustration: "The man bowed with a gesture which made her free of the book"]
"And you are the young woman who was sitting on the wall beside a row of--of--"
"Stockings?" She nodded. "I trust you found the prince's garden without difficulty?"
"Yes, thank you. Your directions were very explicit."
A slight pause followed, the young man waiting deferentially for her to take the lead.
"You find Valedolmo interesting?" she inquired.
"Interesting!" His tone was enthusiastic. "Aside from the prince's garden which contains a cedar of Lebanon and an India rubber plant from South America, there is the Luini in the chapel of San Bartolomeo, and the statue of Garibaldi in the piazza. And then--" he waved his hand toward the lake, "there is always the view."
"Yes," she agreed, "one can always look at the view."
Her eyes wandered to the lake, and across the lake to Monte Maggiore with clouds drifting about its peak. And while she obligingly studied the mountain, he studied the effect of the pink gown and the rose-bud hat. She turned back suddenly and caught him; it was a disconcerting habit of Constance's. He politely looked away and she--with frank interest--studied him. He was bareheaded and dressed in white flannels; they were very becoming, she noted critically, and yet--they needed just a touch of color; a red sash, for example, and earrings.
"The guests of the Hotel du Lac," she remarked, "have a beautiful garden of their own. Just the mere pleasure of strolling about in it ought to keep them contented with Valedolmo."
"Not necessarily," he objected. "Think of the garden of Eden--the most beautiful garden there has ever been if report speaks true--and yet the mere pleasure of strolling about didn't keep Adam contented. One gets lonely you know."
"Are you the only guest?"
"Oh, no, there are four of us, but we're not very companionable; there's such a discrepancy in languages."
"And you don't speak Italian?"
He shook his head.
"Only English and--" he glanced at the book in her hand--"French indifferently well."
"I saw someone the other day who spoke Magyar--that is a beautiful language."
"Yes?" he returned with polite indifference. "I don't remember ever to have heard it."
She laughed and glanced about. Her eyes lighted on the arbor hung with grape-vines and wistaria, where, far at the other end, Gustavo's figure was visible lounging in the yellow stucco doorway. The sight appeared to recall an errand to her mind. She glanced down at a pink wicker-basket which hung on her arm, and gathered up her skirts with a movement of departure.
The young man hastily picked up the conversation.
"It
is
a jolly old garden," he affirmed. "And there's something pathetic about its appearing on souvenir post-cards as a mere adjunct to a blue and yellow hotel."
She nodded sympathetically.
"Built for romance and abandoned to tourists--German tourists at that!"
"Oh, not entirely--we've a Russian countess just now."
"A Russian countess?" Constance turned toward him with an air of reawakened interest. "Is she as young and beautiful and fascinating and wicked as they always are in novels?"
"Oh, dear no! Seventy, if she's a day. A nice grandmotherly old soul who smokes cigarettes."
"Ah!" Constance smiled; there was even a trace of relief in her manner as she nodded to the young man and turned away. His face reflected his disappointment; he plainly wished to detain her, but could think of no expedient. The spotted calf came to his rescue. The calf had been watching them from the first, very much interested in the visitor; and now as she approached his tree, he stretched out his neck as far as the tether permitted and sniffed insistently. She paused and patted him on the head. The calf acknowledged the caress with a grateful
moo
; there was a plaintive light in his liquid eyes.
"Poor thing--he's lonely!" She turned to the young man and spoke with an accent of reproach. "The four guests of the Hotel du Lac don't show him enough attention."
The young man shrugged.
"We're tired of calves. It's only a matter of a day or so before he'll be breaded and fried and served Milanese fashion with a sauce of tomato and garlic."
Constance shook her head sympathetically; though whether her sympathy was for the calf or the partakers of
table d'hote
, was not quite clear.
"I know," she agreed. "I've been a guest at the Hotel du Lac myself--it's a tragedy to be born a calf in Italy!"
She nodded and turned; it was evident this time that she was really going. He took a hasty step forward.
"Oh, I say, please don't go! Stay and talk to me--just a little while. That calf isn't half so lonely as I am."
"I should like to, but really I mustn't. Elizabetta is waiting for me to bring her some eggs. We are planning a trip up the Maggiore tomorrow, and we have to have a cake to take with us. Elizabetta made one this morning but she forgot to put in the baking powder. Italian cooks are not used to making cakes; they are much better at--" her eyes fell on the calf--"veal and such things."
He folded his arms with an air of desperation.
"I'm an American--one of your own countrymen; if you had a grain of charity in your nature you would let the cake go."
She shook her head relentlessly.
"Five days at Valedolmo! You would not believe the straits I've been driven to in search of amusement."
"Yes?" There was a touch of curiosity in her tone. "What for example?"
"I am teaching Gustavo how to play tennis."
"Oh!" she said. "How does he do?"
"Broken three windows and a flower pot and lost four balls."
She laughed and turned away; and then as an idea occurred to her, she turned back and fixed her eyes sympathetically on his face.
"I suppose Valedolmo
is
stupid for a man; but why don't you try mountain climbing? Everybody finds that diverting. There's a guide here who speaks English--really comprehensible English. He's engaged for tomorrow, but after that I dare say he'll be free. Gustavo can tell you about him."
She nodded and smiled and turned down the arbor.
The young man stood where she left him, with folded arms, watching her pink gown as it receded down the long sun-flecked alley hung with purple and green. He waited until it had been swallowed up in the yellow doorway; then he fetched a deep breath and strolled to the water-wall. After a few moments' prophetic contemplation of the mountain across the lake, he threw back his head with a quick amused laugh, and got out a cigarette and lighted it.
CHAPTER IX
As Constance emerged at the other end of the arbor, Gustavo, who had been nodding on the bench beside the door, sprang to his feet, consternation in his attitude.
"Signorina!" he stammered. "You come from ze garden?"
She nodded in her usual off-hand manner and handed him the basket.
"Eggs, Gustavo--two dozen if you can spare them. I am sorry always to be wanting so many, but--" she sighed, "eggs are so breakable!"
Gustavo rolled his eyes to heaven in silent thanksgiving. She had not, it was evident, run across the American, and the cat was still safely in the bag; but how much longer it could be kept there, the saints alone knew. He was feeling--very properly--guilty in regard to this latest escapade; but what can a defenceless waiter do in the hands of an impetuous young American whose pockets are stuffed with silver lire and five-franc notes?