"But you travelled back with all speed? You have seen her?"
"I travelled back with all speed." Stephanu repeated the words as a child repeats a lesson, but whether ironically or not his face did not tell. "Also I have seen her. And that is the devil of it."
"Will you explain?"
"She will have nothing to do with me; nor with you. I told her that you would be upon the road and following close after me. Naturally I said nothing of the cavalier here, for I knew nothing—"
"Did she ask?" I inquired.
Stephanu appeared to search his memory. "Now I come to think of it she did let fall a word. . . . But I for my part supposed you to be dead; and, by the way, signore, you will accept my compliments on your recovery."
Marc'antonio's frown had deepened. "You mean to tell me, Stephanu," he persisted, "that the Princess will have none of us?"
"She bade me go my ways, and not come near her; which was cold welcome for a man after a nine day's sweat. She added that if I or Marc'antonio came spying upon her, or in any way interfering until she sent for us, she would appeal to her brother against us."
"Was the Prince present when she said this?"
"He was not. He was away hunting, she said, in the direction of Nonza; but in fact he must have gone reconnoitring, for he had left the camp all but empty—no one at home but Andrea and Jacopo Galloni, whose turn it was with the cooking—these and the Princess. But the Prince has returned since then, for I heard his horn as I crossed the pass."