"Anything but the Contessa," said the Boy, springing up, and cramming his panama over his curls. "I shall breathe more freely on the other side of the gate, and I shan't consider myself out of the scrape until I'm out of her house for good."
In the street he drew fuller breaths, and with each yard of distance that we put between ourselves and the villa his eyes grew brighter and his step more airy.
I unfolded my plan for the morning, which was to take a trip up the lake to the Abbey of Hautecombe, and return in time for déjeuner, since, as a guest of the Contessa, the Boy could scarcely absent himself all day without conspicuous rudeness. "You'll have to be tied to the lady's apron strings, if she wants you knotted there, for the afternoon," said I. "But I'm going to have a telegram from my friends to meet them on the top of Mont Revard to-morrow, so if you want an excuse––"
"What, your friends the Winstons?" he broke in, with one of the sudden flaming blushes that made him seem so young.
"Yes, why not?"
"They are coming to join you?"
"I told you they might turn up at any moment, and––"
"And now the moment has arrived. Then it has also arrived for us to say good-bye."
"Do you mean that?"
"Oh, don't think me ungrateful—or ungracious. I'm neither. But, in any case, we must sooner or later have reached the parting of the ways. You are bound to Monte Carlo. I have—the vaguest plans."